Sesshomaru and Rin FAQs

Sesshomaru and Rin are father and daughter.

1) Aren't you a westerner and writing from a western perspective, therefore making your points invalid?
2) Sesshomaru dove into Hell to save Rin and all that! Doesn't that mean that he loves her?
3) Why do you say that it's father/daughter and not romantic? Is it just because he is older?
4) But Sesshomaru's mother said that Sesshomaru was becoming like his father! Doesn't that mean that he's courting Rin since his father had an affair with a human?
5) Isn't Sesshomaru keeping in touch with Rin by visiting her and bringing her gifts?
6) But he gave her a kimono. Wasn't that traditionally a courting gift, only given by a mother or a suitor?
7) What about the Tale Of Genji and other works where things like this happened?
8) But didn't that kind of thing happen all the time historically, with the Japanese lords having child brides?
9) But isn't this kind of thing more accepted in Japan?
10) Okay, so Rumiko's not automatically gonna be okay with this kind of thing just because she's Japanese. How DOES she feel about it?
11) Why does it matter? It's love, not sex, so why does it matter if it's romantic love and not platonic?
12) But isn't Rin independent of Sesshomaru, like when she gets her own food? Doesn't the fact that he doesn't feed her and makes her get her own food mean that he's not a father figure?
13) But Sesshomaru isn't very nurturing of Rin, doesn't that mean that he isn't a father figure?
14) But what about Inuyasha/Kagome and Inuyasha's parents? They were also two centuries apart! Kagura is only nine months old!
15) Isn't it all okay as long as I make it "Older" Rin?
16) But Sesshomaru left Rin at the village at the end! Doesn't that mean that he's not a father figure now, and he didn't raise her and he isn't brainwashing her?
17) What if I change it in fanfiction so that all ties are severed and they lose touch somehow for a long time, or so that they don't meet until she's grown?
18) But isn't Sesshomaru's relationship with Rin too deep/unique to "simply" be labeled father/daughter?
19) How could Rin see Sesshomaru as being a father figure? He's too hot!
20) But isn't Sesshomaru "not mature enough" to be a father figure?
21) Didn't Rumiko Takahashi rally against a ban on lolicon, which means that she supports it?
22) But in the 3rd movie, the villain points to Rin and says that "she is Izayoi"!
23) But Sesshomaru proposes to Rin on the Wideban CD!
24) What about Inuyasha saying "so she can choose when the time comes"?
25) So then, who IS Sesshomaru's canon love interest?
26) Are you saying that there's something wrong with me for shipping/writing Sesshomaru/Rin, or that I shouldn't?

Q: Aren't you a westerner and writing from a western perspective, therefore making your points invalid?

A: Try again. I'm an actual Asian person who was born and raised in Asia. This kind of thing (pedophilia, growing up to marry the person who raised you since you were a kid) is actually no more accepted in East Asian cultures than it is in western cultures.

Q: Sesshomaru dove into Hell to save Rin and all that! Doesn't that mean that he loves her?

A: Indeed, he loves her. But that does not mean that he loves her like a lover. There's nothing that Sesshomaru has done for Rin that any good father wouldn't have done for his little girl. Concerned parents will exhibit the exact same kind of devotion to their children. What good father wouldn't risk life and limb for his daughter?

Kohaku also dove into hell along with Sesshomaru in order to save Rin. Sesshomaru cringed when Rin died, but Jaken shed physical tears over Rin's death and was happy when she was brought back (though Jaken said that he was only crying because Sesshomaru wouldn't and he was crying in Sesshomaru's place, Jaken found out that Rin was gonna die before Sesshomaru did, so the tears were probably real). Are Kohaku and Jaken also in romantic love with Rin?

Q: Why do you say that it's father/daughter and not romantic? Is it just because he is older?

A: Rin and Sesshomaru, while they are shown to love each other, have zero romantic connotations whatsoever. In fact, Rin is HAPPY about Kagura having romantic feelings for Sesshomaru (Rin even tells Jaken that they should trust Kagura more because of this, seemingly trying to get them closer together) and actively ROOTS for Sesshomaru and Kagura to get together in a romantic manner-things that Rumiko Takahashi, who is the absolute Queen of love triangles and jealousy, would NEVER have put in there if she had meant for Rin to be Sesshomaru's love interest-specifically saying that this is not a romantic thing in nature, but a strictly platonic thing. This happens in episode 167 of the anime and chapter 343 of the manga.

And don't tell me that Rin was happy about the thought of Sesshomaru getting together with somebody else because she was too young to feel jealousy-in Ranma 1/2, which is another manga that was written by Takahashi, Ukyo started showing jealousy over Ranma when she was three! This is especially noteworthy in a Takahashi manga because anybody that actually knows anything about Rumiko Takahashi knows that her favorite method of establishing romantic relationships is to have the characters start showing jealousy over one another, so the fact that neither Sesshomaru nor Rin ever show jealousy over each other and that Rin actively roots for Sesshomaru to get together with somebody else in a romantic manner proves that their relationship is not a romantic relationship.

All of the other characters get upset and jealous when they see their love interests with someone else. Kagome gets upset and jealous when she sees Inuyasha together with Kikyo, Sango gets upset and jealous when Miroku flirts with other women, etc. And yet Rin's reaction to the thought of Sesshomaru getting together with someone else is to go "yipeeee!" and start trying to get them closer together.

Sesshomaru will also do the same thing. Rin will sit there and get super close to Kohaku and Sesshomaru won't show an ounce of jealousy. As a matter of fact, he seems to want the two of them to get closer to each other and leaves Rin and Kohaku together all the time. It doesn't matter if Rin and Kohaku weren't romantically involved, Inuyasha gets super jealous of Koga if Kagome even talks to Koga in a friendly way, so why doesn't Sesshomaru show jealousy over Rin? Because it's not a romantic thing in nature.

As you can see, Rumiko's given very clear hints that she HATES these kind of pairings. When Koharu came in and everyone found out that Miroku had proposed to an eleven year old girl to bear his child, they were shocked, disgusted and revolted by the fact that Miroku, a grown man (the age of adulthood during the feudal era was 14 so Miroku was an adult by the standards of that time when he proposed to Koharu), had proposed to a child (manga chapter 147, page 8). The situation was portrayed as being something that was perverted. They didn't care that Koharu had returned to Miroku when she was older and of marrying age. All of the other characters still freaked out and thought that it was disgusting, regardless of the fact that Koharu had come back to Miroku when she was grown up. That tells you quite a lot about how Rumiko Takahashi, the person who wrote that scene, feels about this kind of thing. She's made it pretty clear that she finds it to be ridiculous.

Also, Rin is OBEDIENT to Sesshomaru in the way that a child is obedient to their parent. He has power over her. He makes rules for her. And no, she is not a servant-a servant like Jaken gets ordered to do things that benefit Sesshomaru (Jaken is obedient to Sesshomaru because he is Sesshomaru's servant. Rin is not a servant so why is she obedient to Sesshomaru?), not things that benefit themselves. And seriously, what Takahashi couple do you know where the girl is OBEDIENT to the guy? It doesn't happen. Rumiko Takahashi's romantic couples always act like they're equals. It doesn't matter if this was the Feudal Era-as you can clearly see, NONE of the other women in the series are obedient to their romantic love interests in the way that Rin is to Sesshomaru-unless the man is some sort of FATHER FIGURE. If the man in question is a romantic love interest, then the girl is NEVER obedient to him.

That signifies that they are not equals but that Sesshomaru is the authority figure towards Rin. So they can't be lovers. They can't be "just friends". They're not brother and sister since they don't share a parent figure like siblings do. Father and daughter makes sense since he is raising her. Rin has only disobeyed Sesshomaru once (during the river incident) and is usually very obedient to him.

Don't tell me that she's obedient to him because he's her guardian. Inuyasha and Kagome are Shippo's guardians, and yet Shippo is not obedient to Inuyasha and Kagome.

(It can't be guardian/ward because he clearly cares about her much too much for Sesshomaru to merely be Rin's guardian. You don't dive into hell to save someone who is merely a ward. You don't say something like "nothing is worth the cost of Rin's life" for someone who is merely a ward! You say that for your daughter!)

Don't tell me that she's obedient to him because he's her elder. Inuyasha is Shippo's elder, but Shippo isn't obedient to Inuyasha. Totosai is older than Inuyasha and Sesshomaru and they're not obedient to Totosai.

And yes, he is raising her. Only after Sesshomaru steps in does she clean up. Only after Sesshomaru tells her to feed herself does she start to do so-and never even actually by herself, he always leaves Jaken there to babysit her. At first Rin was so emotionally dependent on Sesshomaru that during his absence, she'd do nothing but wait for him curled up in a ball-and she took his instructions so literally that it's ridiculous. Slowly, after social interaction with Sesshomaru and Jaken (who was assigned to the babysitter role by Sesshomaru) she starts talking more and more, and reaching out to other people-until the end, when Rin can live away from Sesshomaru without being emotionally crushed and has grown more independent of him.

Also, why does Sesshomaru appoint Rin a babysitter? Lovers don't appoint babysitters for their lovers. That's something that a parent does for their child. And don't tell me that it's because you can't leave a kid alone by themselves, Kohaku is also a child and he was left alone with no one to watch over him all the time (Naraku sends him out alone to do things like when Kohaku waited for Kagura to drop off the kidnapped Rin by himself in manga chapter 219, Sesshomaru leaves Kohaku to watch over Rin by himself even though Kohaku is only a child as well, etc.).

The fact that Rin roots for Sesshomaru to get together with somebody else which means that this isn't a romantic thing in nature but a platonic thing, the fact that Sesshomaru is an adult and Rin is a pre-pubescent child, the fact that they love each other dearly, the fact that he provides for her by bringing her kimonos and protects her, the fact that they live together, the fact that she gains her independence from him, the fact that he appoints her babysitters, and the fact that she's obedient to him meaning that he's the authority figure in the relationship etc. all come together to say that they are father and daughter.

Q:  But Sesshomaru's mother said that Sesshomaru was becoming like his father! Doesn't that mean that he's courting Rin since his father had an affair with a human?

A:  Sesshomaru's father did not just have a human mistress. His father was also a symphathizer of humans in general, as evidenced by the fact that he wanted Inuyasha to use the Tessaiga to protect humans (as Myoga stated in manga chapter 18, page 13). So it may merely mean that he's learning to care about humans.

Q: Isn't Sesshomaru keeping in touch with Rin by visiting her and bringing her gifts?

A: Yes, he is. But how in the world does that mean that it's a romantic thing? Rumiko wrote that scene in order to show that although Rin is living with humans for her safety and is gaining independence from her parent figure (like all children do), they're still in touch, like children and parents tend to do after the child moves out of the house. Parents visit their grown children after they leave, sometimes bringing them gifts. And most children, even after they move out, still do depend on their parent figures from time to time for financial assistance and need help. Family members very often visit each other and bring each other gifts. Is a father courting his daughter when he picks up a little something for her?

I grew up in foster care in different living arrangements, and depending on the circumstances, kids that want to see their parents have visits. The parents come to visit the kids, sometimes take them out places, and they usually bring gifts. This is what gives a lot of kids in foster care something to look forward to. When I saw the last chapter, it immediately reminded me of that, so I was shocked when people started using even that as so-called 'evidence' of Sesshomaru and Rin's relationship being a romantic thing.

Q: But he gave her a kimono. Wasn't that traditionally a courting gift, only given by a mother or a suitor?

A: Rin's mother is DEAD. The only clothes that Kaede can provide for Rin are miko robes, like the robes that Kaede gave to Kagome to wear even before she was training as one (manga chapter 6, page 6). Who provided the girl's kimono if the girl had no mother? The father or the father figure. Does that mean that he's courting her? No.

And while it's true that kimonos can sometimes have romantic connotations, the keyword is sometimes. The same way that flowers are also traditionally courting gifts-well, pretty much everywhere-espcially a bouquet. And yet, Kohaku gave Sango a flower bouquet in the anime (episode 163, "Kohaku, Sango and a Flower Garden"). Flower bouquets are usually also traditionally courting gifts. And yet, does that mean that Kohaku and Sango are a couple? Absolutely not. It was just a sign of affection from a brother to his sister, just like the kimono is just a father providing for his daughter/giving her little things during a visit, like family members sometimes do when they live away from each other.

Though it only happens in the anime, the anime writers made it so that Kohaku gave Sango something that was traditionally a courting gift, but they only meant it as a platonic display of affection. So I think that it's very possible that Rumiko Takahashi could've meant the kimono as merely a platonic display of affection as well.

Kagura and Kanna received their kimonos from Naraku as well (we can assume this, because let's face it, where else would they have gotten their kimonos? They weren't born fully clothed, as evidenced by the fact that Hakudoshi was born naked. In manga chapter 294, page 11, Kagura goes and finds Hakudoshi a kimono because Hakudoshi told her to go and find him some clothes. Is Kagura courting Hakudoshi? Absolutely not.). Does that mean that Naraku is courting Kagura and Kanna? No, he was just providing for them like he's supposed to do so as their creator because he doesn't want them walking around naked.

Q: What about the Tale Of Genji and other works where things like this happened?

A: What about it? Just because it happened in one book that has nothing to do with Inuyasha or Rumiko Takahashi, does that means that that's what's happening here? Nope.

Murasaki and Genji have nothing in common with Sesshomaru and Rin. Genji takes a liking to Murasaki because she looks like Fujitsubo, who he is obsessed with. When her family won't give her to him cause she's viewed as being too young, he outright kidnaps her. He does send her to train in a palace to learn about noble life, etiquette, sewing, dyeing, etc. and marries her, but she was not his main wife. Never was. He continues to be involved with tons of other women and the book ends when their relationship is so damaged, Murasaki leaves him to become a nun. Then she dies, and then Genji dies. So exactly what does Genji and Murasaki's situation have anything at all in common with Sesshomaru and Rin's situation? Hell, even the Inu-Kik-Kag triangle has more in common with The Tale Of Genji with the whole "initially-liking-someone-because-they-look-like-somebody-else" thing.

Go here for more information on what happens in the Tale Of Genji: http://www.taleofgenji.org/summary.html

Q: But didn't that kind of thing happen all the time historically, with the Japanese lords having child brides?

A: So that makes it okay? Historically, black people were kept as slaves and people thought that the Earth was flat. Does that mean that it's okay to keep black people as slaves? That means that the Earth is flat?

Plus if you wanted to be historically accurate, if you read the Tale of Genji, when the Japanese lords had child brides, they were sent to live with nobility in order to learn about noble life, etiquette, art, calligraphy etc. so that they could learn to function at a nobleman's rank. That is what happens to Murasaki in the Tale Of Genji and since the Tale Of Genji was written during the Heian era by someone who actually lived during that time period, I'd assume that it's pretty historically accurate. (This link will tell you that Genji trains Murasaki in his Nijo palace, in the summary for chapter 5: http://www.taleofgenji.org/summary.html)

This is not what Rin is doing at the end. Rin is sitting in a peasant village, acting as a midwife and living with a miko, which is a complete and total death-knell to her ability to perform at Sesshomaru's rank. Sesshomaru could've easily sent her to live with his mom in her castle, but he didn't.

And then they specifically said that he wanted her to learn how to LIVE WITH HUMANS. If Rin was being trained as his wife, then why would she ever need to learn how to live with humans? Sesshomaru doesn't live with humans. If she was gonna be his wife, then she would never need that. Most likely, this is for her safety, mental/physical health and well being and things won't change.

After she died in the Hell Arc, Sesshomaru immediately thought to himself, "I should've left her in a human village for her safety" (manga chapter 469, page 6), and at the end...she is in a human village. So yeah, this is most likely for her safety and well being and things are not going to change. So it's very obvious that Rin is not being "trained as a wife" for Sesshomaru in any way-nothing close to it.

Also, the age of marriage during the feudal era was fourteen, not eight. Rin is much too young for marriage even by feudal era standards and is still only around ten years old at the end.

Q: But isn't this kind of thing more accepted in Japan?

A: If that is the case, then why is Hayao Miyazaki so clearly anti-lolicon? Why is it that Miyazaki is Japanese, and yet he seems to be so adamently against this kind of thing?

The famous director, Hayao Miyazaki (a JAPANESE man) said in a 1988 interview with "Animage" that while he prefers to have female protagonists, "It's difficult. They immediately become the subjects of lolicon. In a sense, if we want to depict someone who is affirmative to us, we have no choice but to make them as lovely as possible. But now, there are too many people who shamelessly depict (such heroines) as if they just want (such girls) as pets, and things are escalating more and more." Miyazaki even expressed concern as to what this might mean for human rights for women. The quote is here as the answer to the last question from Ryu Murakami: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/heroines.html#s3original

Is Hayao Miyazaki some sort of FREAK OF NATURE or something? I don't think that he is, so I think that it's very possible that Takahashi could've intended for Sesshomaru and Rin's relationship to be strictly filial.

Q: Okay, so Rumiko's not automatically gonna be okay with this kind of thing just because she's Japanese. How DOES she feel about it?

A: That's been made very clear in the way that she portrayed Miroku and Koharu. When everyone found out that Miroku had proposed to an eleven year old girl to bear his child, they were shocked, disgusted and revolted by the fact that Miroku, a grown man (the age of adulthood during the feudal era was 14 so Miroku was an adult by the standards of that time when he proposed to Koharu), had proposed to a child (manga chapter 147, page 8). The situation was portrayed as being something that was disgusting. They didn't care that Koharu had returned to Miroku when she was grown up. All of the other characters still thought that it was perverted, regardless of the fact that Koharu had come back to Miroku when she was older and of marrying age.

That tells you quite a lot about how Rumiko Takahashi, the person who wrote that scene, feels about this kind of thing. She's made it pretty clear that she finds it to be ridiculous.

Q: Why does it matter? It's love, not sex, so why does it matter if it's romantic love and not platonic?

A: The only thing that exists in a romantic relationship that does not exist in a filial relationship is the physical attraction. While there's nothing wrong with love alone, in order for it to qualify as a romantic thing, there has to be SOME sort of physical/sexual wanting on top of it, which can very well be harmful-and between an adult and a child, IS.

Why do you think that in order to fully consummate a marriage, you have to have sex? Why do you think that the sexual orientations are referred to as "heteroSEXual", "homoSEXual", and "biSEXual" and are referred to as "SEXUAL orientations"? Because romantic love is a sexual form of love. If Sesshomaru is romantically interested in Rin, then it does mean that he's sexually attracted to her (even if they aren't physically having sex), and that's why this pairing bothers some people. Because it does mean that Sesshomaru is sexually attracted to an eight year old girl that he watched grow up since she was a kid.

Note that I did NOT say that romantic love was ONLY about sex-just that sex does play a part. If you love someone but you're not sexually attracted to the person at all then that is not romantic love, that is family/platonic love.

Q: But isn't Rin independent of Sesshomaru, like when she gets her own food? Doesn't the fact that he doesn't feed her and makes her get her own food mean that he's not a father figure?

A: Feeding someone is considered to be a woman's duty in East Asian cultures. Rin has to feed herself because she is the female. It doesn't matter if she's a kid, since I was expected to cook and clean around the house as soon as I turned eleven.

Even if that wasn't so, the fact that he makes her get her own food is MORE evidence that he's being paternal. He's preparing her to leave the nest. Parents are SUPPOSED TO DO THAT. Your kids are gonna grow up and leave you, and that's why parenting exists in the first place-FOR THE ADULTS TO PREPARE THEM FOR ADULTHOOD AND LATER LIFE. And obviously that includes getting your own food. Sesshomaru doesn't want Rin to be fully grown and not be able to fend for herself or even get her own food. Who has to remind their spouse to feed themselves, unless the person has some sort of special condition? That's not something that a boyfriend normally does. That's something that a parent trying to teach their kid to do certain things does. Does that, or does that not, remind you of when you become old enough to know how to use the microwave and your mom/dad tells you to do it by yourself from now on, but still looks after you while you do it?

She isn't independent of him. Everyone saw how Rin was BEFORE Sesshomaru stepped in. She was dirty, raggedy, had forgotten how to speak, had no social skills, and was barely just surviving. The way that she was, no wonder she ended up getting killed. The girl had to be REMINDED to feed herself. The girl had RECENTLY been orphaned, so you know that she hadn't actually been alone for very long-and she was STILL doing that terribly. She couldn't even survive for a little while on her own.

Even if that wasn't the case, feeding someone is considered to be a woman's duty in East Asian cultures anyway, and this is something that Rumiko Takahashi has been shown to believe in. Kagome's grandfather doesn't feed himself, now does he? No, Kagome and her mother cook for him (whenever you see Kagome's family eating, the person doing the cooking is Kagome's mom, not her grandpa).

Q: But Sesshomaru isn't very nurturing of Rin, doesn't that mean that he isn't a father figure?

A: East Asian cultures don't look at family units in the same way that western cultures do. We're still very male dominated and believe in traditional gender roles. In East Asian cultures, active nurturing is considered to be the role of the woman, who stays at home and nurtures the child while the father works late, and it's very much considered to be a "female thing". Nurturing isn't something that a man is expected to do in East Asian cultures.

The father figure's main duty in East Asian cultures is to provide the bread by going to work and bringing home the bacon/money (which Sesshomaru does by providing Rin with kimonos) and to protect (which Sesshomaru definitely does), but is expected to be distant and always away at work, which Sesshomaru most definitely is.

You can see that reflected in Takahashi's works as well-the father is usually more distant. Unlike lolicon pairings, which she has written in a very negative manner, this traditional view of family units is something that Rumiko Takahashi has constantly been shown to support. In Ranma 1/2, which is another manga that was written by Rumiko Takahashi, Ranma's mother is the one who cooks and his father Genma is the one who trains his son. Soun Tendo, father of three girls, does not actively nurture his girls. Soun is single since his wife is dead. Guess who feeds the rest of the family? Not Soun himself, but his oldest daughter, Kasumi.

It doesn't matter if she's a kid. In my stepmom's absence, I was expected to do all the cooking/cleaning around the house for my dad as soon as I turned eleven. And we were Americanized. Sesshomaru's relationship with Rin fits the East Asian image of the ideal relationship between father and daughter.

Q: But what about Inuyasha/Kagome and Inuyasha's parents? They were also two centuries apart! Kagura is only nine months old!

A: Being involved with a 15 year old (Kagome) or a grown woman (Inuyasha's mom) isn't pedophilia, since pedophilia means "an adult being sexually attracted to a pre-pubescent child", which a 15 year old like Kagome most definitely is not. Being involved with an 8 year old is pedophilia.

You also forget that demons age much slower than humans, which is weird since that's something that's brought up very often when discussing Sess/Rin (that he'd still be 19 by the time that she's grown). Like a seven year old dog is ancient and very old while a 7 year old human is still a child, Inuyasha, at his age, is only an adolescent just like Kagome. Inuyasha's parents were both adults. The same thing cannot be said for Sesshomaru and Rin (Sesshomaru is an adult while Rin is a pre-pubescent child).

Also, did Inuyasha RAISE Kagome? Did his father watch his mother grow up since she was a child? No.

Kagura may only be nine months old, but she is biologically, physically and mentally a grown woman due to the fact that she was never "born" in the traditional sense but more "created", therefore it is not pedophilia for Sesshomaru to be involved with Kagura. The same thing cannot be said for Rin, who is biologically, mentally and physically a pre-pubescent child.

Plus Sesshomaru did not watch Kagura grow up since she was a kid. Takahashi has said that Kagura is 17 in human years and that Sesshomaru is 19 in human years.

Q: Isn't it all okay as long as I make it "Older" Rin?

A: That's still kind of like growing up to marry your dad since Rin is still growing up to marry the person who raised her and watched her grow up since she was eight.

If Sesshomaru is waiting for Rin to grow up, then that is child grooming-the practice of an adult befriending/approaching a child to lower their inhibitions and prepare them for LATER sexual contact, which is also a criminal offence and is seen as the same as/no better than pedophilia in the eyes of the law. And if he raises her with the intent of making her his wife/mate, he is brainwashing her. She does not get a choice to think otherwise when an adult with that much influence and authority in her life makes Rin's decision for her before she even understood what it really was. So no, even if she is "older", it still isn't healthy-there's still a whole bunch of problems.

It is disturbing to me because it is actually very possible to brainwash a girl Rin's age to grow up to be whatever you think they should be and to serve your own selfish desires (that is actually the reason why children are used as soldiers/servants in some countries-they are much easier to brainwash than adults are due to the fact that children do not have their own set ideals like adults do). Particularly bad, since in Rin's case, she canonically serves no other purpose than to humanize Sesshomaru by giving him the responsibility and life changing experience of being a parent. Now how fucked up is it when you warp that, and take it even further to the point where she also has to cater to Sesshomaru's SEXUAL whims as well?

Not to mention the psuedo-incest overtones, since Rin basically married the person who watched her grow up since she was a kid. It's still a borderline incest, "raising your wife" kind of thing.

Q: But Sesshomaru left Rin at the village at the end! Doesn't that mean that he's not a father figure now, and he didn't raise her and he isn't brainwashing her?

A: He's already watched her grow up for anywhere from a year to three years, and he's STILL involved in her life, visiting her often, and providing for Rin by bringing her kimonos at the end. So yes, Sesshomaru is still a father figure and Rin is still growing up to marry the person who raised her/watched her grow up since she was a child. If you and your father lost contact now, would that suddenly mean that he's no longer your father? Nope.

Q: What if I change it in fanfiction so that all ties are severed and they lose touch somehow for a long time, or so that they don't meet until she's grown?

A: There's nothing wrong with doing that in fanfiction, power to you. But if you change it that much, keep in mind that it's no longer Rin from Inuyasha. You've gotten rid of the very aspect that makes Rin the character that she is. It's not the same Rin. It's just an OC, a fan-made original character that happens to share the same name.

Q: But isn't Sesshomaru's relationship with Rin too deep/unique to "simply" be labeled father/daughter?

A: There's nothing "simple" about the relationship between father and daughter. A parent's love for their child-biological or adoptive-is one of the strongest, deepest, most complex forms of love that you can find. Any parent of any sort will definitely tell you that NOTHING is the same after you become a parent. It's an experience that changes you and your entire being, makes you grow up and become much less selfish-like what the experience of taking care of Rin did to Sesshomaru. Also, you make the mistake of thinking that romantic love is the strongest form of love. It isn't. It's the weakest, due to the physical aspects attached to it. The strongest form of love usually occurs between family members.

You are SUPPOSED to love your child more than your boyfriend/girlfriend. Any parent of any sort will definitely tell you that NOTHING is the same after you become a parent. It's an experience that changes you and your entire being, makes you grow up and become much less selfish-like what the experience of taking care of Rin did to Sesshomaru. Actually, that is one of the reasons that some people dislike Sesshomaru/Rin-the inability to leave the relationship as it is shows a certain belief that there's no way that love could possibly be valid unless it's a romantic thing. It seems like they believe that romantic love is the strongest form of love, when that's not the case.

Q: How could Rin see Sesshomaru as being a father figure? He's too hot!

A: Plenty of men that are found to be attractive by most women are seen as being father figures by their daughters. Brad Pitt has children-he has adoptive daughters who see him as being a father figure. Saying that Rin and Sesshomaru are going to get together in a romantic manner when Rin grows older is like saying that Zahara (Brad and Angelina's adoptive daughter) and Brad Pitt are going to get together in a romantic manner when Zahara grows up. Plenty of media sex symbols have daughters that see them as being father figures, whether biological or adopted.

Also, you forget that Rin is a character in the series, not a fangirl. While females in the fandom do tend to find Sesshomaru to be attractive, that's not the case with the female characters in the Inuyasha series itself. Inuyasha's got Kagome, Kikyo and Jakotsu hurling themselves at him. Miroku's got Koharu, Shima, Sango and hoardes of village girls hurling themselves at him.

The only person who seems to be interested in Sesshomaru in a romantic manner, however, is Kagura (not counting filler characters like Sara because that episode wasn't written by Rumiko Takahashi so it doesn't count). In fact, the women in the manga itself tend to be intimidated by Sesshomaru and he's portrayed as being somewhat celibate. Being a "chick magnet" is NOT a part of Sesshomaru's characterization. There are plenty of real women that don't find him to be attractive as well.

Q: But isn't Sesshomaru "not mature enough" to be a father figure?

A: You don't have to be "mature" to be a parent figure. Plenty of teenagers have children and become parents, some as young as 13. Plenty of immature people become foster parents for the money. Does that make them any less of the parent figures that they are, or relieve them of their parental duties? No. When I was fourteen I saw my 20 year old group home staff members as being my father figures so who's to say that Rin can't see the 19 year old (in human years) Sesshomaru as being a father figure at the age of 8.

Q: Didn't Rumiko Takahashi rally against a ban on lolicon, which means that she supports it?

A: The ban that Takahashi protested defined "lolicon" as being "sexually provocative, visual depictions of characters who sound or appear to be younger than 18 years old" (Go here for the description of the ban that Takahashi was protesting: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-03-15/creators-decry-tokyo-proposed-virtual-child-porn-ban).

Under THAT ban, Inuyasha would've counted as a lolicon manga since Kagome was shown naked while she was 15 (manga chapter 6, page 4). Rumiko Takahashi was probably protesting that ban because she didn't want her own manga, "Inuyasha", to be banned for having a character that's younger than 18 shown naked. That doesn't mean that she'd be supportive of a grown man being involved with an 8 year old in a sexual manner.

Q: But in the 3rd movie, the villain points to Rin and says that "she is Izayoi"!

A: That movie had nothing to do with Rumiko Takahashi. In fact, none of the movies were written by Rumiko. Takahashi's exact words concerning the movies was that "the scriptwriters were so amazing that I pretty much left it up to them". (From here: http://www.furinkan.com/takahashi/takahashi9.html) So the movies are not canon. Read the manga Bakuman if you want to know how the manga industry works. The mangaka have no control over what the anime writers do. Takahashi sat in on the script writing meetings but no one knows what she actually did during those meetings, so there's no evidence that she even knows about what happened in that movie. A lot of the stuff that happened during anime filler episodes directly contradict the things that happened in the manga, so the movies and anime filler episodes were definitely not approved by Rumiko Takahashi.

Also, the villain did not say that Rin was romantically involved with Sesshomaru, he said that "both of you are Izayoi to me, human women with an affinity for demons". He merely said that they were both human women with an affinity for demons like Izayoi, and he did not say anything about them being involved with demons in a romantic manner.

Q: But Sesshomaru proposes to Rin on the Wideban CD!

A: What you forget is that it says right there on the website that this Wideban CD also had nothing to do with Rumiko Takahashi. The only thing that Takahashi did for that CD was that she gave them permission to put the "Inuyasha" story in wideban format and she also gave them manuscripts of the final chapter that she drew that comes along with the CD. rin-sess.com/inuyasha-drama-cd Rumiko Takahashi had zero control over the actual contents of that Wideban CD. Therefore...the CD is not canon, because it was not written by Rumiko.

And there is no evidence that they needed to get her approval for anything, read the manga Bakuman if you wanna know how the manga industry works. The mangaka have zero control over what the anime writers do. A lot of the stuff that happened during anime filler episodes directly contradict the things that happened in the manga, so the movies and anime filler episodes were definitely not approved by Rumiko Takahashi, and neither was this Wideban CD.

Q: What about Inuyasha saying "so she can choose when the time comes"?

A: In the manga, Inuyasha did not say "so she can choose when the time comes", that's not a canon phrase. What Inuyasha says in the manga is that "it's practice for returning her to a human village. For whatever she chooses". (manga chapter 558, page 31) There was no mention of "when the time comes". "For whatever she chooses" was spoken in present tense, so the choice that they're talking about is probably the choice that Rin has already made: to go live in Kaede's village. It merely means that she isn't being forced to stay in the village and that Rin herself has made the choice to go live in Kaede's village.

If Rin was being offered the choice to either stay in the village or to return to Sesshomaru, then Rumiko Takahashi would've elaborated on that more during the bonus one-shot epilogue chapter that she drew (manga chapter 559). She would've drawn a scene where Kaede tells Rin that she can take all the time that Rin needs in order to make her decision to return to Sesshomaru or not, or something like that. Regardless of the fact that she's still a kid during the bonus chapter, they never said that Rin was going to wait until she was grown up to make the choice. So if the "choice" that Rin was being offered was to choose to stay in the village or to return to Sesshomaru, then Takahashi would have made some sort of mention of the decision during the bonus manga chapter in order to remind the audience that Rin was going to choose to return to Sesshomaru or not later on, and she didn't.

As a matter of fact, if Rin was being offered the choice to return to Sesshomaru or not, they would've verbally said so. Instead of saying "for whatever she chooses", they would've said "for whatever she chooses, to return to Sesshomaru or to remain in the village" or something like that. And they did not. So it's more likely that the "choice" that they're talking about is the choice that Rin has already made: to live in Kaede's village. The "for whatever she chooses" line was spoken in present tense, and Takahashi made Inuyasha say that in order to show the audience that Rin is not being forced to stay in the village and that Rin herself has chosen to live with Kaede.

Even if she was being offered the choice to either stay in the village or to return to Sesshomaru, that could merely mean that Sesshomaru wants Rin to know an alternative to the dangerous lifestyle that she leads with him. If Takahashi had wanted for Sesshomaru and Rin's relationship to be a romantic thing in nature, then Rin would never have been left in Kaede's hut in order to practice to return to a human village in the first place. Rumiko would've just done a time skip to a point where Rin has grown up. They would've just drawn a scene where Sesshomaru and Rin had become romantically involved after Rin grew older, and Takahashi chose not to.

If Rin was being offered the choice to return to Sesshomaru or not, and she later resumed traveling with Sesshomaru, then they would return to the same old father and daughter relationship that they had before. Nothing about that dialogue suggests anything romantic. Your father does not stop being your father after you grow up. Brad Pitt is still going to look at Zahara as being his adoptive daughter when Zahara grows up. Mushin still looked at Miroku as being his foster son after Miroku became an adult, and Sesshomaru is still going to look at Rin as being his daughter figure after Rin becomes an adult.

Q: So then, who IS Sesshomaru's canon love interest?

A: Kagura. See here: http://sesshomaruandkagurafaq.blogspot.com

Q: Are you saying that there's something wrong with me for shipping/writing Sesshomaru/Rin, or that I shouldn't?

A: NO. Go and write/ship whatever you want. As long as you don't deny that it's not a canon pairing, and that Sesshomaru and Rin have a father/daughter relationship in the "Inuyasha" series itself, you're fine.