Yukishiro Tomoe

Yukishiro Tomoe (雪代 巴), known in Western order (Tomoe Yukishiro) in the English anime, is a fictional character in Nobuhiro Watsuki's popular anime and manga series "Rurouni Kenshin", otherwise known as "Samurai X".

She takes a major role in the manga final arc, the Jinchu arc, and "Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen" OVA (original video animation). Her seiyū is Junko Iwao and her English voice actor is Rebecca Davis.

Plot overview

Yukishiro Tomoe was the eldest daughter of a samurai, a low-level bureaucrat who served the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo. Her only sibling was her younger brother Enishi, who viewed her as a surrogate parent because of their mother's death shortly after his birth; he threw a tantrum on hearing of her engagement to Kiyosato Akira, the second son of another similarly-ranked family. Her skills included the Edo-mae style of cooking (distinct from Kyoto cuisine), the flower-arrangement art of Ikebana, and beautiful calligraphic handwriting; her signature perfume was the scent of white ume blossoms (hakubaiko). As required by the Shogunate, she practiced Buddhism. She kept diaries to record her inner thoughts and emotions, which she found difficult to express more openly.

This reticence left Kiyosato unaware of how much she truly loved him. Thinking that he needed to please her with greater accomplishments, he went to Kyoto to join the Mimawarigumi and was killed by the Ishin Shishi assassin, Hitokiri Battōsai (Himura Kenshin), but also gave the Hitokiri a single slash scar along the face.

Distraught with grief, Tomoe left home and came to Kyoto, where she was recruited by Shogunate spies to win her way into Kenshin's confidence. The Imperialist leader Katsura Kogorō (known as Kido Takayoshi after the Meiji Restoration) also sensed that she was a key to Kenshin's more human side. After the Ikedaya Jiken, Katsura sent both of them away from Kyoto to an isolated house near the town of Otsu.

To mislead enemies who might ask about a single newcomer, Kenshin and Tomoe were instructed to live as husband and wife; in the manga, Kenshin insisted on making the marriage official; in the OVA, their marital status was less clear. At the time, weddings were largely a matter of civic registration rather than religious ceremony, but one of the first acts of their shared life was a short pilgrimage from Otsu to the remains of the Buddhist temple complex on Mount Hiei (Which, coincidentally, would later become the Kyoto headquarters of Kenshin's future nemesis Shishio Makoto). She also traveled with him around the nearby countryside as part of his further disguise as a seller of herbal medicines.

In reawakening Kenshin's former gentle nature, Tomoe became conflicted about her own feelings for him, and once even came to tell him some bits of her true story (mainly about Enishi and her father). Eventually, she tried to throw off the Shogunate spymasters in hopes of saving Kenshin's life, but ended up being used as bait to draw him in for the kill. By the time Kenshin reached her, he had been weakened by several preliminary ambushes, so that he seemed likely to lose the final duel until Tomoe threw herself between the two combatants, intending to protect him. Blinded with pain, Kenshin was unable to see her until it was too late, and delivered a fatal blow to his opponent and to her with the same slash of his sword. The second half of Kenshin's cross-shaped scar was cut by Tomoe's dagger, although the exact circumstances differ between the OVA and the manga. In the manga, it was a mere accident as she released her dagger after being injured; in the OVA, she cuts his face in her dying breath as she apologizes to him.

Kenshin brought Tomoe's lifeless body back to the house they had shared near Otsu, where he remained for a brief period of mourning before razing it as her funeral pyre. He carried her diaries away with him. Although this house stood near Otsu, a gravestone for her was later erected in a Kyoto temple, where he left her diaries after the Battle of Toba-Fushimi. He did not return to her grave until many years later, after Shishio's death.

In the manga, Tomoe's brother Enishi returned as an adult to visit her grave and pursue vengeance against Kenshin, whom he considered his beloved older sister's true murderer. Enishi's actions (which included the kidnapping of Kaoru and her replacement with a flesh-made doll that makes everyone, including Kenshin himself, believe that she was killed) sent Kenshin into near-catatonic despair that was broken by a vision of Tomoe's spirit; eventually, Enishi's own motivations were also broken by similar visions of her. When Enishi is left a broken man after his battle with Kenshin, the former is given Tomoe's diary, which expresses all her true emotions during her time with Kenshin. Because he keeps the diary even after he arrives in the village of the fallen, Oibore, a kind old man who helped Kenshin out of his living hell (revealed as Tomoe and Enishi's father), remarks that Enishi will some day find his purpose again.

Differences

Tomoe's character differs slightly between the anime and manga versions of the story; most notably, she is rather more spiteful in the OVA, as opposed to the much more quiet manga version. The fact that the OVA is partly told from her point of view helps to reveal the emotions she had during the story that were hidden from Kenshin until after her death. In the manga she also shows a somewhat deadpan sense of humor not present in the OVA. Kenshin has noted that beyond her cool and detached nature, she was kinder than any person he knew and believed that her spirit would continue to watch over Enishi as he tried to find a way to live a life without cruelty and vengeance.

Watsuki even states in character notes that she was a "quiet mysterious character" meant to contrast the more strong-willed women of the current age (mainly being Kamiya Kaoru and Takani Megumi). Watsuki also admits that her design resembles that of Rei Ayanami of the popular "Neon Genesis Evangelion" anime series, calling her an "Ayanami lookalike."

Tomoe makes a brief cameo in the sixth ending of the TV series (from episodes 67-82, featuring the song "1/3 no Junjō na Kanjō" by the band Siam Shade). In the first scene, the lower half of her face is shown scrolling in front of a brick wall. In the second scene, her face is shown in a starry sky, along with a 15 year old Kenshin. Also, it can be argued that the scene where a silhouette of Kenshin is seen in a graveyard is reminiscent of the scene in episode 62 where Kenshin visits Tomoe's grave in Kyoto.

References