--- Yukishiro Tomoe ---

I won't go into a really long summary of Tomoe and her history with Kenshin since most of you out there already know everything there is to know about it. So I'll make this short and sweet. And you're right if you're thinking that most of this is going to mostly me babbling about Tomoe ^_^ Tomoe first met Kenshin during his days as a Hitokiri. She was out for revenge since the Battousai had killed her fiance, and then she happened to run into Kenshin, and the two of them got married. I think he was about fifteen years old and she might have been eighteen or so. Can we all say jail bait? ^_^ But I guess we make allowances since it IS 19th century Japan and Kenshin wouldn't be Kenshin if he didn't have all the women drooling over him. To make a long story short,Tomoe and Kenshin get married,and she dies by throwing herself in front of Kenshin's sword in order to stop a fight between him and the man who kidnapped her. Which, in my opinion, was incredibly high-handed and foolish since we know that Kenshin can kick some major behind and would've won even if Tomoe hadn't decided to sacrifice herself like some drama queen turned heroine. Anyways,she dies and Kenshin is tramatized very badly. After the battle at Toba Fushimi he decided to become a rurouni and swore not to kill anymore.

I'd be the first to admit that I don't like Tomoe very much. The woman bothers me because she's so darn cold! I mean, when I first saw the OAV's, she barely spoke and in the back of her mind all she was thinking of was a way to do poor Kenshin in. In fact, I don't remember her actually saying much at all except "I'm sorry but there was no radish to grate for dinner". You'd think that a married couple would be able to talk to each other but a dinner conversation with Tomoe is like talking to the dead. A man like Kenshin seems to be overwhelmed by duties and burdened with guilt, I doubt he'd need a walking corpse for a wife as well.

Alright, so she sacrifices her life in order to save Kenshin's. Did he really need help in that fight in the first place? The only thing Tomoe succeeded in doing was to kill herself and traumatize Kenshin in the process. Plus I don't think Kenshin was ever first in Tomoe's heart anyway since even when dying she thinks of him as her "second" beloved. And even if Tomoe had lived, I doubt she and Kenshin would have been able to make much of a life together. She'd always know that he was responsible for the the death of her fiance, and someone like her would never be able to get past that. I mean, a woman who goes out hunting for a famous assasin in order to get revenge wouldn't be all forgiveness and light, I think.