The blogs claimed “Sesshoumaru and Rin are father and daughter” makes them sounds like they are biological father and daughter. While this is not what they meant but the manga does not support a biological or an adoptive connection with them. If you see them as father and daughter, this is not saying that idea is wrong, just not supported from the manga because from other world views, ideas and the meaning not coming across in other language does support this idea. The original manga never used actually meaning daughter or father with Sesshoumaru and Rin and that idea may never came across to native Japanese. Throughout the maanga, characters have called Rin, 「お連れの小娘」“little girl companion” with the manga series being cohesive in what she is called, Rumiko-sensei indisputably wanted them to be viewed as companions. Most of the time she is called, 小娘 which means "young/little girl" or “adolescent female.” The support for this claim will be at the end (or an entry called Rin-something.) If Takahashi-sensei wanted to deter fans, she could had easy wrote “my father”, “my daughter” ect. Especially in the special chapter, 3 and a half years later from when Kagome return from her time after the defeat of Naraku. She could had Rin calling him father instead of Sesshoumaru sama in the special chapter. Which “Father’ could still be said with a title like how Sesshoumaru address his father. (父上) chichi-ue or chichi sama. Though even just chichi would had done. Sesshoumaru addresses her as Rin, and she has only addressed him as Sesshoumaru-sama. Sama does not mean lord, for more information on sama, please read the entry entitled sama.
While the manga does not support the father and daughter relationship between Sesshoumaru and Rin. The research was conduct to compare and contrast other movies from Japan and USA. Not all the sources reviewed are mention. The results follows: The story from the manga of Sesshoumaru and Rin is not like where Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks adopted orphan Anne in the movie entitled ‘Anne’. In addition, the story is not like Joe Kingman finding out about his biological daughter Peyton in ‘the Game Plan’. This is more like the relationship of Jason O’Day with Tia and Tony or Jack Burno with Sara and Seth in the Witch Mountain movies. In contrast from Japan the movie Kikujiro, which a man is on a trip in the summer with the boy to see his real mother. The boy never seen the man, a neighbor as a father/father figure. Comparing it to Princess Mononoke, the youkai or wolf goddess, Moro, raising her adopted daughter, San, is more support Sesshoumaru did not raise Rin. Mononoke is another word used for youkai. Another example would be 14 year Violet Baudelaire who is temporarily under the protection of Count Olaf, would attempts to marry her for the Fortune in “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. This example of Count Olaf should prove that Sesshoumaru is not going to harm, manipulate, abuse, or brainwash Rin.
There is a movie called ‘Nobody Knows,’ based off true events, Sugamo child abandonment incident. In the movie, a 12 year only boy is left to take care of his younger siblings for 9 months, longer than how long Sesshoumaru guarded Rin. While this boy is the authority figure, his siblings probably did not see him as the father, just the one in charge.
An example in the view Sesshoumaru and older Rin as lovers.
This example also shows a platonic love can go to a romantic love. In Hotarubi no mori e, Gin was a human, turned into a youkai. He meets Kotaru when is she 6, they form a quick bond, to where they spent that summer and then ever summer together. Gin never aged over the years, Kotaru started to reach his age. While they were uncertain where this was going to lead, they both fell in love with each other and at the end they confessed to each other. They were just friends, they spent the summers together, Gin did not raise Kotaru in those times. Also, they spend more time together than Sesshoumaru and Rin does.
A real life example
Not every 12 year with an authority figure is going to see them as a father figure. Celion Dion was 12 when she meet her manger. When she was 19, they started to have a relationship. They were engaged when she was 23 and married when she was 26. They were still together until his death in year (2016). For the time gaps and when they are married it is unlikely everything happen before she was 19. The time gaps indicates they made sure they were the right ones for each other. How the events followed, this is similar to everyone else, they just meet when she still a child.
Before this post provides the support for Rin is only called little girl or companion, this post will provide a lesson in kanji first. 日 this kanji has multiple meanings, examples would be “a day”, “the sun” and has a few pronunciations. Example 日曜日/ にちようび nichi you bi this means Sunday. The first 日 “nichi” is the sun where the second 日 “hi” is for the day. 本 like the other kanji this has multiple meanings, and has a few pronunciations. This kanji means “a book” “a volume” “base” “origin” and more. Examples 本棚 (ほんだな) / a bookshelf, a bookcase or本分(ほんぶん) / one's duty, one's part… When we put the two kanji together 日本we get( にほん,or にっぽん)Nihon or Nippon (the only two readings) 日 here will be ni or nip and meaning “sun” when hon will be hon or pon meaning “origin” or “base”. Nihon or Nippon means sun’s origin also known as Japan for USA and would not mean day book. Nippon is used for official means. From the uncreditable Wikipedia “The compound means "base of the sun" or "sunrise" (from a Chinese point of view, the sun rises from Japan); it is of course a source for the popular Western description of Japan as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
小 has multiple meanings and pronunciations but this blog is going to focus on ko “small’ “little”
娘 musume means “daughter”, “girl”, “young unmarried woman.”
小娘 Komusume means little girl or adolescent female. This will not mean little daughter.
How can you tell the difference in meaning in a story? The content.
Examples: 彼はあの娘に完全に参っている which means "He is madly in love with that girl." is not "he is madly in love with that daughter." musume is the 5th character.
白い服を着ている娘が彼の婚約者だ which means "The girl dressed in white is his fiancee" not "the daughter dress in white is his fiancee" musume is the 9th character. The clause "dressed in white" comes first in the Japanese sentence.
Another thing with musume. Let’s add a kanji to make 娘婿/ むすめむこ/musume muko What do you think the word musume muko means... think about it.. musume muko means “son-in-law”. muko means “husband” “groom” “son-in-law”, literally daughter's husband..
This may be weird to have different meanings for the same word or have a word that means something to be changed when adding another word. However, every language does this. English examples Butter and fly together makes butterfly and does not mean the butter flies. Putting words but ton or butt on together to Button changes the meaning. Therapist is not the rapist. English word “dove” now did you think of the bird or the verb? “The dove dove into the bushes”*. Like how English speakers would know the difference between present tense and past tense of the word “read” or understand all the meanings of up* from a beginner. Reading Komusume as little daughter or making Musume, daughter in front of a Japanese speaker when it means one of the other meanings, would be much as misunderstanding “present” in the following sentence in front of an English speaker: “Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.*” There are three ideas used from an email about how crazy English is to use and they are marked by the * symbol. Here is the link, http://binscorner.com/pages/y/you-think-english-is-easy.html
There are three times 娘 musume is used by three different characters with Rin each time meaning girl. Many will mistranslate this wrong and many may not believe this post. These people needs to be aware if they misuse this or think this is prove of Rin being his daughter., Inuyasha in volume 35 chapter page called Shima who he just meet 娘musume and both of her parents are still alive. The villagers and soldiers in volume chapter page use娘 three times talking about the forced young women going to the castle to be the lord’s brides not his daughters. In reality they were just food, he was going to eat them. Urasue calls Kagome Musume and Komusume multiple times in volume 5.
http://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/%22%E7%99%BD%E3%81%84%E6%9C%8D%22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan