Yeah beer and Internet!

I voted for woman; I still believe that. Someone mentioned in the other discussion that women's names commonly use -ko while men's use -maru. But I got curious so I looked up the 'Yasha' in her name, using the kanji in the manga.

Turns out it means 'female demon'.

I'm not alone in thinking she's a woman, though; I was talking to my host-sister (she and her kids read and watch Naruto, too) about this, and she called Yashamaru Gaara's mother's 'imouto', or younger sister...so if the Nihon-jin are saying it's so, I'm inclined to believe the same.

Even though she speaks in polite form, it would be expected that she would call herself 'boku' if she was a boy, but she calls herself 'watashi' instead. She hasn't gone to the level of keigo (uber-polite speech), but actually speaks a little more casually than Rock Lee, who does call himself 'boku', so it's not a characteristic of politeness to refer to herself as 'watashi'.

Besides, that level of motherly devotion in a guy is a little...creepy....

[edit]'u' is not the same as 'e' in English [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img] Looked it up right in Japanese, tho[/edit]