Between 1996 and 1998, the first five games in the Touhou series were made for the PC-98 personal computer by a doujin circle known as Amusement Makers, of which ZUN was a part of. However, the games and most of the characters from the PC-98 era have either been ignored by the series' continuity or have been retconned outright. So far, Reimu, Marisa, Alice, and Yuuka are the only characters to have appeared in the Windows series.This page is for Touhou characters who debuted in Highly Responsive to Prayers, Story of Eastern Wonderland, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, Lotus Land Story and Mystic Square. To see the characters who debuted in the Windows games, see Touhou Windows One and Touhou Windows Two. For characters from related works such as short stories and manga, see Touhou Other Official Works.Wherever possible, character images come from portraits not drawn by ZUN used in official games and print works. Images of characters without quality official portraits are labeled "(fanart)".Please remember to only use examples that are either canon or have undergone mass Memetic Mutation so that the page doesn't become overcrowded with tropes that only occur in one person/circle's works.CONTAINS SPOILERSConcerning the romanization of namesFirst, there are two principal methods for transcribing Japanese names into Latin letters: the Hepburn System and the Kunrei-shiki System. In general, ZUN favored the Hepburn System before Phantasmagoria of Flower View, but changed to the Kunrei-shiki System afterward. This page uses the Hepburn format for the sake of argument, as it is the most widely recognized and makes the pronunciation obvious to English speakers.
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Debuted in Highly Responsive to Prayers
Windows era
PC-98 era (fanart)
Shrine Maiden of Paradise
Reimu Hakurei
*
PC-98 博麗 靈夢 Windows: 博麗 霊夢
Shrine Maiden of the Hakurei Shrine and the main protagonist of the Touhou series in general. Extremely talented, but hates training and is very lazy. She's also a friendly person who gets along well with everyone, including Youkai. This passive attitude towards monsters doesn't sit well with most of the humans in Gensoukyou, which means her shrine doesn't get many visitors... or donations. Also well known for her armpits.
Tropes associated with Reimu:
Ambiguous Innocence: Reimu is consistently described as carefree at heart, guileless, and simple in her thinking. She also just plain doesn't see things quite the way everyone else does. It never seems to occur to her that her way of doing things can cause people a lot of unnecessary grief before the resolution, or that what seems straightforward to her might be a mind-bending trick to others, or that her own natural gifts can be an unfair advantage in some things... And as the flip side to her impartial view of others, ZUN says, she's not particularly attached to anyone either; no matter how popular she is, "she's actually alone in her heart."
Art Evolution: Reimu's appearance has changed particularly often and dramatically since the start of the series — after all, she's been in all games but two. Most infamous in Mountain of Faith, where an oddly jaundiced skin tone led to the joke that Reimu had become an undead zombie.
Badass Normal: While she possesses the powers of channeling gods now, back then in the PC-98 era she had absolutely zero powers and only relied on her giant ying yang orb (which she used like a soccer ball) and her generic ofuda; she also had to use her turtle Genji in order to fly. Despite that, she managed to beat, in order of status: A realm-warping human with magical powers, an absurdly powerful evil spirit who even had Marisa as a henchman, the supposedly strongest youkai of all, the angel of death, and a god that creates worlds.
Bad Liar: Whenever she tries to lie, it's so painfully, obviously forced that it's practically impossible to not realize it immediately. She is really that incredibly bad of a liar.
Barrier Maiden: Should anyone dare to kill her, Gensoukyou will collapse and everyone will vanish.
Berserk Button: Messing with the Hakurei Shrine is a very good way to bring down Reimu's wrath on your head, as the first two games and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody demonstrated.
Bonus Boss: The last extra boss of Shuusou Gyoku, the first game of Touhou's sister series, Seihou.
Born Lucky: Reimu is downright notorious for her luck and incredible intuition. It's why her default method of problem solving seems to be to pick a direction and go, since she'll always manage to end up headed towards the Big Bad eventually.
Brutal Honesty: The idea of lying often never even comes across Reimu's mind, and she'll bluntly, unabashedly say exactly what she thinks no matter who she's talking to or what the situation. This is in fact one of the major contrasts between her and Marisa - while Marisa will often lie just for the heck of it, Reimu is simply far too honest to even attempt it. Her sheer honesty is one of the reasons that the two Oni of the series take a liking to her, as honesty is a favourable trait to Oni.
Cloudcuckoolander: Reimu's values and views of the world are... different from everyone else's, a trait that's frequently brought up both by ZUN and Rinnosuke. This is most often shown by her occasional strange comments and the abnormal conclusions she tends to draw.
Fantastic Racism: Zig-zagged. While she is a youkai exterminator, she'll generally beat down anyone who gets in her way, no matter who or what they are, whether they're human (as Marisa, Sakuya, and Sanae can attest to) or gods (Kanako, Suwako). And afterwards, she'll sit down and have tea with them without the slightest malevolence whatsoever. Outside of duty, she treats youkai the same way she treats humans, with vague disrespect. ZUN has said that she doesn't particularly care about humans or youkai, and she personally considers everyone the same, neither negatively nor positively. This is supposedly part of why powerful youkai tend to be drawn to her.
Wild And Horned Hermit has given a motivation to her "jerkass" behavior. Youkai by definition oppose humanity; and they are opposed by humanity. If they didn't do this, they wouldn't be youkai. (What would happen isn't stated, but it would likely be bad.) Pranks and "youkai extermination", softened by spellcard rules, give some pretense to following this paradigm.
Final Boss: She's the last character you fight in the regular final boss's Story Mode of Immaterial and Missing Power, Phantasmagoria of Flower View, and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.
Hard Work Hardly Works: She's already talented. This makes her extremely lazy, to the point that the holy power of the Hakurei Shrine has weakened enough that Remilia, who is a vampire, can visit regularly without ill effects. Were she actually to train her ability, though, it's highly possible that she could reach the same level of power as Yorihime, if not more.
Reimu's ability is the power to float in the sky, which every girl in the series is capable of doing already. Except then you reach Fantasy Heaven. ZUN's description: "Supreme Master-Art. With Reimu's ability to float, she floats away from physical reality and becomes invincible. If it wasn't just for play (with time limit), no one could beat her by any method". She can't be hurt, and the only way to win is to wait for her timer to run out while she's free to bombard her opponent at her leisure.
One of the laughably Mundane Utility "powers" of the Hakurei Yin-Yang Orb - the power to eat sweets and never get fat - is believed to give her the smallest hitbox.
Hime Cut: As a miko, this is the traditional haircut for her. She's depicted with a lot of different hairstyles throughout the series, but the early games and ZUN's art leans towards this more often than not.
Hyper Destructive Bouncing Ball: The Yin-Yang Orb in Highly Responsive to Prayers, when it was used as a weapon and not a backup firer. One of her moves in the fighting games gives a nod to this.
Intangible Man: When using her Last Word from Imperishable Night.
Jack-of-All-Stats: Her attack and speed are just barely adequate, and she has no real glaring flaws, as far as standard gameplay goes. Her attacks are highly flexible and she's good for just about any situation. Reimu A is usually a homing type, and sacrifices power for range and accuracy. Reimu B is usually the forward-focus type, similar to Marisa's gameplay, but not quite as strong. In exchange, her attacks have a wider range, making it easier for her to hit the targets. Finally, she consistently has the smallest hitbox and longest deathbomb period, making her ideal for survival play.
Komachi: "That shrine maiden didn't have any evil thoughts to begin with. [...] Just about all humans have that level of worldly desires. Working hard despite that amount of desire isn't evil, it's innocent. Among the innocent ones, you get people like that shrine maiden."
Opposites Attract: Reimu is rather serious by Gensoukyou standards and has no tolerance for mischief, yet her closest friends tend to be extra-strength weird, such as the maniacal Marisa, the gregarious Suika, and the whimsical Yukari.
Onmyodo: Ofuda (rectangular paper charms) are her weapon of choice along with giant yin-yang orbs.
Parental Abandonment: Despite the importance of her bloodline, it's unknown exactly what happened to the rest of the Hakurei clan, just that Reimu has been living alone since at least Highly Responsive to Prayers.
Perpetual Poverty: Reimu doesn't get donations, and the Hakurei Shrine is often described as "shabby-looking", though she has no problems providing for herself.
Reimu's infamous Last Word card "Fantasy Heaven" is a homonym to Kenshiro's Musou Tensei of Fist of the North Star. In Hisoutensoku, using said spell card under certain conditions even causes a Fatal KO remix of Reimu's theme, "Mystic Oriental Love Consulation", to override the current music. For bonus points, if the opponent is stupid enough to actually let it activate, only a couple of characters even have the capability of dodging it long enough to avoid instant death without haxing off borders, and only one can counter it. You are already dead indeed!
One of her palettes in Hisoutensoku uses Toki's colours (even the hair), another thing fans have run away with.
Her final attack phases as the extra boss of Shuusou Gyoku, which may have been the inspiration for "Fantasy Dimensional Hole".
Vague Age/Not Allowed to Grow Up: Information provided in print works and the passage of seasons in the games suggest that at least six years have passed between The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and Hisoutensoku, so Reimu should probably be over 20 years old by now — more if the PC-98 games still count. However, she is always depicted as being somewhere in her teens.
Her entire gimmick for her boss fight in Imperishable Night. For her spell cards, she creates borders around and inside the battlefield to shoot danmaku through. Those shots will eventually reach around to aim at the player character from various directions. Her last spells involve flying off one end of the screen and coming out of the other while shooting at you.
Her support power for her A type shot in Subterranean Animism, since Yukariis her partner.
(fanart)
Gatekeeper
Shingyoku
*
シンギョク
The gatekeeper to Hakurei Shrine, and the first boss in the entire series. Very little is known about Shingyoku, as it has neither dialogue nor an official profile.
Tropes associated with Shingyoku:
Death from Above: When in ball form, Shingyoku tries to squash Reimu.
Degraded Boss: Sort of. Story of Eastern Wonderland, Subterranean Animism, and Undefined Fantastic Object have enemies that appear to be based on Shingyoku's main form.
Gender Bender: One form appears female, another looks male. The concept of yin and yang represents duality, after all.
Elis is the second boss Reimu faces in the Makai. She is a blonde girl that has devil wings, can turn into a bat, and carries a wand. Little else is known about her.
Sariel is an angel of death and the final boss of the Makai route.
Tropes associated with Sariel:
Ambiguous Gender: All other versions of Sariel are male, and the sprite could be intended to be of either gender. The only reason to assume that this Sariel is female is that the Touhou games quickly turned into an Improbably Female Cast.
Clipped Wing Angel: Her second phase, which has much less health than her first phase.
Eyes Always Shut: Sometimes depicted this way in fanart, though it's difficult to tell as Sariel only has one static sprite.
Sinister Silhouettes: Her second form, similar to the cover art of the Windows games.
Taking You with Me: The original title of her second Leitmotif, Death Will Take You With Me, indicates that this is what she was trying to do when Reimu defeated her.
A vengeful spirit whom Reimu originally ran into during her trip into Jigoku. She later reappeared in Gensoukyou, trying to get revenge on not just Reimu, but all people. After being shot down a second time, she gives up being evil and spends her time hanging around the Hakurei Shrine and making fun of Reimu. Highly popular despite her long absence, speculation abounds as to her reappearance.
Tropes associated with Mima:
A God Am I: Contemplates about becoming a Shinto god in her Mystic Square good ending, but decides to take it easy and goes to bother Reimu instead.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Despite being present in four out of the five PC-98 games, a fan favorite, and having a significant connection to one of the characters who did make the transition to the Windows series, she has yet to even be mentioned in the the Windows series. She's received a Shout Out in the form of Soga no Tojiko, however.
Before Ten Desires, one of the PC-98 music re-release CDs has her on cover.
Colliding Criminal Conspiracies: Her excuse for going to Makai in Mystic Square is that tourist devils are "trespassing on her turf".
Consummate Liar: Subversion. While she is quite capable of sticking to the trope, she more often than not just tells flat out lies for fun.
A Glass of Chianti: In Mystic Square Extra ending served by Meido Alice.
Japanese Honorifics: Marisa called her "Mima-sama". This has spawned many a fan theory, from mentor to mother, as it's the most respectful Marisa has been to anyone.
Lunacy: In her Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream ending, she wished that the Full Moon will always be in the sky so that she will be at full power at all times. Yumemi grants it a little too literally, by placing a moon in geosynchronous orbit.
Our Ghosts Are Different: She denies being "dead", and refers to herself as simply being a soul.
Horned Humanoid: Due to her horn, in fan depictions where she's not a ghost, she's usually depicted instead as an Oni. The above-mentioned sake plate probably contributes to this idea as well, given that Oni (especially the Gensokyou variety) are notorious drinkers, and one of the two confirmed Oni characters also carries a sake plate in battle.
The Southpaw: Wields her sword with her left hand in HRtP, and what little fanart of her there is (like the one to the right) tends to stick with this when her sword is drawn.
An old turtle who serves as Reimu's transportation (since she hadn't yet learned how to fly under her own power), and on occasion attempts (unsuccessfully) to be her mentor, or at least give her advice. Disappeared without a trace after Mystic Square, though Word Of God has stated that he's "probably living in the lake at the back of the shrine".
Tropes associated with Genjii:
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Genjii was one of the characters that didn't make it when the series was brought to Windows.
Flight: Of the "without any explanation" variety. His main purpose.
Some sort of scientific genius. Before Story of Eastern Wonderland she creates a bunch of monsters and ghosts and decides to hang out at the Hakurei Shrine while Reimu was gone. Naturally, she gets her ass kicked. First boss in a Touhou shooting game.
Tropes associated with Rika:
Bonus Boss: Manages to be both the first boss and the Bonus Boss by fighting in a new tank in the extra stage.
Attacks Reimu in an attempt to get the Hakurei powers for herself. Fails, and is never heard from again.
Tropes associated with Meira:
Bifauxnen: Has to declare herself as a woman to Reimu, who either isn't listening or doesn't care.
Hyper Destructive Bouncing Ball: Her last attack is to sheath her sword and release several spheres that bounce around the screen. Hmmm, so that's why she wants the power of Hakurei...
Mistaken for Gay: Reimu thinks she's flirting with her when she expresses her desire to take Hakurei's powers. Reimu either thought she was a man or was fine with it.
Sword Lines: She can carve a diamond shape in the air with these, which then starts shooting bullets.
Windows era
Story of Eastern Wonderland(fanart)
Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream(fanart)
Ordinary Black Magician
Marisa Kirisame
A magician who lives in the Forest of Magic. She just happened to be the "Ordinary Magician" in the middle of a crowd of superpowered beings, so she worked her ass off HARD to eventually become one of the more formidable opponents in Gensoukyou. She's rude and loud-mouthed, but is a straightforward person. Also a notorious thief, and damn proud of it.
Tropes associated with Marisa:
Acquired Poison Immunity: In Wild and Horned Hermit Marisa ignores a sign warning of toxic fumes, since she's been exposed to so many poisonous substances as part of her research. It's implied that she's even become resistant to mercury poisoning in this way.
Always Second Best: Next to Reimu. In fact, Marisa has admitted several times that she is the second-best in Gensoukyou, a fact she seems to, surprisingly, hold pride in. Given that Reimu can and, canonically, has kicked everyone's ass there, Marisa's pride is probably justified.
Ascended Extra: After her initial appearance as a villainous minion with no real backstory or motivation, she went on to become the second main character of the series.
Ass Kicks You: an attack in the fighting games, known as the "Flying Doombutt" for its surprisingly high damage and range. As it makes Marisa immune to projectiles, it has given rise to an obscure meme known as Marisa's Bulletproof Bloomers.
Badass Bookworm: In spite of her apparent unconcern for obtaining anything honestly, all of her abilities were gained by either studying the necessary magical texts or inventing them herself.
Bonus Boss: In both Shuusou Gyoku and Fairy Wars. Granted, in the latter case she's the Bonus Boss for Cirno.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Nearly the entire Alice scenario in Subterranean Animism. Oddly enough, however, they're treating the game as an RPG. In The Story of Eastern Wonderland Marisa is aware of how many continues you used, and in the trial version informs Reimu that the game ends on the third stage.
Composite Character: Spell attacks and books aren't the only things she's stolen from people. In the transition from PC-98 to Windows, she's picked up Mima's habit of lying and her general personality, Chiyuri's speech patterns, Ellen's 2P costume*
Or Yuki's costume. Or Yumemi's 2P costume. It's a design ZUN liked
, and PC-98 Marisa's witch motif and laser/stars theme.
Flying Broomstick: Almost always shown riding it in the games. Oddly, she uses it for attacking but not for flight in the fighting games. Word Of God states that she only rides the broom for appearances, for the Cute Witch motif. She can fly on her own just like anyone else if she wants to.
Glass Cannon: She often has high firepower and speed compared to other characters in the Windows danmaku games. Of course, as with any other Touhou character, she'll instantly die if just one bullet touches her hitbox.
Hard Work Hardly Works: Played straight when compared to Reimu, but averted in that she's still extremely powerful thanks to her training, quite possibly the next strongest human in all of Gensoukyou.
In Symposium of Post-mysticism, Byakuren explains the Six Buddhist Perfections. Marisa dismisses the first two (Generosity and Discipline) but...
Byakuren: "Forbearance" is to withstand humiliation or pain from others. "Diligence" is the effort exerted to continue training.
Marisa: Everyone does that, not like you have a choice.
I Let You Win: Sort of. She goes easy on Cirno during the extra stage of Fairy Wars, using variant lasers that don't actually kill her, instead chipping away at her motivation gauge. However, multiple times during the battle, she finds that Cirno is stronger than she thought, and steps up the complexity of her attacks. At the end, she thinks that Cirno might have been a problem even if she was going all out, and the effort from the battle is still enough that she has to go home and lie down afterwards. On the other hand, it's Cirno rather than Marisa who gets a "beaten up" portrait after the fight.
Leitmotif: More so than any other character. Marisa has six themes so far with "Love-Colored Magic/Master Spark" being the most recognisable.
Magic Wand: Carries one in UFO and Story of Eastern Wonderland.
Magic Mushroom: Marisa uses phantasmal mushrooms as a common ingredient/fuel source for her magic. The Forest of Magic where she lives is known for being full of them... but even better known for being full of "magic" mushrooms. Fandom pushes both ends of this routinely, with mushrooms that can have basically any effect imaginable for Marisa or her victims.
She has stolen several spells from other characters she has fought over time. Even her signature Master Spark was originally held by Yuuka Kazami. The whole point of the Grimoire Of Marisa is her cataloguing the spell cards of everyone she meets, with the stated plan of using them to learn more magic.
Then in Ten Desires her shots have picked up the explosive abilities of Sanae's Cobalt Spread, while Sanae herself ended up with something resembling Marisa's Super Shortwave. A con job rather than theft this time, it would seem.
More Dakka: Everyone's danmaku attacks are like this, but Marisa is notable for constantly looking for ways to get bigger firepower from her magic.
Mouthful of Pi: In Mountain of Faith, Marisa gets impatient while travelling across levels and wonders if she could finish reciting pi by the time she got to her intended destination.
Mythology Gag: Marisa's Player 2 colour scheme in PoFV.
The Brilliant, but Lazy, blunt, dispassionate Reimu, passive and tricky in her fighting style, popular despite her lack of active socialising, associated with sunshine and spring — and then the hard-working, energetic, dishonest, excitable Marisa who lives by brute force, bothers people everywhere she goes, and is associated with rain. They're competitors and rivals. They're also best friends who spend a lot of time just hanging out.
Marisa's numerous fandom couplings, romantically or otherwise, also tend to be based on this. Along with Reimu, the withdrawn bookworm Patchouli, the cold-hearted and tactically oriented Alice, and the shy Nitori are opposites of Marisa as well.
Power Gives You Wings: She sports a demonic pair of wings for her boss attack in Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, and a pair of angelic ones in Shuusou Gyoku's Extra stage.
Power of Love: The description of the aforementioned Love Sign: Master Spark includes the instructions "Mutter the spell to the Mini-Hakkero tenderly; aim at someone you don't like; now unleash your annihilation of love!". What exactly that means is still a matter for debate.
Princess Curls: Back in the PC-98 days. Ultimately morphed into the side-braid of the Windows games.
Sociopathic Hero: Marisa enjoys beating people up a bit too much.
Star Power: Marisa loves watching stars and meteor showers, and as a result most of her spells are themed after space or heavenly bodies. If the PC-98 games are canon then she learned her first few spells of this type by copying Mima.
Sticky Fingers: In terms of items and skills. Her presence in both Lotus Land Story and The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is explicitly due to her searching for new theft victims, and in Imperishable Night she introduces herself to the Eientei staff as a thief, much to Alice's exasperation. She figures that human lifespans are so short compared to those of Youkai, that the Youkai can have their stuff back after she's dead, so they shouldn't mind.
Alice: (About Reimu) Why the stuttering? Just yell at her like you always do. "Bitch, get out of the way!" Like that. ... Marisa: (To Reimu) Okay, okay, I give up. You're right. The endless night, stealing the full moon, hiding the human village, and putting hats on stone statues, it's all Alice's fault. Now, bitch, get out of the way!
Tomboy: Marisa speaks roughly for a girl and has a fighting style based around brute force. She's sometimes joked to be the manliest character in the series (though newer characters like Unzan give her competition).
Trash of the Titans: Her house is a real mess, crammed with everything she has stolen but hasn't yet bothered to sort. Legendary treasures have actually been found in her junk piles, completely unknown to her.
Marisa:(flying through Eientei) It'd take one hell of a janitor to clean a hall that long.
Unskilled, but Strong: Subverts the "unskilled" part somewhat, as she worked very hard for her powers, unlike most other inhabitants of Gensoukyo. However, her personal philosophy is that danmaku is all about power, so her basic attacks are usually very dense and unstructured. And when push comes to shove she will throw all pretense of finesse out the window and just start Master Sparking half the screen and/or trying to ram her opponent, which is borderline breaking the Spell Card rules as lampshaded by ZUN himself.
Useless Useful Spell: The laser shot-type that hits the top of the screen instantly and pierces through enemies has no particularly great uses and is invariably weaker than the game's forward concentration shot-type*
Except in LLS, where it is the forward concentration shot-type
... except in UFO, where there's actually enough things to hit at one time for piercing to be really useful. This is generally to balance the fact that her laser shot-types also tend to have the most powerful bomb(s).
Weak, but Skilled: Compared to most of Gensoukyou's inhabitants, who rely on innate abilities and rarely improve upon them, while Marisa has none and is constantly seeking new spells.
It's a bit dubious however, as her attacks are actually more powerful than those of other characters.
Wolverine Publicity: Has been in every Touhou game since her debut in Story of Eastern Wonderland except for Shoot the Bullet... where she appears as the game's logo anyway. Furthermore, she has been the game logo for every ZUN-made Touhou game made in the Windows era except for Double Spoiler and Fairy Wars, even though she does appear in both games.
Cloudcuckoolander: She's a princess who thinks she's a cop and likes to randomly collect things that only seem to interest her. The title of her theme suggests that she's insane.
Genius Ditz: Despite telling Yumemi to her face that science is heresy, Kotohime recognizes the electrical equipment in the ship, and her victory quote to Chiyuri is to start reciting the Periodic Table.
It Amused Me: Suggested as her most likely motivation for exploring the "ruins" with all the other player characters. This is supported when she defeats Yumemi and can't think of anything to wish for.
Willfully Weak: She's quite strong magically, but she dislikes magic too much to use it often.
(fanart)
Resident of fantasy that runs through time
Chiyuri Kitashirakawa
Chiyuri is Yumemi's assistant and mostly spends time collating her research data. She also put out the fliers advertising the contest to reach the center of the "ruins" that recently appeared in Gensoukyou. She doesn't always have a clear idea of what her boss intends, which results in her getting whacked over the head when she treats the contest winner rudely (read: threatens them with a gun). Yumemi then orders her to fight the heroines in order to collect more data. Oh, and her major is in "comparative physics". Whatever that means.
Tropes associated with Chiyuri:
Alternate Self: She has a Gensoukyou counterpart who can use magic.
Hard Head: Yumemi hits her on the head a lot. She returns the favor to stop her from nuking everyone. With a chair.
Improbable Age: To us, anyway. Chiyuri is a 15-year-old who graduated from college at 11 and graduate school at 13; however, this is the norm for her dimension.
Yumemi is a professor of "comparative physics" at a university in another dimension where all natural forces have been explained by a Grand Unified Theory. When she dares to suggest that the theory doesn't explain magic, she is laughed out of the university and sets off on a journey to prove that it exists. Her ship lands in Gensoukyou to capture someone to use in her experiments. Asskicking ensues and she leaves empty-handed. In spite of her disappointing failure, she still rewards the heroinesgenerously.
Difficulty Spike/SNK Boss: Getting to her isn't terribly difficult if you know what you're doing. Getting past her will probably take a continue or two to drive the Dynamic Difficulty down enough to make her reasonably beatable. Good thing you still get the good ending after continuing.
Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Threatens to blow up the Earth with a "four-dimensional positron bomb" after her defeat. She's only kidding, but that doesn't stop Chiyuri from whacking her over the head with a folding chair.
Make a Wish: As a result of the ad that Chiyuri put up, Yumemi agrees to grant the player character's wish to the best of her abilities if she defeats her. She gets a bit frustrated when Kotohime can't think of one.
Mirror Match: And they both bonk Chiyuri on the head.
When (and if) Reimu beat Yumemi, she asked for an assistant who could handle all of the day-to-day chores around the shrine. What she got was a nuclear-powered robot maid who isn't necessarily good at her job. After this, Ruukoto was never seen again.
Winged Humanoid: Large bat wings. They count toward her hitbox.
(fanart)
The Porter of a Mansion
Elly
The gatekeeper to Yuuka's mansion. She's completely useless at her job, letting both Reimu and Marisa by. Not that Yuuka even needs a gatekeeper, considering her own power and how isolated her mansion is...
Tropes associated with Elly:
Battle Butler: An unusual instance in which the Battle Butler is not the second-to-last enemy in the game. Elly is only the stage 3 boss.
Sinister Scythe: Worth noting is that it's interpreted in several works to be a reverse-edge scythe, with the sharp part of the blade being on the outside rather than the inside.
An old and extremely powerful flower youkai first found living in the dream world, Mugenkan. She is sleeping at the time and only defends herself because Reimu and Marisa broke in and woke her up. Naturally, she loves her flowers and is actually more like a force of nature than a typical youkai.
Tropes associated with Yuuka:
Ax Crazy: In Fanon, due to her motivation in Mystic Square being "I was bored", "I'm going to kill you" dialogue, and her "genocide is a game" joke. In Phantasmagoria of Flower View, she says her previous creepy claims were just teasing.
Berserk Button: Those caught disturbing her flowers have a nasty habit of getting vaporized on the spot.
Boobs of Steel: Typically portrayed as having a large chest, and her claim of being the strongest in Gensoukyou may actually not be far from the truth.
Cute and Psycho: One of her quotes in the PC-98 games says she treats genocide as a game. She's teasing about it, but it's creepy none the less. Not helped by her article in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, containing a drawing of her◊ smiling serenely in a field of flowers while explaining her aforementioned Berserk Button - and it's canon that she scares people. In a lot of fanon, she could be endearing and smiling innocently one second, and snapping your head off in the next.
Doppelgänger Attack: A few of her attacks as Lotus Land Story's final boss. Fandom remembers the Dual Spark.
"Sleeping Terror," the theme when you first fight her.
"Faint Dream ~ Inanimate Dream," her final boss theme in Lotus Land Story.
"Lovely Mound of Cherry Blossoms ~ Flower of Japan," her theme in her cameo appearance in Kioh Gyoku.
"Gensokyo Past and Present ~ Flower Land," her theme from Phantasmagoria of Flower View.
Mighty Glacier: Relatively speaking, with the slowest move speeds in Phantasmagoria of Flower View but very high charge speeds. Closer to a Glass Cannon, as defense is entirely based on dodging.
Moe: Invoked in her bizarre character profile in Kioh Gyoku, with ZUN repeatedly referring to her as "youkai moe~" and the term became almost endemic. Possibly a pun - moe literally means budding.
Not Me This Time: She's the prime suspect behind the flowers blooming in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, as she has caused an incident before and is a youkai of flowers, but it turns out to be a (mostly) natural phenomenon.
Parasol of Pain: She always carries a parasol (though it is actually a flower that never withers). She used to use it to cast Dual Spark.
Perfect Run Final Boss: Just like with Kaguya, if you used a continue before the final stage, you never saw it. If you lost all your lives during it, it would end immediately. Unlike Kaguya, it also doubles as Easy Mode Mockery.
Yuuka: In a few hours, you'll become a mist of atoms. ♥
Stronger With Age: One of the most powerful beings in Gensoukyou, purely as a result of being around for so long.
Time Abyss: Also one of the oldest living youkai, which in Gensoukyou is quite a feat.
Wave Motion Gun: She's the original wielder of the Master Spark. Yuuka's version tops Marisa's - it is an attack that covers almost the entire screen, leaving very little room to dodge it. Oh, and she can clone herself to make a two-way Master Spark.
More Dakka: Though not as brutal as her sister's, her timeout danmaku are hard.
Physical God: It's not really clear whether she actually created it or not, but she claims that the dream world that the Lotus Land Story's bonus stage takes place in is "her world".
Mugetsu's older sister. Seriously, that's about all we know about her.
Tropes associated with Gengetsu:
Bonus Boss: The other extra stage boss of Lotus Land Story.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Gengetsu is not in any way connected to the main plot. She just fights because you're beating up Mugetsu and has no idea why Reimu and Marisa are even there.
Another magician that lives in the Forest of Magic, and neighbor to Marisa. Her power seems to center around the manipulation of her dolls. She's mostly aloof and self-confident, but is still willing (if reluctant) to work together with Marisa and isn't above showing kindness to others.
Tropes associated with Alice:
Action Bomb: She sends dolls stuffed with gunpowder to blow up in people's faces.
Ascended Extra: Not Alice herself, but one of her spell cards. Curse "Eerily Luminous Shanghai Dolls" was just Alice's final spell card on most difficulties in Perfect Cherry Blossom, but after a solo doll was used in the spell card and artwork in Immaterial and Missing Power, fans latched onto the concept of Shanghai being a unique doll that's always with Alice. How much of a personality Shanghai has varies from work to work. The hardest version of the card, Curse "Hanged Hourai Dolls", also tends to get depicted as her own character, but somewhat less frequently.
Bonus Boss: In Mystic Square. She's also the only Bonus Boss in all of Touhou that gives the player an ending and credit sequence after beating her, although it is actually a list of all the PC-98 characters.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Along with Marisa in Subterranean Animism. This continues into the Extra stage, where after defeating the mid-boss, Alice says to Marisa: "Look, it's the extra dungeon for after you beat the game. Good luck!"
Creating Life: Her greatest ambition is to create a doll that can act independently.
Deadpan Snarker: Her dialogue with Marisa in Imperishable Night and to a lesser extent Subterranean Animism consists essentially of the two witches throwing snarky comments at each other and occasionally at their opponent. She's much more polite and subdued when speaking alone to the other characters, so we can just blame the black-white's bad influence.
Marionette Mistress: Her puppets, however, have no degree of automation, so even though she uses them to clean her house, it doesn't really make it much easier since she has to micromanage every single one of them. It makes her habit of holding two-sided conversations with them a little odder, too.
Recurring Boss: In Mystic Square, she is the stage 3 boss and the Extra stage boss, then in Perfect Cherry Blossom, she appears multiple times in stage 3.
Retcon: In Mystic Square, Alice is a resident of Makai, supposedly created by Shinki like everyone else there. However, when she was reintroduced for the Windows series, her background was changed so that she is a human-turned-youkai living in the Forest of Magic.*
Should be noted, however, that the only source that supports this background is Akyuu's entry on her.
All official profiles never mention her once being a human.]] She also looked a lot older, despite only one game being in between and no one else aging as distinctly. Fans have come up with numerous theories to explain this discrepancy.
There's also the Alice in Wonderland thing, of course. Her extra stage in Mystic Square even comes with card soldiers and a BGM outright named "Alice in Wonderland".
She has Rozen Maiden dolls as alternate palettes in Hisoutensoku.
Location Theme Naming: Alice's spell cards are all named for places. Most famous are her "Eerily Luminous Shanghai Dolls" and "Hanged Hourai Dolls", to the point where fanworks almost universally portray her with individual dolls named Shanghai and Hourai.
Colourful Theme Naming: Using a color theme similar to the one used in Ran, Chen, and Yukari's names, Alice's title is the "Seven-Colored Puppeteer". Since Reimu is only a red and white shrine maiden, Alice asserts that Reimu is only 28.5714% (or 2/7ths) as strong as her in the dialogue before her boss fight.*
Tsundere: In canon, she's more a loner engrossed in her studies who doesn't speak much. When she does get away from her books long enough, she's known to be friendly to anyone who isn't Marisa. Fans just liked her better as a tsundere.
Unknown Rival: Reimu doesn't recall her name both times they fight after her initial appearance, first in the extra stage of Mystic Square. She fails to recognize her completely in their reunion in Perfect Cherry Blossom. Naturally, Alice was annoyed. She didn't really seem to care much after that, and they're shown to be on at least decent terms later on.
Willfully Weak: She never fights at her full strength, because she's afraid of what it might mean if she lost while going all out.
(fanart)
Black Witch
Yuki
Tries to stop the player character once she gets into Makai, alongside Mai. Looks a bit like Windows era Marisa.
A blade-throwing maid and one of Shinki's strongest servants. Tries to protect Shinki from the heroes. Fails. Basically Sakuya without the time powers.
The creator of Makai. Since she allowed a travel agency in Makai to organize tours into Gensoukyou, the heroines decide to beat her up.Tropes associated with Shinki:
Action Mom: Fanon plays with this due to her saying that everything in Makai is her creation, which would presumably include Alice, as well.
Affably Evil: The whole reason that Reimu, Marisa, and Mima went to fight her is that she was allowing demons from Makai to cross over to Gensoukyou as tourists. This started causing problems there.
by a doujin circle known as Amusement Makers, of which ZUN was a part of. However, the games and most of the characters from the PC-98 era have either been ignored by the series' continuity or have been retconned outright. So far, Reimu, Marisa, Alice, and Yuuka are the only characters to have appeared in the Windows series.This page is for Touhou characters who debuted in Highly Responsive to Prayers, Story of Eastern Wonderland, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, Lotus Land Story and Mystic Square. To see the characters who debuted in the Windows games, see Touhou Windows One and Touhou Windows Two. For characters from related works such as short stories and manga, see Touhou Other Official Works.Wherever possible, character images come from portraits not drawn by ZUN used in official games and print works. Images of characters without quality official portraits are labeled "(fanart)".Please remember to only use examples that are either canon or have undergone mass Memetic Mutation so that the page doesn't become overcrowded with tropes that only occur in one person/circle's works.CONTAINS SPOILERS
