Characters / Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires

Touhou Project characters index
Main characters: Main Characters
PC-98 Era: PC-98 Games (Highly Responsive to Prayers, Story of Eastern Wonderland, Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, Lotus Land Story, Mystic Square)
Windows Era — Main Games: Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil | Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom | Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night | Touhou Kaeidzuka ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View | Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith | Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism | Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object | Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires | Touhou Kishinjou ~ Double Dealing Character | Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom | Touhou Tenkuushou ~ Hidden Star in Four Seasons | Touhou Kikeijuu ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature | Touhou Kouryuudou ~ Unconnected Marketeers | Touhou Juuouen ~ Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost
Windows Era — Other: Side Games | Other Official Works

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This page is for Touhou characters who debuted in Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires.

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Kyouko Kasodani

Sutra-Reciting Mountain Spirit

Kyouko Kasodani

"You always gotta give a proper greeting!"

She is a yamabiko, a youkai responsible for creating echoes in the mountains. She's recently converted to Buddhism and joined the Myouren Temple, and enjoys reciting sutras.

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• A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll": According to Symposium of Post-Mysticism she somehow learned what Punk Rock is and started holding concerts (with Mystia on guitar).
• Blatant Lies: Tries to excuse fighting the protagonist by claiming that attacking humans is part of her morning duties. She's shocked when Sanae actually believes her.
• Collared by Fashion: Wears one when in her Choujuu Gigaku getup.
• Cool Shades: Wears a pair of pointy shades while she's in her Choujuu Gigaku getup, but she's also appeared wearing them in her cameo appearances in Forbidden Scrollery.
• Curtains Match the Window: Has green eyes to match her green hair.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: Adorable, but could likely rupture your eardrums at close range.
• Cute Little Fangs: As depicted in Wild and Horned Hermit.
• The Echoer: Zigzagged. As a yamabiko Youkai, her job is to reflect voices from people and turn them into echoes, but she's more than capable of normal speech as shown in Ten Desires and various side material. That said, her echoing ability has its limits when it comes to math equations. This is because yamabikos are Book Dumb, so if someone shouts a math equation (even something as simple as 1+1), she will not reciprocate it back as an echo.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Wears a leather jacket with numerous belts while in her Choujuu Gigaku getup.
• Leitmotif: "Youkai Girl at the Gate"
• Little Bit Beastly: Visually, she has the ears of a Yamabiko◊. While the kind of animal the Yamabiko is supposed to be is ambiguous at best, Symposium of Post-Mysticism has confirmed that she has a tail.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Her power is to reflect sound waves, which she does by shouting according to her fight-posturing. However, it's hardly destructive. She uses it to reflect back her danmaku.
• Nice Girl: Is one of the few characters in Symposium of Post-mysticism who is given a "Very Friendly" ranking for their relationship with humans, even higher than the likes of Sanae and Kogasa.
• Painting the Frost on Windows: Or create echoes, rather. Unfortunately for her, the people at Human Village started believing that echoes are just sound waves reflecting back, causing yamabiko to lose their purpose for existence, with her converting to Buddhism to have some kind of reason for existing.
• Punk Rock: Together with Mystia she becomes Choujuu Gigaku (dance of bird and beast), a punk group that hold 'guerrilla concerts' at the dead of night. It's her way of relieving stress. It's implied that Akyuu might even be a fan of their performances and according to the artwork from the page (which is supposed to be a photo in-verse) it appears Reisen is a fan as well, since her distinct ears are visible.

Yoshika Miyako

Faithful Undead

Yoshika Miyako

"Um... what was I guarding..."

Yoshika is a jiangshi, and a bodyguard of sorts for Seiga Kaku. She's not very good at her job.

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• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: She's not very smart to begin with, so she gets very easily distracted, which is much more accurate than it isn't. Jiangshis have been known to be very stupid and empty-headed, but really annoying when it comes to them wanting food.
• Catchphrase: "Chikayoruna!" meaning, "Go away!" or "Don't come closer!"
• Cloudcuckoolander: Very empty headed. Akyuu claims she's actually entirely mindless.
• Depending on the Artist: Artists can't seem to decide on what her skin color is supposed to be with hues ranging from normal human colored to blue, to green, to grey and to purple.
• Dumb Muscle: Very strong, very dumb. Unfortunately, this being Gensokyo, physical strength doesn't mean much, and even if it did there's plenty of strong youkai around.
• Extreme Omnivore: Her power is the ability to eat absolutely anything.
• Feel No Pain: Justified by being The Undead, she doesn't really feel pain at all.
• Flechette Storm: At any given time, her bullet patterns can fill the screen with hundreds of kunai bullets. When compared to the previous boss, this is absurd.
• Forgetful Jones: Some of the characters speculate that her brain is rotten. She is a zombie.
• Historical Domain Character: Probably based on Miyako no Yoshika, a famous scholar and poet that was rumoured to have become a hermit. It seems in this universe he became the puppet of a hermit instead. And a young girl somehow.
• Human Shield: Seiga uses her like one in the dual boss fight.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: She'll eat spirits during battle to heal herself.
• Jiangshi: Judging by her name, she's from Japan rather than China. However, her creator (Seiga Kaku) is Chinese, so it makes sense that she could simply make a jiangshi out of a Japanese person.
• Large Ham: "CURSE YOOOOOU! I'M DONE FOOOOOR!"
• Leitmotif: "Rigid Paradise"
• Paper Talisman: Has one on her forehead. Among other things, this clues Youmu in that someone else is controlling Yoshika after she defeats her.
• Poisonous Person: Her Poison Nail "Undead Murderer" spell card can poison people if it manages to connect, according to Yukari in The Grimoire of Usami.
• Recurring Boss: Appears to assist Seiga in stage 4.
• Signature Headgear: A cap with a star on it. More than a few people have noticed that the star makes the cap look remarkably like Meiling's beret.
• Soulless Shell: She's just a reanimated corpse without a soul.
• Two First Names: The kanji for it are odd, but Miyako is normally a given name.
• The Undead: A Jiangshi, to be exact. It is noted that she's gaining more and more qualities attributed to zombies these days because in the outside world people rarely tell stories about jiang-shi anymore, but zombies are popular, and complains about getting compared to them.
• Viral Transformation: Anyone bitten by her will transform into a Jiangshi... for a while, anyway.
• Warrior Poet: The "warrior" part is debatable, but when she's not under Seiga's control she once was seen reciting poems in the graveyard.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae could have used their brooms to "sweep her away" into her grave.
• Wistful Amnesia: When not under Seiga's control, her body appears to retain some memories of its former life.
• Zombie Gait: Has her arms in front in "sleepwalker"/"Thriller" position at all times. In-game, she comments that she has to do stretches to prevent stiffening.

Seiga Kaku

The Wicked Hermit Who Passes Through Walls

Seiga Kaku

"The folks in Hell consider you evil just for living a long life. How rude."

A Chinese hermit and the creator of Yoshika. She is the one that taught Miko Taoism, and the one to suggest using Buddhism to pacify Japan. She assists with Miko's resurrection in Gensokyo, although doesn't actually ally herself with the Miko faction, instead choosing to pursue a variety of people she finds interesting.

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• Affably Evil: Despite the fact that she seems to be widely recognized as evil, that doesn't stop her from acting friendly towards everyone she meets and laughing off attempts to kill her.
• Anachronism Stew: Her profile mentions that one of her inspirations for becoming a hermit was He Xiangu. While she is a mythological figure, she's believed to have lived during the Tang dynasty, which began only a few years before Miko's "death".
• Blasphemous Praise: Claims that Miko will be "far grander than that infidel prophet who resurrected three days after his execution".
• Card-Carrying Villain: Literally, she presents it to Kasen upon escaping the Kishin's trap, recognizing her as a fellow hermit.
• Curtains Match the Window: Blue hair and eyes.
• Disappeared Dad: Her father left her to follow Taoism. She ended up running out on her own family to seek her father, as well as to further practice Taoism.
• Dual Boss: Fights alongside her servant Yoshika, though you can only kill Yoshika temporarily and must empty Seiga's lifebar to proceed.
• Enemies with Death: She's a fugitive from Hell due to her unsanctioned immortality, and has to routinely fight off enemies sent to kill her.
• Enlightened Antagonist: As a hermit she's achieved enlightenment, but is utterly amoral and evil.
• Enlightenment Superpowers: The goal of all Taoist hermits, although in her case it apparently comes along with the realization that the laws of nature contain no moral guidelines.
• Evil Mentor: She taught Miko Taoism and she's a "wicked hermit." According to Miko herself, Seiga demonstrated through her actions that power is only as good or evil as the wielder.
• Faking the Dead: To run away from her family.
• Hermit Guru: She's a hermit like Kasen Ibara, but because of her personality and willingness to deceive others, she lacks divine grace and so is considered a "wicked hermit".
• Immortality Immorality:
  • A rather blatant case, where the Ministry of Right and Wrong (ie: the government of Heaven and Hell) have explicitly declared that humans living too long is itself a sin.
  • Although this logic is questioned in-series even by the generally good-natured Kasen, so depending on how you interpret it, this could even be a case of God Is Evil or Rage Against the Heavens. From Seiga's perspective anyway.
• In-Series Nickname: Also known as Seiga Niang Niang ("Lady Seiga" in Chinese).
• Intangible Woman: Sort of. She possesses the power to pass through walls, but does it by causing parts of the walls to temporarily disappear using the Wall-Removing Chisel that she keeps in her hair.
• Leitmotif: "Old Yuanshen"
• Magical Floating Shawl: Seiga is a "wicked" hermit with the power to pass through walls. She wears a flowing, translucent white cloth, which is presumably some sort of hagoromo as it appears to float around her.
• Necromancer:
  • Has no problem raising the dead to serve as her mindless minion (Yoshika). Akyuu considers this the primary reason she earned the title of "wicked hermit".
  • Her Evil Sign "Yang Xiaogui" spell card references a type of sorcery that involves taming dead spirits using dead fetuses as tools.
• Obviously Evil:
  • Byakuren can immediately tell she's ridiculously evil, and Akyuu doesn't have much love for her, either.
  • Two of her spellcards start with "Evil Sign", for heaven's sake.
• Public Domain Character: Pretty clearly supposed to be Wu Qing'e from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.
• Pseudo-Santa: Despite the fact that Gensokyo doesn't celebrate Christmas, she once dressed as Santa, complete with fake beard, while robbing a sleeping Marisa's house.
• Say It with Hearts: In Wild and Horned Hermit, she introduces herself to Kasen with hearts in her speech bubbles. And has hearts drawn on her business card.
• Shadow Archetype: Like Byakuren, she used magic to extend her life for selfish reasons. Unlike Byakuren (a devout Buddhist to whom desire is a sin) she is completely unconflicted about this. While most characters can tell that Seiga is evil, Byakuren reacts to her particularly violently.
• Soul Jar: A bamboo stick that she had "die" in her place, allowing her to become immortal.

Soga no Tojiko

Ghost of the Children of the Gods

Soga no Tojiko

"I’ll take you down!"

One of Miko's followers, she manipulated the events of the religious war as a member of the Buddhist faction. Exists as a ghost due to Futo sabotaging her attempt to become a taoist immortal. In game, she's another midboss with no dialogue - though she speaks in one of Miko's spell cards.

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• Blue Blood: From the powerful Soga clan of Asuka period Japan.
• Boss Banter: When she appears in Miko's spell card. Which, ironically enough, are the only lines of dialogue she has during gameplay.
• Came Back Wrong: Futo sabotaged her would-be body, so Tojiko remained incorporeal instead.
• Cute Ghost Girl: Her usual appearance.
• Cursed with Awesome: It is specifically stated that she likes being a ghost.
• Fog Feet: She doesn't have human legs but instead two trails of ghostly mists.
• The Gadfly: Tends to be really rough when speaking, saying things that shock people. (Tee hee.)
• Historical In-Joke: The Soga clan was overthrown by the founder of the Fujiwara clan^note in the Touhou-verse, also Mokou's grandfather, who was later struck dead by lightning, believed to be the "curse of the Soga."
• Immortality Seeker: And she succeeded, if not in the way she expected, no thanks to Futo.
• Lightning/Fire Juxtaposition: The lightning to Futo's fire.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Probably based on Tojiko no Iratsume, the daughter of the leader of the Soga, and consort of Prince Shoutoku.
• Recurring Boss: Appears in one of Miko's spell cards.
• Shock and Awe: Has the power to call thunder. Which is also lightning for some reason.
• Soul Jar: Attempted to use a literal jar to become immortal, but died because of Futo's sabotage.
• Undeathly Pallor: Her artwork in Ten Desires shows her with pale skin, about the same shade as her ghost tails. However, depictions of Tojiko after that shows her having normal skintone.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Her thunder powers are triggered by her anger.

Mononobe no Futo

A Shikaisen from Ancient Japan

Mononobe no Futo

"Though apart from creed, Buddhism and I have a profound connection. It moveth me most deeply... shall I start a fire?"

One of the Taoist followers of Miko, she manipulated the events of the religious war as a member of the anti-Buddhist faction. As part of her research into immortality, Miko put Futo in a state of suspended animation so she could be revived later as a shikaisen. This occurs when Miko's mausoleum moves to Gensokyo.

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• Ambiguously Human: Her profile describes her as "Human? (a taoist who self-identifies as a shikaisen)" - a Shikaisen being a sort of semi-immortal. She's likely on the border.
• Antiquated Linguistics: The Japanese she speaks is very archaic, showing how she's a Fish out of Temporal Water. Translations have her use Flowery Elizabethan English to reflect this.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Seems like a harmless Fish out of Temporal Water, but she does things like trying to kill her comrade because of a grudge between the families they've already betrayed. Granted, they get along fine now, so presumably she mellowed out.
• Blue Blood: From the formerly powerful Mononobe clan, who fell during the early Asuka period.
• Boss Banter: When she appears in one of Miko's spell cards.
• The Cameo: Shows up at the end of Chapter 11 of Forbidden Scrollery in order to watch Kokoro's play.
• Character Tics: In Urban Legend in Limbo, she has a habit of tilting her head in a very peculiar fashion.
• Cool Ship: Jumps on the legendary Iwafune ship^note The rock ship that Nigihayahi no Mikoto, the legendary founder of the Mononobe clan, is believed to have descended from heaven on. for a few of her spell cards.
• Death from Above: Hopeless Masquerade version 1.30 gives her a spellcard named Fate "Gate Opening for Catastrophe" that causes objects to fall on her opponent. What exactly falls depends on the number of plates Futo is close to when she activates the spell. At it's lowest level the spellcard drops buckets and pots. At the highest level it drops a UFO. (So that's where they went. And to think that of all people, she'd be the one to drop UFOs...)
• Elemental Powers: In Hopeless Masquerade, uses attacks of numerous elements, including Dishing Out Dirt, Blow You Away, and Making a Splash. Although her major spellcards seem to favor Playing with Fire.
• Enemies with Death: As a shikaisen, it's inevitable that someday, she'll have to fight off a shinigami who comes for her.
• Epic Fail: Killed Tojiko by sabotaging her planned Soul Jar. Tojiko still gained immortality by coming back as a ghost.
• Failed a Spot Check: Most people do notice Koishi when fighting her. Futo... doesn't.
• Fantastic Racism: Unreasonably hostile to youkai. It seems that this has caused a lot conflict around her, though she seems to have gotten over it by Hopeless Masquerade, in which she routinely invites youkai to convert to Taoism.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Subtle, but the cloth strips on her sleeves and shoes are all different colors. These colors (including the ribbons tied around her neck and hat) all correspond to the five colors of feng shui.
• Faux Death: In Miko's profile says Futo "continued to sleep without decaying".
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Hasn't been able to adapt to modern times.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: In translations, to reflect her usage of a very archaic dialect of Japanese.
• Foil:
  • To Mokou. Both were daughters of the aristocracy over 1000 years in the past, had issues with their families, sought out immortality, have a rival that they took revenge on for shaming said families, and are associated with fire. In Futo's case, however, her revenge was successful, and Tojiko actually died—despite that, the two of them aren't at each other's throats like Mokou and Kaguya are. Futo also seems to enjoy her immortality and has legitimate pyromania, whereas Mokou is often depicted as angsting over it and having more control over her abilities.
  • Amusingly enough, in Urban Legend in Limbo it's for, at the very least both being immortal, that makes Futo interested in befriending Mokou, and Mokou seems alright with it as well.
• Karma Houdini: She killed Tojiko. Cold blooded murder. No one seems to care anymore, least of all Tojiko who discovered the joys of being freed from her mortal body.
• Immortality Seeker: Like the rest of the Taoists she desired immortality.
• Leitmotif: "Legend of the Great Gods", which also has a remix in Hopeless Masquerade.
• Lightning/Fire Juxtaposition: The fire to Tojiko's lightning.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Probably based on Mononobe no Futsuhime, the little sister of the leader of the Moriya, and wife of the leader of the Soga. According to one account, Futsuhime turned traitor against the Mononobe by killing her brother. Futo appears to have been more subtle than Futsuhime. Another distinct difference between Futo and her real-life counterpart is that Mononobe no Futsuhime was the mother of Tojiko no Iratsume, the basis for Soga no Tojiko. In Touhou, Futo is absolutely not Tojiko's mother. Something that would've put a whole different context to what happened between Futo and Tojiko in the game's backstory.
• Pet the Dog: In Grimoire of Usami, she actually takes several children out for a ride in the Iwafune when they ask. The judges even outright given her an extra point just for helping out.
• Pre-Final Boss: Is the penultimate boss of Ten Desires.
• Pyromaniac: Her way of dealing with anything that scares her is to set it on fire. Also, her Last Word in Hopeless Masquerade is simply setting the whole stage on fire and her dialog also indicates that she enjoys starting fires when she's feeling emotional. This behavior is a Historical In-Joke about her involvement in the burning of Buddhist temples during the religious war.
• Recurring Boss: Appears in one of Miko's spell cards along with Tojiko.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Her unique mechanic in Hopeless Masquerade revolves around summoning and breaking plates to receive Status Buffs. Lampshaded by her Boss Subtitles in Urban Legend in Limbo, which calls her "the Plate-Breaking Shikaisen".
• The Rival: Hopeless Masquerade and its sequels present her as one to Ichirin, due to both of them being the incredibly loyal Number Two of competing religious factions. By the events of Antimony of Common Flowers, it appears to have become a full-blown Friendly Rivalry on Futo's side at least, with her win-quote against Ichirin being asked if they can see the Prisimriver's concert together.
• Signature Headgear: Wears a tate-eboshi. Unlike Tojiko, her hat matches the kariginu robe she wears and is a part of a shinto priest's uniform.
• Soul Jar: Symposium of Post-Mysticism explains that she transferred her soul into a plate. She then essentially became her Soul Jar when the plate took her form, and her corpse became the plate.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Her Occult Special in Urban Legend in Limbo revolve around summoning Okiku from Banchou no Sarayashiki.
• Sycophantic Servant: Her defining personality trait. Futo takes the Undying Loyalty that most servants in the series display to their masters, and turns it into pure, single-minded worship of Miko and everything she does.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: The manipulation of feng shui? Making it either better or worse (depends on how you look at it) is that she's not actually using feng shui; it's her name for the mashup of shintou and taoist magic that she uses.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Translations often have her speak like this to reflect her archaic Japanese.

Toyosatomimi no Miko

Shoutoku Taoist

Toyosatomimi no Miko

"This era, when humans deny my existence and I have become legend, is what I was waiting for! Now, attempt to defeat me! And I shall become a living legend!"

A former ruler of Japan, known in modern times as the legendary saint Prince Shoutoku (apparently the part about her gender got lost over time). She publicly advanced Buddhism, and was highly influential in spreading it throughout the country, but she only used it to control the masses. In secret she studied Taoism under Seiga in an attempt to gain immortality. When her own research began to destroy her health, she performed a secret ritual on herself that was designed to put her in a state of suspended animation and then be revived later as a shikaisen. However, she was thwarted by her own manipulations: Buddhist monks placed seals on her mausoleum which prevented her resurrection. She remained sealed until the modern day, when people began to question whether or not Prince Shoutoku was ever a real person.^note This is something that actually happened, albeit given as much credit as similar theories about William Shakespeare. This lack of belief in her caused her mausoleum to be moved to Gensokyo, where all mythical beings in Japan go, allowing her resurrection to be completed.

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• The Ace: As befits someone based on the legendary statesman, she's supposedly a wise leader, a peerless warrior, a brilliant strategist, and unexpectedly a master craftsman. Or so she claims. At the very least she was able to make a perfect Mask of Hope in Hopeless Masquerade.
• Affably Evil: "Evil" is debatable, but she's a charming conversationalist who seems to treat even her inferiors with respect.
• And I Must Scream: She was restless in her state of suspended animation, and the manual states that she vengefully awaits the day she will awaken... which is the day Ten Desires takes place.
• And Then What?: She actually does have a plan! She'll take over the "administration" of the humans in Gensokyo if she decides they need it (she is open to the possibility they don't) and eventually plans on Ascending to a Higher Plane of Existence as a Celestial.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Played with. While it's blatant that Miko is a woman after her resurrection, it's still unclear whether she identified as a man in her previous life, deliberately presented as male during her lifetime and kept her female identity secret, or was publicly a woman and had this detail erased over time. Prince Shotoku is still remembered as a man in the Outside World, at least according to Sanae.^note This may also be an allusion to the works of Shinran, a monk and poet of the Guze Kannon sect, who asserted that Prince Shoutoku had reincarnated as both men and women some 500 times.
• Anime Hair: Her hair is shaped in a way that makes it look like animal ears. In Wild and Horned Hermit, you'd be forgiven for thinking that she's some kind of beast youkai thanks to the art style.
• Arch-Enemy: There's no love lost between her and Byakuren, though they can be civil towards one another.
• Ascended Meme: From the moment she was introduced, fans have noted how similar in appearance she was to Neku Sakuraba. Come Hopeless Masquerade, she received a Neku palette swap.
  • Before Symposium of Post-Mysticism confirmed that they were actually earmuffs, many fans assumed that what she was wearing over her ears were headphones (which would be rather anachronistic considering the time period she comes from). Come Hopeless Masquerade, her losing sprite has them break down and show a spring inside. Sumireko even asks her what brand they are in Antinomy of Common Flowers.
• Astrologer: As part of her Taoist magic. The sphere of the heavens shows up as a theme in some of her spell cards, and in Hopeless Masquerade she has the rather hammy title of "Almighty Taoist Who Rules the Cosmos".
• Badass Back: Faces away from the camera as one of her victory animations in Hopeless Masquerade. In the sequel Urban Legend in Limbo, she stops mid-battle to take this pose as part of her Occult Special.
• Badass Cape: Her Hopeless Masquerade outfit gives her one, which makes her look remarkably evil. It even changes colors depending on her current popularity.
• Batman Gambit: She promoted the values of Buddhism in order to subjugate the population of Japan, while secretly practicing Taoism to attain immortality for herself.
• Benevolent Mage Ruler: She styles herself as such, at least.
• Bishie Sparkle: For some reason, her "I'm AWESOME" pose Hopeless Masquerade is done with glinting sparkles around her.
  • Gets worse in Wild and Horned Hermit where Kasen has to close her eyes not to get blinded by her sparkles.
• Blessed with Suck: While her ability to hear the desires of ten people at once is useful, it can get grating to hear so many voices after a while. To deal with this she wears earmuffs, which lets her block out people's voices when she has to.
• Boss Banter: Actually speaks a line during battle without pausing the game.
• Breath Weapon: The (independently scrolling) dragon pattern in her cape in Hopeless Masquerade isn't just for decoration - it can actually breathe fire.
• Came Back Strong: Came back from entombment more powerful than ever.
• Cape Swish: Apart from doing it in some of her portraits in Hopeless Masquerade, she can use it to teleport around the stage.
• The Cameo: Shows up at the end of Chapter 11 of Forbidden Scrollery alongside Byakuren watching Kokoro's play of Hopeless Masquerade.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: When people began to deny her existence her mausoleum was transported to Gensokyo. This allowed her to complete her resurrection. At the same time, the fact that she was a legendary figure meant that she Came Back Strong. Even better, this is her schtick in Hopeless Masquerade: her power is affected by how many people believe in her.
• Cool Sword:
  • Widely assumed to be a Seven Star Sword, a design with evil-repelling properties in Taoist thought, due to Prince Shoutoku possessing one. In fact, due to how the shikaisen process works Miko's current body is a Cool Sword transformed into a human, carrying around her original body transformed into the sword. She mostly fights with her shaku instead.
  • In Hopeless Masquerade, she still uses the shaku for melee attacks, but she has a few attacks where she partially or (briefly) completely unsheathes the sword. Doing so causes it to spew light, or cut open a rift in space to spew light.
• Cute Little Fangs: In her Wild and Horned Hermit appearances.
• Deadpan Snarker: Symposium of Post-Mysticism shows her to be pretty quick-witted, though she's about as likely to make a pun as she is to mock Byakuren.
• Dueling Messiahs: With Byakuren Hijiri; Miko is the more pragmatic one.
• The Emperor: Was the Shadow Emperor variety while she was alive.
• Enemies with Death: And she even looks forward to fighting a shinigami.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Unites with both Byakuren Hijiri and Reimu in Hopeless Masquerade in hopes of defeating Kokoro in Kokoro's story.
  • They team up again in Antinomy of Common Flowers to figure out the cause of the incident, although Miko is in charge.
• Energy Ball: Her Wishful Soul of Desire in Hopeless Masquerade. As stated in the description of her skill, she uses the desires of the people who believe in her to form an orb of Pure Energy that seeks and attacks her opponent.
• Enlightenment Superpowers: Basically what it means to be a hermit in this setting, although she may have skipped a step... Also a long-term goal of hers, as a way of becoming a Celestial.
• Evil Laugh: Does one as her victory pose in Hopeless Masquerade.
• Face Palm: Faceshaku, actually. One of her portraits. The losing variant has her as a complete mess, while the story variant is used in "Why didn't I notice this earlier?"
• Faux Death: Was thought to be dead, but was merely sleeping.
• Final Boss: Of Ten Desires and also Byakuren, Ichirin, Kokoro, and Sumireko's stories in Urban Legend in Limbo.
• Foil:
  • She's pretty much set up as one to Byakuren.
  • She also serves as one for the Komeiji sisters, more specifically Satori. Both posses the ability to hear the thoughts of other, but where Satori can hear all the thoughts of those around her and can't turn her powers off (at least not without becoming an Empty Shell), Miko can only hear the desires of up to ten people and can shut her powers off with nothing more than earmuffs. Also, Miko is a metaphorical hermit, while Satori is a literal hermit.
• Got the Whole World in My Hand: Her spell card Tao Sign "Heavenly Ways in the Palm of One's Hand" is an unusual variant - fitting her Hopeless Masquerade title of "Almighty Taoist Who Rules the Cosmos", she conjures a celestial globe rather than a terrestrial one.
• Graceful Loser: Despite her occasionally supervillain-esque personality Miko has no problem with admitting her defeat, whether in combat or debate.
  Miko: "I had actually planned to become the hope of this world, but I will concede to you."
• Headphones Equal Isolation: Invoked, and with earmuffs instead of headphones (though that hasn't stopped fanartists from drawing her with headphones instead of earmuffs for Rule of Cool). She wears them so she doesn't listen in onto every conversation around her without wanting to.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: The ability to listen to ten people talking at once. She can use it to hear the ten desires of a human, which lets her be The Omniscient.
• The Hermit: She at first offers to become the Reasonable Authority Figure for the human population of Gensokyo, but after being told that it's unnecessary, she decides to isolate herself from the world and continue her Taoist training.
• Historical Gender Flip: She's a genderswapped Prince Shoutoku, though it's never explained how the fact that she was female became obscured over time.^note And that's provided she didn't quite simply choose to reincarnate as a woman this time around. It wouldn't be the first time Prince Shoutoku is attributed with switching genders between reincarnations.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Though she's not exactly a villain, she's a much worse person than the historical figure she's based on, being portrayed as a hypocrite who spread the word of Buddhism throughout Japan to control the masses while secretly practicing Taoism in order to gain immortality.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Her ploy to unify Japan under Buddhism and use Taoist resurrection to attain immortality is derailed when Buddhism proves too popular to die out and her resurrection is delayed by Buddhist monks erecting a temple over her grave.
• Holy Halo: Can generate the Buddhist variety, due to Prince Shoutoku's association with Guse Kannon.
• Hypocrite: She calls herself out on it, at least. During her banter with Byakuren in Symposium of Post-Mysticism, she attempts to call Byakuren an evil, fallen priest, but mentions that she has no room to talk, having used Buddhism as a political tool.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: Although she uses a tsurugi rather than a katana, in Hopeless Masquerade she never draws her sword for more than a few frames. And when she does, it tends to shoot lasers.
• Immortality Seeker: She uses Buddhism as a tool to control the masses while learning Taoism to gain immortality. She succeeded in glorious fashion.
• Large Ham: Her Badass Cape reinforces this impression she gives when she laughs about her enemy's demise. She's surprisingly polite though.
• Laser Blade: In ''Heed the Commands with Absolute Care'', her Last Word in Hopeless Masquerade. Her shaku transforms into an enormous one.
• Leitmotif: "Shoutoku Legend ~ True Administrator", later remixed in Hopeless Masquerade.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: "Playtime's over!"
• Light 'em Up: Uses a number of light-themed attacks.
• Meaningful Name: Toyosatomimi literally translates to "abundant, clever ears," referring to her ability.
  • And maybe to her ear-like hairstyle too.
• Messianic Archetype: As a seijin (generally translated as "saint"). She denies the stories that she was born in a stable though.
• Multi-Melee Master: In Hopeless Masquerade she generally fights with her shaku, but pulls out her sword for some of her stronger moves.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Byakuren found Miko's mausoleum without being sure what it was, and built Myouren Temple over it to keep it sealed. This just succeeded in waking her up.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: She's a gender flipped Prince Shoutoku. Prince Shoutoku was already semi-legendary, but Ten Desires says he was a Taoist immortality-seeker who used Buddhism to control the masses. And was also a girl.
• Our Gods Are Different: This is almost a footnote in how little it matters, but technically she is a god because she was deified in Shinto shrines (or rather, Prince Shoutoku was). She didn't even realize this until Kanako pointed it out to her.
  Futo: "God? Well, if thou meanst the Crown Prince, 'tis an understandable mistake."
• Path of Inspiration: Tried to use Buddhism as a tool to placate the masses in order to keep them compliant. Her debates with Byakuren in Symposium of Post-Mysticism are... interesting.
  Miko: "To be honest, I think of Buddhism as a political tool. It corrects the disorder in human nature, and teaches people to accept everything bad as a personal test, so really it's all for the benefit of those in power. From my perspective, teaching Buddhism to youkai is nonsense. It's just like playing pretend. [...] Desires are also a part of one's self. The truth is that it's impossible to separate from them. But maybe this is something that can't be understood by a senile old nun who becomes satisfied by merely chanting sutras."
• Popularity Power: Specifically the desires of her supporters take the form of divine spirits (essentially larval gods) which she absorbs. Her gameplay gimmick in Hopeless Masquerade gives her stronger and wider, or weaker and more narrow attacks depending on her current popularity. Interestingly, one of her spell cards becomes stronger at very high or very low popularity, shooting a gold or black laser respectively.
  • Her skill Tenfold Listening allows her to gather even more popularity. However, the gathered popularity can be stolen by her opponent if she is hit while charging up for the skill.
• Power Nullifier: Reisen's story in Urban Legend in Limbo reveals that she's capable of using her hermit arts to nullify Kaguya's eternal corridor spell on Eientei.
• The Power of the Sun: Her Taoist/Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun spell cards. It presumably comes with being descended from Amaterasu.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Despite having intentionally abandoned her humanity by becoming a hermit (in the supernatural mystic sense, not the seclusion sense), she ends up on the side of humanity by default during the discussion in Symposium of Post-Mysticism, with Byakuren taking the side of the youkai and Kanako being somewhere in between. She also seems rather enamored with the concept of "human dignity", and seems willing to take charge of the human village if necessary. "For their own good", of course.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: The leader of the Taoists and a prince, and their most powerful warrior.
• Royal Blood: The child of an Emperor, with the Emperors of Japan tracing their lineage back to Amaterasu.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: Spent over 1,000 years sealed in her tomb.
• She Is the King: Obviously being female didn't stop her from being the Crown Prince, since Seiga and Futo still refer to her as such.
• Shout-Out: Her popularity meter◊ is the Reaction Guys/Gaijin 4Koma meme.
• Signature Headgear: She constantly wears a pair of earmuffs, which are meant to block out all the desires she'd constantly hear otherwise.
• Smug Smiler: Tends to wear a confident smirk or her face.
• Soul Jar: As part of her process of becoming immortal, she switched places with her sword, letting her sword "die" in her place.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Her Cipangu the Golden Sword in Hopeless Masquerade causes giant sword blades to stab out from thin air.
• Staff of Authority: Usually seen holding a shaku.
• Stance System: Sorta. Her occult attack in Urban Legend in Limbo can either enhance her melee or danmaku attacks, but the catch is that this is chosen by her opponent.
• Star Power: Some of her attacks are themed after meteor showers and armillary spheres. The meteors are also divine spirits, evoking this trope.
• Straw Hypocrite: Spread Buddhism through Japan, not because she believed in its cause, but as a political tool to pacify the general populace and prevent them from gaining power.
• Sword Beam: Has five types in Hopeless Masquerade - she can fire beams by swinging her shaku, by partially unsheathing her sword, or by slashing the air with her sword iai-style to create a rift that shoots beams; one of her spell cards unsheathes it fully to create a Wave Motion Sword, while her Last Word generates a massive Laser Blade around her shaku and swings it down.
• Take Over the World: Plans on "administrating" the humans in Gensokyo; if they need it.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: If she is selected alongside Byakuren as partners in Antinomy of Common Flowers, she shares a special intro with Byakuren which start with both of them attempting to kick the other in the head before they get into proper fighting positions.
• Teleport Cloak: Her "Shukuchi Cape" move in the fighting games.
• Title Drop: Her ultimate spell is named Stars Falling on the Divine Spirit Mausoleum. "Eastern Divine Spirit Mausoleum" being the Japanese name of Ten Desires.
• Unmoving Plaid: Her cape has a similar effect to Utsuho's, except it's on the outside, and instead of stars there are dragons.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Human Sign "Tradition of the Weak Over the Strong", from Hopeless Masquerade version 1.30
• The Wise Prince: How she was viewed in life. And how she continues to think of herself.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Her Last Word in Urban Legend in Limbo which features her taking on both qualities of her Stance System and unleashing two slashes from a Wave Motion Sword on her opponent.
• Young Conqueror: Technically she already ruled Japan and was trying to stabilise it rather than take it over, but her methods fit this trope. She even briefly entertains the idea of taking over Gensokyo in order to protect its human population.

Mamizou Futatsuiwa

The Tanuki Youkai with Ten Transformations

Mamizou Futatsuiwa

"My transformative powers are still at their prime. Now, shall we begin a ten-game match of danmaku transformations?"

A tanuki from the outside world, specifically hailing from Sado. She was called to Gensokyo by her old friend Nue to help fight against Miko, but by the time she arrived Miko was already defeated. She seems to have positioned herself as a friend of all youkai, who will help them out when they're in trouble, although she also regularly visits the Human Village in disguise. She originally stayed at the Myouren Temple but no longer seems to be associated with them as of Hopeless Masquerade.

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• Antiquated Linguistics: She uses old-fashioned speech patterns, which leads Sanae to assume that she's very old. Symposium of Post-Mysticism notes that she talks like an elderly woman.
• Ascended Extra: Was just a bonus boss with no direct relation to the events of the main story. Forbidden Scrollery would turn her into a main character, and the closest thing the manga has to a lead antagonist, and she's been a major character ever since.
• Art Shift: The youkai she summons in her spell card "Transformation: Youkai Gate of One Hundred Demons" really stand out compared to the rest of Hopeless Masquerade's graphics, since they're drawn in a traditional ukiyo-e style.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Her "Men in Black" outfit from Urban Legend in Limbo, which is becoming a popular subject for fanart.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed as she is more morally ambiguous, but the final chapter of Forbidden Scrollery ends with a net win for her, as she not only is able to safely subdue the Night Parade Scroll, but leaves the incident taking it for herself.
• Batman Gambit: Chapter 49 of Forbidden Scrollery implies that Akyuu telling Kosuzu her true nature was purposely by Mamizou's design, as she tells Kosuzu outright that her main reason for meeting with Akyuu was so she'd know her true identity.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • She is very, very silly, both in danmaku and general demeanor. She's also an Extra Boss and a Manipulative Bitch on par with Yukari herself.
  • In Chapter 49 of Forbidden Scrollery, she tells Kosuzu that it would be fairly trivial to just kill her and take her youma book collection, but she won't because that's not how she operates.
  • In Chapter 52 she manages to easily subdue an oni, which are considered among the strongest youkai.
• Big Ball of Violence: Her Last Word in Hopeless Masquerade involves this, complete with cartoony sound effects. Her Last Word in Urban Legend in Limbo retains this but drops the cartoony sound effects.
• Broken Pedestal: Kosuzu's opinion of Mamizou turns from admiration to distrust upon finding out her true youkai nature in chapter 47 of Forbidden Scrollery, which isn't helped by Mamizou basically threatening her in chapter 49 if she doesn't allow her to borrow youma books and the Night Parade Scroll.
• Call-Back:
  • She summons frog danmaku that explode, which is reminiscent of one of Suwako's spell cards from Mountain of Faith and Sanae's "B" shot type from Undefined Fantastic Object.
  • One of her specials in Hopeless Masquerade is the Night Parade, the same Night Parade she has been recruiting in Forbidden Scrollery.
• The Cavalry: She was supposed to defeat Miko on behalf of her old friend Nue. Too bad the heroines did it first, so now she stays in Gensokyo permanently.
• Characterization Marches On: Mamizou's debut in Ten Desires features no hints of the affable yet sinister Trickster Archetype she'd be developed into starting from Forbidden Scrollery, and instead just comes off as a more traditional Cool Old Lady.
• Cool Old Lady: One of the few characters of great age who actually acts like she's old or at least late middle-aged (she claims she isn't that old, despite there being evidence to the contrary), but she's still cool enough to attract fangirls and followers.
• Cool Shades: Wears these as part of her Men in Black outfit in Urban Legend in Limbo.
• The Corrupter: Occasionally comes across as this to Kosuzu in Forbidden Scrollery, trying to subtly influence her opinion on youkai. Mamizou also has her read a book to children that's essentially pro-tanuki propaganda. However, in chapter 25, she warns Kosuzu that using the fortune-telling book she found might lure her away from her humanity, and in chapter 49 that her association with youma books has already made her cursed.
• Cute Little Fangs: Has these in Wild and Horned Hermit.
• Depending on the Artist: The kind of glasses she wears are different depending on who's drawing her; most official art has her wearing pince-nez glasses, but in Hopeless Masquerade she wears more modern, under-rim style glasses.
• Ditto Fighter: Hopeless Masquerade version 1.30 gives her a special move that makes her transform into her opponent and use one of their attacks. In a Mirror Match, she does a Doppleganger Attack instead.
• The Don: She has some elements of this, being the big boss of the tanuki of Sado island who drove away the foxes and is implied to be the leader of Gensokyo's tanuki as well. The fact that she's a moneylender doesn't help.
• Doppleganger Attack:
  • For her survival card, she generates two shikigami copies of herself. Those copies eventually summon two copies of themselves each, and then two more later on, so that by the end of the spell, you're facing down ten copies of Mamizou.
  • Also her Last Word in Hopeless Masquerade: "Band of 808 Tanuki" which involves multiple copies of herself all attacking at once in a Big Ball of Violence.
• Even the Girls Want Her: In the non-romantic sense of the trope. Kosuzu has become a squealing fangirl of her (while not realizing she's a youkai), and she's rather popular at the Myouren Temple too.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: Her idle animations in Hopeless Masquerade have her smoking her pipe or taking notes on her notepad in the midst of battle.
• Expecting Someone Taller: When the heroines heard that the youkai were calling a trump card against the resurrected saint, they were expecting some of the more fearsome sounding monsters of Japanese lore like the giant Gashadokuro. A tanuki wasn't exactly what they had in mind. Marisa, being Marisa, couldn't resist mocking her on this.
  Marisa: Sure, but you're still a tanuki, right? The kind that drums on their bellies on the night of the full moon, right?
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Doesn't like foxes, since tanuki and kitsune are traditionally rivals. There were no foxes where she used to live, but her profile says that she may end up causing trouble with the foxes that live in Gensokyo. Despite her hatred of foxes, though, she has nothing against humans; her profile says that she likes to play tricks on them occasionally, but she would also lend money to the poor and was able to live amongst them easily in her hometown of Sado. That said, Forbidden Scrollery shows that she's not above veiled threats if deemed necessary.
  • Interestingly, in a chapter of Wild and Horned Hermit she seemed sympathetic towards a fox that Reimu had bound and gagged for the previous chapter's mischief. That or she simply thought that Reimu was being unfairly harsh, fox or not.
  • Urban Legend in Limbo has her mention in her victory quotes against Mokou and Reisen that she doesn't care much for rabbits either.
• Faux Affably Evil: Normally makes the extra effort to be outright Affably Evil, but in Forbidden Scrollery's Chapter 49, she visits Suzunaan as usual and starts a bit more pushy than usual, referring to herself as a friend to Kosuzu. She then asks to borrow the Night Parade scroll. Kosuzu, who by this time has learned Mamizou is a youkai, gently tries to let her know it's not part of the library's usual catalog and that she doesn't like lending youma books. Mamizou accepts she's a youkai, but she keeps asking for the scroll more forcefully, and while she leaves with no violence and without the scroll, she does leave some ominous implications for Kosuzu.
• Feeling Their Age: She's the only extra boss that gets winded, starts coughing, and asks for a break after fighting. In Sanae's route she even talks about how she's more than likely past her prime, and that Nue probably overestimates her strength. Ten transformations seem to be her limit too as she struggles to remember how many she did after fighting. In Youmu's route she attempts to hide her fatigue poorly, before asking for some more time to rest.
• Flunky Boss:
  • Most of her attacks in Hopeless Masquerade involve summoning various youkai, mostly tanuki in diguise, who do the attacking for her (or whom she attacks with). Her gameplay gimmick revolves around this: every time one of her summons gets hit by an enemy attack and "killed", she loses a leaf icon next to her spirit meter. When she runs out of leaves she can't summon anything for about 10 seconds... which doesn't leave her with many moves.
  • In Chapter 51 of Forbidden Scrollery, when faced with Kosuzu possessed by the oni of the Night Parade Scroll, Mamizou has a whole bunch of non-humanoid youkai tanuki help her fight it.
• Fighting Clown: In Hopeless Masquerade she has many strange and silly attacks and animations. You can tell that she isn't taking the fights too seriously.
• Foil: She has a number of similarities to Yukari: both of them are skilled chessmasters, both have a vast network of minions (shikigami for Yukari, tanuki for Mamizou), and both are very powerful in their own right while enjoying toying with their enemies. What divides the two is that Mamizou is often honest and open with her intentions and will often jump at the chance to involve herself in an interesting incident, starkly contrasting Yukari who goes out of her way to be cryptic and avoid getting personally involved in incidents unless strictly necessary. Yukari's actions are also all in service of Gensokyo, while Mamizou's are heavily implied to be for personal power and ambition.
• Foreshadowing: Her rather impressive transformation into a human back in Forbidden Scrollery ends up being used in Hopeless Masquerade for the fake-out Stage 5 as one of her main gimmicks. Same with her high compatibility with tsukumogami that was mentioned in Chapters 4 and 5; these were incorporated in several of her attacks in Hopeless Masquerade, as well as her ending where she uses her knowledge to teach Kokoro the best way she could control her powers without losing her identity as a youkai.
• Furo Scene: Weaponized with her Transformation "Bunbuku Hot Soup Bathtub" spellcard, where one of her tanuki followers transforms into a giant kettle and attacks with steam, all while she relaxes while using the water in the giant kettle as a bath.
• Game Face: When trying to get Kosuzu to loan her the Night Parade scroll in Chapter 49 of Forbidden Scrollery, she briefly assumes her true form while threatening her before shifting back as if nothing had happened.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Despite the fact that in Forbidden Scrollery she's probably the closest thing to a villain, her and Reimu end up working together a lot.
• Graceful Loser:
  • If she loses due to the battle timing out, she'll clap as if to congratulate the other character, and not of the sarcastic kind either.
  • In Chapter 32 of Wild and Horned Hermit her reaction to being bested by Kasen is to more or less concede the loss and congratulate her for doing so.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: In Hopeless Masquerade she uses the gourd of sake she carries around as a melee weapon.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: See Flunky Boss above.
• Hidden Depths: Despite her normally unflappable demeanour, Doremy's win-quote against her in Antimony of Common Flowers reveals Mamizou actually fears the humans of the outside world, implicitly from having spent years watching the Tanuki culture of Sado slowly die out.
• Hugh Mann:
  • In Hopeless Masquerade, she makes no attempt whatsoever to change her very distinctive way of speaking when she disguises herself as someone else. The only one of her opponents who doesn't notice this right away is Ichirin.
  • Similarly in Chapter 38 of Forbidden Scrollery she makes the same mistake when trying to trick Kosuzu while disguised as Reimu, but this time she catches herself.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Most games romanize her family name as "Hutatsuiwa". 100th Black Market, however, uses both "Futatsuiwa" and "Futatuiwa".
• It Amused Me: Gets involved in Hopeless Masquerade mainly for the hell of it.
• Leitmotif:
  • "Futatsuiwa from Sado", remixed to "Futatsuiwa from Gensokyo" in Hopeless Masquerade.
  • In Hopeless Masquerade, another remixed version of her theme is the background music for the Stage 5 battle, which is a strong indication that you're actually fighting Mamizou in disguise.
• Little Bit Beastly: Tanuki ears and a notably large, fluffy tail.
• Lunacy: Her transformation powers are strongest on the night of a full moon.
• Manipulative Bitch: To a downright terifying degree:
  • In Forbidden Scrollery:
    • She encourages Kosuzu to summon the Night Parade to create minor youkai that the Tanuki can recruit. She also helps Reimu find out that Kosuzu is doing this, and then encourages Kosuzu to summon the Night Parade just once a month so not to attract attention. Result: Even when Reimu and Marisa find out the Tanuki are recruiting the Night Parade youkai, they don't punish or even stop them or Mamizou. Kosuzu continues to summon the Night Parade at a slower pace, thus providing the Tanuki with followers.
    • She continues her mind games by deliberately giving Kosuzu a pro-Tanuki book that she wrote herself in front of Reimu, and Reimu can't say anything that would reveal her own close involvement with youkai.
    • In Chapter 38 of Forbidden Scrollery, as payback for the tengu badmouthing the tanuki in their newspapers, she transforms into Reimu to get the Night Parade scroll from Kosuzu, and then uses it to create more tsukumogami to whisper things discrediting newspapers in the eyes of villagers via word of mouth.
    Mamizou: Social media kills newspapers.
  • She also displays some of this in Urban Legend in Limbo, she happens to have Gensokyo's power stone, which allows one to cross the barrier at will. She offers this to Sumireko, who's been breaking the barrier with the other power stones to interact with Gensokyo's inhabitants so that she'll stop breaking the barrier. However, she instead gives her a transformed tanuki, trapping her in Gensokyo where she gets assaulted by nearly everyone, to dissuade her from messing with Gensokyo again. However, she never realized that the Lunar Capital was making their own play with this incident.
  • Early on in Lotus Eaters, she collaborates with Suika on a plot to stage a kidnapping of a regular of Geidontei, including Suika staging the rescuing, specifically so they convince Miyoi to set up a late shift so that they and other youkai could drink in peace without humans noticing. Surprisingly, she lets Miyoi in on the conspiracy almost immediately after it's been accomplished.
• Meaningful Appearance: In her human disguise she wears a leaf-shaped hairclip, replacing the leaf that usually rests on top of her head in her regular form.
• Meaningful Name: Depending on the kanji used, mami can mean "tanuki" or "deceiving spirit". Futatsu Iwa (Two Stones) is a place on Sado Island known for its large numbers of tanuki.
• The Men in Black: Her occult theme in Urban Legend in Limbo. For her Occult Special, she briefly wears a black suit with a skirt and black shades while performing the attack.
• Mirror Match: When playing as Miko in Hopeless Masquerade, Mamizou will transform into her for the first stage of the fight. A weaker example occurs when playing as Reimu in Ten Desires, since Mamizou takes Reimu's appearance during one of her spell cards. Said spellcard is named Pseudo-Exorcism of the Stupid Shrine Maiden.
• Monster Lord: Shows traits of this after her initial appearance, what with leading a group of weak non-humanoid tanuki.
• Mundane Utility: Is shown in the manga to use her big fluffy tail as a makeshift pillow.
• Never Mess with Granny: She's implied to be a very old and powerful youkai (Albeit old enough that she's actually starting to feel her age), and unlike many of the other youkai of similar age, she actually acts and talks like she's old.
• Not So Invincible After All: While in Forbidden Scrollery her schemes go off more or less without a hitch, in Chapter 32 of Wild and Horned Hermit Kasen manages to turn the tables on Mamizou by tricking both her and her tanuki followers into drinking oil from the Douju's Jar, which leaves them unable to move from drunkenness for several days.
• Parasol of Pain: In Hopeless Masquerade one of her melee weapons is a karakasa (who's actually a disguised tanuki).
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Despite having impressive transformation abilities, her "human disguise" when she visits the Human Village in Forbidden Scrollery is basically just her real form with longer hair and no animal ears or tail, complete with a leaf-shaped hairclip. Mamizou herself lampshades this by admitting that she's "lightly disguised".
• Pet the Dog: A few moments pop up in Forbidden Scrollery:
  • In Chapter 11:
    • When Kosuzu tells Mamizou her worries about Reimu's trustworthiness, despite having a mental laugh at Reimu's expense she chooses not to encourage this train of thought, even though it would probably make her own plans a lot easier.
    • When Kosuzu confides in Mamizou about her worries over Kokoro's Noh play (mistakenly believing it to steal human emotions), she helps create a new play for Kokoro (based on the events of Hopeless Masquerade), managing to put Kosuzu at ease, ensure Kokoro still has a way to stabilize her emotions, and create a play all the villagers can understand and enjoy, all without any notable benefit to herself.
  • In Chapter 37 it's revealed that Mamizou got Kosuzu home after she fainted upon seeing the umatsuki.
• Public Domain Character: Based on the Folk Hero Danzaburou Danuki.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Has these in Chapter 37 of Forbidden Scrollery when she theorizes on what the umatsuki's goals are.
• Sequential Boss: In Hopeless Masquerade she's the boss of Stages 5 and 6 in the other characters' routes, first in disguise and then in her true form.
• Shout-Out:
  • She isn't the first Tanuki to transform into a Shrine Maiden for one of their attacks.
  • Her Last Word in Urban Legend in Limbo is one big homage to Men in Black.
• Signature Headgear: While bareheaded in her first appearance in Ten Desires, in Hopeless Masquerade and Urban Legend in Limbo, she wears a leaf-like hat with a bow and a pair of bells on it that brings to mind her nature as a tanuki.
• Silver Fox: In Forbidden Scrollery she's depicted as quite pretty, despite being visibly older than most of the cast.
• Smoking Is Cool: Her artwork in Hopeless Masquerade has her holding a kiseru, a long thin-stemmed Japanese pipe. One of her attacks even involves blowing smoke in the enemy's face. Incidentally, fanart depicted her with a pipe for a long time beforehand.
• Stronger with Age: According to ZUN in Strange Creators of Outer World, the transformation abilities of tanuki get stronger with age, and she's a very old tanuki.
• Superboss: The EX boss of Ten Desires.
• Take Over the World: Her dream self in Antinomy of Common Flowers expresses the desire to conquer Gensokyo and reshape it into her ideal and, should the player lose, then do the same for all of Japan. This puts a lot of her behaviour and actions in a different light.
• Tanuki: She's based on a tanuki Folk Hero and comes from a Japanese city-island that's known for its high tanuki population. As is consistent with the folklore surrounding tanuki, she's also a mischievous shapeshifter and she often carries a gourd of sake and a book of promissory notes.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In Urban Legend in Limbo Mamizou and Kasen don't exactly get along, but still work together in order to teach Sumireko a lesson regarding messing with Gensokyo.
• The Transmogrifier: She can change other people's shapes as well as her own. As of Hopeless Masquerade 1.30 she is able to transform the opponent into various animals by using the spell card Transformation "Futatsuiwa Family's Curse". ^note Reimu into a white fox on a Yin Yang orb, Marisa into a raven with a witch hat, Ichirin into a monkey riding a goofy Unzan, Byakuren into a mouse who uses her beads as a hamsterwheel, Futo into a chicken on a plate, Miko into an owl, Nitori into a turtle with helicopter rotors, Koishi into a black cat sitting on top of her third eye, Kokoro into a tengu mask, Mamizou into a tanuki trying to hide under a leaf, Shinmyoumaru into a clam in her bowl, Mokou into a Fire Rat, Kasen into a snake wrapped around a blue orb, Sumireko into a bakebake from PC-98 era, Reisen into a rabbit, Doremy into a tapir, Tenshi into a catfish, Yukari into an axolotl, and the Yorigami sisters into a pair of butterflies. All characters transformed by her keep a few of their signature traits while in animal form.
• Trickster Mentor:
  • She teaches Seija how to use cheat items as a sub-item, and then blasts her with bullets to make sure the lesson sticks.
  • In Hopeless Masquerade, she helped Hata no Kokoro become a true menreiki by telling her to get into fights in order to learn real emotions.
• Troll: In Chapter 32 of Wild and Horned Hermit, she throws beans in Kasen's presence, sets up a bean throwing festival in the Human Village, and leaves around holly leaves stuck in sardine heads (All things known to repel oni, which Kasen is heavily implied to be), all to send a warning that she's not the only being with designs on the Hakurei Shrine.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting:
  • Her power is the ability to make things change shape, and that includes herself. Though she's very skilled with this ability, it does have limitations; she can't make her tail disappear (though she can change its size and color to hide it), and she can only change something else's form and not its function (she can turn a dog into a bird, but it won't be able to fly).
    • The latter is, however, contradicted at least in the gameplay of Hopeless Masquerade. Transforming an opponent into a harmless animal does prevent the opponent from attacking, an ally of hers transformed into a kettle can deal damage with the resulting steam, transforming into a Jizo statue makes Mamizou dangerously heavy, etc. According to the wiki, "while the ability is described as a simple disguise, it isn't a mere illusion and actually influences and changes the physical properties of the target," bringing Mamizou to a status closer to that of a Reality Warper than a mere Master of Disguise.
  • In Forbidden Scrollery she displays the ability to turn into a lit bonfire, though possibly just in appearance, and transforms into Reimu in Chapter 38 in order to take the tsukumogami scroll from Kosuzu by claiming that it's in need of sealing.
• We Have Reserves: Uses her transformed youkai followers as weapons.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Her family name is spelled as two kanji with a katakana character in-between. This is another reference to her advanced age, as it is a very old-fashioned way to spell names in Japanese.

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