The New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium!

To answer your question Fawriel "Touhou" would be a series of dairies/journals in which all the details would be kept like "This happens here..." and "This level is..." and etc. ZUN would be another creation of Reimu to act as the "Perfect Author", thin, creative, drinks but is played for comedy, and most of all widely successful without "selling out".

And to actually contribute to the Komachi conversation...

Komachi: Death's Craftsman

As people have already stated death is somewhat similar to life, it's a journey and it's Komachi's job to ferry souls along their journey across the Sanzu to the Yama for judgment, though how well she does this job is up to debate. And perhaps she does her job very well, as previously stated she obviously doesn't hate her job and does try, and perhaps the problem may be that she tries too hard rather then too little.

It's like the saying goes "You can't rush greatness." and when most things are made professionally it's a known fact that quality often takes a long time, chefs take hours to make an exquisite meal and the best pieces of jewelery are finely hand-crafted. So for death it shouldn't be any different, after all death is not a malevolent being who scoops your soul out of your body for kicks, death is supposed to guide souls onto the afterlife and part of guiding something is making sure it's prepared for what lies ahead of them.

Sure Komachi could simply dump souls onto the other side ad naseum, but then she wouldn't be doing her job, she wouldn't be "guiding" souls she'd be delivering them, the Titanic only carries one soul because the trip across the Sanzu is a journey like life, and each journey takes as long as it takes, some are short and some are long but they serve the same purpose, to prepare souls for their judgment and to give them time to come to terms with their life.

Perhaps that is why Komachi's power is the power to "Manipulate distance" to either shorten or lengthen the trip across the Sanzu until she feels the soul is ready to face it's judgment, to make sure that they can accept what has happened with their life and the circumstances of their death. And while Komachi may offer some insight and play psychologist for some for the most part she lets them reflect on their life on their way to the Yama, and if she feels they're not ready then she extends the river some more, because if they went ahead without being ready then she really wouldn't be doing her job.

So even if the souls queue up until Po FV happens again it doesn't matter, Komachi will take all the time she needs so she can do her job correctly which may be the major difference between her and Shiki, Shiki wants to do her job and needs to do it now for all the souls waiting while Komachi wants to take her time and do it right regardless if the afterlife begins to back-up, Komachi is "slow" and Shiki is "fast".

To answer your question Fawriel "Touhou" would be a series of dairies/journals in which all the details would be kept like "This happens here..." and "This level is..." and etc. ZUN would be another creation of Reimu to act as the "Perfect Author", thin, creative, drinks but is played for comedy, and most of all widely successful without "selling out".

Hold on. Not only does that go into metafiction in a really weird way — ZUN being irrefutably real — I don't know that I would call him "widely successful". He's a hobbyist, and he does what he does well, but he's not prolific enough not to (apparently) need a day job.

That's unexpected. Given your name, I woulda thunk that you'd have a lot to say. Ah well.

It's probably a good thing that your taste in images seems to be different from mine. Makes picking only a select few pretty hard, but maybe I'll just say "screw it" and link a whole bunch of images for her. Since she's Komacchan.

For sure, but for some reason I find it much more difficult to write about my favorite character, which is a shame in the end.

Haha, well the reason is good, but if its too crowded its fine if you just use one of my suggestions.

And due to early Australian timeszones and German traditions its a little too close to Christmas for me to be online still so I'm off for a few days. Merry Christmas all =D

Perhaps I should clarify, in no way do I think that theory is real, it's something I made up which I think makes sense and sounds pretty cool, like an AU idea or a WMG, it's not serious but for fun.

And what I meant by "widely successful" is that Touhou has it's own three-day festival and it's own section at Comiket, which compared to some other indie series, is pretty good.

Perhaps I should clarify, in no way do I think that theory is real, it's something I made up which I think makes sense and sounds pretty cool, like an AU idea or a WMG, it's not serious but for fun.

And what I meant by "widely successful" is that Touhou has it's own three-day festival and it's own section at Comiket, which compared to some other indie series, is pretty good.

Of course, and that's fine — that's the whole point of the thread. It just makes me uneasy when people treat ZUN like a fictional character, to be alternately interpreted and whatnot.

(And I'd say that compared to most indie series, that's amazing, but as far as I know, that all sprung up of its own accord. It boggles my mind that that's even possible. Only in Japan.)

edited 23rd Dec '10 5:36:32 PM by SuperDimensionman

If we were to alternately interpret ZUN, in the context of his own work, what tier would he be?

Whats above Phantasm?

"You just plain lose". Would be funny as a joke, I suppose.

The gondolier of the troubled water sings an ode to life

To talk about Komachi Onozuka is not an easy task. In part, due to the fact that she has already been so aptly described before. Yes. She is the ferryman who carries the dead across the Higan river. She talks to her customers, easing them into their encounter with the Judge. She does not judge any of them herself. She has seen them all, psychotic murderers, innocent children who died young. It makes little difference to her – life is life, and all of it is beautiful. Death is death – there is no beauty where nothing changes, and death is nothing but that. Change.

An unintentional stealth pun is fine, too.

It takes a certain kind of person to be such a gondolier. Komachi was not created for this job, but rather, she "used to be" a human – just like her superior, Shikieiki. What kind of a person is she? Full of life, with an appreciation of all that makes it worth living. A mind constantly adrift like her own boat. A warm heart that takes in an ocean whole, enwrought with an intelligence like a hurricane and a maelstrom, going every which way from one moment to the next. She has seen it all, giving her the wisdom needed to deal with her passengers without being torn apart herself. At her heart, she remains young and passionate. A wild heart like this is also fragile, so after some particularly tragic stories, it will need to rest and take in the soft winds of the beautiful world. And perhaps she also has another reason for sleeping on the job so often...

In a life adrift, every day filled with stories and fates as diverse as life can be, the only constant in the center of her universe is the person she's a satellite to: her boss and friend for all the time she has known, Shikieiki Yamaxanadu.

While this is about Komachi, talking about her without mentioning Shikeiki is hard, and possibly nonsensical, as they are a unit. Komachi is the drifter. Shikeiki is the haven. She represents the natural order, law, morality, goodness, loving care. They often clash due to their different natures (for a relative value of "often", as their longevity means that meeting about once every month or two is as good as living together). Komachi is even in danger of losing her task, and consequently her existence, as her superiors do not always agree to giving her enough time to ease spirits into the afterlife... Nonetheless, Komachi knows that Shikieiki would never want to spend eternity without her. And Komachi would never want to leave Shikieiki's side. She values her as a dutiful superior and respects her as a well-meaning and intelligent judge. And she loves her from the bottom of her heart as a reliable and sincerely good person.

It might be strange for such otherworldly beings to be capable of love and to yearn for human warmth. What one has to consider is that, after all, these beings only exist due to humans themselves. As such, not only their appearance, but their soul is greatly dependent on those of humans, and, in fact, keeps changing as humankind itself changes. These particular gods of death and justice, however, are special cases: They were once humans. Or perhaps rather, they are.

Death and the afterworld are things that exist outside of our comprehension of time. Time flows in the afterlife in a way that parallels the flow of time in the living world. This time is more like the air that fills its existential plain, however. The essential things that make up the afterlife – the court, the buildings, the people residing in it – don't follow the flow of time so steadily. They are both eternal and ever-changing, existing as a function of all life itself. Unless life on earth is disrupted irreparably or is partially or entirely destroyed, the afterlife and its beings are indestructable, and as life on earth changes, so does the afterlife go through constant cycles of change.

Komachi and Shikieiki have been "in office" for forever – as far as "forever" holds any meaning in this place. If one was trying to simplify the timeline of the afterlife, it would appear that they have been around for perhaps two-hundred years, which is an almost infinite amount of time in the fast-moving life of these days. As far as they know, they have existed for as long as they afterlife has, and as its form is everchanging, that is practically true. Their origin, however, lies sometime around the current day. Sometime around the year 2020, give or take a few centuries, live an ordinary girl Komachi Onozuka and Eiki Shiki.

Komachi is a young woman gifted in the ways of communicating with people and animals alike. She has a great interest in biology and all other sciences surrounding it. She also tends towards an alternative lifestyle, dabbling in punk, goth, and many other ways of life, yet never settling on one. Her musical tastes range from death metal to bubbly pop, interlaced with hauntingly beautiful instrumentals. Anything that has her heart racing or coming to a sleepy stop. She has a fluffy dog called "Seargent" and earns pocket money babysitting. Many older people or closedminded younger ones will scoff at her, but among those with open hearts, there are none whom she can't give a smile to.

Eiki is a beloved friend of hers, a girl of genius intellect, a harmony-loving heart, and heavily OCD tendencies. It took long to come close to her, but many things happened until their death that will not be disclosed here, and when both stood at the gates of the afterlife and Eiki was offered the task of the Yama, she knew exactly whom she wanted to be her ferryman out of the countless souls available to her.

My idea of both characters is heavily based on the doujins Sabotage and Escape, which can be found here.

I don't really read Touhou doujins usually, but that was a pretty amazing writeup sort of thing so I'm basically obligated to this time.

Aww, thanks. That's nice to hear. I hope you'll enjoy the doujin. I realize that my love for it is a very subjective thing.

And now to reply to stuff, since I kinda had to hurry to family activities in the end there.

Komachi: Death's Craftsman

Now that I think about it, should I mention you as another inspiration?

And due to early Australian timeszones and German traditions its a little too close to Christmas for me to be online still so I'm off for a few days. Merry Christmas all =D

I was kinda meh about Komachi when I first started getting interested in Touhou but I just keep liking her more and more the longer I stick around.

Hah, I remember my first encounter with her being "who the hell is this character who keeps showing up in SWR videos". "Huh okay. Looks kinda generic." "*looks up on Touhou Wiki* Oh, gallow's humor. I guess she's cool then."

And look where we are now.

In fact, a lot of my now favorite characters started out as ones I was pretty indifferent towards. Huh.

Wonder if there are any souls she got especially attached to. After all, with all these people dying there's bound to be a few very interesting ones. As stated above, I can imagine her extending trips just to keep the conversation going before bringing them to the yama.

"See you after your next incarnation!"

I have some ideas about Komachi. Let me see if they are at all coherent.

Working hard or hardly working?

I suppose I'll start with the difference between Shiki and Komachi. It'd be a mistake to assume that Shiki is some uncaring yama who judges you and doesn't care beyond that. She doesn't want people to go to hell. She takes the opportunity of Komachi's slacking to lecture whoever she runs across because she sincerely doesn't want them to end up in hell. Of course, once they stand in front of her desk, she has to judge them on black and white so she wants to help them before that. The cut-off point for her is death. I think Komachi is the other way around. She wants to help people even after they die. She wants to give them an edge or a boost if she can by extending their boat ride and letting them reflect.

Maybe she became a sort of people watcher because of this or maybe the other way around but I think she does like hearing about people's lives. There's a saying that a person isn't truly dead until nobody remembers their name so I like to think that Komachi does her best to remember every passenger she carries.

Like Fawriel, I think I'm drawing from Sabotage and Escape because I think sometimes Komachi slacks in the living world to give Shiki an opportunity to do her lecture thing. But I think that despite her "slacking" Komachi actually goes above and beyond the call of duty. Her ending for SWR has her futilely trying to convince child ghosts to cross the Sanzu River, which seems like doing community service on company time.

What makes this interesting is that most everybody's ending in the game had something to do with the whole Tenshi Incident so I think Komachi's does too. She must have wondered about switching to being a collector instead of a ferryman but I think in the end, she decided that she could do more good in her current role. She would be a good collector since she managed what other shinigami hadn't and defeated Tenshi but she would rather keep helping Shiki and keep trying to help those child ghosts.

That's right, a death whose presence silences crying children.

Its on her mind even as she's getting ready to fight Tenshi.

edited 24th Dec '10 12:49:10 PM by Bocaj

Hmmm, what was that doujin again about Reimu dying? That one had an interesting conversation between Reimu and Komachi.

Whoa, massive ninja.

There's a saying that a person isn't truly dead until nobody remembers their name so I like to think that Komachi does her best to remember every passenger she carries.

[SWR stuff]

I thought Komachi couldn't get much favoriter for me, but there you go.

I must start playing that game soon.

edited 24th Dec '10 12:53:40 PM by Fawriel

The End of Maiden's Illusion. I remembered that it was on the fanfic reqs page.

Yes. You should. Do it. DO IT NAUUUOGHW.

edited 24th Dec '10 12:57:27 PM by Bocaj

Thoughts about those doujin:

I can't see them being in love with each other. Friends, definitely.

The way Komachi was depicted was decent, but their portrayal of Shikieiki was completely at odds with how I see her.

Overall, I felt kinda 'meh' about it.

Dating co-workers is    BLACK.   

Augh. I expected it, but augh. ._.

SPOILERS: I thought both characters worked extremely well. The only error I saw was in Eiki running away after finding out about Komachi's feelings. I can see her walking away quickly, because she's just not used to situations that leave her completely at a loss as to what to do. Her constant repetition of "what should I do" is very interesting in that it shows just how little she's used to a situation like that. But, yeah, running away, and dropping the mirror, is far too emotional for her. Aside from that, the portrayal of Komachi is just amazing, I find. She's clearly very emotional, but at the same time has a sort of cool distance and doesn't hesitate to joke at the situation, even. Pretty damn awesome, if you ask me. And, yeah. One of the big things is that I found both characters so lovable that I could really SEE why they would have feelings for each other, so it's not just another "hey these characters love each other because they do" thing. To me, at least. As I said, it's a very subjective thing.

White pooost.

edited 24th Dec '10 1:12:58 PM by Fawriel

I was actually wondering where that child-ghost thing was from. Fawriel asked me to cite my sources, and I thought of that first, but had no idea what it was from, so I disregarded it. It's definitely a big influence on my impression of her.

That kinda gives me an impression of her as a Friend to All Children. Possibly even to all living things, though that would presumably include Tenshi.

So didja guys read Wild and Horned Hermit Chapter 3?

Komachi is pretty awesome in it, and she seems to take her job seriously.

@ Fawriel, Shikieiki didn't start out as a human. According to the Wiki, she was a jizou statue, and when she came to life she was given the position of Yama. How or why I don't know or don't remember. At least, that's what I remember.

edited 24th Dec '10 11:48:13 PM by Erfry

That bit of information is an OSP chapter that's yet to be translated, so people not being familiar with it is understandable.