The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Yuugen Magen is a...thing. It is five huge, kinda imposing eyes connected by electricity (which joins together in a vaguely girl-shaped center)

Is it a gatekeeper? A security system observing Makai? Horror from beyond? Something Shinki made while drunk? All the above?

We may never know.

It still got a yin yang to the face.

edited 17th Jul '14 6:57:32 AM by Otherarrow

I wonder, might YM be a symbiotic organism? Or maybe the better term is "collective?" Like there's a breed of flying eye-disc things native to the outer spheres, and individually they aren't much, but if they link up with a bit of electricity they operate more efficiently?

Something like an aberration introduced in the Lords of Madness book for D&D, rope-like critters that weren't sentient by themselves, but when twisted together formed increasingly complex and eventually intelligent organisms. But with more flying eye-discs.

Hear that, Daiyousei and Koakuma? You're not alone, and you weren't the first.

The Tsochai are who I think you're thinking of. The Geth from Mass Effect could be another example of a similar idea.

Well, It's been long enough now that I can elaborate a touch more on YuugenMagan in A Satori's Tale, inasmuch as it had a role at all. I'm kind of reluctant to, since who knows, maybe I'll go back and actually write the story I was going to. In which case, spoilers for the hypothetical probably won't ever be written future arcs of Satori's story.

I went with the eldritch abomination angle, with a rather modest power of "Manipulation of Eyes".

It was actually set up to be the antagonist of the 2nd or 3rd arc of the story (The Shinki arc being the first...) It was the being 'beyond' Yukari's gaps. Her gaps had eyes because it had basically managed to creep through here and there and manifest an eye before Yukari sealed the breach.

Its ultimate objective was to control our reality and everything within, so that it could move in (Its existence being too alien to maintain a presence in our universe without literally reshaping it). It saw a chance when it controlled Satori (Which it was able to do because at that point she defined her entire existence by her 3rd eye. So when YM controlled it, YM controlled her.)

The reason Satori freaked out wasn't just a loss of control, but in knowing exactly how YM could complete its objective. Just as Satori defined her existence through her 3rd eye, (And Koishi lacked that existence, which ended up saving Satori), other people had 'eyes' that were the center of their being as well...

Just, Flandre was the only one who could see them... except Satori when she was in Flandre's presence. Hence, because Flandre could perceive Everything's essences as eyes, Yuugen Magan could control those essences, and therefore everything in the universe. It just needed Satori and Flandre to both be near it, and then it would basically 'win'.

I'm not sure now if I would have had it 'win' thusly or not. If it had, then Koishi and Nue/Mamizou would become the protagonists. Koishi has no eye to control, of course, and Nue/Mamizou could have potentially hidden theirs. They'd fight through the controlled mobs to try and free Satori/Flandre, and thereby break its hold on the world.

So that was the plan. A fic that will probably never be written, now. If I do end up getting around to it, consider this a years-in-advance preview of sorts. If I don't, then at least the idea isn't dead.

YuugenMagan:

An odd entity that resides in Makai. Very bizarre.

There is a woman-like form taking shape at the center of the eyes. Perhaps that's it's true form, or a form it aspires to evolve into? I can definitely see Yuugen undergo a Bishounen Line sequence once it holds its thoughts together. On the assumption that it is not a sentient being to begin with. Her power would obviously be eye related. Maybe one of her abilities will be shooting lightning from her eyes!

So, why did Shinki create it? Drunken stupor? Unable to keep her powers in check when she first created Makai? Hey, that second thought makes me think that Yuugen's as ancient as Makai itself.

It is said that people who attempted to make sense out this being were instead driven to madness. That's why there are barely any records of it in the present time.

Heh, it's actually still around, buzzes the village from time to time, but whenever Akyuu sits down to record it, she gets such a nasty headache that she has to have a lie-down. As for its origins, I think if the Makai folk can be considered demons, than YuugenMagan is the equivalent of an obyrith - something old and inhuman that predates the current order in Makai, something that the demons tell ghost stories about.

Wonder if Shinki ever consults it for advice...

But that talk about the Bishonen Line, yeah, that sounds like a pretty cool boss fight, something more interesting than pounding away at a life bar. Maybe a sort of puzzle boss? Like you'd have to knock the eyes together, herd them so that the electricity links up and forms that sparkly woman that acts as the final target.

Oh, for reference, here's the boss fight as it stands:

That sounds cooooool.

The whole "beyond the gaps" angle thing is nice and creepy, and opens up some fun possibilities like Yukari not understanding the significance of those eyes in her gaps, or even not being aware of them in the first place (because everyone else is too weirded out to mention them to her). This would incidentally be a great way to take Yukari down a notch, keep her from coming across as omnipotent and all-powerful.

Also, "manipulation of eyes" is a sweet pick for a superpower. It's familiar to the stuff we've seen before, and is vague enough to be hilariously abused, but the fact that it's centered on eyes makes us instinctively cringe, reminding us how alien YM is for having it.spoiler

Okay, that's enough gushing.

Oh, yeah, they certainly would. Wonder why I could only think of the obscure D&D monster instead of the AIs from the wildly-popular sci-fi series?

edited 18th Jul '14 9:36:25 PM by Tacitus

Well, that's about the normal amount of discussion for an esoteric HRtP boss. Any last-minute thoughts before things move forward tomorrow?

I like its eyes. They are delightfully creepy.

edited 20th Jul '14 9:41:03 PM by Otherarrow

Next in our lineup will be Miko, Tenshi, aaaaand... Iku Nagae. That's suspicious. I'm on to you, random number generator.

Now, without further delay:

Shou Toramaru

Stage: The Red and Black Seal of the Underworld ~ Makai (above Hokkai)
BGM: "Rural Makai City Esoteria"*

The Tiger-Patterned Vaisravana

Spellcard Motif: Sacred Jeweled Tigers of Justice
Notable spellcards: UFO, DS
Jeweled Pagoda "Radiant Treasure Gun," Light Sign "Absolute Justice", Buddha's Light "Vajra of Perfect Buddhism," Tiger Sign "Hungry Tiger," Treasure Sign "Dazzling Gold"

Write-up:
She's not a real tiger, let's get that out of the way. Though Shou is a tiger youkai of sorts, she's a youkai representing the Japanese perception of foreign tigers, not a tiger who lived a long time or ate a hermit or anything like that.

Shou is an avatar of the god Bishamonten, as the result of a plot by Byakuren Hijiri to get in the good graces of some other youkai. This creates a weird relationship where Shou is one of Byakuren's disciples, but the monk technically worships Shou as the avatar of her own deity. In this role, Shou was assigned a helper and secret supervisor named Nazrin, who would become a trusted associate. The fact that Nazrin excels at finding things, and Shou famously misplaced her deity's sacred jeweled pagoda, is certainly convenient.

It's this carelessness that forms the bulk of Shou's fandom interpretation, unfortunately, which likes to cast her as a forgetful klutz dependent on Nazrin to function. On the other hand, aside from that doujin, fans tend to portray Shou more or less positively, a loyal supporter of Byakuren who breaks the mistress-servant mold seen in many other entries in the series. Not that any of that matters, since we're interested in your interpretation of her.

Relations

• Bishamonten/Vaisravana (deity)
• Byakuren Hijiri (mentor and fellow worshiper of the above)
• Nazrin (henchmouse)

See also the first two compendiums.

edited 21st Jul '14 9:58:38 PM by Tacitus

Shou's power is to attract treasure though, meaning she stands still doing nothing and her treasure comes back to her on its own. Apparently working through Nazrin this time. Isn't life convenient when you're an avatar of a god of luck? ZUN also used her profile to make a vaguely class-conscious joke about how the rich get richer without doing anything.

edited 21st Jul '14 10:07:17 PM by Clarste

That's a... hmm, the words I'm looking for are "surprisingly subtle" power. If I understand it right, putting Shou on the floor somewhere won't cause your spare change to slide out from under the couch to cling to her butt. She attracts wealth in the sense that she's the avatar of a god who defends a divine treasure horde, and is therefore likely to receive offerings from worshipers hoping to encourage her boss to share the wealth. Or in the sense that a millionaire attracts wealth by being courted by investors drawn to his phat bank account (oh lawd "phat" doesn't set off Firefox's autocorrect). It almost makes you wonder whether there's any divine power behind Shou's ability at all.

Awfully similar to the stuff we see with the real-world faithful, like maybe your good fortune was the result of a convenient coincidence, or maybe God doesn't like to be showy with His miracles. And somewhat out of place when other divine servants get flashy and obvious abilities. Do you think this is 'cause Bishamonten is an IRL deity? Did ZUN think it'd be in bad taste to attribute an overt sign of divine favor to him?

edited 22nd Jul '14 8:44:01 PM by Tacitus

It's because it's a power over luck, not treasure specifically. Bishamonten is worshiped as one of the Seven Gods of Luck after all. I'd put it in the same category as Remilia and Tewi.

Actually, the most recent chapter of WAHH briefly deals with another god who shows up to a childbirth and assigns the baby its fate: to be kinda successful eventually but vulnerable to disaster during childhood. It's just, you know, fortune. The path your life will take. The outline of your autobiography, details to be filled in later.

edited 22nd Jul '14 8:48:42 PM by Clarste

Shou is an avatar of Bishamonten and, perhaps paradoxically, the key disciple of Byakuren Hijiri, who is a follower of Bishamonten. Shou is a tiger youkai, well, more like "a youkai born out of fear of tigers". As she was formed from distorted tales of foreign tigers, her beast form would only resemble the idea of a tiger. Now that tigers are well known, her beast form has been invalidated, and indeed, she is incapable of taking it. Instead, her existence is preserved through the role of "avatar of Bishamonten".

Incidentally, Byakuren chose her for the role, being the bravest and most respected of the youkai, as a way to gather faith from the youkai.

Shou's main purpose is to represent Bishamonten at the Myouren Temple. To this end, she resembles his statues, and retains some of his powers over luck and wealth. She also uses his Pagoda, a device that can reduce anything to ash by shooting light, and can be used to create treasures. She also has a spear, but it's mainly for decoration.

She is usually gentle, composed, and dignified, but she gets emotional and angry around friends and is a bad drunk.

She has striped hair.

edited 23rd Jul '14 7:20:13 AM by Otherarrow

I think the most important aspect of Shou is that her nature as a youkai changed. A youkai is the personification of unexplained phenomenons, and when that phenomenon is explained, people stop believing in youkai, and said youkai vanished. This is not the case with Shou. She has transcended her origin as a mere 'idea of a tiger' and become something else entirely. She can't even return to her original form. And actually, there's even another youkai who is trying to follow in her footsteps: Kyouko.

I wonder if this means Byakuren's ideals has some bases in truth after all.

(First time posting here)

The way I see Shou is as the character in Touhou who, maybe not lazy, but easiest to live by. First of all, being the avatar of Bishamonten, she doesn't need to do much work than stand around and smile. Second, her pagora does most of her work for herself, meaning that she doesn't really have to do much work. Just think what the pagora should do and let it loose. Thrid, her powers allows her to not loose anything important. Its like those plots where a character loses something, and by chains of events, the character gets the item back.

In sense, you could say that she is a defanged tiger assisted by other tigers. She is a character of respect due of who she is, but in reality, she herself is just a figure helped by other sources.

I have this image of Shou first meeting Byakuren as this golden red, nightmarish distorted thing, with black blades running along her body, a slight mane that moves like flames, and parts flickering in and out of existence.

I've seen transcripts of people who saw cows for the first time trying to describe one, and it would be very hard to piece together an accurate image. Artists who received second-hand accounts of elephants drew them with a pair of trunks where their tusks would be. Shou's "tiger" form probably barely resembled a tiger at all.

EDIT: http://apeurohistdoc.blogspot.com/ - here's a tiger◊ from that page.

edited 23rd Jul '14 11:03:11 AM by Prime32

Shou is an avatar for a god of luck but I wonder why Shou lost the pagoda in the first place?

Bishamonten moves in mysterious ways? Perhaps the incident brought Shou and Nazrin closer together, and made Shou a more dedicated servant?

Shou's certainly a success story compared to the likes of Murasa, for sure. Also, good point about Kyouko - could Byakuren be preparing her for a similar role?

Welcome! If a little girl with bunny ears brings up an "initiation fee," just ignore her.

Maybe this explains her unenlightened moments and love of booze. She didn't exactly work her way up a church hierarchy to get her position, Byakuren pulled some strings with her boss and got her the job. Misplaced artifact aside, Shou's not bad in her role as Bishamonten's avatar, but her job doesn't otherwise require her to be particularly holy.

Going with the above, maybe this is why Byakuren has Kyouko doing sutras and such.

Ooh, cool links. So maybe Shou looked something like she does here? Or maybe Japan's love of cute things extended back to the feudal era and she looked more like this.

Shou Toramaru:

An avatar of the god Bishamonten, and an old friend of Byakuren. Very simple in all she does.

Oh, so she's Bishamonten's avatar because of Byakuren in the first place. So, Byakuren worships Bishamonten through her. Heh, if she has to leave the temple for reasons, Shou would most definitely be put in charge. I mean, she did prove her worth as a disciple.

Shou's an idealized version of a tiger youkai. Considering the stripes and all, I guess they were right on the money.

On duty, Shou's quite professional, but off duty, she loves herself some beer! I wonder if she does the usual drunk ramblings about sucky jobs and all that. Careful, Bishamonten's watching. Eh, maybe just to get a laugh. I can see her getting along quite well with Suika and Yuugi. And darn, I wonder what would have happened if she had drunk from Kasen's Medicine Box of Wonders... Tora Oni!

Shou's a firm believer in friendship. Mess with who she considers her pals, you will get a laser to the face. You've been warned.

Since she's an avatar of Bishamonten, she should have a divinity buff. Like, some level of strength and durability. Apparently, that's not the case. Her only power lies in the pagoda that kills things with its menacing lasers. Maybe she should do some training regimen in case she loses it. But with her power to gather a treasure like that, I suppose it's unnecessary.

Expect a music dump next Wednesday afternoon/night.

For some reason, this definition of fortune/destiny sounds really great. I like it

See also Ichirin/Unzan, Murasa, Kyouko...

It may well have been a good stroke of fortune it was lost. Because of this, Nazrin (seems to have) met Rinnosuke. While selling it, Rinnosuke likely offhandedly mentioned that he picks up stuff like this in Muenzuka all the time (In more 'this is super-valuable' speak). Cue Nazrin moving to Muenzuka where she now lives because holy cow that place is like a treasure trove if you know what to look for- and she does.

More for Byakuren, this, but I still think Byakuren's gathering around her examples of "See? Youkai can become more than what they are!" Hence accepting Kyouko (who needed a new identity) and refusing Yamame (Who had no intention of being anything other than an earth spider at its best).

That seems to be my understanding of exactly what happened. When Byakuren went missing, Shou continued her duties serving in a temple rather than try to free Byakuren (or the ship or murasa etc.). Not out of neglecting their friendship, but because she honored it. If Shou just skipped work to go find Byakuren, it would reflect poorly on both of them: Byakuren would have made a poor choice in suggesting Shou who was negligent in her duties.

So she kept working and building up cred instead. Finally, after ~1000ish years, SA happens. Murasa walks up to her and says "What the hell are you doing crawling around doing nothing? We're finding Byakuren, and you're coming with, because you owe her, kitty." And Shou figures she's in good enough with Bishamonten that sure, she can probably do that. After all, hasn't she proven her devotion all these years and therefore made Byakuren's suggestion seem wise? After all this time, perhaps Bishamonten even owes Byakuren for bringing him such a perfect vessel to begin with.

So Shou goes and helps rescue Byakuren... and then resumes her duties.

So what I'm saying is that Shou is a way better shrine maiden than Reimu. Ok, I mean, she's not really a shrine maiden, but her devotion to her god is very impressive. I'm seeing some parallels between Shou and Sanae in that regard. Then I thought it more and that's about all I've got.

So, the Pagoda shoots lasers that burn so well that they make precious gemstones out of the ground they hit. But it consumes precious gems to fire those lasers. There's a fair bit of symbolism here, but the most obvious is something along the lines of "You have to spend money to make money". Or to put it another way, what Clarste said: money attracts money/ the rich become richer.

This bit from SOPM basically sums up the awkward situation at the temple. A relationship that is... very interesting. With each being in some manner subordinate tot he other, it really makes them rather equal. What's good for one is good for the other, which is good for themselves too. It's like, a positive feedback loop! Kinda. Shush.

And this bit is very interesting. Shou (the former youkai) is the attraction, while Byakuren (The former Human) is the one who 'closes the deal'. Its just odd because the 'human face' of the Myouren temple isn't and never was human. Perhaps most surprisingly, it isn't Ichirin instead... you know, that very human-like youkai who was once a human?

Well, the ways of the faithful are full of whimsy (and selfish greed/desire for good luck/treasure.) So in a sense, Shou represents that which people are (which attracts them), and Byakuren tries to show them how to move past that.

Yes... nice little protection/faith racket you've got there, Shou/Nazrin.

Well, the thing is that with them, they haven't really 'surpassed their nature'. Murasa still drowns boats, Kyouko still reflects voices back, and Ichirin still Ichirins.

I just noticed this page from an unrelated manga

http://www.batoto.net/read/_/235518/tonari-no-seki-kun_v4_ch51_by_psylocke-scans/4

This makes me wonder if 'putting a photo of a Luck God under your pillow for good dreams' is an actual thing and not just something ZUN made up.

Off-topic, but regarding the first link, I noticed some artists who try to draw in 'traditional youkai' style prefers to draw the Komeiji sisters as their third eyes, instead of hairy ape things like the traditional satori.

edited 25th Jul '14 8:37:48 AM by TrueShadow1

Something relevant I saw on my travels.

I thought of this, too. In fact, Shou is in two such relationships. Besides the one between herself and Byakuren, there's also the one between her and Nazrin, where Nazrin is both her servant and her supervisor. I wonder if this is done as a deliberate statement. The idea that good leadership is as much about helping one's followers as being helped by them, like Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

And Unzan has pulled a complete 180, and Shou disciples, and Nazrin does likewise. Also, Kyouko's reflection is a rather different sort now (a lot less reflexive and a lot more convoluted). They certainly aren't run of the mill standard members of their historical species.

Ichirin's life drastically changed on account of Unzan, but yeah, she's probably more an argument for "See? Being a youkai isn't enough to make you inhuman". You know, so that people can trust Byakuren more since she's also a metahuman. Something like that. More likely she was a part of a package deal with Unzan...

Also, Murasa changed from sinking ships to causing drowning in general. See? Progress! >_>.

Youkai are tied to human nature so by taming them you tame human nature and transcend humanity. Maybe that's what Byakuren thinks/hopes. That'd be kinda weird. Hm.

Big hairy apes could also be sasquatches/yeti/generic great ape/etc. So probably done to make them more distinct, I guess. I mean, no one's going to confuse a Hakutaku for anything but a Hakutaku, but Satori are similar enough to other folklorish creatures...

I like that Idea.

edited 25th Jul '14 5:43:48 PM by Antimatter625

You have this peculiar assumption that people in the village would trust Ichirin more than the other youkai, which I don't think has any basis. If anything she's a "race traitor" who confirms their assumptions of corrupting influence. I've noticed this assumption earlier too, but you're relying on it more and more now.

Frankly I don't think Byakuren is thinking that far ahead anyway. She recruits youkai who she likes, full stop.

edited 25th Jul '14 5:56:11 PM by Clarste