Undead Zombie Reimu
Reimu WAS a zombie, but she isn't now.
PC-98 Reimu was Windows Reimu's mother. Shingyoku is the parents of PC-98 Reimu. Windows Reimu died, so Shingyoku, guarding the gate to Makai, just went inside and bribed Alice with free passage to resurrect Reimu. Unfortunately, Reimu is too special, so Alice had to sew doll components and resurrect her awkwardly. Shingyoku then called Yukari to boundaryhax Zombie!Reimu into a human over time. Reimu really is an undead zombie.
She's probably been dead for a while, but never noticed it. She likely died sometime around when she fought Yuyuko, but her soul just floated back into her body before anyone realised it. She took a turn for the worst around Mo F, but somehow found a cure for corpse rot without figuring out that she wasn't alive anymore. ...Of course, this means she can't actually die, and probably won't ever age.Shizuha & Minoriko
Shizuha and Minoriko can do a Fusion Dance
No real basis for this in canon, but I like the idea that they were once a single goddess of the season, who split into the two sisters as agriculture and harvests became more common and associated with fall. And should the need arise, the two can fuse together into a goddess of autumn who is more powerful than both of them combined.Hina
Hina is monstrously powerful.
...Well, stage placement does not necessarily equate to power level, and Stage 2 bosses have been overpowered in context as well. Cirno IS the strongest fairy, Chen is the shikigami of the shikigami of boundary hax incarnate as youkai, and Mystia survived being eaten by a ghost whose power is to invoke death and control the dead and whatnot to reappear in Po FV.- Plus, Hina is apparently some form of curse goddess, and the last time curse-related deities went on a rampage it took Suwako to stop them, and even Kanako conquering Suwako with hax vine didn't change how impressive it apparently was to the people of the Moriya Shrine's original location at the time. And Hina has been gathering misfortune for a while now...
- Someone even said Hina might as well be monstrously powerful on this page, so I did this. Meh.
Nitori
The Kappa are really Genre Savvy humans.
They have the best accessible technology in Gensokyo; they're on friendly terms with most factions; and have the direct good diplomatic relations with a goddess. They were humans who realized that calling themselves "humans" is painting a bullseye. So they looked around, picked a species that wasn't in Gensokyo; put on bathing suits and called themselves "Kappa." And then they deliberately stayed out of causing direct incidents, but did trading and negotiation to profit.- Kanako knows, but as long as they give their faith to her; she's not telling anyone.
- Building Hiso Tensoku is an exception to the "staying out of direct incidents", however.
- "Direct" in this case meaning "blatant enough to warrant an asskicking from somebody."
- They got over excited when they watched giant mecha shows brought over by Sanae.
Momiji
Sanae
Sanae knew about the above Moriya plan regarding the Buddhists and Taoists; and intentionally sabotaged it to prevent a Temple War.
In her scenario; she doesn't have any reason to be there. She's mostly just wandering around. She doesn't even justify it as "Yokai Extermination" when Kyouko attacks her. She says she's just checking things out; wandering her way all the way to Miko. In actuality, she knew that her goddess wanted the two shrines to war with each other; and instead more or less peacefully (through spell card rules) suppressed the conflict before it could begin.- She's not even disobeying her goddess; because Kanako and Suwako don't involve her in their schemes. They didn't tell her to keep out of it.
- Sanae is a good girl.
Alternatively to a theory given in the Touhou: PC-98 Era page, Sanae was controlled by Seija quickly after Utsuho's defeat.
That was what broke the sealed creatures free, including her, and she appeared with her personality as is best known today almost right afterwards (right in the same game's EX stage). Then, shortly before Hopeless Masquerade, someone presumably broke her free in a Noodle Incident, which would explain why she sat out that game and Double Dealing Character (she was recovering from Demonic Possession). Seija did succeed in hijacking the Moriya Conspiracy, but her initial plan was ruined and she made plans to attack directly. Besides, Kid Icarus: Uprising fans might know another green-haired goddess of light who got controlled by a mischief-maker...Kanako
The Moriya Shrine is for REAL on our side of the Fourth Wall.
Kanako asked ZUN to place herself, Suwako, and Sanae into his series, in order to drum up more faith in OUR world. Yukari met her during a drinking session (see another WMG below concerning Yukari and ZUN's drinking friendship), and they agreed that it was a good idea.Now, while the Moriya Shrine gains fans in the game (benefitting ZUN), the real Shrine on our side of the fourth wall enjoys more pilgrimages and more faith (helping Kanako). Just as planned.
In order to enter Gensokyo, Kanako and Suwako completely erased themselves (and Sanae) from Outside World existence.
Even without faith, they would have existed in some non-corporeal form; at the very least through stories told by historians about what people used to believe. They may even have been able to have been "summonable" the way the Shinto Gods are in Silent Sinner in Blue. But they wanted to remain corporeal. So they took all the stories and records and memories that the Outer World had of them; and threw it into the Memory hole. Something that once existed in the Real World but then left a vacuum resulted in them appearing in Gensokyo; and not a single record of the Sky and Earth goddesses remain outside.- This is probably canon.
- I'd sort of assumed they followed the Hakurei shrine example which IIRC exists on both sides, but is abandoned and run down in the outside world. So basically one day the shrine is suddenly empty and everyone is scratching their heads over where the teenage Miko living in it went.
- Maybe they did force the barrier. And the result of ending up in Gesokyo caused the memories of their existence to vanish from the outside world. Chicken or the Egg.
- If this is the case, they'd have a hell
of a lot to erase. I remember also seeing a Mt. Moriya just a few miles away when I looked at a map of the area once, but I can't seem to find it anymore.- The fan-anime Hifuu Activity Club Record ~ The Sealed Esoteric History ~ Episode 2 explains that the goddesses were replaced on Earth by others gods, that history itself changed to accommodate this.
Kanako wanting to modernize Gensoukyo is just a cover story for the real reason trying to.
She and Suwako and Sanae are addicted to modern gaming and are suffering withdraw from it and thus the idea was to try to modernize gensoukyo so that they could at least play some games together.Suwako
Suwako wants Sanae to become a goddess.
She is particularly insistent in UFO to have her defeat youkai, which arguably is the work of a shrine maiden... However, she could have been testing her abilities. In Hisoutensoku, she pretty much tells her that she's basically a god. And now in Ten Desires she seems to be looking to have the god spirits under her command.- However Sanae is happy listening to Kanako, so this only has the side-effect of having more confidence with herself.
