The discussion in the other thread about belief and what it means for youkai got me thinking. What if Mamizou came to Gensokyo because she, like the other Tanuki of Sado, lost her ability to shift forms (Or was about to). But unlike them, still wanted it.
Nue shows up at her door like: "Hey, I know a way for you to get your tanuki-dom back. All you gotta do is beat up this poser prince or whatever when you do." And She jumped at that call so hard you wouldn't believe.
I write some fanfiction. Satori's Tale is done... but I'm not.Yeah, and then all the tsukumogami recruitment and whatnot could be a result of that same power trip, like Mamizou feels so reinvigorated that she tries to relive her past. Like an oldster getting therapy or a new drug that clears up some of their problems, so they buy a muscle car. Except paper lanterns with little freaky human legs are involved, and the geezer has a big fluffy tail.
Also, thanks for the reminder to stay caught up with the main Touhou thread. Some of the stuff brought up about the Outside World makes me want to put it on the list of discussion topics. Good idea, Y/N?
I'd say yes (Though probably just wrap together Mari and Renko's outside world with that of Touhou proper. Just a time difference, really.)
And just try to make it clear when Mamizou ends and/or the review begins I suppose.
Also, Mamizou coming across as a sort of gangster lord/kingpin figure happens to fill another 'fantasy archetype'. Like French Maids or stereotypical high school girls. Everyone knows they only exist in myth (and now Gensokyo.)
I do really like the idea that Mamizou was really disillusioned with the outside world and her lost Sado kin, and that going to Gensokyo gave her a 'second wind' of sorts. I think it's moved into my headcanon.
Mamizou does say she can just go outside the barrier whenever she wants. But also wanted Kasen to pick up a memento from outside while Kasen was out... hmmm. Why would she not do it herself? Maybe she can't bring herself to go back and see Sado in its current state.
I write some fanfiction. Satori's Tale is done... but I'm not.Did you know? Mamizou can also change music at will!
Legend of Don-nuki
Piano from Gensokyo
Retro Tanuki
Danuki in a Mission
Empowered Boss
The Bad Funk
Mmmm, chiptunes. Tasty like potato chips but better for your blood pressure.
I think that's a good point to stop the Mamizou discussion. But, instead of going right on to Rika, let's officially start a Review Period to wrap up any lose ends first. Since I can't remember or find when the previous Review Period was, ya'll should feel free to discuss any character (or location) listed at the start of the thread.
So some reviews, then!
On Koakuma:
I imagine she's basically a pest in the library. All those magic books that shoot danmaku in the Library? There to try and deal with her. Marisa's not the first rat Patchouli's had to deal with. And lately Koakuma's gotten more and more brazen, even setting up a stand at Remilia's "beach."
On Nue:
My headcanon pegs her as a sort of 'meta-youkai'. Youkai themselves are explanations for phenomenon that are poorly understood. Youkai are a sort of explanation of the unknown, and Nue is the youkai of the unknown in general. Hence why her form is so tough to pin down... it's fluid and dynamic. Underneath that, though, she does have a core which is herself... though perhaps that identity itself is fluid and changing. As youkai have become less popular explanations, and humanity's knowledge grows, she, like Rumia, may have lost a lot of power from times long gone.
From what we've seen in the recent FS thing, Nue doesn't gain her fear by people being like "Oh, that was Nue who did whatever." It's from people being like "And no one knows how it works, oooohhh spoooooky." Whenever another youkai isn't the explanation and takes the credit... Nue gets the 'food'. You could call her a scavenger. Or you could see her as the bottomless pit that all rain that misses other beings drains into.
A Satori's Tale casts her in a villainous role. A youkai of Unknown just seemed like the sort that couldn't abide a youkai themed around enlightenment. Doesn't help that Satori could read Nue's true form/self right from Nue's mind, and so holds the ultimate blackmail material against her.
Since what happens if you define a youkai of the unknown? If something the explains all that is unexplainable becomes well-known?
Mamizou likely jives well with Nue because of the whole 'pride in a lack of identity' thing. That said, Mamizou isn't the only Tanuki, so why does Nue like her in particular? Probably they helped each other out with some capers or something back in the day.
Although, one could argue the opposite. For all we've explained, every question answered has generated two more. What's the deal with Dark Energy, or the weak nuclear force? How are the fundamental forces connected? How do some particles reach .999999999999999 of the speed of light on their own? And that's just physics. Psychology and biology have their own questions (For instance; sleep. How, what, why, and so much more about how it works.).
We know more than we've ever known before. And a really big thing we've learned is that we know very very little indeed. And if Nue feeds on those mysteries, than it doesn't matter how many are solved; only how many we think to find.
While I do think that it's her current true form, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was something else before. And the reason she takes it on is because... well, basically, 'everyone else is doing it.'
RE: Yuugi:
I dunno. Marisa may be a lying liar, but she's transparantly a lying liar. In a sense, with Marisa, what you see is what you get: a lying thief. She's being true to herself. Maybe that's why Yuugi's alright with Kasen still, despite Kasen living a lie. I have a hunch that back in the day Kasen never really fit in with the others, and now Yuugi's like "Good for her for finding her role and living in it." Being true to yourself is more important than being true to others... maybe that's how Yuugi thinks.
RE: Youkai Mountain
Still waiting on that Mokou meets Iwanagahime to explain just why she never got the Hourai Elixir fic.
Heh. I can certainly see her doing it. Maybe not being overt, but just throwing in a pointed reminder here and there that it's thanks to her that those vengeful spirits aren't getting out.
My guess is that it was her way of fully developing the blue ocean strategy or whatever. I mean, youkai might be able to have faith too, eh?
I suspect Okuu was almost more of a proof-of-concept. I mean, Sanae is like "Well, turns out the fusion reactor's not worthwhile to use because of those nasty underground youkai." Given that Kanako clearly knew about them (taking pains to avoid Satori, for instance), she must have known it'd be a problem. BUT if everything went to pot, then the only people who'd be burned would be the ones that nobody likes or would stand up for anyway (the undergrounders), so it all worked out.
edited 2nd Jan '16 3:54:34 AM by Antimatter625
I write some fanfiction. Satori's Tale is done... but I'm not.A pretty novel approach - I can't think of many works I've seen where Patchy is antagonistic towards the little devil. If we go with this angle, it's even possible that Patchouli hasn't met Koakuma in person, but is simply aware that there's some thief lurking in the stacks and stealing food from time to time.
Here's a wild notion - this is how youkai like Orange come about, supernatural creatures who no longer embody something, yet still cling to their existence. Maybe even Yuuka was once a youkai of something before she was an old, powerful youkai with some minor control of flowers.
Or this, a Rumsfeldian exploration of "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns."
Maybe... well, it'd be a miracle if Mokou ever died, wouldn't it? The sort of thing only a god would be capable of. So maybe Mokou thinks Iwanagahime might, might have a chance at offing her for good. Except, well, Mokou's life probably sucks the least right now than at any point in her existence. So even if it's a long shot that Iwanagahime could finally kill her, Mokou might be delaying the meeting.
Guess not. After this will be Ichirin and Unzan, followed by Kikuri and a discussion about the state of Gensokyo in general. But first a girl und her panzer.
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Stages: Purple Field ~ Purple Dawn
BGM: "Hakurei ~ Eastern Wind"
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Theme: "She's in a Temper!!"
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A Different Sky ~ For Lunatic Gamers
BGM: "Extra Love"
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Theme: "The Tank Girl's Dream"
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Write-up:
Touhou's first shooter boss fight, its first EX-boss, and so far the only character who fought from vehicles rather than with her own power. Other than this, we don't know a whole lot about Rika. She looks human, at least until she sprouts horns for the EX-stage, but no one else in the series has put together such bizarre constructions - tanks steeped in religious imagery, a winged eyeball monster, and how exactly does one build ghosts?
It's also unclear just what Rika had to do with the plot of her debut game, and whether she was working for Mima or was attacking the Hakurei Shrine on her own initiative for some reason. At any rate, Reimu seems to have put a stop to her mischief, and Rika hasn't been seen since. Ironically enough, in a modern Gensokyo with a fusion power plant and Shinto-powered rockets, someone like her might actually fit in.
Relationships:
- Bakebake, Shrine Tank, Flower Tank, Evil Eye Sigma (creations)
Rika:
An engineer who can create oddly supernatural tanks.
Supreme Supernatural Tank Commandant:
For a long time, I thought Rika was pure human. But maybe that's not the case. She might have some youkai blood flowing through her veins. Why else is she able to make monster tanks. Saying it's just a paint job she did on her tanks is such a flimsy excuse. Evil Sigma's eye and wings are tad organic, don't ya think?
In a world before the kappa were big news, how did Rika find a suitable scrapyard? Perhaps her workshop was on Gensokyo's edge, or simply put, an area of Gensokyo where the borderline of fantasy and reality blurred with relative ease. And it just so happened to be within a useful junkyard in the real world. So at the usual time, she would gather spare parts and somehow build her tank empire. Then she would use her magic to turn them into monsters.
Rika would most likely flip out at all the cool gadgets the kappa have made.
Using her monster tanks like tractors...seem doable?
edited 7th Jan '16 9:19:01 PM by Diamite
When you're growing horns out of your forehead you're probably not completely human at any rate.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.I always thought the horns were cloth tassels or some addition to her hat (similar to the triangular bits on Letty Whiterock's and Yuyuko Saigyouji's hats). On closer inspection, yeah, they do seem to be attached to her forehead. Strange.
Anyway, it's worth mentioning that Rika conforms to the mad scientist standard. Most bosses in Story of Eastern Wonderland don't have timeout phases; they just last forever or until the player gets bored and starts shooting again. However, Rika was nice enough to install a self-destruct device in her mid-boss tank midway through Stage 1; if it backs up all the way to the back of the bridge it will explode as normal. Neither the Flower Tank nor the Evil Eye Sigma have timeout phases, but at least the Evil Eye Sigma explodes in a revenge-laser.
Anyone crazy enough to attack the shrine with tanks, in broad daylight, must be trying to get some attention. Rika also very deliberately tries to lure Reimu into her factory for the extra stage. So, it's pretty clear that Rika wanted Reimu to go to her factory and fight Evil Eye Sigma. There's just very little to go on after that - was she trying to prove the superiority of technology over Shinto magic in a public setting? Show off her own youkai extermination techniques? Commit insurance fraud? Or maybe she, like many other residents in Gensokyo, enjoys fighting and wants to see Reimu's fighting techniques personally.
Additionally, we can probably assume that Evil Eye Sigma was a great success for flying tanks everywhere, because it flies without any visible propulsion whatsoever. Compare Rikako's jetpack in the next game, PoDD, which apparently flies with jet fuel and rocket emissions, which are clearly worse for the environment.
edited 7th Jan '16 8:42:43 PM by Leylicite
Or maybe it just turned up in Gensokyo one day, some experimental weapons workshop that was overlooked in a bureaucratic mishap. Or maybe the place was full of wunderwaffen so off-the-wall that nobody believed they would work, allowing them to pass into a land of fantasy where they could.
Industrial revolution? In my land of fantasy? It's more likely than you think.
Unless they're artificial - or as artificial as the evil eyes and bakebake and such, which means artificial with a question mark at the end. And means that Rika might have decided that her best chance of beating Reimu was to become a magical cyborg or something.
Or maybe she just wants Reimu. A recurring theme among SoEW's enemies was them wanting the power of the Hakurei, so perhaps Rika was no different. As for why Rika might want that...
The Border of Science and Mysticism
Rika says she's an engineer, and she is - she has enough mechanical know-how to make heavily-armed tracked vehicles. But she's more than that, since she's also somehow been able to make winged, organic-looking "tanks" as well as what could pass for ghosts.
The explanation lies in her more conventional vehicles, which still only partially resemble the sort of tanks we're familiar with. Her Flower-Tank has a big ol' yin-yang on its turret, while her Shrine Tank resembles a portable place of worship complete with shimenawa and another taijitu mark. In short, while Rikako the magical apostate struggles to be a true scientist, Rika has managed to fuse modern mechanics with divine magic, perhaps using Taoist mastery of the physical world to fill the gaps in her scientific knowledge, or allow her to surpass conventional engineering wisdom. Or maybe her methods are more Shinto than Taoist, and involve the channeling of spiritual entities and other tricks Reimu would later use to make a rocket to the moon.
Rika's attack on the Hakurei Shrine may have been an exploratory strike, to see if the newly-awakened power of its shrine maiden was worth capturing for her own purposes. Hence why Rika didn't go all-out the first time she fought Reimu, and tried to lure her onto an advantageous battlefield once it was clear that Reimu was too strong to defeat with a simple yin-yang tank. It's unlikely Rika was working with Mima or anyone else, which suggests that SoEW was a scramble to see who could get the Hakurei first - a magical engineer, a samurai, or an evil spirit (and her henchgirl).
Now this does raise an interesting possibility - how could Rika expect to steal this power? One theory about Meira is that the samurai is a relative of Reimu's, not close enough to inherit the shrine maiden position, but perhaps close enough to claim its power for herself (however that works). Mima seems to have a relationship with the Hakurei Shrine itself, which could be how she planned to claim the power in those yin-yang orbs. If you need some connection to the Hakurei to claim its power, was Rika just misinformed and undertaking a hopeless mission? Or does she have some relationship with Reimu we don't know about?
The thought of Rika using divine magic never crossed my mind at all. It could also explain why she has those horns on her head in the extra-stage; perhaps she was in the middle of channeling, and said channeling helped boost EES's capabilities to critical mass.
As for relations to Reimu? I don't see any relation. But maybe Rika hails from a family of priests. But instead of continuing the family business, she picked up a wrench and implemented her teachings into the machinery. By obtaining the Hakurei power, Rika would strive to create a tank greater than EES, a tank overflowing with so much divine essence it could be considered a god...
That'd be a cool EX-boss, a supercharged tank glowing with divine energy that you have to blast apart, piece by piece, until you're either able to strike at the spiritual essence of all tracked death machines, or the uncontained energy tears lose in a cross-shaped explosion.
Something interesting I discovered while compiling this meagre picdump - with this exception
, artists don't give Rika horns. Instead there seems to be a consensus that her Extra Stage portrait gives her a hat with white ruffles on it that might be confused for horns.
On closer examination of her portrait...
◊ I dunno, could go either way.
Cheerful little hellraiser
I wouldn't call it a Nice Hat
Her tanks
It seems more mechanical in this pic
Not sure what the others on the page have to do with her
Not sure what those three on the left have to do with her
Not sure what the angel of death has to do with her
Three red eyes upon you
Before and after
Rika and EES against the world
"Nice turtle, lol"
Now there's a neat idea, Rika built herself a double the same way she built a giant eyeball demon
Nitori'd
No
Sweet dreams
edited 13th Jan '16 9:17:27 AM by Tacitus
If she does have some relation to a deity, the designs would suggest some sort of Underworld god to me.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.But the Shrine Tank and yin-yang'd Flower Tank suggest a loftier patron, and then there's the ghosts... maybe Rika's completely mercenary when it comes to applying supernatural influences to her creations. Shinto, Taoism, spirits of the Netherworld, creatures of Makai, she'll use whatever it takes to get the most from her machines. That might make her an even worse heretic than Rikako, who at least believes in something.
Bet she really wishes she had Reimu's god summoning ability if that's the case.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
The Chew Toy of Gaming
That could have been why Rika tried to fight Reimu in the first place. If Evil Eye Sigma was the greatest thing Rika could create through her resources alone, gaining a(n initially unwilling) coworker with the ability to summon the Shinto gods and utilize the Hakurei Yin-Yang Orbs could enable the creation of a tank of truly godlike capabilities.
Now that I think about it, Rika and Rikako's mixtures of magic and technology would have been of great interest to Yumemi and Chiyuri. Maybe their disappearances could be explained by them all meeting up and going on a grand journey through the multiverse or something.
Lampshade Hanging: It's a lifestyle.

Though if Mamizou isn't fully-informed about Ran's relationship with Yukari, and especially if she missed out on the gap lady entirely and just sees Ran apparently sitting on the top of the totem pole, that would do much to explain Mamizou's desire to build up a power base.
Also, I think I'm gonna announce that the next week or so is officially a Review Period, so anyone who missed out on a character discussion doesn't have to end the year with any lingering regrets. Or at least, any regrets pertaining to Touhou character interpretations.