The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Kikuri:

A woman in the form of a bronze disk. Known as the "Hellish Moon".

Why is she the Hellish Moon? She emits waves that cause people who are weak to go mad with insanity. If one survives the waves and gaze upon her form, she will unleash a torrent of the person's deepest, darkest and most despair-inducing thoughts. A terror that must be avoided at all costs. But that's impossible to pull off    since she's the moon. And since Hell's a dark place... Ha. Ha. HA!   

Of course, if you're lion-hearted, she can't do squat.

She's a moon... the most characterful moon I can think of is the one in Majora's Mask... okay, theory: Kikuri is on Reimu's side, or would be if the shrine maiden was capable of talking to someone instead of just blasting them. Because what happens when some denizens of Hell are breaking out and running amok? Drop a moon on them. Mima managed to escape before Kikuri arrived, but the only thing saving Konngara from getting smushed was, ironically enough, the same shrine maiden that would then go on to defeat the astral knight.

Side note: browsing Kikuri stuff on the 'booru brought to my attention that Kikuri-hime is a character in Shin Megami Tensei, and... ah, who was it? There was some other PC-98 character that also seemed to be inspired by that franchise, right? Just wondering if that could be a line of inquiry to figure out what the deal is with this moon/disc/mediation goddess.

Here's how big she is in HRtP, which doesn't help much since every boss is enormous.

I'm just as curious about what her job is. Though I suppose that's me operating under the assumption that she's part of Hell's management instead of one of the inmates.

Quoting from the SMT wiki:

It's not hard to imagine Kikuri trying to explain that she's here to help Reimu negotiate with the one she's pursuing and promptly getting a yin yang orb to the face, upon which Reimu rides her turtle off into the sunset without so much as a backwards glance.

So began a long tradition of beating people (or discs) up first and failing to ask questions later.

Indeed. Reimu is a not a negotiator. Kikuri could had helped Reimu solve the incident but you know that is never gonna happen.

edited 31st Jan '16 6:29:27 PM by GAP

Interesting. This place sounds pretty different from the Netherworld we've seen in Touhou, and its traditional depiction doesn't fit Hell either. So what's this goddess with a connection to Yomi (potentially) doing in Jigoku?

Maybe it's a case of evolving mythology, where the gloomy neutral Yomi was supplanted by a nicer Heaven for the good souls and a nasty Hell for the bad ones, and Kikuri was shunted into the latter. Or maybe... well, one our theories concerning Konngara was that the maybe-oni was in Hell because she deserved it. So maybe Kikuri had a similar fall from grace, got a little too big for her mediator's boots. Or maybe she made an error in judgment and got punished for it.

Yomi is more like Hades, I guess. The Touhou Netherworld is clearly Buddhist. In Shinto death just sucks and there is no heaven.

edited 1st Feb '16 10:24:11 PM by Clarste

Yeah, Clarste is right. In fact, the idea that in Buddhism there was a "heaven" was part of why Japan was so ready to accept the religion in the first place.

Hmm. Maybe Kikuri is one of Touhou's Old Ones - not Lovecraftian nightmare deities, but leftovers from early myths who lost their place when religions grew and changed. And oddly enough, she shares a game with an obscure, Abrahamic angel of death/magic/protection and someone who, if you apply the Japanese L-R problem to her name, might be a Hellenic deity of strife. HRtP might have been their attempt at payback.

If this sounds far-fetched, consider that now we have an apparent Greek goddess running around causing trouble in LoLK.

Unsurprisingly, there isn't much fanart of Kikuri, and most of it is group shots.

Alphes-fied
Sketchy and kind of sad
Having a ball
A portal used for beer delivery
Stylish halo
Glowing disc
Golden moon
Portrait
Uh oh.

That would make Highly Responsive to Prayers a fairly fitting name then.

Kikuri is a moon deity(?) that resides in hell doing pretty much who knows what in H Rt P to stop Reimu from getting to Konngara. I also found this:

Do you think that might b thee case for Kikuri?

edited 4th Feb '16 1:06:05 AM by GAP

I guess it's about as likely as anything else we've come up with. Maybe getting encased in molten bronze and used as an ornament is just one of Hell's punishments? And if certain theories about Shingyoku are true, that would mean Reimu fought both the best and the worst representations of shrine maidens during her adventure, which is an appealing bit of symmetry.

Since things are winding down, now's probably a good time to voice any last-minute thoughts pertaining to mysterious otherworldly discs with potential connections to ancient deities.

Could it be possible Kikuri has some sort of direct relation to Touhouverse Izunome, since she's the patron goddess of miko here?

edited 5th Feb '16 10:34:38 PM by rmctagg09

Personally I link them together because Ichirin's basically always ignored in favor of Unzan (In and out of universe), giving her something similar to Koishi's 'somebody else's problem field'. Personally I headcanon that it's a result of her actually progressing down the path of detachment/asceticism.

As for Kikuri, I know at one point I had planned to use her as a villain. Where basically she was like... a goddess of coinage. And thus Reimu's eternal antagonist. Basically the whole reason Reimu never have luck with money is because Kikuri just keeps coins away from Reimu out of spite.

edited 6th Feb '16 5:41:19 PM by Antimatter625

I think its fair to give someone that once beat you up a wide berth.

I guess? I'm not the one to ask about this sort of thing, I haven't read any side materials featuring Izunome, and the Touhou wiki isn't helping me learn anything.

Okay, that's kinda hilarious. And opens up the opportunity of Kikuri being kept around Konngara's lair as a kind of trophy, like that giant penny in the Batcave.

Anyhoo, moving along. Up next will be Utsuho Reiuji, followed by paru-paru Parsee and the original poltergeist. But first, let's take a step back and look at the big picture.

Gensokyo

Themes: Lots

Write-up:
A stretch of woods and mountains far to the east where mortals and monsters intermingle. This out-the-way stretch of Japan has been home to youkai and the heroes who battled them since ancient times, but as the world turned and old traditions gave way to science and rationalism, Gensokyo's inhabitants decided to seal themselves away from the rest of the world, creating the Great Hakurei Barrier in 1885. Gensokyo has since become a refuge for the supernatural, a place for youkai to be themselves and for humans to live in a pre-industrial world of magic and mystery.

This isn't to say that Gensokyo is a peaceful sanctuary, quite the opposite in fact. Some antagonism with humans is necessary for youkai to maintain their identity, and happily the modern spellcard rules allow such battles to take place in aesthetically-appealing non-lethal engagements. Gensokyo has also seen its share of disruption, in the form of Incidents that regularly introduce new forces - a conniving vampire whose whimsies endanger the entire land, ambitious goddesses who seek to introduce modern technology to the valley, a fringe Buddhist nun with a bizarre message of peace between humans and youkai, a legendary figure from ancient Japan who could claim to be Gensokyo's true administrator, and so forth.

As a result, Gensokyo may have changed more in the past decade than it did in the previous century, which raises questions about what its future will look like - especially since the powerful youkai of boundaries who had a hand in Gensokyo's creation seems to be in favor of some upheaval. Can a status quo be maintained? Is the Gensokyo experiment doomed to failure? Or are these questions based on a misunderstanding of the situation, rendering them entirely inconsequential?

Inhabitants

• Many

See also the previous compendium.

Guess everyone else is still reeling from the new site design too. So...

Well, I already voiced this in a 'fic, but I view Gensokyo as something meant to be a refuge that turned into a prison, not to mention a powder keg. It's where a bunch of powerful entities have been jammed together under a lid, some of whom could rule kingdoms in their own right, but must now treat each other as neighbors. Said entities are defined by their antagonism with humanity, with sadistically means they are reliant upon those humans. And more youkai or other weirdos keep turning up each year, turning up the heat under this pressure cooker, if I make a third comparison. The only thing that takes the edge off this is the spell card rules, but even that has limits - small wonder Hopeless Masquerade was initially blamed on all those Incidents going off one after another.

I guess this really emphasizes the desperation of the youkai who helped create Gensokyo. And I have to wonder what the place's human founders were thinking, if they considered having man-eating monster girls for neighbors so much better than living in an industrial society. Evidently some of their descendants are sick of it, hence that "secret society" that wants to drive the youkai out.

Less simile, more comparison - I wonder if Gensokyo's founders reflected on how they were imitating Tokugawa and shutting off their society from modern (and foreign) influence, and if they felt any irony in following in his footsteps right when the consequences of such an action were becoming apparent. On the other hand, those founders might have been thinking of another closed society on the moon, a seeming utopia that has flourished for thousands of years. The moon's a peaceful and deathless place, though (at least when Junko isn't acting up), so it wouldn't be the best example to emulate.

All this to say, I have serious doubts about the Gensokyo project's long-term viability. It almost makes me want to suggest that it was intended as a temporary measure, a safehouse the youkai and humans who put up with them could seek shelter in until a better solution could be found, except they never got that far and were stuck. Or could it be a bomb shelter? Did Gensokyo's founders think this "science" and "rationalism" stuff were fads that would go out of fashion some day, allowing youkai to venture forth once more and humans to return to the old ways?

A bit of a stretch, but almost more believable than them thinking they could live like that indefinitely.

I'm not sure the human founders of Gensokyo really had that much say in the matter. I get the impression that they're just being used by the youkai.

I'm not exactly sure issues with long-term stability is the term to use when Gensokyo's barrier has been around for more than a century, and Gensokyo itself has been around for at least a thousand years prior. That said, I suspect that social upheaval sideplot will probably come up in a big way in the next game since everything thus far has been leading up to it, whether it's a direct sequel to ULiL or for the main series.

As an aside, I'm aware the plot of a fangame is Yukari deciding to go make the Barrier larger in order to accommodate all the new arrivals.

There's been a few things I've wondered about Gensokyo, especially the Human Village. Do they have their own currency or do they use the modern yen? How much do the inhabitants know about the outside world? Do they thinks it's just one monolithic land? Do they know that they are a part of a country called Japan and that other countries exist? How is race perceived?

The last one in particular is something that I've thought about. We can assume that the Scarlet Sisters and Alice are Caucasian, and if memory serves the heroines never commented on it. Though in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the only heroines are Reimu and Marisa. Reimu I feel really wouldn't care enough to comment. I see her as someone that categorizes people into one of two groups, those that annoy her (causing incidents, giving her sass, etc.) and those that don't while any other details aren't worth thinking about. I see Marisa as someone that looks at people by what she can get out of them - things that she can "barrow", information and entertainment. In the next game Sakuya joins in and it's obvious why she wouldn't care to comment. Of course in the games, the heroines are in the middle of an incident and have more important things to think about which is probably the main reason. I wonder about the villagers, though. In Forbidden Scrollery we learn that the youkai don't wonder about the human village without a disguise. So it's safe to assume Remilia doesn't go there since she'd have to go out of her way to avoid sunlight and that would be a dead give away. Alice, I have no clue. She can pass for human but she seems to be a loner.

From what I understand, Japan being a racially homogeneous country it's very easy for someone to stick out (providing they're of a different race of course). If you're there and obviously not Japanese, people take notice. I hear the attention is pretty faint in the big cities like Tokyo, but it's pretty obvious in the more rural places and I don't see it getting more rural than Gensokyo.

So what would happen if someone of a different race (Black, White, etc) showed up in the Human Village? Would they become the talk of the town? Would the villager, never seeing a human of a different race before assume this person was a youkai? Or would zero shits be given?

Those are some of my thoughts on this topic. I'll end this post on an interesting fact.

The year the Great Hakurei Barrier was erected, 1885, was the same year an anonymous essay titled Datsu A-Ron (escaping Asia) was published. It's usually attributed to Fukuzawa Yukichi (the guy on the ¥10,000 yen note). It argues that for Japan to advance and become great it must abandon its east-Asian traditions in pursuit of Modernization/Westernization. I don't see this as being a coincidence on ZUN's part.

edited 9th Feb '16 11:33:17 PM by FalseDichotomy

I think you sort of answered your own question here. Being a youkai would stand out far more than anything else. They wouldn't look at Remilia and think "oh, she's white" but instead think "oh, she's a vampire." As we often see in fiction, actual racial distinctions tend to fall apart completely when faced with exaggerated fantasy racial distinctions. Who cares about black and white and brown when you've got orcs to worry about?

I'm definitely going to look into that. Thanks.

People tend to categorizes themselves on their most obvious differences it seems. So it wouldn't be unexpected for racial differences to take a back seat when there is a different sapient species out there.

But how often do youkai openly mingle in the Human Village? I wouldn't say it happens too often if Mamizou feels it necessary to disguise herself. True, she's a tanuki and that's their thing but when Reimu decided not to expose her because Reimu was afraid of the blow back it would have on Kosuzu? That's more telling of where youkai stand in the Human Village. Of course there is the exception of the child-looking youkai from Wild and Horned Hermit (can't think of their name) but they appear to be the only exception.

The point I'm trying to make is it would be one thing if the youkai openly walked around, interacting with the humans without hiding their true selves. Different skin color and facial features wouldn't be so shocking if you knew that your neighbor could detach her head, or your brother's wife could create blizzards. That doesn't seem to be the case. Just because the humans of Gensokyo know that youkai exist doesn't mean it impacts their daily lives all that often (at least that they know of).

But we're forgetting something important. The humans of the Human Village grew up knowing youkai exist. Even though they would be exposed to something we would consider weird, doesn't mean their weirdness threshold is any higher than ours. It just means they probably have a different view of what constitutes weird.

So even if the youkai and humans palled around on a regular basis, it would seem that from most of the youkai we've seen the vast majority look of Japan's predominate Yamamoto ethnicity. In this case they would used to youkai, but still not used to different races.

I'm not saying that if a black guy or white guy showed up one day everyone would lose their collective marbles^note unless they assume said guy was a youkai. But they would probably be an attention getter. Probably short term, since the people of Gensokyo seem to get used to things quickly. Though as I'm typing this, it occurs to me that maybe that's the true affect of living in a world were youkai can exist, it doesn't stop things from being weird or surprising or make them less so, it just makes normalizing them easier and quicker.

Ultimately the reason I asked about the race thing is the same reason I brought up currency and the Outside World, I'm curious on just how isolated Gensokyo is from the Outside World. I wouldn't expect the people to be able to name any countries but Japan^note Only if they are aware that they are part of a country called Japan. If a person of a different race showed up and didn't become the village's hottest topic based on their appearance, then obviously the people of Gensokyo have at least a basic understanding of the Outside World^note By that I mean they know it's not monolithic. If this person failed to garner anything but the occasional nod to the fact that, yes they are different, then that means Gensokyo knows enough of the Outside World that the people of Gensokyo have some knowledge of things such as race and nationality.

edited 10th Feb '16 3:26:08 PM by FalseDichotomy

Those are known helpful youkai, so they are the exception.

Some Youkai visit the human village from time to time, but this is a rare thing. I believe Yuuka visits the human village undisguised, and Alice visits the human village too, but I am unsure if she is disguised or not. Reisen also visits the human village and I believe she is likely considered a youkai, as far as the human village is concerned. I don't remember if Reisen disguises herself or not, I don't think so though.

I would assume they know enough about the outside world and other nationalities. Since they do have magazines from the outside world, and not all of them originating from Japan.

I could also see race intersecting with other things, given that this is a situation where youkai can have all the various appearances that humans do. I'm not sure how conscious people would be of it, but it's possible that they might respond differently to a white-appearing youkai that they would to a Japanese-appearing youkai.