The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

My personal theory is that inchlings are among the "technically not youkai" category and thus do not have to constantly antagonize humans. The main reason they have to live in Gensokyo is because no one believes in them anymore. Conflict amongst inchlings and humans is unnecessary (although that does not mean it does not exist).

Though the inchlings are no longer believed in, what would happen in a case of convergent evolution? Like if people started blaming misplaced keys and missing socks on a race of tiny people who like to cause mischief when no one else is looking? Would the kobito find themselves transforming to fit this role, or would they suddenly have a new race of tiny rivals to deal with?

Just another random musing. Anyway, it's been about two weeks now, so we should probably get in our final thoughts on Sukuna before moving on to the 'getsus.

However it happened, living in an inverted castle was a great blessing to the inchlings.No more menacing stray animals wandering by.

How many years did Seija have to wait to find an inchling sufficiently bold and determined and sufficiently naive and gullible, to suit her plans?

Guess it would depend on how many inchlings there are left and how they're distributed. We don't see any others in the Shining Needle Castle, do we? Does Shinmyoumaru have the whole place to herself? Are the others living in communities in the mysterious World of the Oni? And when Sukuna was talked into her great small fry revolution, why didn't she recruit her fellow inchlings to the cause?

Wait, Seija probably talked her out of it in case any of the other kobito were too smart to trust an amanojaku. Never mind.

More questions than answers, as usual. We can only hope more little folk appear in a manga. Oooh, or maybe a spin-off game where we get to see Gensokyo from a very low angle. Anyway, let's give one last round of applause to the little princess, as well as our hopes that she doesn't get snatched up by a hawk on her way home. Coming up will be Keine Kamishirasawa, followed by Yumeko and a someone whose name is popularly exclaimed. But first,

Mugetsu and Gengetsu

Stage: A Quiet Closing for Wonderful You ~ Puckish Angel
BGM: "The Inevitably Forbidden Game"^note I made this one fairly rhythmical (not) The main part is pretty simple, so it feels nice. I get the feeling listening to it that this is how my songs are most of the time. I like songs like this, but sometimes I want to write something with a different atmosphere. [...] This song is made up by gathering the most basic parts of my songs. In other words, I made it without thinking anything (sweat). So I believe it was arranged as it was to my extent. Arrangements of these type of songs looks easy but not quite (tears). But I think it worked out this time (I always think it does (^^;;). Anyway this is a song with a mysteries perspective. It's indefinable, not modern-like nor ancient-like, multinational or non-national. But it not definable as Touhou. (laugh) Well then, we shall meet again at the next song
Mugetsu's Theme: "Illusion of Maid ~ Icemilk Magic"^note The younger sister, Mugetsu's, theme. Somehow, she looks like a maid. This is a pretty cool song, isn't it? Even though it's short. (Because it's short?) Well, in any case, it turned out to be a pretend-maid song like this.
Gengetsu's Theme: "Cute Devil ~ Innocence"^note The theme for the older sister Gengetsu, the most terrible, most fearful boss. I wanted for it to have a real Western feel to it, but ... ? I was aiming for a song that was pretty similar to Mugetu's theme. Rather, I was really hoping to come up with a Mr. Dracula sort of song ... (;_;]]

Write-up:
A pair of demons encountered in a dream world sometime after the events of Lotus Land Story, only to get beat up by the protagonist for no good reason. It's unclear whether their unnamed dreamscape is the same as the Fantasy World traveled through in LLS Stage Three, the World of Fantasies seen in Story of Eastern Wonderland Stage Three, or for that matter the Dream World recently visited in Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom Stage Three. Similarly, it's hard to find anything connecting Mugetsu and Gengetsu to the plot, such as it is, of the game they appear in, which could make them a random encounter in a random dimension.

There's a couple of things to note about them, though - Mugetsu subverts the "younger sister is more powerful" rule picked up by later Touhou titles, and is the first opponent with the Maid subspecies, if not quite the first maid character. Gengetsu meanwhile is a notoriously difficult boss, and possesses something similar to a Master Spark as well as a time-out attack affectionately known as "Gengetsu Rape Time." Also, Gengetsu's theme works in some riffs from Yuuka's "Sleeping Terror," which may nor may not be significant. Well, it probably isn't, but we can always make up a connection.

Relationships:

• Each other (sibling)

See also the previous two compendiums.

edited 24th Jul '16 4:02:49 PM by Tacitus

Didn't one of the sisters betray the other one?

From the translation on Touhouwiki it seems Mugetsu just left the protagonist to Gengetsu who was annoyed that her sister lost. Mai from the next game I think makes some claim of betraying Yuki if she's left for second.

On the subject of dialogue in Reimu's version of the stage Gengetsu says something to the effect of "...The two of us together make a full-fledged adult." I've never considered the two of them as kids but that line intrigues me.

It makes me wonder; what do they see themselves as? Or each other for that matter? They call each other sisters but is there something more to it than that?

I'm working on a writeup that should be ready in a couple of days.

I guess the "sisters" angle would depend on whether they're the same sort of demons as the ones encountered in Makai, i.e. creations of Shinki. Wait, maybe it wouldn't.

The "two kids equal one adult" line is just... it's weird that I never noticed before, but it's really jarring. Like at this point in the series, I'm not even thinking about how Reimu and Marisa are teenagers at best flying around shooting up monster girls, but when one of those monster girls mentions how young she is, I remember. And that's not getting into how strange it is for a potentially-immortal magical being talking about being less than an adult.

That's odd, the Touhou wiki has the -getsus' species as demon on their character pages, but while it lists them under the "notable members" section of its page for demons, its "appearances" section only covers Mystic Square characters. Kind of an understandable oversight, though - since demons became so associated with Makai in that game, it's hard to know what to do with the demons who appeared outside of it.

Assuming they're not Shinki's advance scouts scoping out the Unnamed Dream World for a future invasion, it's possible they're outcasts or malcontents who wouldn't fit in back home. Or maybe they just wanted to move out of Makai and the dream world was more hospitable to demons than Gensokyo.

Or oooh, what if the Unnamed Dream World is actually a subset of Makai like Alice's Wonderland? Would that imply that the -getsu siblings were powerful enough to make their own demiplanes? Or that they were important enough that Shinki made them a place of their own?

Either way would be interesting characterization for both the 'Getsus and for Shinki.

If they left home and made their own residence as a subsidiary of Makai it kinda gives that 'I wanna move out, but not too far' vibe you get from people who live in their parents garage yet claim to be independent. I wonder if they pay rent, what with building on her land so to speak?

On the other hand if she made it for them it raises the question of why. Does Shinki do as much for all her children when they move out or were the sisters special cases.

In the same vein, why a dream world? Was it just on a whim they built it/had it built? Or do they actually have some connection to/influence over dreams themselves?

I didn't think to connect them to Makai but it opens a huge range of new possibilities.

Mugetsu and Gengetsu:

Two powerful sisters who reside in a dream world. Gengetsu's the older sister, while Mugetsu's the younger.

Moonlight Phantasm:

So Reimu and Marisa just wandered right into the world of the Moon Twins. They were even widely awake and in Marisa's case, she was just killing time. Makes me think that stumbling into their dream world could happen randomly, without warning. That, and their world is less restrictive than Doremy's, given how surprised she was at seeing a non-dreaming entity in her presence.

Which is quite interesting. People who stumble into their world will see their desires in real time. No need to pinch yourself. There are only two ways to escape their world; play their inevitablely forbidden game(ha!) and win, or just offer your dream to them as sustenance. Doing the latter option results in one forgetting that vision....not quite forever. Two months at most, maybe. Of course, the latter option could be quite problematic if their vision included something that needed to be done. Like a to-do list for example.

The Moon Twins are picky dream eaters, though. They absolutely hate dreams that are too edgy and too adorable. Moderation, please!

They might be imitatin' mama, just in a different way than Alice. Shinki's got the power to lord over at the very least a good chunk of Makai, and she has enough control over it to create life and presumably reshape it to fit her fancy. The -getsus may not be able to challenge Shinki and claim their own patch of Makai, so the next best thing could be to find another highly morphic plane of existence - in this case, a dream world.

Alternatively... well, what I did when I used the -getsus in a story was to tie them into the plot of LLS, and imply that everything from Kurumi's lake of blood onward took place in a series of personalized dreams controlled by Mugetsu and Gengetsu. They claimed to be safely containing dangerous youkai like Yuuka, but can you really trust a demon?

You know, this might explain something. While trying to put together a halfway-decent -getsu sisters picdump, I stumbled upon this piece depicting Touhou's most notorious Master Sparkers (and Mima), which reminded me that yeah, Gengetsu knows that attack. Small wonder she's a notoriously hard EX-boss, then - if she has access to the dreams of powerful magicians, she's potentially got access to all their magic.

Anyway, -getsu siblings picdump. Lots of stuff of the two being uncomfortably close, no surprise, and it looks like Gengetsu wins out when it comes to volume of fanart, no doubt thanks to being a full-fledged EX-boss rather than a EX-midboss.

Maid of the moon
Angel of lights
Unimpressed
Delighted to meet you
Cute little demon
Cackling fiend
Context needed
Or maybe it wouldn't help
A smile and averted eyes
A smile and... detached wings?
One is far more enthusiastic than the other
Perhaps too enthusiastic
A lot of their pics involve blood for some reason
Sometimes, uh, a lot of it
Checkerboard abyss
Shocked at her sister's sass
A carnival of dreams?
Great, another blade-wielding doom-maid
Her hand glows with an awesome power
Their hands are occupied
Angel of light and darkness
Skull on a platter
Borderline abstract
Stylized watercolor
Lots of red
They're number one?
This artist does a lot of stuff of one or both of the -getsus getting violent with other characters, but it's not arranged in any sort of narrative I can find
Determined and relaxed
Gengetsu and Mugetsu meet the Law
Better for her to be an old friend than the alternative
Sure'd love to know the background for this confrontation
A dream of warmth and light
A dream of wrath unbound?
Dreams don't have to make sense
Time for dreams
Time for nightmares

I really like the idea that, if you happen to fall into their world you must beat their game or lose your dream. Ever wake up with a vivid recollection of some dream or other? Congratulations, you won! And yet, doesn't everyone know how it feels to wake, with the recollection that you dreamed but with no idea about what? Well such a state is your 'morning after' for a -getsu sisters' banquet?

The whole idea of stumbling into their dream world while awake reminds me of the manga/anime Yumekui Merry. I could easily image those two as extremely powerful Dream Demons.

Maybe they can't create their own world from nothing like Shinki, but they can steal chunks of dreamscapes and cobble together their own realm that way. And they're sporting enough to only do so if they win a harmless game of bullet hell against the dreamer.

Evidently I suck at shoot-'em-ups.

Oh yeah, not to step on Diamite's toes, but this Tutti Sound remix is one of their best, I think.

Whoa, that's an cool remix.

Sweet, innocent dreams, or horrible, inescapable nightmares? May the moonlit illusions show your true desires.

A Dangerous Game
The Maid's Deadly Service
The Eternal Game
Innocent Wings
Creamy Magic
Gate of Forbidden
Mirrors of an Illusion
A Moment of Innocence
Illusion of Innocence, Or Illusion of Devilry?
A High-Stakes Contest
Crystallized Milk
Innocent Kaleidoscope
The Sealed Illusion of Terror

One question I have to ask, why does the older sister betray the younger one or was it the other way around?

Either Mugetsu betrayed her big sister by not being strong enough to stop the protagonist on her own, or else Gengetsu betrayed her little sister by getting mad at Mugetsu's defeat instead of being supportive. Depends on how you want to interpret the dialogue.

When it comes to Orchestral Bombing, Tutti Sound might actually out-bombast WAVE/MORRIGAN/whatever you want to call them.

Welp, it's probably about time to move on. Any final thoughts before we sit down for a history lesson with Keine?

Looks like that's a no, then. Let's say our short-lived goodbyes to the -getsu sisters, since we'll certainly be seeing them in our dreams whether we remember it or not. Up next will be Yumeko, followed by CHEEEENNNN!!! and someone who is fundamentally different from nearly every other person on the list. But first, take your seats and shut your mouths, you're about to get schooled.

Keine Kamishirasawa

Stage: Memories of the History-Eater's Home
At the end of the pass, there was a small village where humans lived. But in the place where the village should have been, there was nothing at all.
BGM: "Nostalgic Blood of the East ~ Old World"^note This is the Stage 3 theme. This one is so nostalgic... I'm sure those who are familiar with Touhou will recognize it, but it sounds like a song I did a few years ago. I made it the same way, so it's very nostalgic, but what good is it if it's only nostalgic to me? (Haha) This theme is a bit out of place. It has some of my 80s flavor in it.
Theme: "Plain Asia"^note This is Keine Kamishirasawa's theme. It's both serious and mysterious. I really like the striking melodious feeling conveyed by the piano in the intro. To me, Japanese culture is sort of a natural progression in East Asia. So Japanese-English music certainly shouldn't be reduced to fluff.

Spellcard Motif: Weaponized Japanese History
Spellcards: IN Stage 3, IN Extra,GoM, StB, ISC
-Spiritual Birth "First Pyramid," Ambition Sign "Yoshimitsu Crisis," Land Scheme "Three Sacred Treasures - Country," Ending Sign "Phantasmal Emperor," Pseudo-History "The Legend of Gensokyo," Past "Ancient History -Old History-", Future "New History Of Phantasm -Next History-", "Emperor of the East," Light Sign "Amaterasu," Japan Sign "Yamato Kingdom," Great Fire "Flower of Edo"

Write-up:
Most of the time, Keine Kamishirasawa is nothing more exciting than the Human Village's resident history teacher. But on nights when the full moon shines in the sky, she undergoes a startling transformation into... a history teacher with horns and a tail.

Keine is a therianthrope, specifically a were-hakutaku, a supernatural beast said to offer sage counsel to virtuous emperors regarding youkai both malicious and harmless. This makes her choice of vocation quite appropriate, but also gives her powers over history itself - just as she can erase history as a human, she can create history when in were-hakutaku form. Her most striking use of this power to date remains the time she hid the entire Human Village by "eating" its history during the Eternal Night Incident, though it must be noted that this wasn't a perfect veil.

Although technically a youkai, Keine is firmly on the side of humanity, and acts as one of the Human Village's guardians, only using her powers for good. And she'd be happy to give you a detailed lecture on many interesting historical topics. But if you do wind up in one of her classes, do yourself a favor and don't skip the homework.

Relations:

• Fujiwara no Mokou (friend)
• Hieda no Akyuu (fellow/rival historian)

See also the previous two compendiums.

edited 5th Aug '16 6:27:16 PM by Tacitus

What sort of thing does Keine actually teach at her school? Is it just normal subjects or are they specialized for life in Gensokyo?

From what little we see she seems to be a general schoolteacher.

Our character page for her says that Forbidden Scrollery shows that the school has more than one teacher. So I guess the Human Village isn't quite one of those frontier backwaters with a one-room schoolhouse and a single teacher handling every subject. But the wiki describes Keine as a history teacher, which would seem to indicate that the various teachers all specialize in single subjects, which surprises me - in my elementary school there were several teachers per grade level, but they all were assigned a particular class of students and taught them all the required subjects. Maybe they do things different in Japan? Or did things differently in Old Japan?

I'm also tickled that Keine has a bit of an unorthodox approach to history, for a schoolteacher. Using spellcards to make sure students remember Japan's Three Sacred Treasures, that's fine. But a secret society trying to uncover the secrets of Gensokyo's founding? Keine does not approve. Yeah, she's trying to preserve the balance of power between humanity and youkai, but she comes across as someone less dedicated to true history than she is to the "proper" history. Which I suppose only makes sense if her superpower involves editing history even more than normal scholars can.

Wonder how she'd feel about Leopold von Ranke, the father of modern historiography.

edited 9th Aug '16 8:39:47 PM by rmctagg09

Keine Kamishirasawa:

A very intellectual resident of the Human Village. Human most of the time, were-hakutaku on full moon nights. "Devours" history as a human, "creates" history as a youkai. Great defender of humans.

I wonder what are the limits to her creation of history. It's said Keine knows Gensokyo's history while transformed, but Akyuu notes that the powers of the Hieda are greater than Keine's creation. I guess what Akyuu means is that while Keine knows the history of Gensokyo, she doesn't quite know every single minute detail of its history? How confusing.

It was pretty cool that she used her powers to conceal the Human Village. However, in hindsight it was kind of pointless? I mean, she claims to have eaten the village's history, yet Reimu et al still remembered where it was supposed to be. I wonder if Keine can enhance her skills to the point where she can erase parts of people's memories. Preeeety useful in giving potential invaders the boot.

Speaking of Reimu, Keine really doesn't like her, huh? Reimu hanging out with youkai(whether she likes it or not) really clashes with her grand desire to protect humans. With youkai hanging around near the village nowadays (Sekibanki, for example), Keine must really want to give that shrine maiden an earful. Wonder if complaining about Reimu is one of the topics she discusses with Mokou.

Then again, maybe she isn't that passive-aggressive towards Reimu, what with Reimu freely carrying out an investigation at the school in FS.

Oh yeah, that surprised me too. Maybe it's the difference between public and private knowledge, like Keine's power is over the history of society as a whole, while the Hiedas have their own well-documented family history Keine doesn't necessarily know and thus has no power over. Which might be the only reason Keine is tolerated - how scary would it be to have someone around who could rewrite your family tree?

Or maybe it's specifically tied to Akyuu reincarnatin' and chroniclin'.

I think the protagonists had Plot on their side, the hiding ought to have been effective against everyday youkai. Maybe not "stage boss" youkai, though, but I guess that's what Keine is for.

We'd probably have to get an example of Keine's teaching style to know for sure. Though in a land of fantasy where the lessons are being taught by someone who undergoes a transformation and gains supernatural powers every full moon, there might be less emphasis on empirical data and primary sources. I mean, that'd be dangerously close to science, wouldn't it?

I'm still having trouble not thinking of Keine as like a police state censor, burying information that the public doesn't need to know, maintaining the narrative that she thinks society needs to function. Might put her into conflict with Yukari someday if Her Gapness has a different idea of Gensokyo's future. Which I wouldn't mind seeing, actually.

edited 9th Aug '16 8:49:50 PM by Tacitus

Keine does have the power to "create" and "store" history. I wonder how that works considering that everyone has their own history and experience.

Especially since Akyuu claims that her family history is beyond Keine's reach. Heh, maybe that was pure bluster, and Akyuu doesn't even remember being inside the Village when Keine "ate" its history... man, what was it like in the Village when that happened? Did the whole place just go out of sync from the rest of Gensokyo, so everyone inside the Village was having a normal evening, but only a few people outside of it could tell that it was even missing? Or was the whole place shunted into the Darkness Beyond Time until Keine relaxed her grip on history, thus allowing the Village to exist again?

IN was the game ZUN was particularly drunk when working on, right? You can kind of tell when it comes to things like Miss Kamishirasawa's superpower, 'cause it just gets more mind-boggling and creepier the more you consider it.