The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

In the last character alternate interpretation thread, Chen was considered to be the closest to a shonen hero but how much of that is true?

That was Stark's essay, right?

Yeah.

It's as true as you want it to be. You could easily cast Chen as a plucky young youkai out to make her mark on the world, rise through the ranks of Gensokyo's notables, and become the best damn shikigami she can be. She could make friends with other Stage Two bosses, compete with and eventually befriend a spirited rival, and learn life lessons all over the place. Maybe even come up with a tournament arc for her somehow.

Personally, I don't quite see it. Shonen heroes are usually pretty driven and determined, while cats are typically the "sleep twenty hours, yowl for canned tuna the other four" sort. Ran or Yukari activating her shikigami programming is probably the only way Chen gets anything productive done.

Well, that presumes she's a housecat. As I recall, I chose to play up her fickle, mysterious catness.

Yeah, that's how Chen would probably turn out if she became a youkai by being such a paragon of her kind and lived so long that she made the transition from animal to supernatural creature.

On the other hand, I'm tickled by the idea that Ran (or Yukari!) had a pet cat they coddled and pampered for so long that it just became a youkai to stay on the gravy train. Of course, in that case Chen would probably be more like Garfield...

Okay, I had to check for fanart, but there wasn't any. Not sure if I'm disappointed or relieved.

Chen is a paragon for most cats but she still a cat and cats are tsunderes.

Really, isn't it just that cats have ways of showing affection and sharing space that humans don't always get? Like they don't really ignore you, it's just that they have good peripheral vision, and looking directly at you would be aggressive - that kind of thing.

I never thought of that but then again I am not a cat person.

It's true

Cats just have different ways of showing affection thank dogs do. And dogs are a lot of people's ideal for pet affection

Well, we domesticated dogs. With cats we just sort of grabbed them and took them indoors.

Let's give Chen a fond farewell while she deliberately ignores us as she leaves. Coming up will be Kyouko, Seiran, and a place two or three characters can absolutely not visit. But first,

Rinnosuke Morichika

Theme: "Curious Old Shanghai Tile"

Spellcard Motif: n/a
Notable Spellcards: n/a

Write-up:
The man. Not in the sense that he's an authority figure, but because Rinnosuke Morichika is one of the astonishingly rare named Touhoucharacters with a Y chromosome.

Rinnosuke runs Kourindou, a business that stocks whatever goods appear in Gensokyo from the Outside World. Though he has the innate ability to identify an object's purpose, that doesn't mean he necessarily understands that purpose, which combined with his general reluctance to part with his inventory makes Rinnosuke an unsuccessful businessman. It doesn't help that his only semi-regular customers are some of Gensokyo's most infamous residents.

On the other hand, this relationship with the series' flagship characters and Rinnosuke's status as a noncombatant give him a unique perspective with which to view Gensokyo. We just need to remember that this aspiring amateur historian isn't as smart as he thinks he is, and many of his conclusions rely on their own unique logic.

Relations

• Reimu Hakurei (longtime customer)
• Marisa Kirisame (customer, supplier, old friend)
• Marisa's Dad (former master)
• Yukari Yakumo, Sakuya Izayoi (other customers)

See also the previous two compendiums.

Cats sorta half domesticated themselves to gain access to humanity's lucrative pest problem

It's actually a pretty fascinating thing

Rinnosuke is a shopkeeper who reminds a bit of Forge from Marvel in regards to his power. He can tell about the item but even Rinnosuke needs to research the items that he doesn't know about.

edited 19th Sep '16 9:57:42 PM by GAP

Rinnosukes ability seems to give him some talent as a tinkerer. Like that time when he was making a red and white dress and his ability told him that it was finished before he sewed the sleeves on. The result is Touhous most ikonic image. And he made the mini-Hakkerou. I wonder whether the Kappa operate by some similar principle.

What would Rinnosuke do if he saw Marisa riding Mimi-chan (a bomb with the power to wipe out the magical land he lives in)? Would he tell Yukari?? And would Yukari respond by altering the boundary between the Actual and the Hypothetical??? Gensokyo will never be the same.

Mimi chan would incite curiosity and fear from Rinnosuke but I think he would call Yukari or at least ask Marisa to disarm her.

A bit late, but Chen isn't a housecat, she's a feral cat. Which can still be friendly, but she's more of a survivor.

Rinnosuke is Rinnosuke.

Unless he's Kourin.

Why would he need to do research when he can use his mighty intellect? Computers are obviously a type of shikigami, since after all they short out in water.

He's a pretty good example of a square peg who keeps trying to fit into round holes, isn't he? He opens a shop but doesn't like to actually sell anything and picked a terrible location, and he's an aspiring historian who relies on speculation and jumping to conclusions instead of research. But he's got the actual skills to whip up something like the mini-hakkero. I mean, if those were easy to make, surely Marisa would have made hers herself, right? Unless it's just a matter of having a supply of Hihi'irokane.

"Oh no, a force of terrible destructive is approaching, and she's riding something weird!"

Nah, if Rinnosuke was competent with his superpower, Yukari wouldn't have any leverage to get discounts on stuff she wants from his store.

Rinnousuke Morichika:

A half-human who is the owner of Kourindou, the go-to place for otherworldly items. Very smart, but he seemingly prefers being a smart-aleck.

I wonder if Rinnousuke enjoys being a contradiction. He's a shopkeep but he's really clingy to all his items(aka a hoarder), wants to do good business but where he decided to set up shop isn't good for business... I suppose this minor(major) problem of his could be solved by turning Kourindou into a museum! At any rate, Kourindou's very unique wares attracts quite a lot of powerful people, doesn't it? Although most are not there for the items.

if I were Kagerou Imaizumi, or a friend of hers, I would take one look at Kourindou, search for a non-disposable razor, and (as long as I did not need shaving cream to use it) offer a trade using some sort of bauble and see if Rinnosuke thinks it's valuable.

Besides that, all I have to say is that Rinnosuke must have no idea what a museum is.

It's hard to imagine someone not knowing the principle behind a museum, though I doubt Gensokyo has one - there's no need to display artifacts showing how far you've come if you don't plan on going anywhere. A curiosity shop where Rinnosuke can charge people to look at and not take some of the weird stuff he's collected, that could be the ticket. The only real obstacles would be ensuring enough new stuff was added to the collection to keep customers' interest, and making sure Yukari or Marisa didn't snag anything.

But Rinnosuke can't do that, because then there's the chance that he'd be successful, and that'd be weird.

Something that doesn't come up much compared to Rinnosuke's status as a small business owner - he actually went outside the Border at some point, long enough into the past that the present world looks totally alien to him. So that raises some intriguing questions, like what was he doing out there, whether or not he was originally from outside Gensokyo, just how old he is, and so on. Though Rinnosuke isn't going to be much help answering those questions since it sounds like he doesn't remember much of his life in the outside world. Which in itself raises further questions.

The barrier is only 130 years old. If he's long lived enough he could've just gone outside as an ordinary trip. Gensokyo's been known as an isolated mountain village that offers a haven to youkai for centuries, but its current form as a metaphysical Land of Illusion is relatively recent. Honestly it'd be kind of weird for a merchant to never leave his hometown, ever.

edited 27th Sep '16 5:54:13 PM by Clarste

How old is Rinnosuke,anyhow? Like, is he the half youkai equivalent of a 20 or 30 year old? Or much, much older?

I figure he's in the 150+ range, so relatively young by their standards.

I wonder if the same applies to Keine? Keine isn't really that old and she is half youkai.