The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Not sure. Yuyuko's Perfect Memento article mentions that she was given her position in Hakugyokurou by Shiki herself, but there's nothing about anyone being assigned to help Yuyuko from the Ministry of Right and Wrong. You'd think the celestial bureaucracy would have an office or something in the Netherworld just to keep an eye on things, but on the other hand Yuyuko's ability presumably means she can manage everything herself. And you know how stretched the budget has been this past century.

edited 9th Nov '16 9:22:39 PM by Tacitus

Yuyuko is part of the Ministry. She's doesn't need a separate office watching over her, because she's the one in charge of that office. She was hired/appointed by the Yama to work as part of the Ministry. By extension, Youmu is also part of the Ministry, because Yuyuko is in charge of hiring decisions in this branch. Youmu is the Ministry employee who helps her out.

edited 9th Nov '16 9:47:07 PM by Clarste

Well that's just entirely unprofessional, inviting guests over and throwing parties from a government building.

Moving along. Coming up will be Clownpiece, Suika Ibuki, and someone who would make quite a racket by headbanging. But first,

Sumireko Usami

Stage: The Outside World
Theme: "Last Occultism ~ Esotericist of the Present World"

Spellcard Motif: Psionics with a side of Technology
Spellcards: ULiL
Gun Sign "3D Printer Gun," Psychokinesis "Psychokinesis App," Psychokinesis "Telekinesis: Radio Tower," "See Visions of the Other World's Lunacy!", Psychokinesis "Psychexplosion," Psychokinesis "Telekinesis: Illegal Dumping," "Occultician of the Present World," "Esoteric Seven of Profound Secrets"

Write-up:
A perfectly extraordinary Japanese high school student. While some kids her age go through an occult phase and get to thinking they have superpowers or something, Sumireko knows she's special - she possesses powerful psychic abilities that include levitation, telekinesis, astral projection, and teleportation. These powers and her interest in her supernatural allowed her to start exploring a hidden world of fantasy, which led to her seeking out the Occult Balls, sparking an incident that threatened the very existence of Gensokyo and which paved the way for another potentially-catastrophic event.

Fortunately a good beat-down seems to have set Sumireko straight, and she's now happily exploring Gensokyo through her dreams; unfortunately this means that her life in the outside world is starting to suffer, while the mechanics of her dream visits have caused their own problems. We can't be sure what Sumireko's future holds, though at the very least the Sealing Club she founded will live on, and her hat might go on to have further adventures with a new wearer.

Relations

• Fujiwara no Mokou (fellow weird loner)
• Renko Usami (haven't actually met yet)

Didn't want to double-post, but I guess I'll start.

Some characters arrive and are little more than blips on the radar, folks like Wakasagihime who show up and get added to one cast herd or another as recurring background characters. Others are more consequential and expand the setting, like how Doremy added a (new) Dream World to the cosmology, or Byakuren and Miko and other final bosses brought entire power blocs to Gensokyo.

But when Sumireko was introduced, it was like a big gonging bell sounding. It's not just that she set up the events of the next game, which ended with hints that big changes could be coming, she herself is a herald of the end times... well, maybe it's not that dramatic or final. But for a while now we've been getting glimpses of a shining but somewhat bleak future that felt like an epilogue to the story of Gensokyo, if one that would eventually wrap around to the prologue. Sumireko's arrival is a very visible reminder that this future is on its way, like the first orange leaf of autumn being a sign of winter.

So... yeah, I think that's neat, that everything's coming together, if not immediately then eventually and inevitably. Sumireko answers questions like where Renko got a photo of the Netherworld, and while we can guess how her story will end, the bits between now and then will be interesting to see.

Ahh, the days of fantasizing about having superpowers... While I do still occasionally indulge in thinking how awesome it'd be to have supernatural powers, I've never reached the point of full-on chuunibyou. But in Sumireko's case, she really does have those kinds of abilities. I haven't played ULiL, so this may have been answered there, but I wonder if she's as open with her powers in the Outside World as she is with her technology in Gensokyo. Either way, she's an anomaly to both worlds, which is kinda neat.

I don't think she's open about her powers. She seems to live a very isolated, antisocial life.

It is interesting that Sumireko is similar to the protagonist of Spaztique's notorious walfas video. While the protagonist more or less is dead at the end, Sumireko comes out of it a little better than what she was. Sumireko also seems to suffer from chunnibyou syndrome where she imagines herself to have superpowers and live in a fantasy world except she does have superpowers and frequently travels to Gensokyo, a dream world that she can access through her dreams. I wonder if Sumireko is a parody of chunnis and.or otaku?

ZUN did compare her to a Light Novel protagonist...

Sumireko Usami:

An ordinary highschool student who just happens to have psychic powers. Visits Gensokyo in her dreams. Renko's ancestor.

Heh, such a shame that Renko was unable to inherit any of Sumireko's powers in some shape or form.

In the Human World, Sumireko acts all high and mighty, keeping potential friends far away. After her first dance in Gensokyo, she has become a frequent visitor. She really enjoys going there, as if she can be her true self there. A shame her frequent visits have caused dire side-effects. She may one day cause Gensokyo's fabric to shatter completely... Or am I being too dramatic?

Well she's caused two Incidents (so far) just by traveling to Gensokyo, and she's a source of metaphorical modern impurity that threatens the pre-industrial Pure Land these magical Amish are trying to maintain. Plus it'd be ironic if the Sealing Club's founder ended up destroying the place her successors would like to visit.

Also yeah, psychic powers are a thing in this setting. Are we adding the Psionics Handbook to the shelf, or is this a case of "magic by any other name?" Is this how mages survive in the outside world, by defining themselves as espers? Those are of course much more rational and scientific than wizards and witches.

Plus if Sumireko was psychicing out in the open, I think the future's response to Maribel would have been different.

Perhaps. Her story could be used to illustrate that getting immersed in a fantasy world might not be the "fun" sort of adventure, and could indeed be dangerous and terrifying. Plus her pursuit of wish fulfillment ultimately endangered the very land she was trying to explore, and is undermining her life in the mundane world. It could count as a deconstruction of the "normal student falls into fantasy world" sort of story were it not for the fact that, as you pointed out, she gets a happy ending out of it.

On the other hand, I don't think too many starry-eyed Touhou fans who sincerely wish they could visit a fictional universe actually have superpowers.

Sumireko is pretty much living the dream only for it to turn out to be a night nightmare and to good to be a true.

Well, it was a nightmare for a while when everyone was putting the fear of youkai into her, but that phase has passed. Now it sounds like she's enjoying herself and even making friends... with the caveats that she's sleeping her life away in the real world, sucking matter out of Gensokyo when she visits, and she's spawning Dream Souls that could possess people or hit her with a paradox if one bumps into her while her dream self is running around.

So a good dream that could flip to a nightmare in a heartbeat, and you're spending an unhealthy amount of time in bed to have it.

Have to wonder, why doesn't she find a way to move into Gensokyo physicallyand permanently? Beyond the requirement that she has to stay in the outside world long enough to pop out another Usami, I mean. Is Sumireko still too attached to modernity to give up the world she was born in? Or does she want the best of both worlds without having to choose one over the other?

Going by how Sumireko doesn't seem to want Gensokyo to become like the Outside World, I'd lean towards the latter.

I guess for Sumireko, wanting is better than having especially when you consider that Gensokyo is more or less a death world

Let's call it a demiplane with different death options than the world around it.

Not as much Sumireko art as I was expecting, though I guess it hasn't been that long.

Simple sketch
Like a badge or button or something
A dour girl with a hidden power
Seems more mature here
Like how she's distorting the ground
I can only guess some of them
Somewhere Charlton Heston is smiling
Somewhere Kosuzu is drooling
Booksplosion
Persona!
Encounter in a city park
Believe in the heart of the cards
Such purple
Might wanna flip yourself around there
Up in the sky
I assume someone's TV is flipping out
A dream?
Might be stargazing, might be determining her position
No wonder she gets along with Mokou
Esoteric martial arts of the outside world
I just to interpret this as her cooking with her mind
With panda, victory
Now you see her...
Poko the Mokou
This Pote person does a lot of Sumireko, actually
Nitori, no
This could be dangerous
One of her friends who might visit her at home
Japan, past and present
We can only wonder
Hope she doesn't use Self Destruct
Wonder what Renko will make of this one
A dreary world of false lights
Make your own way
Hardly hygienic
I remember some kids like this in high school. I wonder what happened to them?
Speculation on Sumireko's home life
Some of Gensokyo's hazards
Which isn't to say you're safe in your bed
Or even in your dreams
Equivalent exchange
What you leave behind

Yes, there's a lot of koto inari in there, but only because I love his/her stuff.

The other day, Sumireko was seen dropping off a jukebox at Kourindou. He should give it a listen sometime.

Occult Elegance
Mental Occultism
U.S.A.M.I
Loving the Supernatural
Wiccan Passion
The Final Ritual

edited 21st Nov '16 10:45:46 PM by Diamite

(first and final links go to the same song)

She's got such a great theme. A nice mixture of melancholy and mania, something that can't decide whether it wants to be classy waltz or something with shredding electric guitars. Restless, energetic but unstable, of two worlds.

Wonder how Sumireko's theme might change in a later appearance, and what it might suggest about her character?

Oh, and my less musical question - have we seen Yukari since Sumireko's appearance? Has she had any reaction to the kid, any cryptic dialogue or meaningful looks?

Yes, in relation to Sumireko causing things to go into the Outside World unknowingly.

Yukari showed up in WaHH 35 in response to Kasen enabling Sumireko's trips. Apparently it was causing side effects in the form of villagers being shunted outside the barrier while asleep ("equivalent exchange"), which Yukari fixed by the end of the chapter.

Yukari refuses to refer to Sumireko as anything but "the human" and generally treats her as an object that is Kasen's responsibility. For that reason, she doesn't blame Sumireko for any of this, or indeed assign her any agency.

edited 21st Nov '16 8:56:26 PM by Clarste

Very detached, interesting. Surely Yukari would have a way of knowing the identity of "the human," and she's already taken an interest in Sumireko's activity, so... well, she's either playing it cool, she's spent so long as a youkai she's forgotten the time she was human, or the Hearn-Yakumo connection was a red herring. Suppose the only way to tell would be to very carefully study Yukari's behavior after Sumireko's appearance and try to spot any changes.

Though there was that talk with Marisa after LoLK that rattled the witch. Hmm.

edited 21st Nov '16 10:37:24 PM by Tacitus

Final link fixed. Give it a whirl.

So...Sumireko is gifted with a fruits basket of psychic powers. The fact she even has powers makes me wonder this simple thought; The Outside World must be filled with humans with abilities. As in, Sanae and Sumireko aren't the only ones who have special abilities in the Outside World. Then there's where Mamizou came from...

Anyway, considering that Renko never got any of her ancestor's powers and only have precise timing at her beck and call, the quality of superhuman abilities must have waned in the future. As in, the powers are less awesome and way more mundane, to the point of intense boredom.

It's possible that Sumireko's powers are much more pronounced in Gensokyo than outside it, and that her most potent ability outside the Border is being able to breach it. That would explain why Renko's superpowers boil down to timekeeping in Mundania... and might explain how she's able to piggyback on Maribel's talents as well.

On the other hand, if Sumireko wasn't capable of pyrokinesis before coming to Gensokyo she apparently picked it and her other powers up pretty quickly, yeah? So maybe she had all those amazing abilities and wasn't using them to fight crime or anything.

Which would potentially alter our conception of the setting, I suppose. It's more or less accepted fanon that Sanae couldn't fly around back home, power of miracles notwithstanding. But if Sumireko is levitating and shooting mind-bullets and the like, the implication is that the deities are the real beneficiaries of the Gensokyo project, and ordinary magic-users could get by just fine no matter how many people believed in a heliocentric solar system. Maybe the limiting factor on extra-Border mages is that in a rational world, most people don't believe they could conjure fireballs, leaving weirdos like Sumireko to develop their full magical potential. And that might explain why Renko is letting down the bloodline, she's gotten so wrapped up in Maribel's abilities that she's never considered she could do something similar.

Oh yeah, we can name at least one other mage who survives in the outside world - little Miss Aureus with the static problem.

For what it's worth, Yukari seemed to honestly believe that Sumireko doesn't have enough power to breech the border on her own and that Kasen must be helping her do it somehow. Kasen denied this, but still. That's what Yukari thinks.

edited 22nd Nov '16 8:11:29 PM by Clarste

Sumireko got through the border somehow but not of her own power. How did she piggyback on Maribel anyway?

If she's piggybacking on Maribel the Maribel-Yukari story is even more convoluted than some suspect. I think Sumireko was more accurately piggybacking on the Occult Balls... which Yukari didn't notice? She thought Kasen was helping with her oni sage powers?

At any rate, it's been two weeks now, so we should probably be wrapping things up soon and move on to the most depressingly appropriate character ever.