The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Eternal Wraith: Introspection

Before her fame as a powerful vengeful spirit, Mima was an avid researcher of the occult. There was never a dull moment for her as she self-discovered various curses and rituals. One day, she found a ritual that required the darkening of the caster's soul. By doing so, the caster's magic capacity would increase tenfold. This ritual caught Mima's eye more than the others. She thought it was a tad farfetched, trading the light of one's soul for a boost in magic. But like previous discoveries, there's no better way to experiment than to do it yourself. Thus, Mima performed the ritual, and sure enough, her surroundings became increasingly opaque. Is this what it means to darken my soul, she thought. Soon she couldn't see anything, hear anything, and couldn't even do anything. It was like she was out like a lamp.

When Mima came to and found her bearings, she was in an unfamiliar land with an oppressive atmosphere. Being very knowledgeable, she quickly came to the most logical conclusion to be garnered from that situation; the ritual claimed her soul, banishing her to Hell. It was a fool's errand, designed to bring an end to the caster's life. Perhaps the person who penned it was bored. However, Mima just mused to herself that she does in fact feel stronger, since she was no longer bound by her fleshy container. And Hell's atmosphere greatly appealed to her occultist sensibilities. And so Hell became her new abode.

Sometime later, at a time when she was amongst the strongest of Hell's denizens, Mima was visited by a certain whelp of a shrine maiden that was ticked that her shrine was reduced to its foundations. Thinking that a mere ruffian was no match for her, Mima decided to humor that shrine maiden. Needless to say, Reimu's fury was raw, unstoppable, and most importantly turned her, the great Mima, into a joke. Unreal. Incomprehensible. That rambunctious human bested her without any effort!? How infuriating! Mima began to feel something that day. A feeling that she never felt before, or suppressed spectacularly: Rage. No way she was gonna let that slide! And so for the first time since her death, Mima departed Hell in order to carry out her grudge. At times, she questioned why this one particular girl got under her skin, as she never was the type to engage in combat with others. But that didn't matter in end, because vengeance will be hers!

...Except her revenge plot only served to tick the shrine maiden off some more, resulting in a near no holds-barred beatdown. At that point, Mima came to the conclusion that she could not beat Reimu in a head-on confrontation. So she "took up residence" at the shrine for a spell, "winning" every time she successfully haunts(note: taunts) her.

Could work as a backstory, Mima certainly wouldn't be the first to barter her soul away for power, knowingly or unknowingly. Need to figure out where that knife came from, though.

I still like the idea that Mima is Marisa's predecessor, sort of like how the Sendai Hakurei no Miko is considered Reimu's. Except Mima probably wouldn't be the previous generation's magician Incident-resolver, seems like she's older than that. So maybe she was Gensokyo's first magician Incident-resolver, who formed an unlikely friendship with one of the first Hakurei mikos as they dealt with anything that might threaten the peace in a youkai-haunted little valley, explaining how Mima knows more about the shrine than its current inhabitant.

But then, well... something bad happened, something that would later inspire Mima to get revenge on all mankind, the same something that might have ended in her in Hell holding a long, thin knife. Maybe she and her shrine maiden friend had a violent falling out. Maybe Gensokyo's humans turned on Mima for her occult ways, or maybe they turned on the shrine maiden over suspected youkai sympathies. Whatever it was, it was traumatic enough to set Mima on her path to supervillainy... but not enough for her to actually remember it generations later. Gotta use that memory space for magic, after all. You think Ellen is the only mage with memory problems?

Also, picdump.

A classic
Easy to see where Marisa gets it
Hopefully she didn't learn this one, though
If she seems a bit haggard, remember she spent some time in Hell
A peculiar vice
Looks reluctant
An ambiguous expression
Sitting pretty on nothing at all
Evil spirit amongst the flowers
Getting into it
Confident
Orreries and cattle skulls
Awash in stellar phenomena
Black wings unfurled
Upgrade to anti-wings
Almost like she's crystallizing
Getting in on the pointy ears trend
Trying to keep her hat on
Hope you like magic circles
Entire world is Mima's chair
At last, the power of the Hakurei!
Going through a goth phase
In chains
Aww, she made them little wreaths
Well... that's...
Intimidating greyscale
Wings of fire?
That's her boomstick
Persona!
This is either Hell or why she wound up in Hell
And she's flipping us off
A new look and some original poetry
Back in the day
And so they met
Once upon a time, Marisa was a fangirl
And possibly a crybaby
Original evil duo
A summoning
Just lookit that little goofball
Get your setz on
Your yokochou too
Say it with hearts
So cheerfully deranged
Two dark figures
How do I childcare?
Nice place
Some story potential here
This forced me to look up which side the braid's supposed to be on (the answer is either, if at all)
Not quite like old times
Gensokyan Gothic
The good old, tragically-incomplete Mima-Sama's Diary
Fading
Departing
If you gotta go...
Maybe she's not as gone as we think
Friend to all children?
This seems like an exploitable image
A ghost-like magician in a sci-fi setting
Have they ever interacted in canon?
An unusual encounter
We should probably keep these two from each other
No doubt an awkward meeting
An interesting contest
One night, during an aurora
Merry Mima-mas
Wait, what?

edited 8th Mar '17 9:34:33 PM by Tacitus

If Mima was Marisa's mentor, how did Mima enocunter Marisa?

Probably the first time Marisa decided to go run away from the village.

This is how I figure it went with Mima in recent years. Marisa ran away at a surprisingly young age and wound up living with a ghostly evil youkai. She was too far from the border of the village for people to go after her. It never occurred to anyone to ask the very young shrine maiden to go after her. Having Marisa around required some major adjustment from Mima, who suddenly found herself a kind of single-mother stepmom. This is a demanding role and she no longer time to really be evil. Things happened and Marisa ended up in a house in the forest of magic. Rinnosuke pointed out that Marisa still had a family in the village. This is something that Mima and Marisa kinda forgot.

Mima now occupies a sealed vessel on a hokora in the Hakurei Shrine. Regular readers of FS and WAHH know that Reimu occasionally expositions to apparently no one. She is actually expositioning to Mima. (And sometimes Yukari and maybe the fairies.) Reimu doesn't want Mima to get bored and do something rash. Mima is why Reimu got to be so good at making and breaking seals. Still, even Reimus seals aren't perfect, and Mima occasionally slips thru the cracks. (Being ghostly has its percs,) She wanders around the shrine, watching the antics of the fairies, and maybe chatting with Genji. Genji could tell on Mima, but he's leaving well enough alone. After a while Mima sneaks back into her vessel which by now is a familiar and comfortable place. Reimu always seems to be paying attention to something else when these things happens.

Mima is content with her current existence. She is living vicariously thru her protege Marisa. (Well, she's somethinging vicariously.)

I look forward to seeing Mima in the next game.

Her revival is nigh. And her fury must be quelled!!

The Comeback
Ultimate Darkness
Grand Renewal
Crazy Voltage
Everlasting Conquest
From The Murky Depths
Fade From the Light
Samsara
Vengeful Revival
Sympathy Take Me To Darkness
Wrath's Encore

I like the idea that there's legends about some witch, or perhaps the ghost of an old evil magician, who might be found lurking in the deepest parts of the Forest of Magic, and every generation or two there's some outcast young mage who seeks out this evil spirit for guidance. Or maybe Mima's more proactive, and keeps tabs on likely candidates for her "guidance," making herself known to them when she thinks the timing is right.

Or I guess it could have been a summoning gone right/wrong, like some of the fan art likes to portray.

This is a really neat idea. And then if Mima ever makes a proper appearance ZUN can say "what do you mean I brought her back, she's been there the whole time!"

Just occurred to me, if she's already having totally-not-a-Ghostly Amnesia when it comes to her past, it's entirely possible she'd come back with a whole new apprentice and be like "who are you people?" when the usual suspects show up to stop her. And Reimu wouldn't remember her either, because Reimu. Meanwhile Marisa and Alice are quietly freaking out but trying not to act like they recognize Mima either, and after the whole tea party experience following the Incident's conclusion, it's just intensely awkward.

I think that how much a ghost can remember depends on their state of mind. If a ghost insists that they're still alive, then they won.t be able to absorb new memories. If they think that that life (or "life") goes on except without an actual body, then their memory is unimpaired. Mima is somewhere in between denial and acceptance.

Maybe she took in Marisa because of a half remembered girl she took in when she was still breathing.

I also wonder if Mima is even a ghost or just some random spirit creature. Mima could had been a magus who somehow cheated death and became a spirit to increase her powers.

That'd certainly be a nice contrast to Marisa's attempts to stick around by not dying.

"Reminds me of whossername, the girl from a century back who ran off with that boy. What was his name, K-something? Bah, couldn't be important."

Any final thoughts on a fog-footed, ambiguously dead, somewhat malicious spellcaster before we move on to contemplate a bunch of caves home to some particularly obnoxious youkai?

edited 14th Mar '17 9:21:51 AM by Tacitus

Do you think that ther eis any chance of Mima making a cameo? or even a reference?

Apparently there might have already been a reference to her in CoLA, where Reimu mentions a time her shrine was taken over by an evil spirit. And she's made cameos of sorts on various CD covers, so Mima obviously hasn't been forgotten. It just seems like ZUN can't find a good place for her in Touhou as it is now.

Or he's being stubborn and intentionally frustrating those fans who keep clamoring for her reappearance, take your pick.

I think it is a bit of both for ZUN. Mima doesn't really fit in with a lot of scenarios in Windows Touhou and ZUN is stubborn when it comes to PC 98 characters appearing in the games.

edited 15th Mar '17 3:56:52 PM by GAP

All this to say, Mima will certainly make her reappearance in the next game.

Until then, let's bid her a good day. Coming up will be Eirin, Junko, and someone who'll spin us right 'round, baby, right 'round. But first, let's jump in a hole:

The Underworld

BGM: "The Dark Blowhole"^note This is the first stage theme. Since it's in a cave, I made it darker than my usual stage 1 themes. It's cute, with a little uneasiness to it... well, the good rhythm hides the uneasiness and makes a trap out of it. I think I'd like to try a horror game with a sense of speed to it, too., "The Bridge People No Longer Cross"^note This is the second stage theme. We're going down deeper and deeper. It's not too bold and very ambient, so it's the traveling song of traveling songs. Somehow it feels kind of Japanese, but that wasn't on purpose, hence the "somehow". By the way, this has nothing to do with anything, but caves are great. , "Walking the Streets of a Former Hell"^note This is the third stage theme. It has that peaceful brawl feeling of a certain Edo street. It's best to be light and cheerful, after all, isn't it? This song also has a very nostalgic feel to it. I'd love to swagger down the city streets with as much excitement as this song has sometime., "Heartfelt Fancy"^note This is the fourth stage theme. I tried not to make it too one-sidedly Japanese. The Palace of the Earth Spirits is surprisingly Western. The people who live there are probably fancy, too. But, it's a cat house. I want to be tamed by the cat., "Lullaby of Deserted Hell"^note This is the fifth stage theme. Since people stopped being condemned to the hellfires, the oni don't visit anymore either, so this place has become the playground to spirits and animals. Actually, I'm thrilled whenever I see something like a building people have abandoned. The grounds of former hell must be enveloped in the sort of loneliness that surrounds ruins... is what I thought of as I made this., "Hellfire Mantle"^note This is the last stage's theme. I tried to make it feel like an end-of-game song. Flying through lava is standard fare for shooting games. I guess if there's anything in particular I'm trying to say, it's that it's not unusual for shrine maidens to fly above lava like this. Crows, too.

Write-up:
Gensokyo may be a refuge for supernatural entities from the perils of rationalism, but that doesn't mean it can't be exclusive. Some youkai have abilities that even other youkai find distasteful, powers their peers find threatening. Such youkai were banished underground and out of sight, while their more respectable man-eating monsters remained on the surface.

Things aren't all bad in the lightless depths of the earth, however. Sure, the Underground lost a major industry when the yama decided to relocate Hell due to overcrowding, but the Former Capital has been since occupied by oni from the surface, turning the place into one long, rowdy party. Similarly, some goddesses from Gensokyo have relit the fires of Hell by converting it to a nuclear furnace, and aside from that time its power source tried to go on an atomic rampage, everything's gone swimmingly. And since several denizens of the Underground have been recently sighted on the surface without any apparent repercussions, it's possible that relations between the two worlds are improving.

Denizens:

• A bunch of oni
• At least two satori (and their pets)
• Other unpleasant youkai
• Various spirits of varying vengefulness

See also the previous compendium.

edited 16th Mar '17 8:22:15 AM by Tacitus

Something that was touched on last time around was the question of how the underground youkai get their daily dose of human antagonism. It's kind of hard for a person to fear the incarnation of the unknown and unexplained if those incarnations are well out of sight, safely exiled to the depths of the earth. And while we've seen a few instances of the likes of Kisume causing a ruckus on the surface, or Yamame visiting the youkai temple, these don't seem like reliable ways of getting a serving of vitamin fear.

So I'm wondering, can youkai prey on other youkai in that way? The whole point about the underground's inhabitants is that they were feared and despised even by other youkai, so could they sustain themselves from that instead of having to make long grocery trips to the surface? And if that's the case, what would that mean for Gensokyo's herd of carefully-managed humans?

It is interesting that the Underworld is filled to the brim with youkai and other dangerous creatures that are to dangerous for even youkai to handle. Whether it is the ability to inflict diseases, ostrous strength, nuclear fusion, reading minds, etc. these underworlders are too dangerous for anyone to handle. They are not bad people but they do have rather terrifying powers that can intimidate anyone.

Already in SA, we see surface youkai avoiding the underground and communicating with the heroine in the underground thru magical walky-talkys. On the other hand the reviled underground youkai wandered the surface pretty freely, ( In this case, they were Orin Utsuho(!) and Koishi.) After years of confusion, it finally dawned on me. The underground youkai aren't confined at all. The surface youkai leave them alone, and in return they keep the criminal ghosts from the surface.

When Orin sent some criminal ghosts to the surface she was violating the treaty between the surface and the underground. I keep waiting for her to get some comeuppance. At some point Kasen is going to find out how those ghosts got to the surface. I don't know what will happen next, but I know wouldn't want Kasen to be miffed at me.

Aya and Hatate were kinda breaking the rules going down to the Underground personally in Double Spoiler, since surface youkai aren't allowed to go down into Former Hell.

Who's gonna enforce the treaty, though? What authority could be said to represent the whole Underworld, and how would they monitor the border with the surface? Is there any actual punishment attached to this rule, or do the surface youkai consider visiting the Underworld a The Punishment Is the Crime scenario?

The "police force" and "border control" angle is a good one too. Though given her oni-ness and relationship with evil spirits, I can't help but wonder if Kasen spent any time underground working with the damned, or if she was never that kind of oni and went into hermit mode before the rest of the population wandered underground.

When you put it like that, it's easier to see the whole exile as a necessary evil, a way of reducing the risk to the population of humans that Gensokyo relies on to survive by removing some of its deadliest youkai predators (and Kisume). But Yuuka stuck around on the surface because nobody tells her where she can and can't live.

I'd say there is likely no real rules regarding separation of the underworld. Look at the youkai living down there. They're those who went underground out of a wish to separate themselves from the surface, like the satori and oni, and natural inhabitants, like Utsuho, Rin and Yamame. The surface youkai wouldn't want to go down there with all the vengeful spirits around, while the underworld youkai either lived there all along or went down exacly because it's avoided.

It seems like a separation that just formed naturally, then eventually some bigshots sat down and said "let's try not to bother each other too much, ok?"

edited 22nd Mar '17 11:01:35 AM by Shiko

The first person that comes to mind as an authority figure for the Underworld for me would be Satori. She lives in a palace like a boss, and in her WaHH appearance, it was her who the spirit approached to ask about bringing back petal-viewing, and she did at least have Orin look into the problems the lack of it was causing for the surface (though I might be misremembering some details here).

Huh, I always thought she was more or less a squatter who moved into an abandoned administrative building, then used her army of animal companions to manage a bunch of dead chaps. Except I'm getting some conflicting info from the wiki about when the Palace of the Earth Spirits was built - Satori's profile page isn't specific, while the Palace's wiki page says it was constructed after Hell relocated. So I guess it's possible that she was chosen by the Powers That Be to manage the Underworld... because, you know, that's obviously the first person you'd turn to for a job like that, the mind-reader with a lot of pets.

An important job to be sure, but I'm not sure if a place's border guard is necessarily its leader. And of course she's one of the Underworld's most hated residents, which would probably undermine her attempts to orders other around.

Come to think of it, the Underground is probably just too big and varied to have a single ruler. It'd be like asking whether Remilia Scarlet or the Great Tengu is the one ruling Gensokyo. Which lends credence to the notion that the "treaty" separating the surface and underground youkai is an informal agreement more than anything enforceable. Which suggests that the youkai partners in SA were being lazy more than anything.

The Underground might be something of a snake pit with everyone trying to keep their own territory.

Better that than a crab bucket. But most of the underground folks seem content enough - Yamame has a cheerful attitude, the oni are having a party, the satori... probably wouldn't be any happier on the surface, their pets seem content enough, Kisume might be insane anyway. Parsee gets shafted, as usual.

So, any other deep thoughts before we turn our attention to the moon for a while?