The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

I wonder how Kanako was going to use the Underworld for nuclear what with creatures like Utusho and Orin roaming about?

Oh you know,
1. Feed a sun god to an absolute idiot
2. Use that idiot now infused with the power of the sun to manage the furnace of a fusion reactor
3. Use this fusion reactor to provide electricity for a small, pre-industrial society on the surface above it
4. Worship!

Kanako was probably drawn to the Underground as the site for her reactor because it had that big disused Hell of Blazing Fires that no one was doing anything with, so what was the harm in firing it up again? But you could also read it as the goddess taking advantage of how the Underground isn't organized enough to really oppose her, and has a population of despised youkai that few on the surface would stand up for.

Kind of like building an industrial park in a slum, except the industrial park went insane with power and threatened to destroy the rest of the city.

Alrighty then, let's seek some sunlight, perhaps reflected from the lunar surface. Coming up will be Junko, Hina, and a one-winged egret. But first, turn your head and cough, it's

Eirin Yagokoro

Appearance:

Stage: The Orb in the Night Sky, Hiding the Princess
A long, long corridor. Is it a lunatic delusion being shown by someone?
For the youkai, the memory of this closer moon was sweet and slim.
BGM: "Voyage 1969"^note This is the Stage 6 theme. The 20th century voyagers— The Noah's Ark of the 20th century flew into space, carrying with it hopes and fears. However, it seems that just its hopes were left behind on the moon. Here in the "future", in the 21st century, only fears and a handful of illusions seem to be all that remain.
Theme: "Gensokyo Millennium ~ History of the Moon"^note This is Eirin Yagokoro's theme.Impossible courage, ferocity, and vigor— This theme combines all of those, making for a ridiculously foolish and energetic song. All the energy and foolishness culminates in the final boss (really?), so the act itself of putting this song in a shmup is lunacy. I didn't want to get caged in on a theme for this one.

Spellcard Motif: Divinity, Pharmacy, Lunacy
Sample Spellcards: (IN, GoM, StB)
Spacesphere "Earth in a Pot," God Sign "Genealogy of the Sky-Born," Resurrection "Game of Rising," Mind of God "Omoikane's Brain," Curse of the Heavens "Apollo 13," Forbidden Arcanum "Hourai Elixir," "Heaven Spider's Butterfly-Capturing Web," Medicine Sign "Butterfly Dream Pill - Nightmare Type," Elixir "Mercury Sea," Secret Elixir "Lunar Incense"

Write-up:
A genius pharmacist, one of the higher class of gods, and now a willing exile from the civilization she helped found. At the dawn of history, Eirin Yagokoro was among those who fled the impurity of the Earth for a deathless existence on the moon. Her incredible intellect allowed her to, with the help of the Princess Kaguya's power over eternity, create an elixir of complete immortality, which Kaguya was subsequently exiled for drinking. When Kaguya's exile ended, Eirin was among those sent to Earth to retrieve her, but instead joined the princess and killed the other emissaries. Don't worry, they were only rabbits.

Since then Eirin has lived with Kaguya in Eientei, dreading the day the other Lunarians might try to take them back, which led to the Eternal Night Incident, the creation of a fake moon, the Earth getting sealed away by a giant barrier, and the eventual realization that the Lunarians probably wouldn't be able to reach Gensokyo anyway. Now Eirin's starting to integrate with her new homeland, offering her wonderdrugs to all customers at very reasonable prices, and even helped some heroines thwart a Lunarian attempt to purify and invade Gensokyo. Just don't ask her any specifics about how her products work, her explanation would just go over your head.

Relationships:

• Kaguya Houraisan (princess)
• Reisen Udongein (apprentice)
• Tewi Inaba (landlady)
• Watatsuki no Toyohime & Yorihime (former students)
• Lord Tsukuyomi (co-founder of the Lunar Kingdom)
• Sakuya Izayoi (???)

See also the previous compendiums.

edited 28th Mar '17 6:28:47 PM by Tacitus

Eirin Yagokoro:

Princess Kaguya's greatest ally and the brain behind Eientei's operations. Her intellect knows no bounds.

While Eirin had a hand in creating a pure world, she realized such a world would lead to a fragile and constrictive lifestyle. After all, one drop of impurity gives the Lunar Capital grief. I just have this feeling that due to her great intellect, she made that pure world just because she could. Eirin could be anything and do anything. Like how she put Gensokyo into a pot to avoid detection. Right now, her current incarnation is being a pharmaceutical expert. Even if she changes jobs, Eirin would be Kaguya's eternal retainer. That's one part of her personality that will never change. And...well, I don't see her changing her profession since that is the best occupation to keep her lady healthy. Sure, Kaguya can't die, but that won't stop Eirin from worrying about her well-being.

I do wonder if she hates Lunaria, though. Well, she probably hates the law of the land, but not some people living on the pale rock. A certain duo comes to mind.

I'm not sure if Eirin has people she hates, so much as people she sees as potential threats.

Kaguya would probably disagree and say that you just have to know Eirin really well before you can pick up on these kinds of things from her. And they've spent a long time around each other, so maybe she's right... or maybe she's just projecting.

I mean, there was that one incident where Eirin wanted to kill the Watatsukis' pet human, they made her promise not to, and Eirin agreed... but then secretly made him old and feeble, which the sisters saw as a sign of her great compassion and wisdom for some reason.

edited 30th Mar '17 6:13:09 PM by Prime32

The way I see it, she does everything she does as a challenge to herself. She revels in restrictions placed on her, like "create a world with no impurity" or "deal with Urashima Taro without killing him". The more difficult something is to do, the more it's worth doing. That said, she herself has no principles whatsoever. It's not that she hates people, she just doesn't care about them. She mostly just follows the requests of others because it gives her something to do.

Edit: I should probably be specific. Creating the Lunar Capital in the first place was a request from Tsukuyomi. I don't think she has any ideological commitment to it whatsoever. To her, impurity or not isn't a moral issue at all, it's just another part of nature for her to use if necessary.

edited 1st Apr '17 2:46:01 AM by Clarste

Guess it must suck to have a godly intellect and substantial power but not have your own creation to manage. So instead you kill the centuries by making conceptual habitats a reality and coming up with new variants of cancer to cure.

Though maybe Eirin's starting to empathize with humans now? Like, Kaguya says something in CiLR about how the old Eirin wouldn't be willing to offer her services to ordinary Earthlings. Unless this is yet another way to stave off ennui.

Also, where does Eirin fit in with the Shinto creation myth? If she is Ame no Yagokoro Omoikane no Mikoto, that would make her the daughter of the first generation of spontaneously-generated deities, but I'm not sure where the creation of humanity falls into this chronology.

Eirin sounds like a high functioning sociopath to me but then I was thinking about Fanon!Sherlock Holmes when I said that.

It's actually quite difficult to find a source that bothers to mention mankind in Japanese creation myth; it seems that they simply descended from the gods after enough generations had passed, or something like that. Shinto doesn't make a huge distinction between god and man, which is how you have people who are both at the same time like Sanae and Miko. Both the Soga clan and the Mononobe also claimed direct decent from various gods. In a way you might think of it as a form of ancestor worship: the first humans were also the first gods. This isn't necessarily how Touhou views it though.

As for Omoikane/Eirin, she predates the creation of Japan, which is sort of equated with the creation of nature and whatnot, so she's probably older than humanity.

edited 1st Apr '17 3:02:49 AM by Clarste

I had the brilliant idea of actually checking Japanese sources this time.

"Omoikane is sometimes said to be the child of Taka-mi-musuhi-no-kami, but also sometimes said to be eternal and unchanging. It might be best to think of him as the deification of knowledge itself, as an abstract concept."

Incidentally, Taka-mi-musuhi-no-kami was genderless and partnerless, so even if she has a parent, she was somehow spawned asexually. Or more likely created out of the aether by a thought or whatever.

Edit: Also, Shinto doesn't make this distinction either, but she's from a totally different era of gods than the ones you normally think of (Amaterasu, etc). In terms of Greek Myth, she'd be more like one of the Titans that predate the gods that people worship.

edited 1st Apr '17 3:31:07 AM by Clarste

Better to think of her as a Titan than an Old God, I suppose, even if Eirin is the asexual spawn of a genderless entity that predates the creation of the world. Although since this is Touhou after all, even Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth presumably look like little girls with cute hats.

And this tangent really puts some perspective on the Lunarian outlook, doesn't it? Many are from the first generation of recognizably human gods, a few are even older, and since then it's been nothing but a downhill slide of progressively less-godly beings until it's nothing but a bunch of degenerates who only manage to run around for a few centuries before keeling over and polluting the land with their corpses. Small wonder they wanted to find a more exclusive place to live (forever).

edited 3rd Apr '17 11:17:23 AM by Tacitus

I wonder if there is a Touhou equivalent of Zeus rebellion against the Titans? Eirin is a paragon and the paragon always rebels.

edited 3rd Apr '17 11:51:43 AM by GAP

Well, there's Hecatia, and her granddad was a Titan. So that's a thing.

But yeah, I like Clarste's idea that Eirin's mostly doing things as tests of her own ability, so she couldn't really be rebelling against the Lunar society because she was never committed to it to begin with. This would unfortunately call into question some of Eirin's supposed character development, but I guess the positive results are better than the lack of truly good intent?

She could she living on Earth as a challenge adn she is always looking for things to do.

And yeah, Earth was boring waaay back in the day when it was still getting put together, but now it's gotten interesting, so that more stuff happens in just a year than used to happen over centuries. Like in a game of Civilization.

So, how about a picdump?

Just an ordinary ageless woman with a bow
I need an adult
Snap
An interesting picture, but I can't see her ever doing this
By the misty moon
Damn, anthrax again
Her brain is big
Taking a break
The archer who stands between the Earth and moon
Not at all sure what I'm looking at
Good scenery for deep thoughts
Beautiful woodland scene
A pretty picture until you wonder what the title is about
Fancy fabric
She's a classy lady
Hat to hood
Longcoat of science
Moon fashion
Summer clothes
Casual Friday
If you have it, flaunt it I guess
DanteWontDie being DanteWontDie
DanteWontDie-ing intensifies
Get smarter, manually!
Persona!
Some light armor
A dark scene
Even a god can bleed
Oh snap
She fights with archery and Science!
Also danmaku
Looking nettled
Bowflex
Twang
It's actually quite rare for artists to give her a quiver
Could be an interesting story here
Here too
Alternate take on SA
Alternate take on LoLK
Can't unsee it now
Nobody beats up her bunny but her
Don't think Reisen sees the needle
Fill that bunny with knowledge
Careful what you teach her
Good relations with the landlady
D'awww
Everyone's happy now
A long time ago...
No idea, but it looks cool
Beautiful woods scene
Maybe they borrowed music from Akyuu
Alternative music break
It looks nice, then you see those bottles, and have to wonder
A princess and her... Eirin
Guess that about sums it up
Porch scene
Cozy winter scene
Moon and a Dutch angle
Jam session
Tewi's ready to rock
And that's how Mokou destroyed the cure for cancer
Yeah, just think of your... health
Tiny devious pervert Eirin
No thanks
Some Apollo photos remain classified to this day
How should we wrap this up, Eirin?

A being whose existence began with the stars. Such immense sagacity.

Journeyman
Ancient Wisdom
Shooting Star Waltz
A Stellar World
Grand Moon Arrow
Grand Voyage
Majestic Moonblight
A Vast Escape
Eternal Protector
The Twilight of History

I wonder if Eirin is really a some sort of goddess or advanced entity with vast amount of wisdom and power? I wonder what tier is she is on the moon?

Hmm. I mean, she's definitely some type of divinity, except of a higher order than the ones we've seen like Kanako or the Akis, she's much older than those Jenny-come-latelies and it doesn't look like Eirin needs anyone worshiping her to maintain her power, she just kind of is. She's certainly got the smarts and magical muscles to be considered godlike, although as seen with the Akis that bar isn't very high, sorry ladies.

Since Eirin was one of the Lunarian society's founders, even if it was only For Science, she ought to have statues of her put up in lunar parks, though I'm not sure what they did with them after she went rogue. There might be a special task force that tries to come up with countermeasures for if their former benefactor ever moves against them, or maybe they just try not to talk or think about her?

Eirin is a well known sage on the Moon so I wouldn't suprsied if she was feared and respected by most Lunarians.

She's a fugitive from the moon, ie: a criminal. However, everyone in charge of their military seems to consider her an old friend and doesn't try to bring her in. This corruption goes all the way to the top.

Even Sagume comes by Eientei for tea.

She and Kisuke Urahara might get along.

edited 7th Apr '17 4:39:11 PM by Prime32

I was just thinking about their vague similarities

@Clarste

Is that so? Eirin is a fugitive and no doubt something of a Broken Pedestal.

I dunno, "fugitive" might be a strong word. Like, all she really did was, after being sent to bring someone who'd served their sentence back to the moon, choose to stay with them instead.

And I guess kill some rabbits, but who cares?

I wonder if Eirin has any kids? She's been around for a good while, and gods tend to beget other gods, or at least quasi-divine mortal heroes. Be interesting if Kaguya was a great-to-the-nth-granddaughter or something, though I guess we already get that dynamic with Suwako and Sanae.