The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

It is a bit of a headscratcher to me but how do youkai such as Raiko get by the barrier? Raiko was created by the Mallet and managed to get a different set of drums in order to keep existing.

Isn't that what we're talking about?

So far I've put forward three theories:

• Youkai can travel freely when there is belief outside, no matter how weird. In this case, we might assume that Raiko was drawn by the drums themselves. She knew they were waiting for her, therefor she could pass through the barrier.
• Tsukumogami are, as a class of kami, not subject to the barrier in the first place.
• She could possibly have enlisted the help of someone with barrier powers to "force it".

edited 21st Jan '14 9:11:58 PM by Clarste

Its also possible she stumbled upon a crack or flaw in the barrier and slipped through there. They've been known to appear.

So... maybe Raiko is like... the equivalent one of those legendary rhythm game players or something now? Like "I heard of this person who gets 100% perfects on that 'impossible' song." And everyone's like "Psh, no waaaay. No way anyone that good exists."

And so she's in Gensokyo instead.

Well, her ability is "Capable of making anything follow a rhythm," so... she can slip between the rhythmic pulses of the border's magic? Or maybe there's a certain metaphysical rhythm creatures and objects follow to reach Gensokyo?

Or maybe her connection to Raijin goes further than her name? She's got a divine benefactor?

So Raiko, in order to escape the Mallet's grip, changed her drum set entirely. Would the old drum set become a tsukumogami that doesn't need the Mallet's power? It would be a century after that incident, after all.

edited 26th Jan '14 5:24:07 AM by Diamite

That's a good question...

So, tsukumogami comes from the Shinto belief that every single thing ever has a spirit, right? When a tool gets abandoned improperly, the spirit inside gets angry and turns sentient, becoming a tsukumogami. Raiko essentially let her spirit escape from her old body (taiko) to a new drum set. So what happened to her old body? Is it left spirit-less, unable to produce another tsukumogami, or does a new spirit posses it ? And what happened to the original spirit of her new body?

And while I was in the middle of writing this, I read through her dialogue with the P Cs. In Sakuya B's scenario, she said that tools can freely drift in and out through the barrier before becoming tsukumogami. So perhaps her new body is a drum set that somehow wandered into Gensokyo, and she just possessed it. That brings even more question on how the outside world's magic get channeled through, though.

...We need P Mi SS vol.3

Were I a betting man, I'd put money on it being destroyed. Either as part of the process of transferring Raiko's spirit/power/whatever, or as a deliberate, conscious choice of Raiko's (To honor it, or simply to properly dispose of it. Which amount to much the same thing.)

If it's still around, I imagine it would basically 'start over' in terms of generating a new tsukumogami. So it'd be another hundred years before Raiko's 'sister' would show up, barring unusual circumstances.

Or, with Raiko perhaps having been born of the mallet's power, the old drum tsukumogami is still forming, and is nearly done gestating. In which case they'd probably be kind of like 'identical' twins.

Offhand, there probably wasn't one. It probably wasn't 'abandoned' so much as 'nicked by Raiko'.

edited 22nd Jan '14 6:39:02 AM by Antimatter625

Doesn't the whole tsukumogami thing imply that everything has a spirit, even if it hasn't become self aware yet? Or did I misread?

It's probably a nonissue though. If the new drum did have a spirit of it's own, it was probably a ways away from being considered "alive" anyway. If that makes sense.

edited 22nd Jan '14 8:32:11 AM by Otherarrow

Everything has a spirit by default, yes. That is the premise of animism. "A god in every blade of grass."

The question is what happens when said god leaves that blade of grass. Does a new god then reside within it, or is it a vacant house?

Could be. Maybe before taking her new body she was all nervous and old-timey, but afterwards she's the swingin' hip modern gal we all know and love^note  or are oddly apathetic towards.

edited 23rd Jan '14 4:51:39 PM by Antimatter625

Illusion Musicians Volume One: Thunder Drum. In stores now!

Thunder Echo.
Beats of Primordia.
Pristine War Machine.
Liz Beat.
Thunder in the Nth Cloud.
Electric Sidewalk.
Rhythm of Thunder.
Pristine Thunder Jam.

Man, why does that Space Jam mix work so well?

Just for consistency's sake, I wanna say a given body can produce or house at most one soul during its existence, in the same way a human body doesn't get back up when its previous user skedaddles. Which adds a somewhat ghoulish dimension to Raiko hijacking objects before they can produce their own tsukumogami, come to think of it.

So, uh, my comment about artists not picking up on Raiko's "likes to be hit" thing? Inaccurate. It just took them a while. But don't expect any of that in this picdump.

Profile pic
Stylish simple sketch
With the current year
Kimono
Without her normal outfit and the drums, she's hard to recognize
Golden eyes
Smile and lightening!
Smirk and static!
Fang and thunder!
Calm confidence from a thundering percussionist
Kinda different style
Zap!
Not someone you want to run into during a night flight. Or a day flight. Or walking at any hour.
Imposing
Shigureru does a lot of Raiko stuff exploring potential dual personas
She went through a long stoic period...
...but more pics are showing her putting some energy into her performance
Post-show high
Not sure about the music, but the album has a great cover
One of the first and still one of the best
Battle of the bands!
Non-battle of the bands!
Didn't know Game Boys did that these days
Persona!
Oh no
Oh no!
I'm curious about the story behind this
You see her rolling
Happy together
Well, of course
Drums!
Do what you love
Love what you do

edited 23rd Jan '14 10:36:31 PM by Tacitus

Well, Raiko without drums is like Kogasa without umbrella or Reimu without armpits

Lyrica..what happened to you? My preferred matchup would be Raiko vs Lyrica, Benben vs Lunasa, and Yatsuhashi vs Merlin, by the way.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks Raiko and Yumemi look somewhat similar.

I think someone mentioned potential relationships between Raiko and Mamizou?

Well apart from Mamizou being friendly towards tsukumogami, taiko drumming is apparently big in Sado. (So is Noh, interestingly)

Tanuki are also associated with drums because of that story about them drumming on their bellies. It's generally assumed that any competent tanuki is also a makeshift drum.

So Mamizou helping Kokoro makes sense.

It's so obvious, I wonder how we didn't see it before. Mamizou is Raiko!

Or going slightly less crazy directions, I wonder if Raiko could/would have used this fact to make herself some sort of 'the tanuki drum' instead. Probably not (And oh gods would that have ever been a wave of implications)

Anything else we want to say here?

Raiko is very dapper and stylish.

I agree with Stuffman in loving her goofy shoes.

Raiko's got style, some revolutionary new ideas, a plan, and therefore a future. We can look forward to her career with interest, assuming her creator feels like doing anything with her.

Reisen II's profile will go up tomorrow.

Oh, she's got plenty of plans for herself. She's a self-made sort of person, after all.

Alrighty, following this we'll be discussing Nazrin, the Tsukumo Sisters, aaaaaand Hieda no Akyuu! But first, the tragic story of a conscript soldier's failed attempt to attain refugee status.

Reisen

Appearance:

Write-up:
Once upon a time, a Lunar rabbit fled a conflict on the moon and wound up on Earth, where she eventually sought refuge at a place called Eientei. Then she was told they already had one.

See, this rabbit is very similar in many ways to another Lunar rabbit. Her lingering attachments to the moon prompted Eirin to send her back home, and as punishment for visiting the forbidden planet Earth, this rabbit became the pet of the Watatsuki sisters, who named her after their previous pet: Reisen. Beyond that moniker, the Touhou wiki notes that Reisen II's characterization in SSiB is quite similar to Reisen I's fanonical character, making it possible that she's a commentary on the fandom.

Her owner concludes that "She doesn't have much sense about her, and she seems a bit dull; I worry about her." But is Yorihime overlooking anything? Is Reisen just a superfluous little bunny, only good for kicking off the plot of a manga, or does the fact that she sets everything in motion suggest that there's something more to her?

Relationships:

• Watatsuki no Yorihime, Watatsuki no Toyohime (joint custody)
• Reisen Udongein Inaba (a tough act to follow)

Interpretations:
"A Fleeting Dream"
by shiroimahotsukai

"The Quelled Rebellion" and "The Civilian Soldier"
by Antimatter 625

See also the first two Compendiums.

edited 30th Jan '14 10:58:17 PM by Tacitus

BOO AND HISS

STONE SPACE SATAN