The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

^^ It's mentioned in Flan's EoSD profile

edited 21st Jul '10 8:54:46 AM by Servbot

So, about a teaspoon of blood, perhaps more because the flavor isn't as concentrated, per cake.

And with tea, it'd be about the same, unless it's taking the place of the water.

Of course, it doesn't really tell us how much bloodcake she has in a day, but if Remilia is any indication, Touhou vampires don't need enough blood to kill a man.

...Huh. According to Flandre's profile, there's a possibility she doesn't actually know that her meals are made using human blood. However, in R Eimu's extra stage, Flandre actually seems to be more confused about what humans look like, momentarily thinking Reimu is trying to fool her when she claims to be a human.

...By the way, now I've got the darkly hilarious image of Sakuya periodically stealing into the Human Village, abducting a random person, and making them bleed... until she fills a moderately large measuring cup.

Then the confused and frightened human is bandaged up and sent on his way.

edited 21st Jul '10 9:10:48 AM by Enlong

I've always liked to think of Rumia saying she eats people, and trying too, but being deflected in comical ways. Like with a steak thrown the opposite direction or something, or her just walking right by people.

Unless you're stupid enough to walk into a mysterious sphere of darkness, that's pretty much exactly how it goes.

She even has the thing up at night except during the new moon.

She just kinda bonks, bonks her way through life.

Which is why she Flander, whose power works off "destroying everything she sees." so Rumia who can't see anything makes the world safe.

Flander

This is probably a typo, but I'd like to take this opportunity to note that Flandre's name is pronounced furandooru in Japanese and is romanized as Flandlo in PMiSS (and never appears anywhere else, as far as I know). Neither Flander nor Flandre (nor Flandlo) seem like very accurate romanizations to me, although I like the way Flandre looks.

edited 21st Jul '10 12:40:23 PM by Clarste

Ned Flandres

"Howdily doodily sister-rino!"

"Flandre" is pretty close if you pronounce it like it's French.

It's definitely the coolest/best looking/sounding Romanization of her name.

Its actually Belgian, its a region in Belgium.

There's no "Belgian" language, though. The official languages of Belgium are Dutch, French and a bit of German. So yeah.

Now why ZUN would name her that, I don't know. Maybe it's where she was born or somesuch. They are European, right?

edited 21st Jul '10 11:09:16 AM by Fawriel

Its heavily implied.

The entire SDM cast is "foreign" except possibly Sakuya who's obviously using a pseudonym anyway. Remilia sounds vaguely romance-language but Scarlet is obviously English. So... I dunno.

edited 21st Jul '10 11:50:56 AM by Clarste

Maybe they had a Continental mother and an English father.

Could be. I'm still not sure whether they were born vampires or turned into vampires at some point or just manifested out of plot necessity.

There are several mentions of vampires turning others, but other than that they seem to be treated as if they were born as vampires.

That opens up the possibility that there's a Lord Scarlet wandering around giving bro-fives to Youki and all the other fathers that logic dictates are stashed away somewhere.

By Belgian, I meant "Flanders is a region in Belgium"

Also parts of France and the Netherlands. Flandre is the French name for it.

Hey cool I didn't know that.

The correct kanaification of the French pronunciation of "Flandre" would be furandoru, though. (That's also how the name of the region is written in Japanese). Having a long "oo" makes it impossible to reduce "dooru" to "dre", so "Flandre" doesn't quite fit.

I like it though, it somehow makes her seems more sinister than something like Flandol. It might also just be inter-Belgian politics messing with my head and making me see threatening connotations where they don't belong.

yeah it's way cooler than "Frandle" or "Frandoll" or anything dumb like that.

A super-obscure Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy reference?

edited 21st Jul '10 1:02:45 PM by Fawriel

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Aki Sisters

Shizuha Aki

Theme:
A God That Loves People ~ Romantic Fall

Traits:

• likes to brag to her sister
• unreliable

Relationships/Shipping:

• Minoriko (her younger sister)

Write-up:
Shizuha, the goddess of turning leaves. Together with her younger sister Minoriko, the two rule over autumn, and run a sweet potato stand at the foot of the Youkai Mountain.

She is a first stage midboss and apparently attacks the player because she suspects them of wanting to disrupt the autumn. Despite being the older sister, she is weaker in battle than even her sister, though, and is thus considered by many in the fandom to be less reliable. She's also often depicted outright attacking Letty Whiterock, who is considered to be a spirit of winter, and thus their mortal enemy.

She loves the turning of the leaves and likes to brag to Minoriko about the red leaves' beauty. She also has no in-game dialogue, so all this non-fanon information is entirely from her game profile. As such, fandom interpretation can be just about anything.

She is Shizuha Aki, and she is one half of the least popular duo in the series.

Minoriko Aki

Theme:
Because Princess Inada Is Scolding Me

Traits:

• likes to brag to her sister
• moody <=> more mature

Relationships/Shipping:

• Shizuha (her older sister)

Write-up:
Minoriko is the goddess of abundant harvest. According to her profile, she is often made a special guest at the annual harvest festival, but she never points out that inviting her earlier to ensure a good crop would be more sensible. Together with her sister, she rules over autumn and runs a sweet potato stand at the foot of the Youkai Mountain.

She is a first stage boss and attacks the player either to demonstrate her strength (Marisa), or for insulting/threatening to eat her for smelling like sweet potatoes (Reimu). In Double Spoiler, she acts as Aya's training partner, and apparently throws a tantrum at one point.

As befits a harvest goddess, she is always surrounded by a sweet scent of fruits and other harvest items, and likes to brag to her sister because her power is greater than hers.

Of course, fandom doesn't really adhere to what little canon characterization there is, so her main characteristic is autumn.

Together with Shizuha, she forms the least popular duo in the series.

Let's give them a hand, shall we?

I try to make characters sound interesting! There was just so amazingly little to go by. And I can see why they're not popular. I was struck with ideas when I first voted for them here, but doing actual research after that, reading their dialogue and profiles, I could literally feel the sympathy being drained out of myself.

I don't know what ZUN was going for here. Okay, so Shizuha is a satellite character, fine. Minoriko, though, is clearly designed to look like a regular nice girl, but she is not given a single likable trait. She acts haughty about being a goddess, despite being so weak, she doesn't tell the people they're supposed to invite her earlier so she can give them a good harvest, both sisters have a "superiority complex" over the other... It's like they were designed to be unlikable weaksauce gods who still act all high and mighty and get punished with an asskicking.

So why did I want to talk about them? Well. I'm a little unsure about doing this at this stage, but I'm pretty much gonna go ahead and reinvent them entirely based a bit on canon info, but more so on what I feel works for them. I'm afraid it won't go over well, though.

The Aki sisters, I think, work best as a duo in a Slice of Life series. If they got their own series focusing on them, that's what the genre would be. They are defined by autumn. Autumn means melancholy, but also beauty. I thought I read somewhere that Shizuha was actually the goddess of the crackling sound that dry leaves make when you step on them. Autumn is a very artsy kind of season, and would make a perfect theme for a slice of life series focused on the beauty of nature, about loss, about relaxing and letting things go, about listening to the wind and the crackling of the leaves... Other factors work well with this concept, too. They aren't good at fighting, because they rarely do it. They are defined by their interaction with one another. Minoriko reminds me of Yuno from Hidamari Sketch, who is also an artist... So with that basis, this is how I see them.

Shizuha is the older and more carefree sister. She's less reliable than Minoriko because she's always staring off into the distance listening to the sounds of the surroundings. She's often seen wearing headphones, even, with which she listens to an assortment of ambient sounds and perhaps some simple music if she's feeling especially frisky. She's usually either relaxed or energetic, but isn't quite on top of everything and can occasionally get quite irritated if things aren't going as smoothly as she wants them to. They fight sometimes because of their different views of life.

Minoriko is a daydreamer at heart as well, but being a goddess, and the more powerful one despite being the younger sister at that, makes her feel like she has to try very hard to live up to everyone's expectations. This makes her easily irritable because of her insecurity, caused by going against her nature, the feeling that the townspeople are probably just using her, the fact that she's still so weak in the greater scheme of things despite being a goddess... Shizuha tries to get her to relax and enjoy life, but it doesn't always work out that well.

... also the series would be called something like "Barefoot Through The Leaves". Minoriko's theme, with its upbeat melody, would be remixed into the OP, and Shizuha's is the ED song, with its fitting intro, and the soft and gentle parts and all...

I like that song, by the way. It sounds like there's something going on, a bit of a competitive but not aggressive nature.

And for the past days I've been trying to draw these girls in something approaching a Slice Of Life type art style, then I made several attempts today to draw some sort of title card of them sitting on a tree stump but that plan was foiled by me sucking. Well, they all have some good qualities about them, but none turned out◊ anything like I◊ wanted them to.◊

More practice is needed.

So yeah, uhm. Good luck, everyone!

edited 21st Jul '10 4:27:25 PM by Fawriel

In her official portrait, Minoriko's right foot is drawn like a left foot. It's supposed that ZUN likened her to a Japanese one-legged scarecrow which guards farms.

This is in my opinion pretty cool.

Anyway the Aki sisters need more love for sure.