The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Two Youmu, two Shou... I'm tempted to go Shou myself... Hmm.

TIEBREAKEEEEER

I vote Shou (and actually try to say something about her).Like that,we might develop further the "hierarchy" between Nazrin and her.

But Youmu will certainly be after Shou.

edited 7th Aug '10 11:44:29 AM by DonRavioli

Shoumu.

Damn the power of a good portmanteau couple name! Its an entirely ridiculous pairing with no basis in anything resembling good sense or logic and yet it is strangely appealing.

Hey, they are pretty similar. Straight-laced warrior ladies with strong ties to Buddhism.

And since that makes Shou such a great seque towards Youmu, let's do it this way~

The Shou begins soon!

I should hit you for that but the Shou must go on, after all.

That's right. We'll Shou everybody!

Shou 'nuff!

Fo' Shou!

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Shou Toramaru

Theme:
Provincial Makai City Esoteria, The Tiger-Patterned Vaisravana

Traits:

• Honest
• Straight-forward
• Disciplined and spiritual

Relationships/Shipping:

• Nazrin (her underling/mole-who-took-a-liking-to-her)
• Byakuren (her beloved saint)
• The rest of the UFO crew

Write-up:
In many fairy tales and fables, one might read about an honest man whom everyone in the village trusts and respects. That is Shou.

Byakuren, the Buddhist nun who wants to bring the light to both humans and youkai equally, wanted to summon her god Bishamonten to her temple. But Bishamonten was a busy god, and rarely appeared. Even then, having a high god hanging around is not good publicity among the youkai, who feared that they would be exterminated. Cunning as she is, Byakuren decided to find the most trustworthy youkai around, and introduced her to Bishamonten so she could train to become his disciple. She was a great assistant to him, and even sending Nazrin to spy on her as her underling did not reveal any faults on her part. Thus, she began to gather faith for Byakuren's temple posing as an avatar of Bishamonten himself. Which might not be considered quite so honest, but she knew that revealing her nature as a tiger youkai would have been ruinous.

Unfortunately, she was so busy with her work that she was not there to prevent Byakuren's sealing, and so when her fellow apostles were released from their imprisonment underground by a geyser, she knew she had to put her all into freeing her mistress.

In fanon, Shou is known mostly for being a tiger, and thus by extension, a cat, or for being a love-interest to either Byakuren or Nazrin. The latter of which is strangely fitting for the Ran-Chen dynamic many see in the two, since Ran is also mostly a satellite character for her more popular cute underling.

Being another addition to a tradition of straight-laced warrior types acting as stage 5 bosses to more or less capricious mistresses, with few outstanding gimmicks to call her own, Shou is not in an advantageous position concerning popularity. But digging slightly deeper into the tiger's den, one might easily find a treasure or two...

Similar characters:

• Youmu (straight-laced warrior with strong Buddhist ties - also makes for a good shipping portmanteau name!)
• Ran (similar relationship with her similarly animal-like underling, somewhat similar personality)

Man, whoever it was who said that Shou is "chill" wasn't lying. I read up on everything I could think of on short notice, and after reading her in-game dialogue, I actually really like her! And, well, usually it's more like the opposite for me.

From her dialogue, I gather that... She speaks rather formally, as you'd expect of a cleric. Also very polite, even after being beaten. She's perhaps a bit too trusting, but succeeded on her Detect Motive roll against Marisa. She's not forceful about pushing her beliefs and takes the racism leveled against her by the heroines in stride, attacking (or defending) only out of necessity. She seems to take the fact that the heroines are able to beat her as proof that they are not evil. And finally:

"Very well, if that's your idea of justice."

She's pretty damn cool.

With her strong-sounding theme, a spear, and a haircut that makes her look like a modern, emancipated young woman, I'd write her a lot like Ran, but with decidedly more of an own free will... Ran was tamed, Shou chose her fate. They are both mature, but in different ways. Maturity is also the main respect in which she differs from Youmu, apart from their very different relationships to their mistresses.

edited 7th Aug '10 2:40:32 PM by Fawriel

Hard to say much about canon Shou. She really didn't get a whole lot of dialogue (odd, considering that she's a stage five boss), and her profile is really more about things that happened around her. What dialogue she does have suggests that she's fairly level-headed, though.

Fanon Shou, however, is entirely different. Much as Nazrin ended up as the anti-Chen, she became the anti-Ran. She's kind of a dojikko, and easily flustered. Often has a romantic interest in Byakuren (though this also shows up in fanworks that use an interpretation supported by canon).

Maturity is also the main respect in which she differs from Youmu

Sorry for the off-topic but I'm gonna have to take issue with that. Youmu is really old-fashioned but I wouldn't call her immature. She's what, eighty years old or something? Maybe not super old for a youkai but for a human?

Anyway uh yeah, sorry.

Art:

• We all knew this was coming
• Kitty!
• Gekigami
• Always losing things
• And the damn thing curves
• How does the cloth do that?
• Dunno how the spear is floating there
• Huge image is 6 MB
• Fluffy
• Flowers
• Crazy cat lady
• ...
• Watercolour
• Does that work on tigers?
• Kitties!

Shou is another one of those characters that mostly shows up in relationship to others. This includes the porn.

@Zudak: Ah, a controversial issue. Well, the ZUN side of things often has references to Youmu being a little immature, and looking at it from the perspective of some of my favorite portrayals of her, it makes sense to me to an extent that while she's very cool and disciplined, she's also still a bit childish in some respects, which is probably why Yuyuko likes to tease her so much. Even if you don't agree with this, though, then she's still far less independent than Shou. But that's a discussion for another time.

@Hylarn: Wait, that counts as not a whole lot of dialogue? Six scenarios, which she holds several speeches of quite varied content in? Huh.

But yeah, since she lost that pagoda, apparently, I can see where the clumsy factor comes from. Or did she? Quite honestly, the plot of UFO confuses the heck out of me, especially Shou's backstory and the details of Byakuren's unsealment.

As for shipping with Byakuren, she does gush about the lady quite a bit, but that's to be expected given their relation.

Actually, despite what two (or three?) of the Shou avatars I uploaded might say, I'm not sure if Shou would be romantically interested in anyone... she seems so ascetic. Which could make a funny dynamic if Nazrin did fall in love with her, and used the silly humor I assigned her to cope with Shou's professional obliviousness... Heh.

Oh by the way.

Shou wears pants!

One of several reasons why, after the silly pun made me think about it, I think portraying her like a shounen protagonist would be pretty cool.

Edit: Man, porn. The only doujin I ever found with Shou in it was disappointingly plotless porn with Byakuren. Buh.

edited 7th Aug '10 3:55:28 PM by Fawriel

Yeah, should wait until the official Youmu talk starts. For now I'll just say that I'm biased - she's one of my favorites and I do love me some badass Touhous, so naturally I prefer the most badass interpretation of her.

@Zudak:I don't think there's anything about Youmu's age or aging in canon. I've occasionally seen people theorize that she should age at half-rate, but that's speculation, and doesn't really make sense (since she's not really a half-breed, she has half of her soul outside of her body).

@Fawriel: Six scenarios, but a fair amount of the dialogue is recycled, much of it is the same thing reworded, and, really, she only gets much dialogue in Reimu's A scenario. And she never acts as a midboss, either.

Age: Unknown, but less than 60 years old

Ah, my bad.

Yeah, I like Shou as a character. She's honest, straightforward, and devoted to her work to the point of the exclusion of almost anything else, which is why she wasn't there when Byakuren was sealed, of course.

It's interesting to see just how devoted she is to her job as Bishamonten's avatar; for example, there's only one spellcard in the entire canon that has anything to do with her being a tiger. The rest is all about the light of judgment, mandala patterns, etc.

And can I just say that she has one heck of a Badass Boast?

However, if the path you've chosen is wrong... Then you'll have to bear witness to the light of dharma, which is even brighter here in Makai. And bow down, to this pagoda of Bishamonten!

Okay. That 4koma where Shou misplaced her clothes was awesome. No, not for that reason, geez. The drive-by Alicing was awesome.

Also, if having the pagoda boosts Nazrin from stage 1 boss to stage five midboss, what level was Shou without the pagoda?

^ That boast is easily one of the better Touhou boasts. Although the tandem boast/threats against Yuyuko were pretty good too.

edited 7th Aug '10 4:13:46 PM by Bocaj

Naz and Master - Adorable doujin that nicely shows the common fanon portrayal Shou as a clumsy yet kind master to Nazrin.

First of all, Shou is number 1 on my list of "hope to see in a fighting game". I feel like her danmaku is very distinctive, with her lasers that turn into shots, and bendy lasers and of course the spear. She seems like she'd be pretty fun to play as.

Second of all, it seems that within Byakuren's cult of personality, Shou is the only one who cares more about her duty, and therefore Byakuren's mission, than she does about Byakuren as a person. She really, truly wants a world where youkai and humans are treated equally, and sees Byakuren's as a very nice person and very helpful to that end, but not strictly necessary. She's helping to unseal her, but she's also just doing the basic "get everyone used to each other in the temple" plan.

Lastly, having reread all her dialog just now, I could sort of see her as being Unfunny, especially when she's talking to Marisa.

Unfunny Shou owuld be great. And I dunno. Didn't Shou put all her energy into unsealing Byakuren after she found out that she'd been sealed while she was busy being Bishamonten?

And I think Shou also has some really Badass spellcard names, in addition to having a great Badass Boast: Light Sign: "Absolute Justice", Buddha's Art: "Vajra of Perfect Buddhism", "Demon Of Purification" Heaven Sign: "Scorched Earth Mandala". Just some really cool names all around.

Yeah, but she was also busy being Bishamonten. Everyone else in the cult seems to do nothing but look up to Byakuren.

First of all, Shou is number 1 on my list of "hope to see in a fighting game"

She's not quite number one for me, I think that honor goes to Kogasa, but it'd definitely be really cool to see her in the next fighting game, for the reasons you stated.

Well, Nazrin was probably more busy working with Shou than looking up to Byakuren.

Shou had Byakuren's legacy to look after, the temple to Bishamonten.

The other UFO bosses were sealed underground with nothing to look forward to but getting free and helping Byakuren.