The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Akyuu, because I only have the slightest smidgen of a hint about who she is!

Voting for Akyuu

Bless you.

I thought we were saving Akyuu for last because she's all about other characters...?

I will be random too and vote Rinnosuke.

^ Oh you.

edited 18th Oct '10 12:44:31 PM by Jadey

Rinnosuke!

Hmmmm, Akyuu can easily be discussed apart from her work, too.

Also, she'd make a good character to start the leftover less orthodox characters with... and we don't want Clarste to get all neurotic on us... ... and I spent a good while today looking up stuff on her...

So my vote's for her.

Akyuu

Aaaaaand the first post is updated with the links and list of left over characters - which, by the way, are now only Rinnosuke, Mima, Akyuu, Chiyuri, Elly, Orange, Shinki and Yumemi....

Give me some opinions on whether to include the two lunar princesses. Besides those, I have a pretty good idea of how to proceed and further voting shouldn't be necessary.

Akyuu

I do have some things I'd like to say about the Watatsuki sisters, yes. And I think Yumeko gets more use than Orange.

edited 18th Oct '10 5:58:31 PM by Hylarn

I can't think of a reason to exclude the Watatsuki sisters, but I'm not sure how much there is to say about them. They were far more developed in their original appearance than most characters were.

Their portrayals were pretty interesting in Inaba. Since they had their metaphorical hair metaphorically let down as opposed to fighting off an invasion. And then there's that doujin where Marisa gives them a replay file of fighting Eirin in IN and describes it like its porn.

edited 18th Oct '10 6:38:04 PM by Bocaj

^ Got a link to that doujin?

Its only one page out of the whole thing. Ennui Akadako's 384403. Gag doujin; first half is based on SSiB and the second half on SA. Page twelve.

I vote for Orange because YES.

I can't think of a reason to exclude the Watatsuki sisters, but I'm not sure how much there is to say about them. They were far more developed in their original appearance than most characters were.

But that is a reason!

Hmm, I can see the problem there, but regardless, I figure they're relevant enough, and the fact that few people seem to have the first idea about who they are makes it seem worthwhile.

That's half the point of this thread, no? To find out things about characters that we never knew before?

^^^ You are a gentleman and a scholar. Come the citrusy takeover of our new youkai overlords, this loyalty probably won't be forgotten, maybe.

Hieda no Akyu

IOSYS' take in "Geneology of Memories ~ Until the end of history"

Theme:
Japanese Saga, Child of Are

Traits:

• cheerful and hopeful
• also snarky and possibly very pragmatic

Relationships/Shipping:

• Keine (fellow scholar)
• Yukari (old friend(?))

Write-up:
"The Hieda always welcome the curious!"

Akyu is an unusual character in the world of Touhou. To talk about her is to talk about Gensokyo, the world the series takes place in. Because she is Gensokyo's memory. What exactly Gensokyo is, is a story to be told another time. But to understand Akyu, a basic understanding of her world is elementary.

The world used to be filled with gods and youkai, until these beings began losing their powers as a consequence of the human's advancement. The more humans began to understand the world around them, the less they required belief in gods, and the less they feared the unknown and inexplicable. Because youkai and gods cannot exist without people's fear and faith, respectively, a border of common sense was erected around a wide range of land in Japan by Yukari, the youkai of borders. This border contained a human village, and many other places which came to be a home for many fantastical beings and other things that were lost from the outside world. Eventually, a bizarre sort of balance came to be, and youkai and humans are learning to coexist peacefully.

Gensokyo is a young world, however. Before its birth, people lived in fear and constant danger of youkai attacks. Youkai have weaknesses to exploit, or they can be avoided, but who could be trusted to compile all this dangerous knowledge amassed over the ages? It's not known if the following was a lucky coincidence, or if someone planned it to be, but there existed a person known as Aichi. This scholar, who compiled the first "Gensokyo Chronicles" possessed a perfect memory of everything they every learned... and in a cycle of a little over 100 years, this person's soul is resurrected, with the memories of its previous lives still intact. These reincarnations are known as the "Children of Miare", and each one of them lived to update the historical records.

Akyu is the ninth Child of Miare, and the first to be born in Gensokyo as we know it - an almost idyllic place in which barely anyone is ever eaten by youkai, demonic kidnapping is staged for the sake of entertainment and keeping the "spirit" of youkai-fearing alive, monsters are invited into the houses of humans, and humans are invited into the castles of devils.

As such, Akyu is torn in writing her edition of the "Gensokyo Chronicles", better known to the fandom outside the fourth wall as Perfect Memento in Strict Sense. The book has always had the main role of helping people survive amongst the youkai, which now seems almost moot. In fact, she wanted to focus on certain fantastic and dangerous individuals in particular in order to give the common people a better impression of what these creatures are like as people. On the other hand, these very creatures themselves would come to hear requesting good PR, to make them sound dangerous and awe-inspiring, and after all, keeping the idea of fearsome youkai alive is necessary to allow them to live at all. Combined with the fact that Akyu can only learn of everything she did not experience herself from what people tell her, and her desire to make this new edition of the Chronicles fun to read, it might not be the best source for actual facts after all.

But after all this talk of what Akyu is, what can be said about who she is?

She has never appeared in the games. Instead, she's the narrator of the supplementary book Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, and was the focus of a very short manga advertising for the book. While this makes her a very extraordinary character for the series, and the material is hardly focused on her, there's still plenty of personality to be gleaned from it, as she likes to insert plenty of it into her writing.

Akyu has centuries of memory to look back on. She even remembers the details of spending the time not alive working for the yama in hell. At the same time, however, she's still very much a child, happy to make an article sound cute, singing to herself as she writes. She likes to put her personal opinions, tidbits about herself and plain bragging as footnotes into articles. She likes to snark and makes puns. And of course, she loves FM Synthesis music. There's no doubt that she has a healthy bit of confidence and spunk to go with her intelligence.

Perhaps there is a certain disconnect between the age of her soul and the age of her body, allowing her to feel like an ancient being and a child at the same time. Maybe she just tries to live life to the fullest for as long as she can... after all, it's not for very long. The process of reincarnating with your soul intact is very taxing, and so the life expectancy of her bodies deteriorates with every new birth. Indeed, in her situation, it's a boon to know that youkai and humans can now life in peace. Perhaps she can still make friends with some of these longer-lived beings, so that they may welcome her when she is reborn again... perhaps in a future where the border is no longer necessary, and peace between humans and creatures of fantasy has become perfect.

What a paradise to live in.

Aaaah whew. She was a toughie to write about. I hope I didn't make any mistakes, because detailed information is spread all over the place and I didn't want to spend the extra time making sure everything is perfect. I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out. She really is an interesting character to think about, and I like the cut of her jib. She could easily carry a story of her own.

To end the post, here's the official manga she appeared in. It's very short and easy to read, so I recommend it to everyone. Also, Akyu in Mugen.

Yes.

edited 19th Oct '10 2:54:31 PM by Fawriel

Interesting, I was unaware she had worked for the yama in the past. Anyway, being Gensokyo's historian must be a fun job. Hard to get reliable information, and if you can get it you have to be careful not to get killed while investigating. Regardless, she's probably the fandom's most reliable source of information about the setting.

Akyu's one of those characters I always forget about, which annoys me, because she's really cute and would likely be an interesting character. I just realized that I've never ever had a scene with her in any of my Touhou fics, and I have about 10 floating in my head.

I guess it's because she can't fight, and all the reincarnating would make it difficult to get ahold of her (Didn't PMiSS say that she only lives long enough to update her records?). But she would probably be an interesting mix of wise, yet exuberant, so I bet talking to her would be a quite fascinating experience.

 ^Well...

Her themes sound surprisingly dark and urgent. Maybe it's the kind of melody she enjoys?

The weird thing about her is that her mental and physical ages are completely different. This has led to some very different uses of the character in fanworks. Sometimes she's a young child, other times she's quite wise. Most often she's a friend of Keine (and, by extension, Mokou).

I wonder whether Akyuu draws the illustrations for the Perfect Memento herself or not.

Flipflop's Chiyorozu Restaurant. A doujin that takes the form of Akyuu's journal. Snarky Akyuu is in full-force here. Also, Akyuu serves as a commentator for Tag Dream.

• Pretty!
• Adult (slightly ecchi)
• Butterfly
• Origami
• Luckily, she is technically immortal
• Cute...
• Flowers
• There are worse choices
• Danmaku mode
• Konpaku ancestry?
• Hundred of years of knick-knacks
• Screentone

Apparently her last incarnation was named Aya. I feel like there's a good WMG there.

edited 19th Oct '10 5:27:12 PM by Hylarn