The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Yumemi and Chiyuri might have come from behind a different Fourth Wall.

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

Yumemi is tons of fun. She doesn't really fit the tone of the more modern games that well... but maybe that's part of why I like her? I dunno, mostly I just think that the dimensional spaceship and artificial magic are cool. And the whole fact that she's from another dimension entirely lends itself to a lot of cool speculation and stuff.

For instance, I have decided her people live in Zeerusty floating cities and that the entire planet below has been declared a nature preserve that people are only allowed to visit, not live on.

Like Ithor?

Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh. Ithor.

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One of the newest Touhou characters has a cell phone. The most recent official manga chapter was focused on the creation of a cold fusion reactor. I don't think that a technologically-powered dimensional spaceship clashes with the modern tone at all.

Anyway, Yumemi's story in Po DD is hilarious. Unlike later games, ZUN didn't bother changing who the final boss was depending on who you were playing as; instead, the presense of two Yumemis is explained as dimensional shenanigans (probably) brought on by Chiyuri fiddling with the machines while Yumemi was out. Yumemi is not at all hesitant to "repair" this anomaly in the space-time continuum.

Chiyuri's story also has her fight herself, but it specifies that the Chiyuri you're playing as is actually (probably) from Gensokyo and can use magic. I wonder if there are any stories exploring this alternate dimension thing further... seems like there's some interesting potential there.

(Technically, all the characters fight themselves, but only the Chiyuri and Yumemi fights have an appreciable amount of dialogue, so the other doubles remain unexplained.)

Oh, and she uses crosses are just because she thinks they look cool.

edited 4th Nov '10 10:57:28 PM by Zudak

There's a bit of a difference between barely working  ^*

modern technology and the outright sci-fi that is dimensional travel.

Sure, but it's no more of a difference than that between the Gensokyo human tech level and cell phones/fusion reactors... not to mention groups like the Lunarians. Even excluding Po DD, the Touhou universe has a pretty wide range of technology; including Po DD does not make it much wider.

It's not Gensokyo that has crazy dimension-warping tech, just Yumemi's universe.

Anyway, for a series that takes a number of theoretical and debunked physics theories as truth, why not the many-worlds theory?

Plus, if Dim. Dream didn't happen, where'd Marisa get Earth Light Ray?

I have a message from another time...

Cracker Jack box.

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Acceptable.

I have a message from another time...

Anything Bocaj says is canon.

I find it interesting how many parallels there appear to be between this "parallel dimension" and the "outside world" of the new canon. Well, by "how many parallels", I of course mean "there's like one or two things that seem similar".

I mean, one of the things about Future Outside Earth is that they're pretty much "done" with physics, if I'm remembering correctly, yes? And then there's the title of Yumemi's theme. That's probably a coincidence, but "Strawberry Crisis!!" and "Strawberries no longer grow naturally on earth" seems like... well, a coincidence or a reference or a liking of the motif or maybe in fact a similar thought process behind the idea.

ZUN definitely reused some ideas there. I can (a dimensional counterpart of) Yumemi being one of Renko's professors.

Heck, Yumemi is a little similar to Renko in the first place.

It would be a piece of cake to bring Yumemi and Chiyuri back into canon just by making them inhabitants of the outside world. Theoretically, I mean.

edited 5th Nov '10 12:50:40 AM by Fawriel

Well, not the same Chiyuri and Yumemi. Be closer than the two Alices, though.

x5 I promise to use this power only for good unless I'm bored.

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A Professor Yumemi is one of Renko or Maribel's lecturers.

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

^ I wonder what university would fund research like this, anyway, or make a study program out of it. Probably the same kind of university that lets its professors investigate ancient octopus-monsters.

They didn't fund the research. Yumemi got laughed out of the university for proposing that the unified theory of physics didn't account for magic.

I have a message from another time...

Hey wow, you're right. No wonder I like her so much.

I wholeheartedly approve of Yumemi and Chiyuri being from the same world as Maribel and Renko. That would be a fun objective for our trip through the PC-98 characters - finding ways to work them into current canon.

Barely-related question time: if Maribel and Renko are from the "real" world in the future, is Sanae a contemporary of theirs or someone from the "real" world now? If she isn't, does that raise the question of people from the past showing up in Gensokyo?

...And if Maribel is Yukari and Renko is Reimu, could Yumemi be Marisa? Red hair, enthusiastic occult scholars, evoke classic witch imagery/meaningless Christian symbolism to create personal motifs... Too much of a stretch?

Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"

Sanae is from the outer world at the present time. Mary and Renko are from the outer world in the future. I'm not sure why this would lead to people from the past appearing.

I don't buy the WMG that Mary is really Yukari. There are parallels, and I don't think it's an accident, but I don't think they're literally the same person.

Maybe she's the Ben Reilly to Yukari. ZUN clearly was worried that the character of Gap Woman had become too old to be relatable and had wanted to replace her with a hipper, younger version.

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Madame Gap?

Anyway, it'd be nice to see what kind of Magitek inventions Yumemi could come up with when her theory is proven correct. Seems like it'd remove a lot of the limitations of standard physics.