The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

I have nooooooooooooo idea what's happening there.

But man, Byakuren would totally win that wrestling tournament if you think about it. Her magic skills focus specifically on spells that increase her physical attributes...

Basically, a team of the underground youkai from SA are trying to get Yuyuko and Yukari to allow... someone, I think they were fighting for Utsuho's right to join or something. (they eventually do. Utsuho + Tenshi is a team) And anyway, it kind of gets violent when they don't back down from them.

What Byakuren was doing is she swooped in and kicked away an enormous danmaku barrage from Yuyuko. That was the first time she'd appeared in the doujin, so it was pretty awesome. She then proceeds to chew out Yuyuko for harming them.

And anyway, magic doesn't work too much in that tournament. There's a Yukari-brand boundary around the ring that dampens magic by an extreme amount. There's no danmaku or anything allowed inside it, so it comes down to physical strength and skill (though Flandre still managed to split into four. I dunno.)

I have a message from another time...

Flandre split in four because she flew outside the ring to do so—in fact, I believe she was careful to only attack with one clone at a time so that there would never be two of her within the dampening field. Also, Sanae and Reimu both seemed to be able to somehow channel some of their power into making themselves stronger (and into a sheild at the end of the Sanae-vs-Flandre fight), so I'm pretty sure enchantments, which are applied before the battle starts, would work.

I still think we should be calling her Youkai Martin Luther King instead of Youkai Jesus, but I guess it doesn't roll off the tongue as easily. Jokes aside, though, I saw it pointed out somewhere that she doesn't seem as concerned with equality as helping the Youkai. Also, fairly certain she turned herself into a Youkai as part of that dark magic.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

Always saw Hijiri as more of a nice person in general. And for some reason, I compare her to Mugi from K-On! a lot.

And is it just me, or is the moe-level really, really high in UFO?

(Her Tag Dream outfit is drool-worthy, also.)

edited 24th Mar '10 3:48:06 PM by Sayael

You are now reading something clever.

^Well, Kogasa is commonly considered "youkai moe" (you know, the line also used for Yuka). And her in-game cut-in looks very nice. So yeah, UFO seems to have increased the moe levels dramatically.

a.k.a. Cly, that one girl who doesn't post here much anymore Something something YI = SMW 2 = SMB 5.

Myouren didn't die when Byakuren was young, her profile explicitly says she got her powers when "growing old" and that she used magic to regain her youth first, before becoming immortal. Which makes her inclusion in the Old Hag club all the more fitting.

I can't find where you got that "her fate depends on the heroine chosen", but that doesn't seem true. All of the ending are the same; she comes to Gensoukyou in the Palanquin Ship, giving the heroine a ride and open her temple/her sightseeing tours.

Byakuren doujin: there's been a few that focused on the shiftier aspect of her past and personality (which, frankly, are by far the most interesting parts of the character). There's Chado's two Yuuka  ^*

vs Byakuren doujin. It's standard Tohonifun fare, so mostly action and Only One Face, but now I really want to see Byakuren in the next fighting game.

And then there's Stripe Pattern's Love and Peace, which takes the method with which Byakuren helped Murasa and the implications of her philosophy before the sparkly Gensoukyou utopia and runs with it. Ruthless, but awesome.

(The links go to Voile since Gensokyo.org's download section is offline again).

EDIT: fixed a link

edited 24th Mar '10 5:08:15 PM by StillWaters

Byakuren? Would have preferred someone that's been around a bit longer. Anyway, she seems to be a fairly nice person that wants everyone to get along. Focuses more on equality for youkai than humans because she saw them being abused more than the other way around.

The only real change from the above I've seen in fanon is a tendency to give her varying levels of ditzyness. Kogasa usually succeeds at surprising her, for instance.

. . .

You know, I thought a certain friend of mine was overreacting when he said people were always trying to talk down the goodness of a plainly good Touhou character as if everyone had to be some sort of psycho, but I'm starting to think that he might have had a point.

I think of her as being a little too kind, so maybe some unrepentant youkai may one day abuse her niceness.

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

^ See, that's how you put a believable bad twist on a goodhearted character!

On top of that, she has a genuine objection to being called "Old Hag" :V

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

Byakuren seems straightforward enough - a supposed youkai hunter who went native and started questioning the human-youkai conflict. She desires a more harmonious and peaceful world, a worthy goal that only earned her the distrust and persecution of her fellow humans. She's even got a nakama, a band of loyal youkai grateful for her help and eager to return the favor.

Her entry on the characters page labels her the Anti-Marisa, but she sounds more like the Anti-Reimu by my (limited) understanding of the setting. A pretty laudable and likable character, I'd say.

So let's paint her black, shall we? Byakuren is a fallen nun who betrayed the very principles of her religion and dishonored her brother's legacy. Driven by her fear of death she turned to unnatural magics to preserve her youth, trafficking with demons and man-eating monsters in order to learn their dark secrets. While the rest of the world was turning the tide against the unnatural creatures that lurked in the shadows, Byakuren discovered that she had more in common with these creatures than her "fellow" humans, and masqueraded as a youkai hunter only to help her quarry escape. A traitor to her own kind, she was sealed away by her vengeful countrymen, but the network of favors and obligations she built through her activities in the supernatural underworld has paid off and helped free her. A dark magician and transhuman who fights with the spells of Shinki herself, Byakuren nonetheless insists that she's trying to help people.

...though I like her "Youchrist" interpretation more, I think.

edited 26th Mar '10 12:18:45 PM by Tacitus

Current earworm: "Mother ~ Outro"

Waaaah, what's up with the need for overly negative interpretations like this? The setting's so full of madmen that it seems to me like a straight-up goody-two-shoes would make a more interesting character in the setting than another one... Well, I don't know much about her, but we know of her character development and stuff, and she's very different from any other final boss, so really, I don't think she'd be a flat character just because she's plain old Neutral Good. Maybe we should discuss Shikeiki next, I can think of some cool stuff involving her super-goodness...

What makes you say that she's the anti-Reimu? My understanding is that she's the anti-Marisa because she's another magician who stole spells from other characters, so... what's your reasoning?

Then why did you spend an entire paragraph making her an evil hateful jackass solely to "paint black" a "laudable and likable character"?

WHO IS THIS LOSER

Well, I wouldn't be that accusatory about it, but it is an interesting question.

Maybe just playing devil's advocate, to see how her actions could be misinterpreted as dark, just 'cause?

I have a message from another time...

My understanding of Reimu is that she's a lazy but good-natured miko who gets dragged into Incidents when they threaten to blow up her shrine. She's proficient at battling youkai but treats them no better or worse than she does humans, and would rather hang out at home than go adventuring full-time. Byakuren sounds like a more benevolent and proactive force, a fallen nun who through falling prey to selfishness became the self-appointed protector of the last refugees from a magical era, and now seeks to build a world through good deeds and mutual understanding like the one Reimu's helped create in Gensokyo almost by accident.

Maybe "anti-" isn't the right term, though.

Forgive me, but I thought the purpose of this thread was to look at characters in different ways? To take the pieces of canonical information about them and see how the various characterizations we could build?

Sorry if my little thought experiment was so upsetting.

I do wonder, though, how the Eastern fandom views her, based on the whole "treating the weak and strong equally" values dissonance and the "lapsed Buddhist" angle. Is she a naive idealist on the other side of the Pacific, someone who hasn't learned her lesson yet? Is she protecting the wrong side of the human-youkai divide?

Current earworm: "Mother ~ Outro"

Byakuren's a religious type that's trying to maintain peace between humans and youkai. Does this sound more like Marisa or Reimu to you?

The "lapsed Buddhist" bit pretty much never comes up; most Japanese are pretty secular.

edited 26th Mar '10 2:40:59 PM by Hylarn

Just judging by various translated doujins and what-not, they appear to go with the goody-two-shoes friend to all interpretation.

The Yuuka vs. Byakuren doujin is one of the few I've seen with a darker Byakuren.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

KoaCore has a somewhat desperate Byakuren in the backstory. And TN has an... interesting take on her.

And while I'm linking to comics about Byakuren, I'll rec Myouren Temple Spiral and Christmas at Myouren-ji as well.

edited 26th Mar '10 7:23:40 PM by Hylarn

(relevant music)

I wondered if a Western audience's view of Byakuren was tempered by Jesus - we see an apostle of peace who was punished for her message, and draw a pretty strong conclusion without needing any further information. But if fanart is anything to go by, Byakuren's appeal is indeed universal. I've found nothing that paints her in a sinister or diabolical light; instead she's usually surrounded by her friends, getting along with the older characters, or pretty much sanctified (if not elevated higher).

The ladies of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Eientei, and Hakugyokurou all have servants they're close with, but Byakuren was bailed out by friends, and would certainly insist on them being treated as her equals. Definitely a Team Mom vibe there, and judging from some sketches Keine might have a new rival when it comes to a schoolteacher figure.

Current earworm: "Mother ~ Outro"

...So that's where those "youchrist" comments came from. I always saw her as much more of a MLK figure.

HIJIRI BYAKUREN WAS SEALED FOR YOUR SINS

I have half a mind to go door to door asking people if they've found Byakuren.

So do we know whether or not Byakuren actually has two-toned brown-and-purple hair, or was that a lighting mistake?

WHO IS THIS LOSER