The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

If anyone cares, here's a (unfinished) fanfiction about the two of them, which involves the two of them actually getting into Gensokyo. It's written by the same guy who does (and is part of the canon of) Touhou Nekokayou.

It's TroperWorks/TouhouNekokayou.

Edit: No, wait, mevermind, someone put a redirect in place.

edited 2nd Apr '10 7:40:55 PM by CapedLuigisYoshi

Their entire raison d'etre, besides trolling the fanbase by practically begging for WMG, is to see as much as they can, especially of the wondrous world of Gensokyo. So of course they'll have a lot of Scenery Porn in their fanart, just like a character who's purpose in a series is to fight will have a lot of fanart where he looks badass and a girl who exists primarily as a love interest would have lots of fanart where she looks cute (assuming the fans like her).

Speaking of which, I deem a whopping ten of those pictures just linked to to be worth downloading and storing on my computer. Although pictures I single out as worth downloading by themselves (as opposed to obtaining in imagepacks, especially those coming with musicpacks) do not make up the majority of the Touhou art on my computer, these two girls just scored double the number of such pics any single character had as of ten minutes ago (the previous title holder being Flandre), and in fact increased the number of pictures in the folder into which I placed them by almost 50%. To summarize, these two get some damn fine fanart. And if you can call songs like "Greenwich in the Sky" and "The Far Side of the Moon" theirs, they have some damn fine music to their names too.

Sadly, they have plot relevance in almost nothing I've read. Just a few Youtube music videos and that one story which Kimiko Muffin never finished (Muffin, if you're reading this: FINISH IT PLEASE).

But Muffin hasn't finished any of his ongoing fanfics! (We've got the mentioned one, the in-the-future-when-Marisa starts research-on-becoming-youkai one, the Satori one, the Kaguya x Mokou one, and the retelling of UFO.)

Also, show of hands: Who here would ship Renko x Maribel? *raises hand*

edited 2nd Apr '10 11:39:26 PM by CapedLuigisYoshi

One reason for him to finish A Different Story Of Eastern Wonderland is because it ties into the canon of the comic itself. In chapter 2, Flandre's power is "upgraded" into manipulation of destruction. She uses it to great effect during the Catness arc, but there's no mention in the comic yet about what happened to Maribel and Renko.

Which really makes me wonder.

Wonder about what? When the story takes place? There is a timeline on Muffin's site.

What was supposed to happen? Well, the UFO retelling did mention about some conflict between Yuka and Sanae, which Muffin admitted was a small spoiler for the fourth chapter.

Yeah, but... well, I want to see the end of the Maribel and Renko story and the UFO story more than the rest combined. So... yeah, let's get back on topic. Where else do these two appear in something more than five minutes long?

They appear as a framing device in the FLIPFLOPS doujin "Variant Youyoumi", which is a retelling of PCB. I can't remember the details though, and it's certainly not about them. They might have more than 5 minutes of page time though, depending on how fast you read. They're kind of used as an analogy for the Yukari-Yuyuko friendship. Or something. I can't quite remember.

There's You GOD Mail!, though that's more about Sanae.

Renko and Maribel actually play a major role in the long fan-game Labyrinth of Touhou, which I'm running a Let's Play of. I haven't gotten to them yet though, and it's pretty spoilerific:

The whole incident of the game was actually caused by Maribel and Renko wandering into Gensokyo. Maribel, who latently possesses powers similar to Yukari, loses control and is taken over by her power, creating the alternate dimension that's swallowing up Gensokyo. Yukari is secretly trying to resolve the incident on her own out of sympathy for Maribel, but Rinnosuke (who's a Well-Intentioned Extremist / Knight Templar in this game) suspects the two outsiders of being a threat to Gensokyo. With the help of Renko, Reimu's party defeats Maribel (the final boss) and sets her free.

Both Renko and Maribel are playable characters for the post-game Bonus Dungeon. Renko is a dedicated support character with extreme buff/debuff spells; Maribel is a glass cannon with only average offensive stats but a very potent self-buff ability and powerful attack spells.

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Maribel Han

Traits:

• Agent Mulder
• Quite literal dreamer
• Calm and gentle

Relationships/Shipping:

• Renko (the other 1/2 of the Occult Studies Club/extra snuggles)

Tentative write-up:
Calm and collected, dreamy eyes, the girl who visits Gensokyo in her dreams - that's Maribel. Living in the "real" world, not too far into the future, at a time when strawberries and other plants are only available as synthetics, she makes up the light half of the Occult Studies Club of her school with her friend Renko.

Hardly anyone will doubt that the two are attracted to one another like Keine's forehead is attracted to Cirno's. However, is it true that Maribel is, in fact, more than just similar in appearance to Yukari...?

Similar characters:
* Yukari (depending on how you see Yukari)

Damn, Hylarn. You have... excellent taste. The first picture you linked to... gorgeous. this one makes Renko look a lot like Aya... now there's a connection I would never have made. Hmm, somehow I seem to be having trouble deciding on a version of Mary that looks right to me, though... there were a lot of really pretty ones, but the one that kinda struck me as the way I see her is this... this one, too, kind of... or this? I don't know...

How old are they, actually? Some of these don't work with me because they seem too young...

In any case, both of their character sheet images aren't very good at all, so we should find something to replace them. Should I edit the Miyazaki-esque Renko a little to make it suitable? Its style is mildly compatible with the rest of the page, I think, and it just looks good... Wouldn't know which one to take for Maribel, though...

Anyway! That You God Mail story is actually really nice! I'm starting to really get to like Renko~ And Sanae and Suwako are pretty nice there, too...

Also, that Labyrinth stuff sounds like a mazing and another one on top.

edited 3rd Apr '10 3:17:36 PM by Fawriel

How old are they, actually?

They're college students. Kyoto University, I believe. Renko's a "super unified physics" major, and Mary's major is "relative psychology", whatever that means.

edited 3rd Apr '10 3:03:44 PM by Zudak

They're university students.

Question is, does that mean anything in ZUN Town?

He still draws them looking young, if that's what you're asking.

Tentative write-up: Calm and collected, dreamy eyes, the girl who visits Gensokyo in her dreams - that's Renko.

what :V

No, really, guys, who here ships Maribel/Renko? *raises hand*

Just saying becaaaauuuuse Chiyuri. Then again, I guess she's from another dimension or something.

I mean, it's a known fact that ZUN can't draw anything that looks like it even has an age, but the fanart was all over the scale, too...

EDIT: Upsidaisy. Fixed it.

Also: *raises hand*

edited 3rd Apr '10 3:17:58 PM by Fawriel

I don't really care enough about them to ship them with anybody, but the only other ships I could see for them are Yukari X Mary and Reimu X Renko, for the selfcest thing.

So, some help deciding on replacement pictures for the character sheet?

*raises hand*

-*raises hand*-

...Of all times for Danbooru to die on me.

Anyways, I really enjoyed Muffin's depiction of Maribel and Renko, short as it is. Not really much else I can say about them, besides the subverted Mulder/Scully dynamic they have.

And I can't help but think Maribel and Yukari are related, in some way, but the whole 'dreaming' thing may be a little too far-fetched. Stable, Okami-esque time-loop, maybe?

edited 4th Apr '10 8:28:04 PM by Sayael

That's less far-fetched?

I always like the idea that Maribel's natural ability makes her very visible to Yukari whenever she accidentally the Border.

Maaan, gotta read those stories today.

But first, I had a bit of a Fridge Brilliance moment today about Shikieiki. Her Rod of Something inflicts pain proportional to the sins of the one hit with it, right? The way I see it, that doesn't mean that it has some magical pain-inflicting properties of some sort, but that its weight is as heavy as the sins of whoever touches it... Meaning that Shikieiki can wield it with ease because she's free of sins, while the mass-murderer she whacks over the head will be hit with all the weight of the people he has killed in one clean blow.

Do Renko and Maribel have leitmotifs? The CDs that accompany their stories have some great tracks, but are any of them associated with one character or the other?

Anyway. The pair are intriguing, mainly because you have to piece together their stories and characters from tantalizingly-mysterious narratives instead of game scripts.

Maribel, the dreamer.

• Identity issues stemming from vivid "dreams" of another world. Considers her dreamworld adventures as real and worthwhile as "reality," though it's obvious which she prefers.
• Can see supernatural borders but has no ability to do anything with them. What a tease.
  • ...yet she can apparently break through such boundaries and retrieve artifacts, but only when sleeping. Double tease. Unless her power is undeveloped? If she practiced somehow, could she cross boundaries through conscious effort?
• Studying "Relativity Psychology." So, how different Psychologies interact? How Psychologies behave at near-light speeds? Or an enlightened examination of how different mindsets relate to each other?
• A dual-persona with Yukari is unlikely, I think. Maribel acts the same in Gensokyo as she does outside it, and more importantly, there’s no word of "Mary" running around Japan acting Yukari-ish.
  • ...but while gazing in a fountain she thinks of a similar way to visit the Lunar Kingdom as what Yukari came up with. Hmm. It's almost as if Maribel is an immature version of Yukari, despite living in the future. I guess her desire to reach Gensokyo will later/have had a happy ending? Has she expressed an interest in a pet fox?
• Can you really count as being an Agent Mulder if you are holding concrete evidence of your dream-quests into another world?

Renko, the stargazer

• Telling (Japanese Standard) time by the stars and location by the moon? Either total BS or incredible calculating powers. Maybe she doesn't know how her power works and just uses that as a handy explanation.
• Red eyes. Obviously a robot, or at least a cyborg. Probably explains the remarkable GPS and timekeeping "power."
• Selfish? Tries to convince Maribel that her visits to Gensokyo are pointless "dreams" to keep her "safe." Is she subtly sabotaging their efforts to break through? Does she fear that she isn't enough of a reason for Maribel to stick around the "real" world? That's a tragic angle on their friend(?)ship.
• Jealous, not just in the "keep Maribel for herself" sense, but of her friend's adventures.
• "I know everything indeed." Quite the joke/boast... Or Is It? Bored because the world no longer offers any mysteries, which is why hanging around Maribel is so rewarding.

The near-future the Occult Studies Club hails from is just as interesting. Yes, strawberries exist only in synthesized form. Yes, commercialization and technophilia have resulted in panoramic views of Mt. Fuji being accompanied by a credits reel ("the world lost its light when the final sentence 'Designed by Utagawa Hiroshige' was shown up in the middle of the scenery").

But on the bright side, there's a Grand Unified Theory of Everything, commercial (if quite expensive) space flights to orbital coffee bars and the moon, populations have finally stabilized, talk of using "composition" to create rare delicacies hints at powerful matter manipulation, and throughout the Maribel & Renko stories there are lots of suggestions that the world isn't as mundane as you might think.

For starters, Maribel's bloodline is said to long have possessed the power to see supernatural borders, and she's referred to in narration as a "magician." When describing their club, the duo mention other necromancy clubs that are into summoning and exorcizing ghosts. And then there's these two sentences: "Since the sin of earth elements trapped in the asphalt has been prescribed, there're a lot of cracks all around the road of Tokyo… Tokyo is about to regain its past state..." Either this is poetic language for a plague of potholes, or else a prelude to Gaia's Vengeance.

And it sounds like Marible and Renko aren't entire unsuccessful in their attempts to reach Gensokyo - they provoke an unseasonable cloud of cherry blossoms while trying to break through a border in a cemetary... but then the next paragraph the scene changes, and the event isn't referenced. Did they give up, or succeed, and someone/something blanked their memories?

Still, you have to question their wisdom in poking at the boundaries between worlds, even though it's forbidden and could be potentially "dreadful." How "dreadful?" Apocalypse "dreadful?" Is Gensokyo so much better than Earth, that they would risk ending their own world to travel to it? "Someday, I want to live in such a country where I can see the kids smile." Maybe so.

edited 6th Apr '10 6:53:39 PM by Tacitus