The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

I vote for Chen as well.

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN

A cat is fine too.

Play it off, Keyboard Chen! *brick'd*

http://www.walfas.org/?p=1090

A cat is added.

It looks like Chen saw what you did there.

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Chen

Chen portrait

funny voice

singy voice

Theme:
Diao ye zong (Withered Leaf), The Fantastic Legend of Tohno

Traits:

• Childish/Childlike
• Proud (always trying to show Ran how strong she is)
• Cuteness Proximity-inducing

Relationships/Shipping:

• Ran (her beloved master and mother figure)
• Yukari (her beloved master's master and grandmother figure)

Write-up:
Kitty, kitty, kitty! Chen is a cat ghost, leader of the cats, a familiar to Ran who is a familiar to Yukari, and as such, she is a powerful entity with nigh-godly powers when in proximity of her master, worthy of being a servant of the god-like Yukari.

However, these details tend to fall by the wayside in fanon as the entire fandom appears to be smitten with Cuteness Proximity. As a cat youkai, it's common to see her acting as it would be expected of a kitten, with many of these properties actually being canon. Water severs her link to Ran, and catnip - let's not even go there. As a childish character, Chen is often seen playing with the likes of Cirno and the rest of Team Nine, and always being eager to show Ran what a big girl she is. In that sense, Ran's view of her appears to be similar to the fandom's, since most portrayals have her react to Chen's antics not so much with pride and respect as with massive cuteness-induced nosebleeds.

I'm not quite happy with this! But I wouldn't know how to change it without stuffing some more useless trivia in there. And I have to admit I'm not entirely sure what Chen is... her PMiSS entry is all "cat ghost" and "possessed" but I guess that just means she's a cat youkai and Ran has powers over her.

So.

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENDJ;MEFSJNsfa

edited 22nd Apr '10 8:52:33 AM by Fawriel

I have always liked Diao ye zong (Withered Leaf)

Also, Chen's looking a little Yuyuko-ish, there, Faw.

^^

Cat ghost? What?

Yuyuko picture? What?

edited 22nd Apr '10 8:48:41 AM by Enlong

Chen is a nekomata. In Japanese mythology, when cats live to be very old, their tail splits in half and they start walking around on two legs. They eat poison and practice necromancy and stuff, apparently.

edited 22nd Apr '10 8:52:30 AM by Zudak

You saw no Yuyuko picture. It was all an illusion.

They eat poison

Chen X Medicine OTP.

A bakeneko will haunt any household it is kept in, creating ghostly fireballs, menacing sleepers, walking on its hind legs, changing its shape into that of a human, and even devouring its own mistress in order to shapeshift and take her place. When it is finally killed, its body may be as much as five feet in length. It also poses a danger if allowed into a room with a fresh corpse; a cat is believed to be capable of reanimating a body by jumping over it.

They also have the ability to eat (bigger or smaller) anything in its way, no matter what it is. Poison is its main food, for example, a certain type of snake (unknown to man).

Another good bake-neko story is about a cat whose owner was a high-ranking geisha. Every time she would try to go to the toilet, the cat would claw at her robes to keep her away from the toilet. Because of the cat’s strange behavior, the geisha killed it. After that she proceeded to the toilet. As she began to use the toilet, the ghost of the cat bit to death the snake that was lurking near the toilet, saving its owner from harm.

Sometimes the bake-neko had the power to enter someone’s dreams. There is a story about a bake-neko who entered her owner's dream to tell her to manufacture its image in clay in order to bring her wealth. Other stories tell about how a bake-neko may sometimes shape-shift into a beautiful girl, so that their owner would be able to marry them and have children.

I approve of portraying Chen in this manner.

Canonically, Chen seems relatively feral. I mentioned for Ran that shikigami are not obligated in any way towards their master until it's "activated". Akyuu refers to this as being "possessed" by the shikigami spirit. Anyway, while Ran spends her free, unpossessed time living in Yukari's household and taking care of it, Chen... doesn't. It seems she's more of a wildcat with a some kind of a Restraining Bolt attached to her source of power.

I don't really like that. I see her as much more attached to her duty than that, if maybe for the wrong reasons. Fundamentally, she's just a cat with child-like intelligence. As a cat, she likes bullying those weaker than her and sucking up to those who provide for her. As a child, she interprets her relationship with those who provide for her as a familial one. Thus, she sees Ran as a motherly figure. Someone to run to when you need something, someone whose commands to respect even without understanding, someone who she takes completely for granted.

This isn't to say she's a doting child or anything, just that Ran fills that role in her life. Mom will be there for you even you're a bad girl. Frankly, Chen's probably somewhat rebellious, in a childish, catlike way. She's always running off to play, skipping her chores, and coming back for dinner with a half-hearted apology (that she gets forgiven for). And play is what she does. She's catlike and fickle, much to Ran's exasperation.

On a side note, I love her earrings, especially as portrayed in her PMISS portrait. More than one, symmetrical, one ear being weighed down slightly more than the other. Gives her a sort of punk catgirl image which is both badass and adorable. Or Badass Adorable, maybe. I think I base an awful lot of my impression of her on that. She's confident, has an attitude, but ultimately just a child showing off. That seems very catlike to me too.

Anyway, relationships. She sees Ran as a mother, Ran sees her as someone to be raised, which overlaps and awful lot with "child". Yukari probably sees her as Ran's pet more than anything, but the way you treat someone else's pet, belly rubs and treats and not much discipline, is an awful lot like how a grandmother spoils her grandchild, so Chen probably sees her like that. Chen leaves the house a lot, so she probably meets a lot of other characters consistently, and would hang out with similar characters like Cirno.

Another thing I find interesting about her is the emphasis on black magic. Not only is she a youkai cat with magical powers, she's a youkai cat with black magical powers. What does that mean? I really have no idea.

edited 22nd Apr '10 11:54:46 AM by Clarste

my image of Chen isn't that of a feral cat but more of an inexpeirenced child trying to take on more responsibility. She has her little cat coven but it seems that Ran doesn't have the power to keep her under control constantly, although Ran does show a lot of care for her.

Chen, along being the word for orange, is also the lowest level of divinity, as I mentioned earlier, in Chinese mythology. This makes sense since she is the shikigami of a shikigami. She has a lot of energy and a genki spirit to her, since the whole time fighting her shes spinning/doing complicated maneuvers so she is, if nothing else, enthusiastic. She seemed somewhat sociable in PCB, although its hard to tell sometimes if a character is being friendly, mischievous, or about to kill you so I don't know.

According to Perfect memento, she has a normal friendship level with humans so I'd imagine that she isn't exactly feral. Although the image of Chen, once being splashed with water, freaking out and biting people isn't too different than my experience with cats: even the better mannered ones absolutely freak out when put in a shower or near water although not all of them bite.

I have to get my book back since I loaned it to a friend a month ago, but I don't recall anything specific about nekomata or similar animal spirits so it may just be that Zun referenced the name.

That and it seems that he enjoys making Chinese characters weaker but that may be reading too much into it.

Normal friendship level means normal for youkai. It doesn't mean friendly. The article mentions her periodically coming down from the mountain and attacking people and spends quite a bit of time talking about how to fight her off, so I doubt she's well integrated into society.

Two basic versions of Chen:

Canon Chen is quite feral, often having to be coerced to help Ran, and is generally doing her own thing. Still human enough to think that organizing cats could work, though.

Fanon Chen is a kitten. She loves "Ran-shama", is generally naive, and only rarely seen spending extended amounts of time on her own.

Oh, that makes sense now.

Didn't know gensokyo was such a dangerous place.

^ Well, that's kind of a given.

Yeah, Canon Chen can be pretty confrontational, too. In PCB, Marisa's the only one who doesn't directly antagonize her, and she still fights Marisa... for no reason that I can fathom.

Personally, I'm interested in why her EX Midboss cards use oni imagery. I know that PCB was made before Immaterial and Missing Power, and therefore before Onis were introduced in canon, but still.

Most of her spellcards refer to other creatures or people. Given that she's a black magician, I kind of assumed that she was a summoner or a theurge (as defined on our Functional Magic page), relying on others for power. Her spells exist to channel power from other things. Or not, maybe they're just named like that.

Edit: "Phoenix Egg" "Immortal Sage's Rumbling" "Flight of Idaten" "Konjin of the Demon's Gate" "Rumbling Jikoku-ten", etc.

edited 22nd Apr '10 5:37:23 PM by Clarste

Chen, destroyer of nutbladders... there's such an odd disconnect between the mythology she's based on and how she acts. Nekomata are ancient felines who gain magical powers, yet Chen acts very much like a child. Her species is associated with necromancy and dark magic, but you just can't imagine someone like her conjuring up a zombie horde. Then again, I guess that's part of being a cat - deceptively cute killing machine.

Maybe Chen as a wannabee Dark Sorceress with Orin as the Igor fetching corpses...

Thoughts on the Yakumo household's use of shikigami - Yukari is one of the most powerful beings in Gensokyo, but also one of the laziest, so it makes sense she'd want a familiar to do chores and such. Ran gets a mighty patron and no small amount of secondhand power and prestige, so it probably makes up for having someone like Yukari for a boss. Giving Ran a subordinate of her own is reasonable... unless it's someone like Chen. Childish, inexperienced, over-enthusiastic - you'd think Ran would select a shikigami closer to her in temperament, someone responsible enough to share the load.

So my theory is that Ran didn't pick Chen. Rather, after getting annoyed by some backtalk from Ran, feeling that Ran needs to loosen up, or else just for the lulz, Yukari decided a cat-girl was the perfect familiar for her familiar. Ran was expecting a helper, but what she got was the double-whammy of a cat and a rambunctious child. Ran's going along with it because she has to, but also putting forth the effort to "raise" Chen into a more responsible and mature familiar. Meanwhile Yukari's smiling at her normally-stoic and dignified familiar scrambling to keep up with Chen and losing her composure over the cat-girl's lethal levels of cuteness.

Well, someone like Chen does raise zombie hordes. I am talking, of course, about Orin. Though I think someone said she's not the same kind of two-tailed youkai cat-girl? To which I say, there's more than one kind of that?

Hey, I just know that Orin wields a cat-cart. *brick'd*

Chen is a nekomata, Orin is a kasha. Both associated with the dead, but kasha normally just eat corpses.