The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

"I always figured it was the same joke as Black Mage in eight bit theater. "

I am suddenly sorely tempted to make a copy of that comic with Marisa and either Alice or Aya (Aya makes more sense, but Alice is more in Marisa's circle of characters) subbed in for Black and Red Mages, dialogue the same except names. It'd be hilarious.

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Kogasa Tatara

Traits:

• friendly
• a little mischievous, but well-meaning
• earnest
• lonely -> The Woobie
  • ===> absurdly moe

Relationships/Shipping:

• Sanae (bully, or friend...?)

Write-up:
The Ensemble Dark Horse of UFO, Kogasa is so sweet and filled with potential for funnily cute scenes that she might as well be the star of her own Slice of Life comedy anime. Once but a simple umbrella, she was never bought by anyone, until the wind swept her away and she eventually turned into a youkai. Ever since, she has wanted nothing more but to make friends, by doing that which she knows how to do: Scaring people. Except she's not even very good at that, so she's been studying ghost stories to get better.

This is little more than a recount of what's known of her (though there's some interpretation in the idea that she scares people to make friends), but that is really all one needs to know. Kogasa has a special place as an ultimate Chew Toy and Woobie in the Touhou universe, along with the sweet and quirky personality needed to melt the driest hearts and make one wonder why anyone would be mean to her in the first place.

Similar characters:

• Cirno

This reminds me, where the hell is Scarabs? Somebody drag the man over here, stat.

Well, Kogasa is quite clearly relevant to my interests, but I haven't seen terribly much of her besides some cute pictures...

edited 4th Jul '10 6:35:09 AM by Fawriel

She eats fear. Her scaring people isn't just a matter of making friends, it's hunting for food. Which isn't to diminish her Woobie-ness, since she's still abandoned and all that. Honestly though, I don't know much about her since she's too new.

Also, why didn't you just use her portrait from UFO? It's one the best pieces of art that ZUN's ever drawn.

edited 17th Feb '10 4:15:11 PM by Clarste

It is, isn't it. But I'm using the images that are used on this wiki's character sheet... It would feel silly to upload images for this.

The eating fear bit is fanon. There's nothing about it in her official profile.

It's in her dialog with Sanae.

K: Aw, and we youkai are doing our best to surprise humans ...

S: Hmm? I heard you were doing your best to eat humans ... ...

K: Well, there are youkai that eat meat, and there are youkai who eat your spirit.

If you humans don't get surprised by me, I'll get hungry.

I guess it's surprise rather than fear though.

Huh, didn't remember that. Wonder if there are any other emotion eaters in the cast...

So, I'm not sure what there is to say about Kogasa. She's cheerful, and bad at scaring people despite needing to do so. Everyone agrees on that.

I like her a lot, because she reminds me of, well, me - a cheerful loner with a really weird sense of humour.

edited 17th Feb '10 6:38:22 PM by Zudak

Uhm...I've got nothing.

I see her as being a practitioner of Crazy Awesome and Obfuscating Stupidity. The better to surprise you with, my dear! I also think that in spite of how she's often portrayed in fanon as being really lonely that she's actually for the most part very cheerful, and has grown to enjoy her solitary lifestyle, although I bet she teases everyone about not paying attention to her, not being startled by her, not liking her eggplant color scheme... while she's not malicious in her pranks, she's very, very mischievous by nature.

I've been totally immune to the Karakasa moe so far, so my favourite thing about Kogasa is the idea that the eggplant umbrella is the real youkai and the girl just a secondary body to interact with the mostly humanoid population of Gensoukyou. Something very similar is often proposed to explain Medecine's doll and it bring back some of the creepiness of the old monster tales to the often exceedingly saccharine setting.

edited 18th Feb '10 1:16:34 PM by StillWaters

Evidence so far points to Touhou tsukumogami having their body animate in the classic fashion while also gaining a humanoid form that can interact with people. The weird part is that this pattern can be extended to Youmu.

Can a ghost be abandonned? What would that even mean? It is funny, though, suddenly considering that we may all be paying attention to the wrong half of Youmu.

I always thought that Youmu's human and ghost halves were basically equal, two separate entities controlled by a single consciousness. I think her phantom half probably exists mostly in the spirit world, and that there, it's her human body that's almost formless.

As for Kogasa, I had another interesting idea concerning her. I think that leading such a solitary lifestyle she'd become quite adept at wilderness survival. Temporary shelter, what plants to eat, first aid, all that good stuff. Of course, there's absolutely nothing to suggest that in canon... just an idea I had.

edited 18th Feb '10 9:58:32 PM by Zudak

Touhou doesn't really have seperate planes of existence. Or rather, it does, but they're physical areas that you can go to while keeping your body.

We don't really know where most of the low level characters live, do we? Though, considering that even the fairies have houses it's probably safe to assume most of the others do.

The fairies have houses? Is this established in cannon?

Yep. Much of Eastern and Little Nature Deity/Strange and Bright Nature Deity/Oriental Sacred Place takes place in the three fairies of light's house. It's a hollow tree.

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Mystia Lorelei

Traits:

• loves to sing
  • her song causes confusion and night-blindness
• Stupid <=> Clever
• arrogant and self-certain
• eats people
• Butt Monkey

Relationships/Shipping:

• Alice
• Team Baka (Cirno, Rumia, Wriggle, all characters often portrayed as young and stupid)

Write-up:
Mystia is a prime example of a character with many varying interpretations. Her character is often the butt of jokes for being an implied favorite food of Yuyuko's, for being dim (Aya claims that Mystia can't even read, though that's debatable), and she's thus usually portrayed as a simple, mischievous child. On the other hand, her theme is beautiful, many of her depictions are exceedingly beautiful, she is named after a siren-like German woman also known for her beauty and her singing... It's canonical that she has opened a grilled lamprey stand which she uses in a con to "heal" people's nightblindness which she herself has caused, by using her own powers to lift it while they eat. Fanon has expanded this to make her stand a popular meeting place, and has even given her an alternate portrayal as a graceful barkeeper.

As a silly child, a fearsome predator of humans, a beautiful barkeep, cheerful guest singer in the Prismriver band or simply a breathtaking part of the night sky, everything about Mystia appears to be strongly dependent on the setting that a writer has chosen.

Similar characters:

• Wriggle (Team Baka, often a joke character, greatly varying levels of intelligence and inconsistent personality, along with the night theme)

Well, I've gotta admit, I never got much into Mystia, but give that I could already pick out a lot of different portrayals. I rather prefer the older depiction of her, I've gotta say, though it's probably not quite canon... Hrrrmmm.

I read an Alice/Mystia doujin where she looked absolutely STUNNING. I guess I'm gonna have to add that as an example of how I picture her in her more adult form.

edited 4th Jul '10 6:33:24 AM by Fawriel

So, Mystia. Canon has her as a creepy and self-centered people eater. Probably not that bright either, as she's the only known illiterate character (Rumia can read). Likes singing, but is the only character that thinks she's good at it.

I've seen several popular versions in fanon:

• Moe eel seller. Nice and reasonably intelligent. Wears a kimono. Gets paired with Mokou for some reason.
• Member of Team 9. If the writer actually has her do anything, she'll be acting as the one that thinks she knows what's going on.
• Yuyuko's food. Cute and harmless. Likely to be drawn in her bird form, which looks oddly like a potato.

There a many other personalities for her out there, but those are the ones I've seen frequently. Most tend to have her as moe, though.

I don't care for her myself, but that's because I think of her as the creepy canon version, rather than the significantly more moe fanon versions. And her dress is ugly.

Mystia is dead. RIP Mystia, at least your delicious flesh didn't go to waste.

Seriously though, her identity seems to revolve around (not) being eaten by Yuyuko. I can't remember whether this is fanon or not, but there's the idea that the entire point of her grilled lamprey stand is to discourage people from eating birds. Running a food stand causes her to get associated with the tropes of a female bar owner, which have already been mentioned (kimono, good listener, etc).

The other half of this is to portray her as a somewhat cowardly joke character, often put in Team 9 to contrast with the reckless Cirno and the oblivious Rumia. Anyway, the core of her identity is "predator turned prey", based entirely on a single line from IN.

I prefer the "con artist" version, with the intelligence it implies. She's one of the few people to put her powers to really good use outside of combat, in cannon no less.

edit: As for her singing, isn't it implied that hearing her sing is what makes you go blind? I'll take that as a measure of quality—it's apparently so bad that your body can't even think straight enough to shut off the right sensory organs.

edited 19th Feb '10 9:45:06 PM by Brickman

Getting eaten by Yuyuko is canon-ish. The dialogue after beating her with the ghost team in IN strongly implies that Yuyuko ate her. But then she shows up no worse for wear in PoFV.

I'm pretty sure that was a joke. Yuyuko is not known for her straightforwardness.

Mystia, eh?

....meh.

Likes singing, but is the only character that thinks she's good at it.

Where did you get this? Both Aya and Akyuu praise her singing, and Akyuu mentions that it's very popular with young people, albeit older song youkai think it's just noise (an obvious generational gap joke).

I can't remember whether this is fanon or not, but there's the idea that the entire point of her grilled lamprey stand is to discourage people from eating birds

Not fanon, it's part of the reason behind the stand, according to her Bohemian Archive in Japanse Red article.

As for Mystia's association with Mokou in fanon, it's because she pretends to run a grilled chicken stand when she rescue lost people from the bamboo forest. This is of course put her in conflict with Mystia, and from there someone wrote a webcomic that was popular enough to spawn copycats. It is very good, even if it bears very little resemblance with either canon and the more usual fanon portrayal of the characters or Gensoukyou as a whole.