The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Maybe she was hoping there would be some people at least touched by her sealing and getting betrayed and stuff and join her idealogy.

But they were just kinda like "Another one bites the dust, na na na" and went back about their normal lives.

^^ Alternatively, "Has anything changed?"

And reading Enlong's link reminds me I need to read more of Kimiko Muffin's fics and not just his comic.

And on a completely unrelated note...

"Based on events in Undefined Fantastic Object's Extra and later on in Touhou Hisoutensoku, she made a temple near the Human Village."

Does anyone else find the fact she opened up near the Human Village in a land with so many youkai somewhat amusing? I mean, I suppose it makes sense, but...

Well, everything centers around the human village. The youkai who are civilized enough to shop tend to shop there, so it's not exactly a youkai-free zone.

Yeah, like I said, it makes sense. Humans and youkai gather there and stuff, and it does seem like the best place to put such a place. But I still found it amusing for some reason.

Alright, I know Byakuren and crew didn't start off in Gensokyo because there are no oceans so where does Murasa park her nice boat after the move?

Ach, never mind. Apparently they used the Palanquin to build the Myouren Temple. I guess Murasa is no longer a captain. Poor girl was stripped of her command. Or maybe not. "I am the captain of this temple formerly a grain silo formerly a Palanquin Ship and I will not take such insolence. I defer only to Admiral Byakuren. Now Skipper Nazrin, chart a course to across the street."

Edit: If its true to the mythology, Murasa's power to sink ships works thusly

Funayūrei (ship ghosts) approach people on boats and ask to borrow a Hishaku (ja:柄杓), a utensil for scooping up water. If they are given a ladle, they will pour sea water into the boat until it sinks.

Thus explaining her ladle. Although, unless its done supernaturally fast it seems like an incredibly inefficient and preventable way to sink a ship.

edited 1st May '10 10:11:11 PM by Bocaj

Either that or Byakuren's temple can fly.

Which would be really cool.

EDIT: Also I assume the ladle pours a lot more water than a normal ladle. The anchors might be another useful part of ship-sinking.

EDIT 2: We're seeing some amazing displays of EDIT FU.

edited 1st May '10 10:21:45 PM by Ruki Motomiya

"Flying ships? What's next, an underwater plane?"

The temple can fly, they use it for sightseeing tours around Gensoukyou, as advertisement for their temple.

Is the flying temple canon? I hear that ZUN said that Marisa-B's path is canon, but I haven't cleared it.

Sinking to new depths (appropriately), I'm gonna base my personal interpretation of Murasa on a Youtube video. The oft-mentioned Starmine, featuring that particular picture.

Watching it under the influence of tears, I got the impression that, based on the song and the picture, Murasa was the daughter of the captain of the ship you see there. He never expected to be attacked when he brought her on the trip. He taught her everything he knows about captaining a ship, but as they were playing, having mock sea battles, the games turned to reality far too soon. What you see in the picture is Murasa after realizing that all struggling is in vain and they are all doomed to die. Wise beyond her years, fated to die young. The song is a corruption of a lullabye that her beloved father used to sing to her when she was young, which haunts her as she wanders aimlessly around the sea.

I know the song is a love song, but at least the part about giving the beloved person so many stars that they won't be able to count them, sounds like something one might sing to a child.

Based on that, I subscribe to the description of her personality as, well, captain-like. In honor of her father, and, less non-canonically, as something to identify herself as, since even youkai need to find a meaning in life for themselves, she'd be a serious seaman, a soldier, an authority figure. Though she's still a young girl, so it can be expected that she'd be secretly a little emotionally needy after spending such a long time all alone lashing out at the world for its unfairness obligatory soft core.

All of this reminds me, I should try to finish my Murasa image and somgdump tomorrow, since my Murasa songdump is already about halfway done and Murasa doesn't have much to imagedump, especially considering the previous one...

Everyone loving Starmine makes me happy. And people coming up with fun interpertations from it makes me even happier.

Now to stop being away at 4:47 AM and to get some sleep.

Not as based on the song, although I like Fawriel's thoughts, but what if it was a Funayūrei that sank the boat she was on. The sailors may have known better but what if little girl Murasa was asked for a ladle by some random person and not knowing any better, gave her one. So the ship sank and Murasa drowned and eventually decided to make others suffer what she suffered.

Additionally, the sailors on the ships she was sinking must have been stupid. The fact that there was a ship ghost sinking ships enough to get Byakuren's attention means it was fairly well-known and they kept giving her ladles.

Edit: Ship ghosts don't kill people. Ladles kill people.

edited 2nd May '10 7:38:13 AM by Bocaj

If they are given a ladle, they will pour sea water into the boat until it sinks.

Thus explaining her ladle. Although, unless its done supernaturally fast it seems like an incredibly inefficient and preventable way to sink a ship.

Yeah, that's just lame. I think the real ship-sinking went something like...

Captain: Alright, here's as good a place as any. Drop anchor.
Sailor: But captain, there's legends about-
Captain: (points at hat)
(the sailors drop anchor. Two seconds later, an enormous anchor trailing a heavy iron chain flies out of the water and slams into the deck of the ship)
Crew: AAAAAH!!! IT'S CAPTAIN MINAMITSU MOT(crash as ship splinters and breaks apart)ING MURASA!!!
(and then they die)

Murasa the Funayūrei - how does that work, I wonder? Did she attack people willingly, out of bitterness over her own death? Was it self-destructive, a way to attract an enemy strong enough to defeat her once and for all and end her torment? Or was it involuntary, something she was compelled to do by the circumstances of her new existence?

In any case, the Cap'n seems to have gotten over it by the events of UFO. But I can still imagine her standing on the prow some nights, staring moodily into the sunset...

I think being turned into a youkai means that your new purpose in life will be predetermined to an extent. She was a ghost. Is a ghost, I suppose. That means she was no longer a full human, with the loss of a full range of emotions that this implies.

It's a little hard to explain, but she basically turned into a creature that was kept alive, or rather, functional, by some sort of magic "will". She was probably filled with regret and hate at the world from dying so young, and those feelings made her unable to move on, so these feelings are what came to define her new existence. Anger, hate, regret, envy. A spirit confined to one place, one purpose, with nothing existing within but a faint turmoil of faded memories.

Byakuren allowed her to gain a new existence, and as a person of honor who respects authority, she would become a loyal follower who regrets her previous life and wishes to atone for it.

edited 2nd May '10 11:23:17 AM by Fawriel

For what it's worth, Minamitsu doesn't need to be given a ladle, as she was smart enough to get her own. Though it doesn't have a bottom...

Doesn't it?

Edit: The ladle that Murasa and other Funayūrei use is apparently called a Hishaku. In addition to being used to sink ships, they're also used to make tea. And they look like this.◊

edited 2nd May '10 7:26:20 PM by Bocaj

^ I was actually just looking up Hishaku a little bit ago. I was wondering if someone else would post that first.

So, what, Murasa drinks tea made from the metal of the ships she's sank?

This thought I just posted above is stupid and not true and yet I keep thinking it why

Because using bits and bites from your defeated enemies is a time-tested tradition and Murasa is a bad enough dude to drink metal tea?

Murasa is here to kick ass and use your ship as a giant kettle in which to boil tea. AND SHE'S ALL OUT OF TEA!

I'm a few pages late, but I'd like to compliment Hylarn for his picspam on page 62. Every last one of those Reisen pics was excellent.

Now, Murasa. Didn't know anything about her coming into this topic (the fandom trails the games, fanworks of significant scale/length obviously trail behind the fandom, and my knowledge of the series trails behind those), but I like everything I've seen here. Quite a bit. Before this topic I bought the theory everyone presented back when we discussed Byakuren that those poor sailors just died, but I like the idea that Byakuren saved them with the boat but this became one of the events that led to her sealing to be even better, because it tells a much more interesting story. It's as you said; she had to make tough decisions with lives at stake, and neither was without its cost. Anyways, I'm pretty much with the longer-post-writers on Murasa now, since I had nothing but a blank to be filled in with whatever you guys came up with and jerkass/badass isn't that interesting.

As for the ladle, in response to the comment that that sounds stupidly slow and preventable, I bet they could do a pretty good job if they waited until everyone fell asleep and then worked diligently all night. And what else do they have to do with their time? Course, as soon as someone notices that water is in the ship the crew will be able to dispose of it far faster than the ghost can add more, so they only get one shot. It's all moot for Murasa, though, because the Touhou verse has power levels a couple notches up from the legends they're based on and if she carries around a ladle it's only because she either feels obligated to or finds it amusing (like that one vampire from PC-98 games who likes crosses just to rub it in people's faces that she isn't weak to them).

Er, it's the Scarlets that like cross imagery. We don't know much about Kurumi.

One last thing from me. I got a small story idea about Murasa yesterday, about her time as a ship-sinking ghost. This presupposes her ghostly existence to be barely sapient, just a turmoil of emotions and all that, yeah?

I imagine Murasa finding a new ship that dares enter her territory. She walks across the cruiser's deck, observing the people, who don't notice her. The one who does notice is a small child, playing innocently. The two interact. The child asks why Murasa is so unhappy. She doesn't answer. The child wants to play, but Murasa doesn't answer. The child returns to her beloved father calling for her. The two seem very happy together.

Murasa leaves the ship and observes it further, unseen. Rather, she observes the child.

However, she has no intention of leaving the ship unharmed to protect this innocent child. She is seething. This happiness, this livelines, why can't she have it? What did she do to deserve to have it taken away from her? They must pay. They must all pay.

She returns to the ship to sink it, yet when she arrives, she finds the child crying over her father's body. He had a heart attack. They were on this cruise because they knew he didn't have much longer to live.

The ship was allowed to pass.

...

SO yeah!

Next character? I've heard a request for Tewi. Or how about Komachi? We've been holding out for Sakuya for a while now, too. Or Youmu or Flandre or Eirin or...

edited 3rd May '10 2:33:46 AM by Fawriel

Well, I won't have time for the Murasa imagedump it seems(Although Hylarn, I think it was him/her anyway I don't know this gender stuff, already did a fine enough imagedump earlier I guess...)

However, I guess I'll reveal my CAPTAIN MINAMITSU MURASA playlist.

It's very incomplete because I was mostly unable to do Interdimensional Voyage of a Ghostly Passenger Ship, since I wasn't able to get on my computer much, so right now it's at 18 songs. Expect it to get up more tomorrow or the day after, once I'm able to be on my computer with free time for a significant length of time.

Ruki's Choice: XL Project - Starmine feat. mintea <—— I know you've ALL heard this, but I HAVE to mention it simply because it's definately one of my all time favorite songs period. Not just Touhou-wise, PERIOD. I'm not sure if it's my all-time favorite, that's way too damn hard to choose, but it's up there.

(Captain Murasa) - Flan Go Y Flute

Titanic panic! Free-Logic

A Ladle Is My Friend[dBu Arrangement]

Touhou Unplugged/Classic 113 <—- PIRATES OF THE FUCKING CARIBBEAN

Touhou Techno/Trance 27 <—— INSANELY UNIQUE, CATCHY, EARWORMY.

Overall, I was very pleased with Captain Murasa, and the few arranges of Ghostly Ship I got were also quite nice. The only dissapointment was O-LIFE's remix, which I felt was a little...average. It wasn't bad, but it didn't blow me away like their other works. This is definately a playlist you all might want to keep an eye on.

Also, I'm not sure if I said this before, but I noticed Fawriel subscribed to my channel. Thank you very much, Fawriel!

EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure the ladle is magical. I mean, she seems to wave it at you in her non-Spell attacks before throwing a fuckton of bullets at you. I dunno if she does that on her Spellcards, though.

Also, I say we either do Iku/Hina, since they seemed to be gaining some good support before Murasa, or we go on to Sakuya.

Usually I'd suggest Utsuho, but I want to be on the top of my game to discuss my favorite character and I don't think I am.

edited 3rd May '10 3:23:24 AM by Ruki Motomiya

I have to say Murasa's stage theme (unmodified) is one of the most unique songs in the series, and I absolutely love it.

I wouldn't be opposed to Hina or Iku, but they're both underused characters, one of which we just dealt with. But then again, since there's more underused characters than overused, it's not exactly out of the question to do two in a row.