The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Crew: AAAAAH!!! IT'S CAPTAIN MINAMITSU MOT(crash as ship splinters and breaks apart)ING MURASA!!!

I laughed out loud. At the whole scenario, not just that line.

EDIT: Content, since this is the first new page.

I kind of like the idea of combining "the crew was in on it" and "one of the incidents that led to her sealing." It brings to mind the image of the ship's old captain lying in bed, unable to sleep, running over and over what happened.

He'd been warned that the youkai would sink his ship, but he wasn't prepared for the suddenness and violence and Murasa's terrible presence. He gets to wondering what would have happened if the monk hadn't been there to save them. Then he gets to thinking about all the poor crews of all the ships Murasa sunk before, who had no one to save them. Then he gets to thinking that this monster is working for Byakuren now...

And then, of course, a murderous band of pirates model themselves after the stories about Murasa and start going around sinking ships.

edited 3rd May '10 8:20:54 AM by Durazno

^^^ I agree. It has proven itself to be very Ear Wormy to me.

Hina does have several Winter Scenery doujins after her that are awesome.

And there is Nagae Fever on Voile Gensokyo but no one has taken to translating it so I doubt it would be done anytime soon.

Any news on the Aki fanbook? I remember it was supposed to revitalize them. Hopefully it will avoid the "Oh we are so unpopular :(" meme.

I'll vote for Hina.

Another for Hina.

Sure, I'll vote for Hina too. She's got a pretty cool design and a fun inversion of Bad Powers, Bad People, it's a shame she doesn't get that much attention (though at least she beats the gods occupying the stage before hers, whose existence in the fandom is halfway composed of people joking about how much they're ignored in the fandom).

As you like it!
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Hina Kagiyama

voice: crazy cutesy version

voice: more mysterious version, though not explicitly hers

Theme:
The Road of the Apotropaic God ~ Dark Road (stage), Dark Side of Fate

Traits:

• friendly (she extracts curses from people, is friendly to humans, and protects the mountain)
• loves to spin => loves to dance => fun-loving
• quirky

Write-up:
Hina has two purposes in life: To protect the youkai mountain with her Nagashi-bina doll arm, and to extract curses and misfortune from people.

Hina has two passions in life: To extract curses and misfortune from people, and to spin!

She is one of the many people who try to stop the heroines from advancing up the mountain to protect them from greater harm. She appears to be a friendly person, despite, or perhaps in part because of her existence as a curse goddess. After all, she drains the curses from people rather than distributing them - although she's been known to "leak" if you spend too much time with her... Rest assured, though, she's trying to correct this. Good luck, Hina. Spin, Hina. Spin.

Hina is pretty neato! I adore her design, her themes are suitably funky for such a dancey character, and she's a good girl.

My interpretation for her is, in fact, based on her silly little "Miracle Hinacle" video. Of course, it seems too cutesified to base a serious interpretation on, but the song's take on her is actually pretty interesting: She drains misfortune from people, which could quite reasonably be seen as a calling to improve people's lives and brighten their days. While a more subdued setting wouldn't be all sunshine and flowers like this, I think Hina would like to think of herself as such a Magical Girl. After all, not only people or youkai need something to identify themselves with, but goddesses, too.

I think I'm rambling. Put short: I think Hina lives her life thinking of herself as a Magical Girl who brightens people's lives, and that is what makes her proud of herself, happy to help, and looking forward to each new day filled with spinning~

PS: This is the first Touhou character I'm introducing Tachi to. My plan to subvert common popularity is advancing further and further.

I don't have a very clear image of her appearance or personality or anything in my mind, but I love the general idea. I guess I don't really have much to say beyond that.

Oh, and the Miracle Hinacle video is really cute and also a major Ear Worm.

I like Hina. She is, as you said, a very interesting example of Bad Powers, Good People (though not as extreme as alive!Yuyuki). She's alo kind of like Nitori in that she's trying to chase you away from the mountain because she honestly cares for your safety.

One thing of note: I'm kind of of the opinion that you see the whole "leaking misfortune" thing during her stage. You know, the section where she's spinning around in a big purple cloud of bad luck, and those spinny enemies spawn in her wake? Yeah.

Oh, by the way, I looked up apotropaic. It means "Having the power to prevent misfortune or bad luck." Very fitting. Though I initially thought the word would end up having a more sinister meaning.

edited 3rd May '10 4:07:44 PM by Enlong

Hina? Not exactly unpopular, but no one really knows what to do with her. I've seen her in a number of doujin, but they all had wildly different takes on her. Good design, and her stage theme and boss theme don't need much tweaking to be awesome.

The most screentime I've ever seen Hina get in anything is Flight Of the Lost Soul over here. She's more-or-less the main character for threads 8-13, and reappears a few times later on as well. In this story, along with most I've seen, she wants to help people and generally does but she has to deal with a lot of social stigma and uneasy stares due to her status as a Curse Godess and the fear held by just about everyone that she's bound to leak. After all, if anything at all goes wrong with her around, it'd almost certainly get blamed on her. It turns out that she doesn't leak misfortune in this particular story, but a good portion of her arc is spent trying to convince herself and a few select others that this is the case. (Most of the remainder is spent shipping her with Nitori. I won't make a value judgement on this fact since it's done pretty well and it's sure-as-hell what the readers wanted). Also some of it is spent with the "actual" protagonist convincing himself that he isn't unintentionally hurting people with his powers, but that's nothing to do with Hina.

Other than that I can't think of much where she plays a big role. I agree with the idea that it's more a matter of noone knowing what to do with her than noone liking her, because between her appearance and her music there's no way I can picture people simply not being interested in her. She's also probably a real pain to draw...

edited 3rd May '10 4:26:42 PM by Brickman

Someone mentioned the Winter Scenery doujins?

Madame Hina's Misfortune Cleaning Parlour, Blazing Cat Cart Express Deliveries and Strongest Legend of Cirno all star Hina more or less using her power to help the other inhabitants of Gensokyo. More or less. Hina is a bit more jerkass than usual in these stories. But the art style is nice.

There was also a doujin where Hina met Suwako and some curse god exposition happened but I can't remember the name. That doujin followed the lonely because she exiles herself to prevent misfortune incontinence from harming anyone characterization.

Edit: Typically there are two characterizations I've noticed. The first has Hina faithfully doing her job to protect humans no matter the sacrifice she has to make.

The second is SPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!

edited 3rd May '10 4:34:42 PM by Bocaj

To prove my point, a picspam:

• Best to get rid of it
• The only thing from that meme that turned out well
• I think I'm missing something, but it looks awesome
• Adorable
• Spinning
• Best fashion line ever
• Pretty~
• Ribbons
• A comic
• Frilly
• Fairly restrained
• Does that thing mean anything?
• An unfortunate structure
• Hina is only BASED on a doll
• Well, the mooks like her
• Worrisome
• Spin!
• Clocktower?
• Not a doll, damn it
• It happens to everyone
• Better than ribbons
• Running won't help
• Unusually blue
• Bird chick
• Flowers
• Dancing
• Imposter
• Nya
• How does that work?
• More frills
• Must be spring
• Probably not spring

Hina also manages to weaponize misfortune in Do Your Best Kogasa-Chan doujin where she decides to help Kogasa. Doujin is rated PG-13ish by the by. Maybe PG-17 in the bit with Eirin.

She also weaponizes misfortune (and spins) in Gensokyo Tag Tournament which has nothing to do with Tag Dream. Because I can't remember if she shows up in Tag Dream.

I can't either. She must have at least a cameo, since the author made a point out of including everyone, probably during the "I wanna be Marisa's partner" storyline, but she certainly didn't do anything.

Well, I- *notices pics of neko-Hina in imagedump* Oh. *blush* I'm, uh, I'm... yeah.

• 15 minutes later*

So, Hina! You know, it seems some of my favorite characters (Hina, Kisume, Daiyousei) share the traits of being green-haired and largely undefined/underappreciated. (Rather fitting, considering my fanning for Luigi.) Hina is my favorite, actually (other than Alice, but she's not relevant to this).

Her lack of clearly defined/agreed-upon personality is a bit of a problem, though. Personally, I envision her as somewhat of a Straight Man to the local oddballs. I sometimes think of her as spinning a lot to get dizzy, because she can focus more while dizzy. Actually, given I like to sometimes spin around randomly and can generally navigate around while dizzy, and I like it like that... Hinaaa~

Of course, I'm also crazy enough to think of her as having an internet show in Linkara's style. (The avatar didn't make itself, after all.) So I guess you could disregard me, though you'd miss out on some awesome.

I can't think of who I would ship her with... I dunno. I don't see Nitori as being that social, Momizi is busy with Aya, and... um... Medicine? (I know Hina's not a doll, but she is closely associated with them and has an army of them, so whatever.) Meh, don't see it, though I can easily see her helping out with the show.

Yes, me not mentioning the Aki sisters in the above paragraph was intentional.

On the subject of characters and other characters, do you think Hina and Iku are ribbon friends?

Orrr, Ribbon rivals?

Hina did show up in Tag Dream. The Prismrivers, however, did not.

Hehe, oh yeah, that one with the Akis is funny as hell. She seems to be enjoying herself during the eternals' match, though. I guess when you only show up four times in 500 strips, with one of those having no lines, your characterization is allowed to change to whatever's funny on a given page.

Her appearance during the Mokou match seems to follow the minor meme that excessive amounts of misfortune can be vaguely orgasmic or something. Kogasa's misfortune had a similar effect on Hina in that Kogasa doujin that I mentioned.

Also, Mokou's wrestling costume has to be the least practical top ever. And I swear that it shrinks during the fight.

Mokou's top didn't shrink, her breasts just got larger.

Side effects of immortality include breast growth? That's a perfectly reasonable answer.

Non-breast related edit: So, Hina, huh? What does she do with the misfortune she gathers? It says her power is to store misfortune but it doesn't say what she does with it afterward.

Also, Mountain of Faith is just full of bosses that mean you no harm and just want to keep you out of harm. I don't think anyone even tries to eat you. They're probably the nicest group of people you've ever beaten up.

edited 3rd May '10 8:26:24 PM by Bocaj

Minus Aya but she's a special case.

Is there a particular reason that she is always spinning?

Maybe it's just as well that he kept Sakuya away from them then.

Maybe she diffuses the excess misfortune into her little wooded area on Youkai Mountain. People don't come there too often, so it would probably be safe. It would explain that cloud of purple she's always got around her.