Touhou Windows Two/Characters
2006 was the only year since the beginning of the Windows series' publication in which ZUN didn't release any new Touhou games. His main project during this brief hiatus was the Universe Compendium Perfect Memento in Strict Sense. This was also the period when Touhou seemed to reach a critical mass of popularity, becoming entrenched as a permanent fixture in Japanese "nerdcore" culture. Users of Image Boards and YouTube in the West also started gaining awareness of it around this time. With the release of Mountain of Faith in 2007, Touhou entered a new phase marked by more cohesive storytelling and the interconnection of plots between games and related works.
This page is for Touhou characters who debuted in Mountain of Faith and all subsequent games. To see the characters who debuted in the PC-98 games, see Touhou PC 98. For the rest of the Windows characters, see Touhou Windows One. For characters from related works such as short stories and manga, see Touhou Other Official Works.
Wherever possible, character images come from portraits not drawn by ZUN used in official games and print works. Images of characters without quality official portraits are labeled "(fanart)".
Please remember to only use examples that are either canon or have undergone mass Memetic Mutation so that the page doesn't become overcrowded with tropes that only occur in one person/circle's works.
CONTAINS SPOILERS
Concerning the romanization of names
There are two principal methods for transcribing Japanese names into Latin letters: the Hepburn System, which is more common in the West because it yields something closer to English phonetic, and the Kunrei-shiki System, which is the official romanization method in Japan, even if it's not used much. In general, ZUN favored the Hepburn System before Phantasmagoria of Flower View, but changed to the Kunrei-shiki System afterward. This page uses the Hepburn format for the sake of argument, as it is the most widely recognized and makes the pronunciation obvious to English speakers.
Debuted in Mountain of Faith
- Symbol of Loneliness and Death
- Shizuha Aki
The older of the Aki sisters, despite bearing the lowly position of midboss with no dialogue. Fanon thus has it that she's less reliable than Minoriko.
Tropes associated with Shizuha:
- Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs: One made out of red autumn leaves. Some fanartist noticed it resembles a crab and started drawing it as such, sparking endless 'crab' jokes about her.
- Jade-Colored Glasses: As the "Symbol of Loneliness and Death," she is a pessimist who believes that "the end will always come."
- Leitmotif: "A God That Loves People ~ Romantic Fall"
- Odd Job Gods: She is the goddess of dead leaves.
- Painting The Autumn Leaves Brown: She colors the leaves and makes them fall in the autumn.
- Physical God
- Real Is Brown: An Abstract Apotheosis of it, but for leaves.
- Turns Red: Akyuu assumes she does that.
- Symbol of Harvest and Plenty
- Minoriko Aki
The younger of the Aki sisters, she is often portrayed as being more mature than Shizuha. Both of the Aki sisters love autumn, and get very disappointed when winter rolls around. This has led fans to came up with idea of a rivalry between them and Letty Whiterock, the youkai of winter. Minoriko also runs a sweet potato stand.
Tropes associated with Minoriko:
- Does Not Like Shoes
- Follow Your Nose: Reimu notices that she smells like roasting sweet potatoes all the time.
- Leitmotif: "Because Princess Inada Is Scolding Me"
- Odd Job Gods: She is the goddess of abundant harvest. She makes the good crops part, not the fertilizing part.
- Physical God
- Stronger Sibling: But not by much. She's still ridiculously weak for a god and attacked Reimu out of fear that she would eat her.
- Nagashi-hina of the Hidden God
- Hina Kagiyama
A curse goddess who can absorb misfortune. She's also known for spinning, which she does nonstop during a large chunk of her stage. Spin Hina spin! Spin for all to enjoy!
Tropes associated with Hina:
- Bad Powers, Good People: Despite what Akyuu claims.
- Brought to You by The Letter "S": The squiggle on her dress is a stylized kanji 厄 (yaku), meaning "misfortune".
- Curse: Not deliberately, but...
- Dark Is Not Evil: She's a yakubyougami - a curse god who would normally spread misfortune and illness - but she absorbs misfortune and curses so they won't affect humans, and in Mountain of Faith she tries to drive away the protagonists so the youkai above won't harm them. She is said to leak misfortune if you stay too long with her though.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: ZUN said the design of her costume is supposed to be in this style.
- Everything's Better with Spinning: Fanon even has it that her other special ability is to never get dizzy when spinning.
- Leitmotif: "The Road of the Apotropaic God ~ Dark Road" and "The Dark Side of Fate".
- Physical God
- What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Her obsessive spinning both in-game and fan works has some incredible animation.
- Super Youkai Warhead
- Nitori Kawashiro
A river kappa with a knack for engineering and great love for humans. However, she's very shy, and attempts to scare the heroines away from Youkai Mountain for their own safety.
Tropes associated with Nitori:
- Beehive Barrier: Her bomb in Subterranean Animism.
- Catch Phrase: A fanon one. "Kappapappapappa" and variants.
- Cat Smile: No really.
- Cute Monster Girl: Kappa, according to mythology, look like some Mad Scientist spliced a turtle, a monkey and a duck together, and do anything from horribly raping and drowning humans to annoying them constantly. Nitori and the rest of her species... is a cute girl with a Nice Hat, is nice to the heroines (even after they begin insulting her), and, along with the rest of her race, one of the few youkai willing to work with humans.
- Akyuu, of course, claims otherwise, claiming she looks down on non-kappa and might kill you if you wander too close to the river. In Akyuu's defense, this explanation is awfully consistent with her behavior as a partner in SA...
- Dandere: She tries to avoid an encounter with the heroine out of shyness, but when she's cornered and makes sure that she can trust her, she becomes quite warm and talkative.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Kappa combined whatever existing technology they had (possibly Bamboo Technology, Steampunk and/or Magitek) with modern-day technology from outside the Medieval Stasis Field to become the most technologically advanced race in Gensoukyou. Nitori herself is especially interested in engineering, and Fanon portrays her as the designer of Aya's camera.
- Girlish Pigtails
- Informed Ability: She's supposedly very shy, but when she does talk to the heroine, she doesn't flee any further, helpfully warns them of the dangers up ahead, and is actually rather talkative...
- Insufferable Genius: Apparently looks down on humans and other youkai, and is bad at hiding it.
- Invisibility Cloak: Optical Camouflage, actually. It tends to short out on her, though.
- Leitmotif: "The Gensokyo the Gods Loved" and "Akutagawa Ryuunosuke's 'Kappa' ~ Candid Friend"
- Making a Splash: Her ability is manipulation of water. Tends to be overshadowed by SCIENCE!, though.
- Nerds Are Sexy: One of the few characters that ZUN draws with noticeable breasts, emphasized by the straps crossing her chest with a key hanging from them.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Nerdy kappa who can create Schizo-Tech.
- School Swimsuit: Very common in her fanart.
- Shrinking Violet: Nitori is extremely shy around humans. When the heroines first encounter her, she runs off in shock before reappearing in optical camouflage. Akyuu thinks otherwise, claiming she's a racist who's bad at hiding it.
- Shy Blue-Haired Girl
- Signature Move: Exteeending Aaarm, both in fanon and in canon. Describing it is pretty much the only part of her Symposium of Post-mysticism profile that talks about her in specific instead of kappa in general.
- Spell My Name with an "S": "Kawasiro" in Kunrei-Shiki romanization.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Cucumbers. Partly because Kappa traditionally like cucumbers. And partly due to IOSYS's remix of her Leitmotif, which led to her being often shown with cucumber-flavored Pepsi and beer.
- Vague Age: One of the more extreme cases in fanon. Fan-artists just can't agree on how old she's supposed to appear.
- The Mountain's Telegnosis
- Momiji Inubashiri
Another of the tengu folk, and another character with no dialogue. She's said to have a cooperative personality and executes her duties faithfully, and so is often portrayed as Aya's subordinate or junior. Or just the hapless straight man to her antics. It was later revealed that she rather dislikes Aya and won't take orders from her as they belong to different chains of command, but fans will often ignore that.
Tropes associated with Momiji:
- Ascended Extra
- Cool Sword: Looks like a scimitar, from what we can tell by her sprite. May be drawn as a BFS Depending on the Artist.
- Detached Sleeves: Generally, her default appearance in Fanon has them.
- Interservice Rivalry: There are some hints that within tengu society the wolf tengu (guardsman corps) don't really get along with the crow tengu (information gathering corps). Or maybe Momiji is just annoyed by Aya personally for whatever reason.
- Leitmotif: "Fall of Fall ~ Autumnal Waterfall" and the fanmade "Awaking Wolf's Instinct"
- Little Bit Beastly: She's a wolf tengu, but wolf features are restricted to Fanon and supplementary materials, as she has been seen only as a small sprite in the games.
- OC Stand-In: Lack of in-game dialogue and portrait art caused her physical appearance and personality to vary greatly early on. Both have been fairly standardized by now, though.
- Ship Sinking: Averted. The revelation that there is some bad blood between Aya and Momiji has done nothing to slow down the tide of fanart portraying them as a close couple. In fact, it may have only made it even more popular, since Momiji can now be portrayed as a Tsundere toward Aya.
- Shogi: She specifically plays Dai Shogi with the kappa according to her profile.
- Spell My Name with an "S": K-S Romanization of her name - "Momizi Inubasiri".
- Super Senses: Like Aya, she has the power to see great distances, but she also possesses an excellent sense of smell. Oddly, no particular mention is made of super-hearing. Rather than use these powers to snoop on people for news, Momiji acts as the captain of Youkai Mountain's patrol guards, with soldiers hiding behind a waterfall. She also spies on the heroine and the goddess of the new shrine when they do battle, without being noticed by either.
- Sure Why Not: Much like with Daiyousei and Koakuma receiving fan-names, Momiji makes a cameo appearance in one panel of Oriental Sacred Place Chapter 1, looking exactly the way fanon imagines her, with wolf ears and detached sleeves. The artist for SaBND and OSP was a Touhou fan doing doujinshi long before being recruited for the official project.
- White-Haired Pretty Girl
- Deified Human of the Wind
- Sanae Kochiya
A human wind priestess from outside of Gensoukyou, she runs the Moriya Shrine and serves both Kanako and Suwako dutifully. During her life before entering Gensoukyou, her power to channel Kanako's divine abilities earned her a reputation as an avatar of the goddess, and she has been having a bit of an identity crisis after moving from a world in which her abilities made her almost divine to one where they are mundane.
Tropes associated with Sanae:
- Adorkable: Able to recite how cold fusion works with startling accuracy, while still looking cute.
- A God Am I: She won't waste any time in informing people that she is, in fact, a living god. It's practically her Catch Phrase. Of course, she can be excused for this because she really is one, what with her power to create miracles and being descended directly from Suwako and all.
- Her ending in Hisoutensoku also explicitly refers to her as the third god of the Moriya Shrine.
- Even Wild and Horned Hermit has this as a Running Gag.
- Always Someone Better: Coming from a world that revered her as a living god, she had quite the confidence in her abilities when she first came to Gensokyo. And then she was quickly humbled by Reimu and Marisa.
- Animal Motifs: To represent her goddesses, she wears hair accessories shaped like a frog's head and a snake, and in Undefined Fantastic Object depending on which route she takes she can use either frog or snake-shaped bullets.
- Awesome but Impractical: In-Universe. Her miracles can do just about anything... but the truly impressive ones have cast times of days.
- Beware the Nice Ones: In her A-scenario in Undefined Fantastic Object, she begins her mission of "youkai hunting" with some degree of doubt in her abilities to do so. However, by halfway through the game, she has become particularly enthusiastic about it, something a noticeable number of fans have run away with, with "darker" comics often turning her into a psychotic, hateful genocider. In all seriousness, this might be a particularly bad character flaw. In Hisoutensoku, Marisa warns Sanae that she will "become close to a youkai" if she gets too serious about hunting them. An entire pool in Danbooru is dedicated to this, but it has a NICE ENDING.
- Blow You Away
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: "Are you talking about those charms with "P" and "point" written on them?"
- Brought Down To Mundane Utility: In a fashion. In our world she was used to being considered the equivalent of a deity because of her powers. In Gensoukyou Everyone Is a Super (or enough people that she's not unusual, anyway), so she's had originally some trouble adjusting.
- Character Focus: She has been appearing in every main series game since her debut as a heroine.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Has since embraced Gensokyo's "lack of sense" wholeheartedly.
- Detached Sleeves
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: A long-standing mistranslation of Mountain of Faith lore involving Sanae and Suwako's relationship. The mistaken translation said that Sanae was unaware that two gods inhabited her shrine. The actual meaning is that Sanae's not sure why two gods are in the same shrine. The reason being Kanako defeated Suwako in battle but did not kick her out completely from the shrine.
- Fantastic Racism: She's not exactly comfortable about the eating habits of youkai, and sees the current status of humans living in Gensoukyou as oppression, which she makes clear to the youkai in UFO.
- Fish Out of Water: She's had trouble adjusting to Gensokyo, at first.
- Genius Ditz: Her Wild and Horned Hermit title is "Shallow and Thoughtless Human", but she's shown to be quite knowledgeable about the process of cold fusion.
- Genre Savvy: Sanae might be more or less a special case as she's from the real world, thus probably knowing just about as much as any of us do.
- Her story mode for Hisoutensoku is a good example, where she sees the giant mysterious figure and immediately thinks "Humongous Mecha".
- In Wild and Horned Hermit she was convinced that the cold fusion experiment would work in the fantasy realm of Gensoukyou, even though it failed in the outside world.
- Has Two Mommies: Though not definite, there is no evidence Sanae had any direct relatives in the Outside, nor even anyone she cares to remember, and it is plausible that Kanako and Suwako raised her.
- Innocently Insensitive: Unintentionally ends up offending Reimu, Nazrin and Kogasa, although to be fair, she was from a completely different world and society until recently.
- Joshikousei: Fanon has labelled her "the only actual high-school girl in the cast". For this reason, she is often depicted in fanart wearing a high school uniform. This goes as far as the character artist for the fighting games, alphes, drawing Sanae in something that strongly resembles a school uniform for an advertisement for Undefined Fantastic Object.
- Kaleidoscope Eyes: By way of inconsistent art. They were yellow in Mountain of Faith and her Hisoutensoku sprite, green in UFO and Ten Desires, and blue in Hisoutensoku's portraits.
- Leitmotif: "Faith is for the Transient People"
- Making a Splash: Some of her spellcards, like "Sea Opening "The Day the Sea Split"" are this.
- Otaku Surrogate: We learn in Hisoutensoku that she digs giant robots, and she's also interested in nuclear physics as shown in Wild and Horned Hermit.
- Pals with Jesus: As odd as it sounds, Sanae lives with the deities she worships. What's more, Suwako is, Depending on the Artist, often portrayed as a very young girl, in spite of being a god who is several thousand years old. Sanae is also her direct descendant, and the main priestess of her shrine. This means she lives with her own great-great-great-great-great-etc. grandmother, who is also her God, and is younger than her in appearance. Many fanfictions even portray Sanae as something of a motherly figure to her own deity.
- Physical God: She is both fully god and fully human at the same time. This is known as an Arahitogami, and happens to be what the Emperor of Japan used to be considered.
- Recurring Boss: After appearing as the stage five boss in Mountain of Faith, she made a surprise appearance as the Bonus Midboss in Subterranean Animism.
- Shout-Out: Most of her spellcards are shout outs to miracles from various religions. For example, Moses's parting of the red sea, or the original Kamikaze that repelled the Mongol invasion of Japan.
- Spell My Name with an "S": K-S Romanization of her last name - "Kotiya".
- Star Power: Some of her spellcards, like "Miracle "Mid-Day Supernova"" make use of this.
- Vague Age: Presumably a Joshikousei, which makes her about the same age as Reimu or Marisa, if not slightly younger.
- What Kind of Lame Power is Creating Miracles, Anyway?: The Mundane Utility she realizes after moving to Gensokyo.
- Avatar of Mountains and Lakes
- Kanako Yasaka
The current Goddess in charge of the Moriya Shrine, with dominion over wind and rain and an affection for snakes. The shrine was not originally hers, since she won it from Suwako after they fought each other in the Great Suwa War, though after complications arose they entered into a sort of dual-owner partnership. The two still have a reasonably good friendship despite their past rivalry and the occasional arguments. She moved the shrine to Gensoukyou because she could not gather enough faith from humans, and decided to gather faith from youkai as well. Despite clashing with the Hakurei Shrine she has obtained a significant amount of faith from the tengu and kappa, though nowhere near what she once possessed, and so she seeks ways to expand the numbers of her worshippers.
Tropes associated with Kanako:
- Animal Motifs: Kanako uses the imagery of snakes in her symbols - the rope circle represents a curled-up snake (Ouroboros) that invokes reincarnation. She picked up the frog-eating snake motif and a sacrificial ritual where one sacrifices frogs to her after beating the frog-aspected Suwako and conquering her kingdom. Interestingly, this may or may not be the reason why Sanae officially wears a snake-like hair dec.
- Author Avatar: A fair amount of her dialogue in Symposium of Post-mysticism is pretty clearly ZUN expressing his worldview
- Big Bad or The Gods Must Be Lazy: She is indirectly related to every game after her debut. Moriya Shrine conspiracy and all that.
- Blow You Away
- The Chessmaster: Depicted as such in fanon - after all, it IS a Moriya Shrine conspiracy.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Somewhat limited by the fact that faith is her currency and therefore she needs good PR, but she does seem to be willing to do anything for a profit. She's also explicit worried about how environmentalism in the outside world will cut into her business and seems interested in maintaining a somewhat dangerous society (because who needs faith in gods when there's nothing to fear?).
- Final Boss
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Her modus operandi throughout MoF and most of her subsequent appearances. It's why she moved the shrine to Gensoukyou.
- Leitmotif: "The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field"
- Fridge Brilliance: A remixed version of Suwa Foughten Field is used as the Game Over music from Mountain of Faith onward. Fitting.
- One-Man Industrial Revolution: Kanako has been trying to introduce advanced technology to Gensokyo (including cold fusion), but she hasn't yet had much success.
- Physical God
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Suwako. Kanako's the Blue Oni despite the colour of their clothes.
- The Epitome of Native Gods
- Suwako Moriya
The original Goddess of Moriya Shrine, with dominion over earth and mountains and an affection for frogs, and one of the only beings able to tame the fierce Mishaguji (curse gods). Suwako lost control of her shrine to Kanako in a duel, where her steel weapons were rusted by a single counterattack by Kanako's divine vines, and only managed to retain the control that she did because of the refusal of her followers to to accept a deity that could not control the Mishaguji. Far less concerned about their dwindling faith than Kanako, she nonetheless agreed to her relocation plan and has found many things in Gensoukyou to amuse her. She's noted for a love of "danmaku festivals", willingly taking all comers.
Tropes associated with Suwako:
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: She is an immortal goddess and many times great grandmother of Sanae... and she looks about 10.
- Animal Motifs: Suwako is associated with frogs. In canon, this led Kanako to adopt snakelike elements into her own symbols. In fanon, it just as often leads to bitter clashes with the frog-freezing Cirno. Or to the two of them pairing up.
- Bonus Boss
- Catch Phrase: "Aa-uu-". As with Patchouli's "mukyuu," she only said it once in one game, but it immediately caught on with the fandom.
- Cheerful Child: She's actually the only Bonus Boss in the series that takes on the heroines without any ill will, because she's glad to have the company.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Portrayed as such due to her bizarre fighting style in the fighting games, and the fact she fights the player character in the Ex-Stage as a game.
- Confusion Fu: In the fighting games. She hops instead of walking, her crouch makes her taller, and she can swim through the ground.
- Curse: Subjugated the native curse gods of Suwa, and can use their power.
- Cute Bruiser: Look at her appearance... and now look at the total damage of her melee combo in Hisoutensoku. It competes or maybe even beats half-ghost swordsman Youmu, deadly shinigami Komachi, mountain-smashing oni Suika and even nuclear-powered hell raven Utsuho.
- Difficult but Awesome: Suwako is the lowest tier in Hisoutensoku, but that has very little to do with her actual ability or because she is a Lethal Joke Character - it's more because she has such a non-standard control scheme, even for a character in a non-standard fighter. Good Suwako players, although rare, are extremely dangerous.
- Doppelganger Attack: Native God "The Red Frog in the Fourth Year of the Houei Era". Likely explained by her ability, as a Shinto goddess, to split her spirit infinitely.
- Elemental Powers: Being a god of the earth, she has a variety of tricks up her sleeve:
- Casting a Shadow/Curse: She can curse enemies, but she can hardly be called evil -- quite the opposite, it's because she tamed the local curse gods when originally establishing herself.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Power to create earth and all that.
- Extra Ore Dinary: Comes with the earth package.
- Green Thumb: She can make trees spring up from the ground.
- Making a Splash: Since she's a frog.
- God-Emperor: Or rather, Goddess Queen. In ancient times, she personally founded and openly ruled the human kingdom of Moriya, defending it against other kingdoms and gods. Her reign ended when Kanako out-manuevered her, leading Suwako to surrender and step down. However, the Curse Gods and humans didn't accept Kanako, so the weather goddess was forced to settle for jointly ruling the kingdom with Suwako.
- High Altitude Battle: Suwako's last boss spell card in Hisoutensoku has you fighting her in a timed battle while falling down to earth.
- Leitmotif: "Native Faith"
- Nice Hat: Due to the frog-like googly eyes atop it, Fanon has suggested that her hat is self-aware, or even possibly the one in control.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Akyuu writes, "Unlike Kanako, I think the part of her that plays dumb is of poor quality."
- Physical God: Mountain of Faith is filled with goddesses.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Kanako. Suwako's the Red Oni despite the colour of their clothes.
- Rings of Death
- Zettai Ryouiki: Arguably. In MoF, her sprite has thigh-highs, while her portrait has thigh-highs folded down to her knees.
Debuted in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody
- Beautiful Scarlet Cloth
- Iku Nagae
A messenger of the Dragon Palace, she is said to be able to communicate with dragons. She is a youkai of oarfishes, the shape of her shawl and scarf resembling an oarfish's long, narrow body with red fins, and she has "antenna" on her Nice Hat that look like the spines on an oarfish. Furthermore, the Japanese term for "oarfish" literally means "Messenger of the Dragon Palace".
Tropes associated with Iku:
- Cool Big Sis: Quite a few pieces of fanart and even some Doujinshi love to depict Iku as Tenshi's babysitter and sister figure, sometimes willingly caring for "Eldest Daughter" of the the Hinanai clan, sometimes very much against her will.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Fandom example. "Kyaa Iku-san!" is a recurring line among Japanese fans.[1]
- Lady of War: Messenger of the Dragon Palace and she fights with a freaking frilly scarf. It doesn't get any classier than that.
- Leitmotif: "Crimson in the Black Sea ~ Legendary Fish"
- Mighty Glacier: Unless you give her the Dragonfish, Able Swimmer skill card to use, Iku sits next to Utsuho as being the slowest character in the fighting games. She can hit really hard, though.
- Psychic Powers: She has the power to "read the atmosphere". The term used in Japanese for "atmosphere" - just like the English word - can be read as either "weather" or "mood".
- Appropriate for the plot of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, in which the strange weather patterns were created by the temperaments (moods and dispositions) of the various characters in the game.
- Scarf of Asskicking: Literally.
- Shock and Awe
- Shout-Out: Whenever she uses some attacks, she strikes a pose similar to Great Mazinger's Thunder Break attack.
- Stealth Pun: Iku can also mean "to go". It also is what a Japanese woman typically shouts as she reaches climax in most hentai productions. Raunchy jokes used to be commonplace.
- This Is a Drill: Her scarf can turn into a drill.
- Young Mistress of Bhava-Agra
- Tenshi Hinanawi/Hinanai
Born as Chiko Hinanawi, she ascended alongside her parents when they became celestials, and chose to rename herself Tenshi. However, as she did not earn ascension herself she is considerably less enlightened than her peers, referred to as a delinquent celestial, quickly bored and frustrated with Bhava-Agra. This is what prompted her to cause chaos in Gensoukyou, having watched several of the incidents its inhabitants have caused and deciding they are lots of fun.
Tropes associated with Tenshi:
- Anticlimax Boss: Her final card in story mode doesn't require much effort to pass, even in the hardest difficulty.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Her parents did. She tagged along with them as a young child.
- Berserk Button: She easily takes offense if you belittle her abilities.
- Children Are Innocent: Believe it or not, but ZUN defended her in the interview in Symposium of Post-mysticism. This was also noted in her description in SWR: she was raised as a Celestial after her parents ascended to Fluffy Cloud Heaven, but her personality stayed with her.
- Cool Sword: The Hisou no Tsurugi, or the Sword of Scarlet Perceptions, which can absorb life force, control the weather, be stored in any form, shapeshift to exploit the opponent's weaknesses, and make the user look badass while holding it, too! She can even use it like a boomerang.
- Designated Villain: The plot of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody was kicked off when she designated herself as the villain.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Other than spamming beams, she has a lot of rock-based attacks.
- Enemies with Death: She is immortal by virtue of defeating every shinigami that comes to get her.
- Final Boss
- Ice Cream Koan: Tenshi has a habit of spouting Buddhism sayings without fully understanding their meaning.
- It Amused Me: Piggybacking on her parents' achievements, she got into Heaven while still alive, and has beaten up countless Shinigami to extend her natural life. So why does she start an incident, knowing that it would draw people like Reimu to her? Because she is so enormously bored of the endless pleasures in Heaven. She wants some excitement.
- Jerkass: Unlike every previous Touhou villain in the Windows series, she has no good or harmless intentions for what she does. She created all sorts of unusual weather all over Gensoukyou, leveled the Hakurei Shrine, threatened to unleash a massive earthquake powered by human souls she harvested, and subverted the Hakurei Shrine to come under her influence while it was being rebuilt. All because she was bored. Notable as being the single character in the entire series who was not Easily Forgiven, and for good reason. This is partly due to her upbringing, as she was made a celestial without being taught about the major responsibilities of her powers, and her frustration from living in a realm without strife or consequences to her actions.
- And now Word of God says that she basically has a good personality, and that everyone was bullying her in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. So she is not really bad. Kinda sounds like a retcon (it's pretty damn obvious she was being a brat in the game), yet there is no sign they'll be remaking SWR to show her being pleasant. Hmm...
- Kamehame Hadoken: Her ultimate spell card, "Scarlet Weather Rhapsody of All Humankind". Though as Marisa notes in Grimoire of Marisa, it's not actually a beam, but a shower of countless bullets condensed together so that it looks solid. This can be seen in Double Spoiler in which it breaks apart when hitting a wall.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Subverted, the Hisou no Tsurugi, in its dormant form, is a tsurugi, modeled after a Chinese jian sword.
- Leitmotif: "Catastrophe in Bhava-agra ~ Wonderful Heaven" and "Bhava-agra as Seen Through a Child's Eyes."
- Meaningful Name: Chiko, her name when she was human, means "earth child," while Tenshi means "heavenly child."
- Our Angels Are Different: About all she has in common with angels is the name and residence, really. That and the fact that if her name were written differently (天使 instead of 天子), it would mean "angel" in Japanese.
- Spell My Name with an "S":
- Her family name is more correctly rendered as "Hinanai" in modern Japanese. The official Japanese pronunciation retains the archaic kana ゐ ("wi"), as Tenshi was born long, long before it was legislated out of common usage.
- The Kanji in her given name can also be read as "Tenko". This has become another Fan Nickname for her and she is occasionally included in Ran's "Suppa Tenko" meme.
- Sword Plant: She does this to demonstrate her sword's powers in her pre-battle cutscene. And she does it to raise pillars of earth for her second-to-last boss spell card. Also part of her normal, playable moveset as a way to trigger earthquakes and such.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: One of her alternate special moves, Sword of Fate. Not only does it always work (if it hits), but it also returns like a boomerang, homing in on her. If she uses another sword attack before it ends, the sword returns instantly; if she catches it normally (and she always catches the hilt), she is rendered helpless for a split second.
- Too Kinky to Torture: As a result of Tenshi demanding you punish her in some of her quotes in SWR, she has been portrayed as a masochist.
- Weather Control Artifact: Her weapon, the Hisou no Tsurugi, has the power to alter the weather.
Debuted in Subterranean Animism
- The Fearsome Well Spirit
- Kisume
Another midboss with no dialogue, Kisume is a tsurube-otoshi, a type of youkai which was sometimes said to drop buckets on people. She just spends most of her time in buckets herself out of shyness.
Tropes associated with Kisume:
- Ax Crazy: According to the interview with ZUN in Symposium of Post-mysticism. It's taken even further with Aya's article about her, in which she threw the remains of a (possibly fake) skeleton at some children while cackling madly.
- Girlish Pigtails
- Leitmotif: "The Dark Blowhole"
- Playing with Fire: Her other ability is using youkai fire as a weapon.
- Shrinking Violet
- The Bright Net In The Dark Cavern
- Yamame Kurodani
A tsuchigumo or spider youkai, and a bright, fun-loving girl who's popular among the youkai underground. One of the many youkai that moved to the underground due to fellow youkai distrusting them for their powers.
Tropes associated with Yamame:
- Animal Motifs: She still has six buttons down the front of her dress for spider eyes, and her skirt poofs out and in again to look like a spider's abdomen with a yellow ribbon tied around it that makes her look like an argiope spider. She was even on the cover of the game's demo CD hanging upside-down (a pose fans were annoyed she didn't demonstrate in-game).
- Animal Stereotypes: Completely averted, she's a friendly socialite.
- Bad Powers, Good People: She has the power to manipulate infectious diseases, but she'd never use it on someone for no reason. She's actually a pretty nice person.
- Cute Monster Girl: She's a Giant Spider youkai. Tsuchigumo are traditionally shapeshifters, so at least she has an excuse for looking like a cute girl.
- Leitmotif: "The Sealed-Away Youkai ~ Lost Place"
- Plaguemaster: Her claim to fame. She doesn't like using it on people, though.
- Punny Name: ZUN commented in one interview that the name "Yamame" was appropriate for a spider because it could be written as "eight eyes".
- "Wake-Up Call" Boss: Her spell card Small Thread "Kandata's Rope" in Double Spoiler has reached a level of notoriety for people who can't figure out what they're supposed to do.
- The Jealousy Beneath the Earth's Crust
- Parsee Mizuhashi
A bridge princess youkai who guarded the bridge between the underworld and the overworld, before the two were separated. After centuries of jealousy towards those who cross the bridge freely, she has developed the power to control jealousy in others.
Tropes associated with Parsee:
- Anthropomorphic Personification: While she's technically a hashihime, she's basically become the embodiment of jealousy.
- Ascended Meme: As of a cameo appearance in Wild and Horned Hermit, the ears are now canon.
- Most fanon turned her into a extremely cranky Tsundere jealous of anything and everything. SOPM confirmed this.
- Ax Crazy: She attacks the heroines for no particular reason. In the Reimu + Yukari scenario she even admits so, while giggling.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She acts bright and friendly while directly conversing with someone, but in her mind and behind their back she's silently cursing and resenting them.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: One of her fanon depictions, sometimes heading into Yandere territory, for obvious reasons.
- Doppelganger Attack: "Egotistic Animosity to the Humble Rich Man" and "Large Box and Small Box".
- Driven by Envy: Well, duh.
- Emotion Eater: Eats jealousy.
- Everything's Better With Bridge Princesses
- Fairy Tale: A few of her spell cards reference Japanese fairy tales like "The Tongue-Cut Sparrow" and "Grandfather Cherry Blossom". This might play into her Genre Savvy aspects.
- Fan Nickname: Known in some circles as "Cave Alice," for her visual similarity to Alice Margatroid and for... well, living underground.
- Genre Savvy: She overhears Marisa and Alice bickering over whether the Underworld has floors like an RPG dungeon and butts in, to play along and mock Marisa. She apparently knows about RPG tropes, skyscrapers, and the Number of the Beast.
"You're now on floor B666. Welcome to the end of the underworld skyscraper."
- Green-Eyed Monster: Pretty much her schtick. She has a spell card named Green-Eyed Monster, her boss theme is called Green-Eyed Jealousy, and her Double Spoiler title is "Monster with Green Eyes".
- Hate Plague: The power of jealousy, as interpreted by most fanon.
- Leitmotif: "Green Eyed Jealousy"
- The Ophelia: Pretty much constrained to fanart, but she lives on a bridge over water and uses flower spellcards, so again, the visual elements are there in canon.
- Pointy Ears: The first Windows character with visible ears, which along with their odd shape led fans to the conclusion that it was on purpose. Art from later games revealed that ZUN just has trouble with ears, but by that point the popular notion stuck. They seem to have been semi-canonized in Wild and Horned Hermit, which has a cameo of Parsee with the pointed ears.
- Power Born of Madness: Mentioned several times, her power over the jealousy of others is fueled by her own jealousy for them.
- Puzzle Boss: She is much, much easier once you know what you need to do. In particular, "Greenf-Eyed Monster" becomes one of the easiest spell cards in the game. Leads to Hype Backlash from people who don't get the fuss over how hard she is.
- Pstandard Psychic Pstance: When using her spellcards.
- Sadly Mythtaken: Western fans tend to guess that she's a Cute Monster Girl troll, or that hashihime refers to certain characters from the Tale of Genji (who are called that as an insult). The hashihime youkai is a figure from Noh theatre, a human noblewoman who prayed to the gods for the power to take revenge on her philandering husband (or cursed him, retellings vary), and was cursed into a bridge-haunting youkai as The Punishment.
- Scarf of Asskicking: And how!
- Stealth Pun: She's a Persian (hashihito) bridge princess (hashihime). ZUN stated in an interview that this influenced her design, and the Marisa + Patchouli dialogue includes a joke about it.
- That Makes Me Feel Jealous: Carried to memetic extent by fandom with the "paru paru paru" meme.
- Troll Bridge: Sometimes taken literally by confused Western fans.
- Troubled Fetal Position: When flying, she curls up.
- Tsundere: How her jealousy is usually portrayed. "Y-you got me a present? To have money to buy something nice for me... I'm jealous."
- Visual Pun: The "Persian bridge princess" Stealth Pun noted above, and a literal Green-Eyed Monster.
- "Wake-Up Call" Boss: Stage 1 of SA is fairly ordinary. Parsee is the first boss to use the sort of unusual, puzzle-like mechanics that character the rest of the game.
- The Rumored Unnatural Phenomenon
- Yuugi Hoshiguma
A powerful oni and one of the four Devas of the Mountain, along with Suika Ibuki. She possesses great strength, and like most oni, loves competition with others. She agrees to help guide the heroines if they'd give her a good fight.
Tropes associated with Yuugi:
- Boisterous Bruiser: Even more than Suika she loves fighting, drinking and partying, and the only reason she attacked the player character in the first place was because she wanted to see how strong humans had become while she was gone.
- Boobs of Steel: Possesses extraordinary strength befitting an oni, as well as the single largest pair of breasts of any Touhou character at least according to an official promotional piece (see Hello Boys below).
- Bottle Fairy: Though she can't quite reach Suika's "never sober" levels, keeping hold of her sake bowl while having a danmaku duel comes close.
- Chained by Fashion: Like Suika, she has shackles and short, broken chains on both ankles and wrists. Must be a common fashion trend among oni.
- Excuse Me While I Multitask: She doesn't even bother putting her drink down while fighting you.
- Hello Boys: An advertisement for Subterranean Animism featured a drawing by alphes, the artist who drew the character portraits for the Touhou fighting games, showing Yuugi wearing a blue kimono pulled off her shoulders. Since it's from an official ad, the kimono is considered to be a canon alternate costume for her.
- Horned Humanoid: In traditional oni style, with a single horn.
- Leitmotif: "A Flower-Studded Sake Dish on Mount Ooe"
- Shout-Out: She fights without spilling a drop of sake, much like the character Johnathan Joestar fought without spilling a drop of wine from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and has a star on her horn like Johnathan has the star birthmark. ZUN himself has even outright said he wants to make her seem awesome like JoJo.
- Superpower Lottery: She can manipulate supernatural phenomena, which is too vague to know what it actually does, but given that almost everything in Gensoukyou is supernatural...
- Willfully Weak: She intentionally uses only a small amount of her power, more interested in having her first good fight with a human in centuries than actually winning.
- The Girl Even The Evil Spirits Fear
- Satori Komeiji
The mistress of the Palace of Earth Spirits, Satori is a youkai with the ability to read minds. Her power makes her embittered and feared by humans and youkai, but beloved by animals. She keeps many pets in her home, including Rin and Utsuho.
Tropes associated with Satori:
- Affably Evil: Her in-game quotes give off shades of this.
- Badass Boast: "I can see it ... My mind-reading third eye will show me your very heart! The beautiful danmaku in your heart will make you suffer!"
- Blessed with Suck: Everyone hates her, except for animals who can't talk, because of her mind-reading third eye on her heart.
- Cat Smile: One of Satori's very few expressions. Looks surprisingly cute on her though.
- Cosplay Fan Art: Due to how her power works in the game, some fanart likes to depict Satori cosplaying as other characters in the series.
- Crazy Cat Lady: She has hell ravens too.
- Crazy Prepared: It sure is a good thing she has dolls on hand, or she'd have a hard time emulating Alice's spell cards. Some fanart likes to avert this by saying she throws live cats instead of dolls.
- Cute Bookworm: Spends a lot of her time in her room, reading and (anonymously) writing books.
- Ditto Fighter: She fights you using the attacks from your partner's previous appearance as a boss in former games. She has more spell card techniques in a single game than any character in the series: seventy-six in total, and the only other characters to come close are Kaguya and the Three Faeries, with forty each. Of those only four are actually her own cards with two more added in Double Spoiler.
- Extra Eyes: On her heart. Which is external. Somehow.
- Hikkikomori: Since humans and other youkai hate her for being able to constantly read their minds, she has secluded herself in the Palace of the Earth Spirits, having no communication with anyone except her pets. Even within the Palace, she rarely leaves her room, spending her time reading and writing books. Symposium of Post-Mysticism suggests that some of her books may have been published on the surface, under an anonymous label.
- Leitmotif: "Satori Maiden ~ Third Eye"
- Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me: Has a really bad habit of constantly talking about how she can read minds, and has no sense of Mind Over Manners. Perhaps if she stopped telling everyone how she could read their every thought - and that one, and especially that one - there would have been less antagonism. This is apparently a trait of the entire satori race.
- Not Good with People: Animals love her, because she can understand them, but humans and youkai are less thrilled with having their minds read all the time.
- Oh God, Did She Just Hear That?: In most scenarios, our heroines are just thinking about beating Satori up, which she finds rather off-putting, but is pretty much normal for them. She also catches Marisa thinking about what she's going to steal from Satori's palace and shoos her off.
- Power Incontinence: Her mind reading is always on.
- Psychic Powers: Mindreading.
- Species Given Name: Satori is a... satori.
- Tareme Eyes: Her eyes are exceptionally droopy compared to the rest of the Touhou characters. Some fans picture her with Tsurime Eyes in fanarts, though.
- Technical Pacifist
- Corpse Tour Guide / Hell's Traffic Accident
- Rin Kaenbyou (Orin)
A kasha who can control evil spirits and carry them to the Hell of Blazing Fires. She dislikes long names, so she has everyone call her Orin instead of by her full name. She thinks highly of her mistress Satori, and is good friends with Utsuho, but becomes terrified once Utsuho starts going mad from her newfound power. Afraid that Satori may find out and punish Utsuho, Rin instead drives evil spirits above-ground, attempting to lure the powerful youkai living there down to help her out.
Tropes associated with Rin:
- Animorphism: She is capable of shapeshifting into either a cat or a humanoid form.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Her job is to steal corpses and send them to Hell via her cart. However, she's regarded by Akyuu as an extremely friendly and outgoing, and is even interested in listening to the ghosts of the corpses.
- Catgirl: A kasha. Considered to be older and somewhat more mature than Chen.
- Fiery Redhead
- Flunky Boss: She is accompanied by zombie fairies during several of her attacks.
- Ghost Lights: Technically skull lights, but close.
- Girlish Pigtails: Among the Touhou characters who have them, only Orin's pigtails are braided.
- Grim Reaper: Those blue will-o'-wisps floating beside her? They look like Duskull and Bulbapedia even notes this design is a traditional Grim Reaper portrayal. Maybe they also work for Komachi?
- I Love the Dead: Fanon likes making Black Humor out of her "pretty looking corpses" line.
- In-Series Nickname: Orin.
- Japanese Pronouns: Like Cirno and Komachi, she also uses "Atai" for "I". Fandom can portray her in a naive or foolish light, but, like Komachi, "Atai" isn't held against her to the extent it is for Cirno.
- Kansai Regional Accent
- Leitmotif: "Corpse Voyage ~ Be of good cheer!"
- Multiple-Tailed Beast
- Night of the Living Mooks: Some of Rin's spell cards feature implacable zombie fairies that follow the player around while shooting bullets. This can further complicate things if you're using a character/partner setup with homing projectiles. The Grimoire of Marisa claims they're actually just normal fairies done up as zombies, though. Double Spoiler further suggests that the fairies are only pretending to be zombies.
- Number of the Beast: Photographing Rin in cat form in Double Spoiler gets you "Cat Bonus: + 666".
- Recurring Boss: Stage 4 midboss (twice), stage 5 midboss and boss, stage 6 midboss. How's that for persistence?
- Stealth Pun: She has a wheelbarrow, or "cat cart" in Japanese.
- Unusual Ears: As seen in her official portrait, Orin has both human ears and cat ears.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Rin's stated ability - the power to carry off corpses. And from the looks of things she just uses a wheelbarrow anyway. A source of Fridge Horror when you realize that she is carrying off the soul along with the corpse, which will be used to fuel the former Hell of Blazing Fires.
- The Scorching, Troublesome, Divine Flame
- Utsuho Reiuji (Okuu)
A hell raven who manages the former Hell of Blazing Fires. Prior to the events of Subterranean Animism, Utsuho was visited by Kanako and told to swallow the corpse of the sun god Yatagarasu, thus gaining the power of nuclear fusion. Kanako presumably wanted the power to bring electricity to Gensoukyou, but Utsuho instead goes mad from the immense power she gained, planning to torch Gensoukyou and turn it into hell on Earth, though she is currently using it to operate a power plant. She's based on a legend of a three-legged crow who prevented a monster from eating the sun. This being Gensoukyou, she was the one who ate the sun god.
Tropes associated with Utsuho:
- Arm Cannon: According to Hisoutensoku, the control rod on her arm can function as one. Though the fans figured that out well before it got released. Fanon often ratchets it up to insane levels, some cannons being bigger than herself.
- Badass Boast: "Lord Yatagarasu, the Black Sun. Thank you for giving me your power. The sunlight that rains down on the Earth is a nuclear furnace that will create new atoms. My ultimate nuclear fusion will burn up every body, heart, ghost, and fairy!"
- Badass Cape: It partly covers her wings, and contains what appears to be a star field. A moving starfield.
- Catch Phrase: "Unyu?" Again, only said once, this time with a mouthful of eggs.
- The Ditz: To the point where one of her Fan Nicknames is "Onric" or "⑥" - basically, the opposite of Cirno. However, she's really more gullible than outright stupid. Her claim to be the strongest hell raven is part of it too. Apparently this is even part of why Kanako chose her to receive the Yatagarasu's power, since drawing out its full potential requires "an empty mind".
- Darker and Edgier: The last time an Omnicidal Maniac came into play was the cherry blossom tree from Perfect Cherry Blossom.
- Double Entendre: Her Arm Cannon being officially known as her "third leg" spawned endless penis jokes.
- Evil Eye/Extra Eyes: The red eye of the Yatagarasu on her chest, which looks suspiciously like Sauron's.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Her right foot is encased in concrete, her left foot has electrons orbiting around it, and her right forearm is a control rod.
- Final Boss
- Foreshadowing: From Cage in Lunatic Runagate, chapter three, released in 2007:
Watatsuki no Toyohime: If that crow was an embodiment of the sun, it would have three feet and red eyes!
- From Nobody to Nightmare
- Genius Ditz: Hisoutensoku seems to suggest she has a good knowledge of nuclear physics. Beyond that, she's a total birdbrain. This could be a case of Required Secondary Powers. It's rather hard to control forces that you don't understand, after all.
- Glass Cannon: Her "Control Rod" system card in Hisoutensoku invokes this on its users, enhancing their damage output while weakening their defenses. It's small at first, but if both players use four and Drizzle is active...
- Gravity Sucks: Her last spell-card definitvely falls into this.
- Hitbox Dissonance: This makes her a little bit easier than other final bosses because, despite the size of her projectiles, their hitboxes allow you to easily weave between them... even when it looks like you shouldn't. Case in point: this portion of her attack.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: Her Pimped-Out Cape definitely falls under this.
- Leitmotif: "Solar Sect of Mystic Wisdom ~ Nuclear Fusion"
- Mighty Glacier: In Hisoutensoku. Slowest character in the game by far, and she can't attack from her dash unless you attack immediately from it. But when she hits, she hits hard.
- Mook Promotion: Before meeting Kanako, she was just a hell raven. Granted, she may very well have been the strongest one, as she claims, but that still only puts her in the same league as Cirno, since most ordinary hall ravens go down with one bullet. After meeting Kanako and eating the Yatagarasu, however, well...
- Mundane Utility: Controls nuclear fusion, possesses the power of the stars themselves, and of a threat level comparable with Flandre or even Yukari. With the help of the kappa, she provides free electricity to the denizens of Gensoukyou. Although for most of them electricity is just as miraculous as magic would be in the outside world. As a matter of fact Kanako tries to exploit this to gather more believers to the Moria shrine. However, nobody is even complaining, because she also provides the fires to the hot springs.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Nuclear-powered corpse eating hell raven monster girl.
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo: She breaks it, and then some. Recent events appear to have turned her entire character to an outright Funny Aneurysm Moment.
- Omnicidal Maniac: She wants to torch Gensoukyou and turn it into the new Hell. This being Touhou, she gets better after a sound beating.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Her powers make her effectively a living, breathing, walking, or flying, as the case may be, star. Her spell cards, instead of arriving with the usual noise, are announced with a nuclear hazard symbol and a sounding klaxon. And even if that doesn't make you panic, the sight of miniature suns that cover half the screen most definitely will.
- Pimped-Out Cape: See Badass Cape.
- Rapunzel Hair
- Ravens and Crows: She's a hell raven, though the Yatagarasu is traditionally supposed to be a crow. Fanon takes this in either direction.
- Readings Are Off the Scale: Akyuu is normally able to define the friendliness and power of every character she meets. However, when she meets Utsuho, she defines both cases as "Unknown".
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: More or less universal in fanart, though her in-game portraits are somewhat ambiguous.
- Self Fanservice: ZUN's original drawing gave her a dumpy appearance with ridiculous clothes, like his art usually does for all of his characters. However, after fanartists hit upon giving her a tall, athletic build, her long hair, cape, Yatagarasu eye and "three legs" started looking amazingly Badass.
- Utsuho is frequently drawn in fanart [2] and legs. Even when she is drawn with her Yatagarasu attributes, the concrete encasing her right foot is often interpreted as a gray ruffled legwarmer and the Yatagarasu eye fits neatly between her often rather ample breasts.
- The concrete on her right foot takes different forms in fanart. Sometimes it's a vaguely foot-shaped lump of concrete, sometimes it's a knee boot, sometimes, it's made out of metal plates...
- Also inverted on occasion, the eye of Yatagarasu depicted as fused into her chest, with freaky scar tissue surrounding it.
- Shout-Out:
- Many of her moves in Hisoutensoku are similar to Souther's, even including a spell card, while some of her other moves bear a similarity to X's attacks as well, most notably the Nova Strike. She also has two spell cards called "Giga Flare" and "Mega Flare", while that eye on her chest may be Sauron's.
- With all of the nuclear-powered references, The Wiki Rule notes that she has some connection to the Chernobyl, specifically The Black Bird of Chernobyl.
- Spell My Name with an "S": K-S Romanization of her last name - "Reiuzi".
- The Power of the Sun: Eating the sun god Yatagarasu gave her nuclear fusion sun powers.
- Touched by Vorlons
- Trademark Favorite Food: [3], and the corpses of dead sinners. Extra-crispy. She had a strong desire to roast and eat Reimu, apparently not caring that she's alive.
Utsuho: See, your body's getting burned up pretty nicely now. I want to eat you up right now, but it's not good to rush. You have to let it fry just the right amount for it to taste the best.
- Unmoving Pattern: Played with - the inside of her cape has a galaxy pattern that scrolls independently of the cape's movements.
- Unskilled but Strong: After the long string of Trial and Error Gameplay and Puzzle Bosses that is the rest Subterranean Animism, Utsuho's patterns are remarkably straightforward. This should in no way imply that they're easy, since her bullets are huge.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Her megalomania was explicitly caused by going From Nobody to Nightmare almost instantly, and after having some sense pounded into her is more than willing to abandon her fire-filled ambitions.
- The Closed Eyes Of Love
- Koishi Komeiji
Extra stage boss and Satori's younger sister. She too was born was the power to read minds, but hated how it made everyone fear her, so she willingly sealed away her "third eye" that gave her the power. While this gave her a new ability to read and manipulate people's subconscious, it also resulted in her own heart being sealed away, and she becomes more distant and detached towards everyone as time passes.
Tropes associated with Koishi:
- All Psychology Is Freudian: Almost all of Koishi's spell cards are themed around Freudian psychology, including the id and the superego.
- Freud Was Right: Koishi's "The Embers of Love" spell card is infamous in the fandom.
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Some fanworks extend Koishi's inability to connect with people into making her Obliviously Evil or The Sociopath, most infamously Koishi Komeiji's Heart-Throbbing Adventure.
- Blessed with Suck: Same reason with her sister Satori. Except that she got tired of being hated and closed her eye/heart, which removed her power, but also made her stop thinking.
- Bonus Boss
- Break the Cutie: In her backstory.
- Cheerful Child
- Cloudcuckoolander: Fanon often makes her out to be extremely silly and saying bizarre things, such as the infamous "love-stricken massacre" line. Marisa notes she's apparently airheaded, even in the middle of a furious battle.
- Dissonant Serenity: Even in the middle of a battle, she won't be excited or scared. Or thinking of anything at all.
- Extra Eyes: Like her sister, on her heart, although it is always closed.
- Gravity Sucks: Inverted, for Koishi Gravity Pushes - towards a danmaku wall of pure death.
- Hope Is Scary: While she was previously okay with having her mind sealed off from others, after meeting the Player Character Koishi starts to feel regretful.
- Invisible to Adults/Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Her power doesn't work on kids, and it seems she sometimes plays with them.
- Lack of Empathy: A rare non-villainous example.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: As soon as you look away from her you will immediately forget ever meeting her. You can only become aware of her existence by getting to know Satori.
- Leitmotif: "Last Remote" and "Hartmann's Youkai Girl"
- Power Nullifier: She closed her third eye to abandon her mind-reading ability. Her closed third eye also nullifies Satori's power. Also inverted through the fact that she gained the ability to read the subconscious as well as nullifying her own power.
- Something About a Rose: Has a bit of a rose theme going on, with rose bullets and a couple spell cards named for them. In Marisa's Grimoire, the roses explode.
- Stronger Sibling: She also explicitly states that her sister isn't really that good at fighting.
- Walking the Earth: She wanders all over Gensokyo, in contrast to her sister Satori being a Hikkikomori.
- Weirdness Censor: On herself - she can move around without being noticed by anyone. It's functionally Invisibility, or a Somebody Else's Problem Field.
Debuted in Undefined Fantastic Object
- The Little Dowser General
- Nazrin
A mouse youkai who was sent to hunt for the ship fragments and the jewelled pagoda of Vaisravana by Shou. She carries a pair of dowsing rods which appear to be a cross between bent coathangers and weather vanes, and can control field-mice to help her find lost objects.
Tropes associated with Nazrin:
- Big Eater: Being a mouse, which are known for the amount of damage they can cause by how much they eat, this isn't surprising. She's often responsible for grains being stolen, and damage to crops is especially severe whenever she uses a lot of field mice to help her with dowsing.
- Chew Toy: Fanon only. Since she's a mouse, she has practically become one for both Chen and Orin, solely because cats eat mice. In the vein of Tom and Jerry, this is sometimes reversed with Nazrin outwitting the cat, usually the much more guillible Chen.
- Shipping: ...and tends to get shipped with either (or both at once).
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Fandom has her increasingly playing this role, either with Shou or the Myouren Temple crew as a whole. It makes a lot of sense when you remember that Nazrin was originally Shou's superior, acting as a sort of auditor, sent by Bishamonten, to keep an eye on Shou's work as Bishamonten's avatar.
- Leitmotif: "A Tiny, Tiny, Clever Commander"
- Little Bit Beastly: Mouse. This ties into her role as Bishamonten's servant: Bishamonten is the guardian of the northern direction, and the mouse (or rat) represents the north in the Chinese zodiac.
- Recurring Boss: Shows up for all of stage 1, then doesn't come back until stage 5 as a midboss.
- Shrinking Violet: Apparently she'd be a lot mousier if not for Bishamonten being her boss.
- Trademark Favorite Food: She's a mouse. Guess.
- Tsundere: See Hypercompetent Sidekick. Word of God also states that despite having a big ego in contrast to her short height, she's actually very timid deep down and will run and hide as soon as she's frightened.
- The Cheery Forgotten Umbrella
- Kogasa Tatara
Kogasa is an umbrella that eventually came to life because she was unsold, becoming a youkai after she was swept off by the wind. Enjoys surprising people and watching their reactions, however as she isn't very good at it she's trying to improve her technique.
Tropes associated with Kogasa:
- Brick Joke: Surprise!
- Catch Phrase:
- "Bero Bero Ba~!" Used by fans anytime Kogasa attempts to surprise someone.
- Also: "Urameshiya!" - literally means "I hate you," but in context is equivalent to "Boo!"
- Chew Toy: Many pieces of fanart have her being bullied by Reimu, Sanae, Yukari, Yuuka, Eirin, Aya, or anyone the writer can imagine. Seems to be canon now. Her attempt to get help from the player characters of Ten Desires earns her a beating, simply because she happens to be there.
- Emotion Eater: Lives on human surprise.
- Everythings Better With Eggplants: Her umbrella has an eggplant motif.
- Everything's Better with Rainbows: Rainbow Sign: "Over The Rainbow".
- Friend to All Children: Although it seems to be unintentional.
- Harmless Villain: "Attacks" humans, but the greatest danger she poses is making people feel like a jerk by sulking after her efforts fail. Seriously. This is canon.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: She has "the power to surprise people", and she's not even very good at it. Then you discover that she's the extra stage midboss. Surprise!
- Leitmotif: "Beware of the Umbrella Left There Forever"
- Mismatched Eyes: Since she's an umbrella ghost or karakasa, which are usually depicted as being one-eyed, this is intentional. Her blue hair, blue clothes and one blue eye makes her red eye stand out, giving her the effect of only having one eye.
- Painting the Fourth Wall:
- The demo sets Kogasa up to be a character with a seemingly weak special power -- the power to surprise people -- and appears as an early stage boss. Then, in the full game, she appears as an Extra stage midboss. Her portrait in her second appearance even has "Surprise~" written above her in Japanese.
- And then there's her reappearance in Ten Desires where she specifically refers to her problems always timing out Yoshika's attacks. Even though that's is a victory condition in Touhou and only affects your score. It could be that she meant that Yoshika was using her healing ability to time out Kogasa's attacks, and thus win.
- Also in Ten Desires, after you beat her, she drops the the first full power up item in the game as a pleasant surprise.
- Parasol of Pain: A youkai umbrella or karakasa. Her accessory umbrella comes complete with an eggplant motif and a giant tongue. Although the umbrella is part of her, and she can't put it down.
- Peek a Bogey Man
- Poke the Poodle: She only "attacks" humans to surprise them. As her skills at frightening people aren't good, she trains by researching classic ghost stories.
- Recurring Boss: Surprise, she's the extra stage midboss! Imagine the looks on the faces of the fans that teased her for her power before. She's also the mid-boss of Stage 3 in Ten Desires.
- Shout-Out:
- A couple of her spell cards are named after games in the Bubble Bobble series.
- And of course, Over the Rainbow.
- Her article (not profile) in Symposium of Post-mysticism is about her thinking that babysitters fly on umbrellas.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: As of Ten Desires she is now living in a cemetery near Myouren Temple, where it is much easier to surprise people. Lampshaded in her profile: "She finally did it. Amazing."
- The Great Wheel that Guards and Is Guarded
- Ichirin Kumoi
Self-appointed guardian of the UFO that appeared over Gensoukyou, and the first of Byakuren's followers the player encounters. She possesses a "partner" entity named Unzan. Ichirin's headdress is a nod to Buddhist nun gear, her being a nyuudo - a collective term for youkai that resemble monks.
Tropes associated with Ichirin:
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Used to be a human, but spending all of her time with Unzan and being youkai-like turned her into a unique type of youkai.
- Frickin' Laser Beams: She is probably the biggest user to date of a specific variety of laser whose wonky hitbox enrages certain experienced players.
- The Generic Girl: ZUN even notes that she's "basically just the hitbox for Unzan".
- Leitmotif: "The Traditional Old Man and the Stylish Girl"
- Meaningful Name: Her name means "one wheel in clouds", and her character title is "The Great Wheel That Guards And Is Guarded". She also carries a wheel/ring that she uses in the noncards to summon bullet patterns that look like huge wheels with spokes made of lasers.
- Morality Chain: To Unzan, more or less
- Plucky Girl
- Unzan
Cloud-like "partner" entity to Ichirin. He is able to shapeshift into giant fists or a giant face and almost never speaks, preferring that Ichirin speaks for him.
Tropes associated with Unzan:
- Badass Beard
- Defeat Means Friendship: After Ichirin warded him off, he decided to protect her for the rest of his life.
- Eye Beams: For the duo's final spell card. That's one scolding you don't want to receive.
- Heel Face Turn: Killed people before getting tamed by Ichirin.
- The One Guy: Currently the only remotely male character overall to have appeared in the Windows games. Considering he's also depicted in a non-Bishonen way, unlike Rinnosuke, it adds up to some Memetic Badass status.
- The Quiet One
- Real Men Wear Pink: He's a giant pink cloud, and also the manliest character in the series.
- Rocket Punch: Or, at the very least, giant fist danmaku. Taking off on the old "brofist" meme and its odd connection to Western Touhou fans, Unzan's attacks renewed the joke with full force.
- Shapeshifting: Can't change his colour, though.
- Stealth Pun: "Nyuudo", his species, can be also read as the Japanese for "thundercloud".
- The Ghost Left From The Shipwreck
- Captain Minamitsu Murasa
The ghost-turned-Youkai of a drowned girl that spent a few years capsizing ships, until she was unbound from her place of death by Byakuren who offered her a new ship to captain. She and the Palanquin Ship ended up bound in the underworld with Byakuren's followers until Utsuho's geyser blew it off into the sky, kick-starting the game's plot.
Tropes associated with Minamitsu:
- Affably Evil: Despite utilizing her power to cause people to drown and sinking ships, she is noted to have a bright personality, and is said to hold conversations with the captain of sinking vessels even as they're going down.
- Anchors Away: She throws giant anchor danmaku!
- The Captain
- Cute Ghost Girl
- I Owe You My Life: Her motivation to rescue Byakuren.
- Leitmotif: "Captain Murasa"
- Sailor Fuku: Wears the type of "sailor suit" the iconic Sailor Fuku is based on.
- Serial Killer: Some of it is likely thanks to village gossip and/or Akyuu's fearmongering, but Symposium of Post-mysticism paints her as liable to kill anyone that gets near water while they're alone.
- Spell My Name with an "S": K-S romanization - "Minamitu".
- Token Evil Teammate: For the Buddhists.
- The Disciple Of Bishamonten
- Shou Toramaru
An "honest and straighforward" Youkai in the form of a tiger representing good fortune who was turned into an avatar of Vaisravana/Bishamonten through the intercession of Byakuren. She sought the fragments of the Tobikura and the pagoda of Bishamonten to finally release Byakuren.
Tropes associated with Shou:
- Animal Motifs: Tiger-patterned clothes and hair.
- Badass Boast: "But, if you've chosen the wrong path... then you'll have to bear witness to the light of dharma, which is even stronger here in Makai. And bow down, to this holy pagoda of Bishamonten!"
- Blade on a Stick: She carries a spear, just like the Buddhist god of warfare Bishamonten, on whom her character is based. She isn't actually any good with it, though, since she's purposefully mimicking statues of Bishamonten and thus the spear is purely decorative. She uses it like a walking stick.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: How she came into being; she was born from stories of creatures called tigers on the continent.
- Creepy Cool Crosses: More like a giant spinning laser cross of death. It's actually a vajra/dorje, Hinduist/Buddhist scepter that represents the thunderbolt.
- The Dragon: Ironically, she's a tiger. Dragons and tigers are opposites and natural enemies.
- Eyes of Gold
- Failure Knight: She was so loyal to her duties as Bishamonten's avatar she wasn't present when Byakuren was dragged away and imprisoned. The regret stemming from this eventually motivates her to begin the quest for the Tobikura and put all her power into setting Byakuren free.
- Frickin' Laser Beams: This is her gimmick - every attack she uses involves lasers in some way. And they curve in midair. Plus there's just so many of them. And she's got spells, like Buddhist Art "Most Valuable Vajra" that put the Non-Directonal Laser to shame, as shown here. As it turns out, her real Weapon of Choice is not her spear, but the Bishamonten Pagoda she holds, which is also known as the Laser Pagoda. If you get too close within its range, it will turn you to ash.
- Gender Blender Name: 'Shou' is generally a male name.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: While she's more gentle and reserved than most characters who fit this trope, she's still very fond of alcohol and will often become staggeringly drunk.
- Which might account for her different attitude when amongst friends.
- Leitmotif: "The Tiger-Patterned Vaisravana"
- Little Bit Beastly: Despite canonically not having any distinct tiger-like physical features, many artists portray Shou with tiger ears and tail.
- Mode Lock: No longer possesses the ability to change into her beast form.
- Multicolored Hair: It looks like tiger stripes!
- Species Surname: 'Tora' means tiger.
- Spell My Name with an "S": K-S romanization - "Syou"
- Upgrade Artifact: The laser pagoda is more powerful than Shou herself and is the true source of the infamous lasers. At the very least it's powerful enough to boost Nazrin to a Stage 5 midboss.
- The Great Sealed Magician
- Byakuren Hijiri
A Buddhist nun turned magician. She pretended to specialize in Youkai extermination, but helped the youkai by relocating them far from human settlements, like Minamitsu, instead of killing them. When her eternal youth raised suspicion, she was sealed in Makai. Nazrin, Ichirin, Minamitsu and Shou were successful in freeing her, with some unintended help from the player character, and now she maintains her new temple in Gensoukyou.
Tropes associated with Byakuren:
- And I Must Scream: A less-horrifying example. She was sealed in Hokkai for a thousand years, but was very much conscious and awake the whole time. She simply had nothing to do aside from reciting sutra.
- Though if her attack patterns are any indication, a certain goddess may have been keeping her company.
- Becoming the Mask: She originally protected youkai to maintain the source of her powers, but as she gradually learned of their stories she sincerely committed to help them.
- Being Good Sucks: Her reward for aiding both youkai and humans? Sealed for a millenium in Makai.
- Boobs of Steel: Often depicted as well-endowed, and as with many sixth stage bosses, she's pretty strong.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Gag fanon made her into this (along with just about every other member of her crew). May stem from being sealed for so long.
- Call Back: Among her spell cards is a faithful reproduction of one of Shinki's most distinctive attacks. Some fans who didn't like the the PC-98 era characters' suffering from Chuck Cunningham Syndrome did not take it well. If you still view the PC-98 games as canon, however, then she was in the right place to swipe attacks from Shinki. As a result it's not uncommon for fanworks to depict Shinki and Byakuren as old friends, since they had about a thousand years to get to know each other.
- Captain Oblivious: She appears (deliberately or not) ignorant to the fact that many of her followers do not actually follow her vows (no drinking, no eating meat, no attacking humans, etc.)
- Cute Witch: What Byakuren began as.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Her powers and spells have roots in dark magic, yet she is a temple headmistress with a history of saving/redeeming youkai.
- Dead Little Brother: See Myouren below.
- Detect Evil: Can apparently sense that Seiga is ridiculously evil.
- Final Boss
- Flower Motifs That Shoot Lasers: Her name means "white lotus", to boot.
- Hero Antagonist: Even among Touhou's general lack of evil characters, she bears special mention. Her goal is to bring peace and harmony to humans and youkai.
- Leitmotif: "Emotional Skyscraper ~ Cosmic Mind"
- The Messiah: Tries, at least.
- Misaimed Fandom: In-universe example. Yamame and Orin like her temple because of the (delicious) stressed humans and corpses respectively. Another youkai enjoys listening to Buddhist sutras because he's a fan of horror stories.
- Multicolored Hair: Occasionally thought to be a lighting effect from her scroll, but recently confirmed by ZUN.
- The Pollyanna: Some fanon turns her into this.
- Power Gives You Wings: Or in this case, a lotus petal.
- Sealed Badass in a Can: Whether she's good or evil actually gets debated in the game dialogue. Although this being Gensoukyou, of course the answer leans towards the former.
- Status Buffs: Her profile says Byakuren specialises in magic that enhances her physical abilities.
- Spell Book: Her "Sorcerer's Picture Scroll" is a magic construct she created using materials from Makai, containing the sutras she must recite to cast spells. It's at least somewhat intelligent, being able to recite spells by itself and prevent others from using it.
- Spell My Name with an "S": K-S romanization - "Hiziri".
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: For religious purposes. She won't even eat meat due to the animals having been killed.
- Vain Sorceress: Magic of youth and to improve her physical abilities are her speciality. In fact they were, initially, the reason she protected youkai.
- What the Hell, Hero?: She will voice her objections to the player character's behavior before the battle commences. What exactly her objections are will vary depending on the chosen character and scenario.
- Witch Species: Like Alice, this is what Byakuren became.
- What Could Have Been: See below. Byakuren wasn't the original intended final boss of UFO.
- Myouren Hijiri
Byakuren's little brother, a monk who taught Byakuren Buddhist magic. His death made her fear her own, and drove her to seek eternal youth.
Word of God is that Myouren was originally intended to be the final boss, but, as amusing as it would have been to have an "old man" be the final boss of a Touhou game, ZUN decided to play it safe and made Byakuren instead.
Tropes associated with Myouren:
- Death by Origin Story: Myouren's death is the catalyst that eventually put Byakuren where she is at the start of UFO.
- Public Domain Character / Historical Domain Character
- Self Fanservice: Myouren's appearance is never described in any canon source, but most fanart depicts him as a Bishounen with the same Multicolored Hair as his sister. Given that he was a Buddhist monk, it's more likely that he would have a completely shaved head.
- Shout-Out: Myouren is a reference to a famous Buddhist monk who was the star of 12th-century tales such as the Shigisan-engi. Byakuren may be a shout-out to the unnamed Buddhist priestess mentioned in the story.
- The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl
- Nue Houjuu
Nue is a youkai who has the ability to hide her true form, and thus all accounts of her appearance vary wildly. When she got tired of frightening humans, she hid away underground, although her dialogue indicates a human sealed her after discovering her true form. After getting caught up in the rising of Byakuren's ship she decided to tag along and attempt to cause trouble for them. Currently living in Byakuren's temple.
Tropes associated with Nue:
- Berserk Button: As she's trying to get along with Byakuren's folks, she doesn't like to be called an "outcast".
- Bonus Boss
- Doppelganger Attack: "Purple Mirror" in Double Spoiler.
- Fashionably Asymmetric Wings: One wing red and angular, the other blue and curvy, like bent arrows.
- Fate Worse Than Death: "Now, human! Boil me! Bake me alive! Do anything you wish! Oh, but please, just don't seal me underground again." She's shocked when the main characters let her go.
- Flying Saucer: Some of her attacks involve the very UFOs you've been blowing up for powerups the whole game.
- It Amused Me: The entire reason for her presense, deciding to have some fun by disrupting Minamitsu's group's search and involving the player characters. She later regrets this, though.
- Leitmotif: "Heian Alien"
- Master of Illusion: She disguised the Palanquin Ship as a UFO, and appears as a floating orb of light as a midboss in stages 4 and 6. She confirms that what we see is her true form, and attacks the heroine in order to keep it a secret.
- Meaningful Name: Nue is the name of her species. Houjuu translates to "sealed beast", because, like most of the other characters, was sealed away before the events of Subterranean Animism.
- Monochromatic Eyes: Her eyes are all dark red in her official artwork. What makes it creepier is that you can still see the outline of where her pupils should be.
- Prongs of Poseidon
- Recurring Boss: She's the midboss in stage 4 and 6, though she doesn't appear in her true form until the extra stage.
- She's the Extra Stage Midboss of Ten Desires.
- Screwy Squirrel: She enjoyed messing around with Byakuren and the other girls, tagging along and interfering every so often because she thought it would be funny if they failed in their goal. In fact, she attached "Seed[s] of Non-Identification" to the ship and the Tobikura fragments, making them appear as UFOs to the untrained eye. When she found out that their mission would help her as well, she felt guilty about it.
- Snakes Are Sexy: Her official art contains a snake.
- Shout-Out: One of her spell cards in Double Spoiler makes danmaku in the shapes of green triangles, red circles, pink squares, and blue X-s.
- Species Given Name: As you would expect, she's a nue - a Japanese chimera. And not just a nue, she's the nue, the one from the legends.
- Urban Legends: What most of her Double Spoiler spell cards are based on.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Her power is exactly this. She can also imbue other things with the same characteristic by attaching a "Seed of Non-Identification" to them.
- Zettai Ryouiki: She is the first character to be seen with zettai ryouiki in official art. Although Suwako is commonly depicted as having zettai ryouiki in fanart and her Hisoutensoku portrait, her artwork in Mountain of Faith shows her with knee-high socks as opposed to thigh-highs.
Debuted in Hisoutensoku
- Unnamed Giant Catfish
A Big Freaking Catfish that appears as the final boss of Hong Meiling's story as an avatar of the "Taisui Xingjun", and Hong Meiling believes it is about to attack Gensoukyou. A likely referece to the belief that a giant catfish causes earthquakes in Japanese mythology.
Tropes associated with the catfish:
- All Just a Dream: Meiling dreams that every other character she fights in her story mode are minions of the Taisui Xingjun that took the form of familiar characters. It explains Reimu's freaky dark aura. In addition, the background to the fight is rendered in a cartoony, childish style, in comparison to the Scenery Porn-filled backdrops of the other stages.
- All There in the Script: The catfish's graphics assets have filenames beginning with "namazu*", so it's often referred to as "the Namazu" in fanon.
- Bullfight Boss: Its 3rd spell card.
- Continuity Nod: It's very possible that this thing is based on the giant catfish that Sakuya served as a meal in the end of Tenshi's ending in SWR. Note that this was also a probable reference to the above folklore, as earthquakes were important to SWR's plot.
- Giant Catfish from Nowhere
- Ground Pound: It'll often leap into the air and crush you from above.
- Rock Steady: In traditional Japanese folklore, namazu were giant catfish that caused earthquakes by thrashing underground. So despite being a fish, it has earth-based powers, creating earthquakes and launching rocks into the air.
Debuted in Double Spoiler
- Modern Day Spirit Photographer
- Hatate Himekaidou
A tengu reporter, like Aya, who writes for her own newspaper: Kakashi Nenpo. Her spirit camera gives her pictures and information without her having to go out to get it, but her news lacks the freshness of Aya's Bunbunmaru. She decides to observe Aya to find the secret to her success.
Tropes associated with Hatate:
- Cell Phone: She has a cell phone camera. Rather out of place for Gensoukyou, which is supposed to be on the same level of technology as Feudal Japan. It's actually stated in-game by Hatate and Aya that Hatate's "spirit camera" was made by the kappa.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: She doesn't have an entry or a newspaper article in Symposium. ZUN admitted that he simply forgot about her, and attributed her absence from the work to her having no friends.
- Crows and Ravens: A crow tengu.
- Current Events Blog: What she and the Kakashi Nenpo seem to be a satire of.
- Emo Teen: Her "modern schoolgirl"-esque portrayal has led to the creation of a fan persona known as "Hata-tan."
- Girlish Pigtails
- Hikikomori: Mocked as such by Aya, due to her unwillingness to go outside to gather her news materials. Fanon jacked this up to insane levels.
- Hot Scoop
- Intrepid Reporter: Decides to become this after being influenced by Aya's newspapers.
- Lampshade Hanging: Not her, but ZUN. Her ability has unintentional similarities with Google Image Search? Yeah, right!
- Leitmotif: Shares "The Youkai Mountain ~ Mysterious Mountain" with Aya.
- Pointy Ears: Likely unintentional again.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Aya. Hatate's the red oni - she's fired up about beating Aya and has a more childish personality and manner of speech.
- The Rival: To Aya.
- Shout-Out: Possibly yet another one to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. With her spirit photography and heavy purple theme in clothing Hatate is reminiscent of Joseph Joestar.
- Totally Radical: How her Nagoya dialect is rendered in English by some translators.
- Valley Girl: Her comments have been translated this way. Arguably a Woolseyism or rather, a mistake that caught on. With the release of the English patch it is now semi-official for the western fandom.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Her spirit photography works by punching in keywords and getting photos that match said keywords. Beyond the unfortunate similarities to Google Image Search, relying on it means that by that she can only start writing articles after they've already been reported on, which is a problem for a member of a journalist caste.
Debuted in Ten Desires
- Sutra-Reciting Mountain Spirit
- Kyouko Kasodani
She is a yamabiko, a youkai responsible for creating echoes in the mountains. She's recently converted to Buddhism and joined the Myouren Temple, and enjoys reciting sutras.
Tropes associated with Kyouko:
- A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll": According to Symposium of Post-mysticism she somehow learned what "punk rock" is and started holding concerts (with Mystia on guitar).
- Catch Phrase: The fandom gave her several catchphrases, usually in the form of exclamations. She has "Yahoo!"[4], "Ohayou Gozaimasu!"[5] and "Gyate Gyate"[6]
- Cute but Cacophonic
- Leitmotif: "Youkai Girl at the Gate"
- Little Bit Beastly: Visually, she has the ears of a Yamabiko. While the kind of animal the Yamabiko is supposed to be is ambiguous at best, Symposium of Post-Mysticism has confirmed that she has a tail and a lot of fans make her to be a cute dog.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Her power is to reflect sound waves, which she does by shouting according to her fight-posturing. However, it's hardly destructive. She uses it to reflect back her danmaku.
- Painting the Frost on Windows: Or create echoes, rather.
- Punk Rock: Seriously. Together with Mystia she becomes Choujuu Gigaku (dance of bird and beast), a punk group that hold 'guerrilla concerts' at the dead of night. It's her way of relieving stress.
- A Faithful Undead
- Yoshika Miyako
Yoshika is a jiangshi, and a bodyguard of sorts for Seiga Kaku. She's not very good at her job.
Tropes associated with Yoshika:
- Cloudcuckoolander: Very empty headed. Akyuu claims she's actually entirely mindless.
- Dumb Muscle: Very strong, very dumb. Unfortunately, this being Gensoukyou, physical strength doen't mean much, and even if it did there's plenty of strong youkai around.
- Expressive Accessory: According to fandom, the Ofuda on her forehead changes what it says depending on the situation.
- Extreme Omnivore: Her power is the ability to eat absolutely anything.
- Feel No Pain: Justified by being an undead.
- Flechette Storm: At any given time, her bullet patterns can fill the screen with hundreds of kunai bullets. When compared to the previous boss, this is absurd.
- Forgetful Jones: Some of the characters speculate that her brain is rotten. She is a zombie.
- Historical Domain Character: Probably based on Miyako no Yoshika, a famous scholar and poet that was rumoured to have become a hermit. It seems in this universe he became the puppet of a hermit instead. And a young girl somehow.
- Human Shield: Seiga uses her like one in the dual boss fight.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: She'll eat spirits during battle to heal herself.
- Jiangshi: Judging by her name, she's from Japan rather from China.
- Large Ham: YA-RA-RE-TAAA!
- Leitmotif: "Rigid Paradise"
- Ofuda: Has one on her forehead. Among other things, this clues Youmu in that someone else is controlling Yoshika after she defeats her.
- Recurring Boss: Appears to assist Seiga in stage 4.
- Soulless Shell
- Spell My Name with an "S": Not her, but her species name, largely due to it being originally Chinese. Kyonshi, Jiangshi, and Geung si are merely the romanizations you're most likely to come across.
- Two First Names: The kanji for it are odd, but Miyako is normally a given name.
- The Undead: A Jiangshi, to be exact. It is noted that she's gaining more and more qualities attributed to zombies these days because in the outside world people rarely tell stories about jiang-shi anymore, but zombies are popular, and complains about getting compared to them.
- Viral Transformation: Anyone bitten by her will transform into a Jiangshi... for a while, anyway.
- Warrior Poet: The "warrior" part is debatable, but when she's not under Seiga's control she once was seen reciting poems in the graveyard.
- Wistful Amnesia: When not under Seiga's control, her body appears to retain some memories of its former life.
- Zombie Gait: Has her arms in front in "sleepwalker" position at all times. In-game, she comments that she has to do stretches to prevent stiffening; fandom has her unable to bend at all.
- The Wicked Hermit Who Passes Through Walls
- Seiga Kaku
A Chinese hermit and the creator of Yoshika. She is the one that taught Miko Taoism, and the one to suggest using Buddhism to pacify Japan. She assists with Miko's resurrection in Gensokyo.
Tropes associated with Seiga:
- Bad Santa: Despite the fact that Gensoukyou doesn't celebrate Christmas. It's kind of complicated.
- Blasphemous Boast: Claims that Miko will be "far grander than that prophet who resurrected three days after his execution".
- Chinese Girl
- Curtains Match the Window
- Disappeared Dad: Her father left her to follow Taoism.
- Generation Xerox: She ended up running out on her own family to seek her father, as well as to further practice Taoism.
- Dual Boss/Flunky Boss: Fights alongside Yoshika, though you can only kill Yoshika temporarily and must empty Seiga's lifebar to proceed.
- Enemies with Death: She's a fugitive from Hell due to her unsanctioned immortality, and has to routinely fight off Shinigami and Kishin sent to kill her.
- Evil Mentor: She taught Miko Taoism and she's a "wicked hermit." According to Miko herself, Seiga demonstrated through her actions that power is only as good or evil as the wielder.
- Faking the Dead: To run away from her family.
- Hair Decorations: While many other characters in this series have hair decorations, Seiga's hairpin is notable in that she can use it to pass through walls.
- Hermit Guru: She's a hermit, like Kasen Ibara...
- Nun-Too-Holy: ...but because of her personality and willingness to deceive others, she lacks divine grace and so is considered a "wicked hermit."
- Intangible Man: Sort of. She possesses the power to pass through walls, but does it by causing parts of the walls to temporarily disappear using the Wall-Removing Chisel that she keeps in her hair.
- Leitmotif: "Old Yuanxian."
- Necromancer
- Obviously Evil: Byakuren can immediately tell she's ridiculously evil and Akyuu doesn't have much love for her, either.
- Public Domain Character: Pretty clearly supposed to be Wu Qing'e from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair
- Ghost of the Children of the Gods
- Soga no Tojiko
One of Miko's followers, she manipulated the events of the religious war as a member of the Buddhist faction. Exists as a bourei due to Futo sabotaging her attempt to become a shikaisen. In game, she's another midboss with no dialogue - though she speaks in one of Miko's spell cards.
Tropes associated with Tojiko:
- Boss Banter: When she appears in Miko's spell card.
- Which, ironically enough, are the only lines of dialogue she has during gameplay.
- Came Back Wrong: Invoked by Futo sabotaging her would-be body, so Tojiko remained incorporeal instead.
- Catch Phrase: The fandom has turned her first line of Boss Banter, "Yatte yan yo!", into this. Means something along the lines of "Have at you!", but there's no consistent translation yet.
- Cute Ghost Girl
- Fog Feet: Unusually, she has two, one for each foot.
- Fanart tends to have her body transition from human-like to ghostly somewhere around the thighs.
- The Gadfly: Tends to be really rough when speaking, saying things that shock people. (Tee hee.)
- Historical Domain Character: Probably based on Tojiko no Iratsume, the daughter of the leader of the Soga, and consort of Prince Shoutoku. That last part probably didn't carry over to her Touhou incarnation, but it has made shipping her with Miko fairly common.
- Immortality Seeker: And she succeeded, if not in the way she expected, no thanks to Futo.
- Nice Hat: A kanmuri that not only looks silly but looks out of place with the rest of her costume (a simple western-style green dress with ofuda along the hem).
- Recurring Boss: Appears in one of Miko's spell cards.
- Shock and Awe: Those arrows she uses are supposed to be lightning.
- A Shikaisen from Ancient Japan
- Mononobe no Futo
One of the Taoist followers of Miko, she manipulated the events of the religious war as a member of the anti-Buddhist faction. As part of her research into immortality, Miko put Futo in a state of suspended animation so she could be revived later as a shikaisen. This occurs when Miko's mausoleum moves to Gensokyo.
Tropes associated with Futo:
- Ambiguously Human: Her profile describes her as "Human? (a taoist who self-identifies as a shikaisen)" - a Shikaisen being a sort of semi-immortal. She's likely on the border.
- Bifauxnen
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Seems like a harmless Fish Out of Water, but she does things like trying to kill her comrade because of a grudge between the families they've already betrayed.
- Boss Banter: When she appears in one of Miko's spell cards.
- Cool Ship: Jumps on one for a few of her spell cards.
- Fantastic Racism: Unreasonably hostile to youkai. It seems that this has caused a lot conflict around her.
- Faux Death: In Miko's profile says Futo "continued to sleep without decaying".
- Fish Out of Temporal Water: Hasn't been able to adapt to modern times.
- Historical Domain Character: Probably based on Mononobe no Futsuhime, the little sister of the leader of the Moriya, and wife of the leader of the Soga. According to one account. Futsuhime turned traitor against the Mononobe by killing her brother. Futo appears to have been more subtle than Futsuhime.
- Immortality Seeker
- Leitmotif: "Legend of the Great Gods."
- Recurring Boss: Appears in one of Miko's spell cards
- Onmyoudo
- Pyromaniac: Sort of. She sets fire to things that scare her.
- Together in Death: Faux Death; and only sort of. She underwent the shikaisen process before Miko did to see if it was safe.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: The manipulation of feng shui? Making it either better or worse (depends on how you look at it) is that she's not actually using feng shui; it's her name for the mashup of shintou and taoist magic that she uses.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: In translation, to reflect her usage of a very archaic dialect of Japanese.
- Shoutoku Taoist
- Toyosatomimi no Miko
A former ruler of Japan, known in modern times as the legendary saint Prince Shoutoku (apparently the part about her gender got lost over time). She publicly advanced Buddhism, and was highly influential in spreading it throughout the country, but she only used it to control the masses. In secret she studied Taoism under Seiga in an attempt to gain immortality. When her own research began to destroy her health, she performed a secret ritual on herself that was designed to put her in a state of suspended animation and then be revived later as a shikaisen. However, she was thwarted by her own manipulations: Buddhist monks placed seals on her mausoleum which prevented her resurrection. She remained sealed until the modern day, when people began to deny her existence. This caused her mausoleum to be moved to Gensokyo, allowing her resurrection to be completed.
Tropes associated with Miko:
- And I Must Scream: She was restless in her state of suspended animation, and the manual states that she vengefully awaits the day she will awaken... which is the day Ten Desires takes place.
- Anime Hair: Shaped like animal ears.
- A God Am I: See Badass Boast.
- Authority Equals Asskicking
- Badass Boast: "This era, when humans deny my existence and I have become legend, is what I was waiting for! Now, try to defeat me! And spread the legend that I live!"
- Batman Gambit: She promoted the values of Buddhism in order to subjugate the population of Japan, while secretly practicing Taoism to attain immortality for herself.
- Blessed with Suck: While her ability to hear the desires of ten people at once is useful, it can get grating to hear so many voices after a while. To deal with this she wears earmuffs, which lets her block out people's voices when she has to.
- Boss Banter: Actually speaks a line during battle without pausing the game.
- Came Back Strong
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Inverted and played straight. When people began to deny her existence her mausoleum was transported to Gensokyo. This allowed her to complete her resurrection. At the same time, the fact that she was a legendary figure meant that she Came Back Strong.
- Deadpan Snarker: Symposium of Post-mysticism shows her to be pretty quick-witted, though she's about as likely to make a pun as she is to mock someone.
- Difficulty Spike: She is an absolute monster at danmaku. Her followers and the mooks she attracted are most definitely not. Provided you're playing on normal, anyway.
- The Emperor: Was the Shadow Emperor variety while she was alive.
- Faux Death
- Final Boss
- Foil: She's pretty much set up as one to Byakuren.
- Earmuffs Equal Isolation: Invoked of sorts. She wears them so she doesn't listen in onto every conversation around her without wanting to.
- The Hermit: She at first offers to become the Reasonable Authority Figure for the human population of Gensokyo, but after being told that it's unnecessary, she decides to isolate herself from the world and continue her Taoist training.
- Historical Domain Character: She's a genderflipped Prince Shoutoku.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Prince Shoutoku was already semi-legendary, but Ten Desires says he was a Taoist immortality-seeker who used Buddhism to control the masses. And was also a girl.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Though she's not exactly a villain, she's a much worse person than the historical figure.
- She Is the King: Apparently, Prince Shoutoku was actually female in the Touhou universe. Obviously this didn't stop her from being the crown prince, since Seiga still refers to her as such.
- Hoist By Her Own Petard: Her ploy to unify Japan under Buddhism and use Taoist resurrection to attain immortality is derailed when Buddhism proves too popular to die out and her resurrection is delayed by Buddhist monks erecting a temple over her grave.
- Immortality Seeker
- Leitmotif: "Shoutoku Legend ~ True Administrator."
- Let's Get Dangerous: "Playtime's over!"
- Meaningful Name: Toyosatomimi literally translates to "abundant, clever ears," referring to her ability.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Byakuren found Miko's mausoleum without being sure what it was, and built Myouren Temple over it to keep it sealed. This just succeeded in waking her up.
- Off-Model: Her portrait in the game gives her two right hands.
- However some fans have started to speculate that it might be intentional as a Shout-Out to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure where J. Geil has two right hands.
- Another theory is that the "thumb" we see is actually a pinky, which would make her anatomically correct.
- Sealed Badass in a Can
- Title Drop: Her ultimate spell is named "Stars Falling on the Divine Spirit Mausoleum." "Eastern Divine Spirit Mausoleum" being the Japanese name of Ten Desires.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: The ability to listen to ten people talking at once.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: She can use it to hear the ten desires of a human, which lets her be The Omniscient.
- Young Conqueror: Technically she already ruled Japan and was trying to stabilise it rather than take it over, but her methods fit this trope. She even briefly entertains the idea of taking over Gensokyo in order to protect its human population.
- The Tanuki Youkai with Ten Transformations
- Mamizou Futatsuiwa
A tanuki that had been living in the outside world. She was called to Gensokyo by her old friend Nue to help fight against Miko. Not that she had a chance to, coming in after everything was over. Now she's hanging out at the Myouren Temple.
Tropes associated with Mamizou:
- Antiquated Linguistics: Which leads to Sanae assuming that she's very old.
- Bonus Boss
- Call Back: She summons frog danmaku that explode, which is reminiscent of one of Suwako's spell cards from Mountain of Faith and Sanae's "B" shot type from Undefined Fantastic Object.
- The Cavalry: She's supposed to defeat Miko on behalf of her old friend Nue. Too bad the heroines did it first, so now she just lazes around Myouren's brand new temple. This is after the Youkai made a hype for her and her journey crossing the sea.
- The Don: She has some elements of this, being the big boss of the tanuki of Sado island who drove away the foxes. The fact that she's a moneylender doesn't help.
- Doppleganger Attack: For her survival card, she generates two shikigami copies of herself. Those copies eventually summon two copies of themselves each, and then two more later on, so that by the end of the spell, you're facing down ten copies of Mamizou.
- Expecting Someone Taller: When the heroines heard that the youkai were calling a trump card against the resurrected saint, they were expecting some of the more fearsome sounding monsters of Japanese lore like the giant Gashadokuro. A tanuki wasn't exactly what they had in mind. Marisa, being Marisa, couldn't resist mocking her on this.
Marisa: Sure, but you're still a tanuki, right? The kind that drums on their bellies on the night of the full moon, right?
- Fantastic Racism: Doesn't like foxes. There were no foxes where she used to live, but her profile says that she may end up causing trouble with the foxes that live in Gensokyo, like Ran. Needless to say, she gets quite a bit of Foe Yay with Ran in fanart. Despite her hatred of foxes, though, she has nothing against humans; her profile says that she likes to play tricks on them occasionally, but she would also lend money to the poor and was able to live amongst them easily in her hometown of Sado.
- Interestingly, in a chapter of Wild And Horned Hermit, she seemed sympathetic towards a fox (not Ran) that Reimu had bound and gagged for the previous chapter's mischief. That, or she simply thought that Reimu was being unfairly harsh, fox or not.
- Leitmotif: "Futatsuiwa from Sado".
- Little Bit Beastly
- Lunacy: Her transformation powers are strongest on the night of a full moon.
- Meganekko: The first in quite some time.
- Onmyoudo: Uses paper shikigami. Lots of paper shikigami.
- Tanuki
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Her power is the ability to make things change shape, and that includes herself. Though she's very skilled with this ability, it does have limitations; she can't make her tail disappear (though she can change its size and color to hide it), and she can only change something else's form and not its function (she can turn a dog into a bird, but it won't be able to fly).
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: Or something like that. Her family name is spelled as two kanji with a katakana character in-between. This is very odd.
- Back to Touhou Windows Two
- ↑ "Kyaa" being a girlish squeal.
- ↑ This is possibly canonical, as one of the endings of Subterranean Animism features her without her "third leg", and she gets it back in time for Hisoutensoku, which suggests it's removable.
- ↑ Unless they were fertilized raven eggs, this isn't cannibalism.
- ↑ Comes from her description in the demo's read-me
- ↑ "Good Morning!"
- ↑ It was rendered in one of her portrait sprites as "ぎゃーてー ぎゃーてー". Beginning part of the mantra in the Heart Sutra.