#Yamajorou

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(eng)

the post they wrote with it reads as follows:

"I had a rough understanding of it as a subspecies of "Yamauba", but upon closer investigation, I found that there are many legends about Yamajoro that are similar to the "Nure-joshi" and "Satori", monsters from Shikoku."

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I love the Smoking lore, The prospect of confusing Sannyo by throwing tobacco is hilarious.

Heads up to anyone searching. I think its spelled Yamajorou not Yamajoro. At least it is now.

(that's how the wiki has been spelling it, but a Yamajorou is such a niche Yokai it might not have had a circulated western spelling back then, immediately following the demo release, which is probably why its spelled this way here)

The only thing in the demo that warrants an explanation: Sannyo Komakusa is based on a type of yamanba called yamajoro (s/t like “young woman of the mountains”/”mountain courteasan”) who according to information compiled by Shigeru Mizuki enjoys tobacco (so much that it’s recommended to throw it at her to avoid an attack) - which is probably why ZUN’s yamajoro has a smoking-based ability.

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Yamajorou

a Yamajorou is a subspecies of Yamanba, alongside other subspecies such as the Yamahime.

Yamanba roughly translates to Mountain hag,

Yamahime roughly translates to mountain princess.

Yamajorou roughly translation to a few things. Mountain young woman, Mountain mistress, and Mountain courteasan.

(This is likely due an occasional trend for some early language to struggle with developing a word to separate young woman who aren't young enough to get called maidens, old enough to be hags, and are not mothers or widows. So instead they sometimes share some phrasing with prostitutes since they are the first unmarried Young woman would think of)

Yamajorou are the only subspecies of Yamanba said to love tobacco. It is even said that you can escape a Yamajorou by throwing or scattering tobacco as a distraction.

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There is a connection between Yamajorou and Shrine Maidens. This is supposedly because there are some stories of Shrine Maidens becoming Yamajorou.

The only English translated reference to this embarrassingly comes from Sannyo's page in the Lostword wiki.

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There are many legends about Yamajoro that are similar to the "Nure-joshi" and "Satori", monsters from Shikoku.

In the mountains you will find a beautiful woman. This woman, a Yamajorou, will greet you like a lover. But if you make the mistake of smiling back, your death is guaranteed.

Excerpt from Ehime Prefecture History : Volume 1

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Yanagitaaaan did a scary Sannyo

You may encounter a woman in the mountains. A woman dressed elegantly for hiking. You must never exchange words with her. You must never follow her. She is a terrifying monster called a Yamajoro. Such teachings have long been forgotten by the villagers. The old man at the mountain hut who told you these teachings went into the mountains a long time ago and never returned.

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Fellow UM demo bosses learn Sannyo might be scary

Translation of flexible_B's comment: "I had a rough understanding of it as a subspecies of Yamauba, but upon closer investigation, I found that Yamajoro, a monster from Shikoku, has many legends that are similar to Nure-joshi and Satori."

Auto translation doesn't help much. The faces alone describe it pretty well though.

Here's a rough auto translation screenshot:

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The popular Yokai question

Does Sannyo eat humans?

No. Almost definitely not.

Despite being a huge fan of absolutely all their doujins, I'll take this a step further and say not even the legendary Zounose could make it convincingly happen.

There is simple reason for this. Sannyo is a Yamajorou. This means if she were to do it, she'd need to do it in her den, much like how Nemuno would invite someone to her home, or at least be territorial. To do it aside from her nature as a Yamajorou/ Yamanba wouldn't make any sense.

Doing it inside her den would be a pretty cool mental picture, except we know she doesn't. (Or at least if she does, then not in the literal sense)

Not only that, we can get evidence even beyond that.

In her Unconnected Marketeers dialog, unlike many Yokai in the series, she actually doesn't threaten to eat anybody in game; in fact she does the opposite. She basically just says: "you're a human? Get out. I'm not going to sell cards to you, rainbow dragon cave is like totally hella dangerous yo. Run back to the foot of the mountain or I'll kill you myself."

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In contrast, Nemuno invites people over to her home even after losing, as expected of a Yamanba; which Reimu hilariously responds to with: "No, I plan on living a long life".

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The only way Sannyo can be a Yamajorou properly is if simply welcoming people into her den and having them indulge is what feeds her, whether they be human or Yokai, or just using her power, the point is it needs to happen in or near her den/dens because she's a Yamajorou, at least to some extent.

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[I actually was going to do a cheeky "maybe" this whole post, then when I wrote it all out I realized the answer was "no" she literally couldn't. I had multiple paragraphs and by the time i got to the end i needed to erase all of it]

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Japan, I'm begging you to translate more Yamajorou lore

How is it possible there is basically no translated information on Yamajorou, when Lost Word's Lorepedia drops this information? Toyosatomimi no Miko also mentions the gambling part in Lotus Eaters.

Japan, why is there a connection between Yamajorou and Shrine Maidens?

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I'm not saying Yamajorou and by extension Sannyo are canonicaly Waifu material. Yokai.com however, is in fact, saying that.

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Time To Discuss Sannyo's Dragons

Strange as it may seem, Sannyo isn't actually a dragon, she's just a really classy Yamajorou with insanely awesome smoke powers. A Yamajorou who also happens to be really obsessed with dragons, and since her next door neighbor has some rather aggressive views on dragons. She must really, really, really like dragons. And her iconic dragon pipe is really just the start of it.

in addition to the dragon pipe she has hanging outside as her trademark, she's also got at least one dragon on the interior side of the entrance.

she's got another dragon on the decorative divider behind her big Chō-Han area. And it's pretty much just Her more personal stuff specifically, the rest of her den, ceiling and trimming is a floral pattern, just her inner and outer entry area and her decorative divider.

she's also got a dragon on her winter hair clip and iconic dragon pipe, but I feel like I've definitely made my point

It's simultaneously cool and absolutely adorable, that at the end of the day she's not a dragon but a Yamajorou who just really, really likes dragons.

(Unless she's been messing with us this whole time and claiming not to be a dragon so she doesn't need to have an epic battle with Momoyo that Sannyo will obviously win)

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Unconnected Marketeers fun facts and trivia you probably haven't heard,

Neat trivia for everyone from Touhou 18. Sources referenced in the text.

Mike was the only Demo character to not need to suffer the "Shoplifting" cheat, because she's the first boss.

Supposedly, according to her Omake.txt, Mike came from the outside world. She was originally training to be a proper maneki-neko for Gōtoku-ji, a Buddhist temple in Tokyo, but she was bullied into leaving and didn't finish her training, she's now happily free to do what she wants.

This implies all real world maneki-neko need training to work.

Takane is the final boss of Touhou 18.5, and is presumably the only end boss to surrender immediately upon being approached, but she is mugged by a power crazed Marisa anyway and cries that she's insane.

Yamajorou have special techniques for producing large quantities of quality goods cheap. This is written in Takane's card.

Takane is totally a Phantasmal Boss. Chimata is the final boss, then you go to Nitori who is the Extra boss, then Takane is the Phantasmal Boss. See?

Sannyo is named after the Komakusa. The "queen of Japan's mountain flowers". All her Spellcards are named after different alpine Japanese flowers, and even her nons are shaped like flowers. She keeps them in her den in Lotus Eaters 29 and 30. And this, alongside her dragon folding screen was scripted by zun according to the script Mizutaki revealed. So Sannyo is occasionally drawn with alpine flowers because she's seemingly so fond of them.You can also see color patches along stage 3 implying they are highland flowers as well.

Even though she says "spoiling the taste of her tobacco " as a midstage catchphrase, she happily laughs and says her tobacco sucks in Lotus Eaters 30, so she was making a private joke to herself in Unconnected marketeers.

Hilariously, Sannyo got hit in the face with the Shanghai doll card when she was trying to talk during the demo. Art has been made of this.

Due to an error, Sannyo's clothes were constantly torn during the demo; leading to a ton of her fan art assuming that's just how she looked.

Bonus Sannyo facts, sighting in blue:

Misumaru's resting face, used for reference has probably the angriest eyebrows in all Touhou.

Misumaru makes a living of making Jewelry, Mostly beads. This is in Reimu's blank card ending.

She tried to brag to Reimu she made the Yin-Yang orbs in that ending, but Reimu was hilariously not impressed.

In Sakuya's post fight dialog with Momoyo, Misumaru shows up and gets invited to the SDM to chat with Patchouli. Sakuya expects an exposition dump, but after getting interrupted by Momoyo, she just shortens to answer Sakuya's question with a single "just don't dig that stuff up "

(If you read that exchange in text it looks like Sakuya is keeping up. But the in game faces make it clear Sakuya is confused and Misumaru is exhausted talking)

Tsukasa doesn't like getting her clothes dirty according to her 18.5 title card.

She also has had a habit of entering people's houses uninvited even before touhou 19. In Marisa's blank card ending, Tsukasa brakes into Marisa's house to tell her a bunch of stuff and Marisa complains about "Why are you in my house " basically.

In Marisa's post fight dialog with Momoyo. Marisa convinces Momoyo to let her take gems if she keeps it a secret, but Tsukasa pops up and reveals shes spying, and says Momoyo would get into trouble until she gets intimated by Momoyo.

Megumu is based on a pretty interesting god/ tengu mixup called Izuna Gongen. Hilariously this god is a tengu who stands on the back of a white fox. (I wonder who that could be?) This is because there was a either a real or possibly mythic tactic of tying a crow to a fox and setting it on fire to release into an enemy camp. It latter somehow became a god who offered "great tengu barley rice" to a village, saving them from starvation. Which is where her UM card comes from.

According to Momoyo's post fight dialog for Sanae, "Iizunamaru's always badmouthin' Moriya Shrine". She also says Megumu's a combat lover.

According to her 18.5 title card, Megumu is a "great tengu who loves festivals" this has since appeared and been acknowledged out loud in some fan skits and MMDs, .

Chimata gets bed ridden in Marisa's blank card ending. She's so traumatized by Marisa's inability to engage in basic commerce that it gives her nightmares.

(Also, even though she has unique blank card dialog getting bullied by people making fun of her card on stage 6, no English blank card run is on YouTube. So even though jokes and skits have been drawn for it in Japan, the English community probably isn't familiar with them)

Momoyo Himemushi is based on the brutal but beautiful arcade quarter eating shmup, Mushihimesama. It's bug theme is just as iconic as it's gameplay. This is also why she's got "princess" themeing.

She talks about Megumu enthusiastically in basically every route.

Weirdly for an extra stage, a different character can show up and interrupt Momoyo into having a 3 way conversation depending on who you beat her with.

(I used to assume "that was a blast" was a line she said with every character but it looks like she cuts off before saying it sometimes)

According to the drinking fight party post stage text and title card dialog for the Rainbow Dragon Cave stage in 18.5, Momoyo is a "Centipede Popular Amongst Youkai".

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Megumu and Tsukasa find Sannyo and Misumaru on Nikko Shirane trail

Basically these bubbles are Megumu saying hi and mentioning her legs, and Sannyo saying she's a Yamajorou so the hike is easy for her

(From a rough auto translation)

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More Yamajorou Shrine Maiden theories Japan is hiding from us

Someone on Twitter pitched a theory about all the ponytail characters with shrine maiden connections.

It says: "These two have a common connection to the shrine maiden.

Watatsuki Yorihime/Tamayorihime: Deification of a shrine maiden Komakusayamanyo/Yamajoro: Yamajoro ≒ Yamauba is also said to be a shrine maiden turned into a monster.

This is where the fact that "in the original work, Reimu's hair was roughly the same color as these two" and "Akira, who was aiming for the 'power of Hakurei' for some reason, also had purple hair" come into play."

what do they mean "Yamajoro ≒ Yamauba is also said to be a shrine maiden turned into a monster."?

Japan tell us your secrets

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False Heaven Shelf / Stage 3 Touhou Unconnected Marketeers

How is this place so insanely cool? All this time there's been a massive plateau near Yokai mountain covered in unexplained abandoned houses. It's also got an incredible stage theme but that's beside the point. It's also somehow reachable by normal humans from the Yamawaro end of the Moriya Shrine ropeway and has the entrance to the Rainbow Dragon Cave.

Its also got a very cute Yamajorou living there.

I just think it's neat

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In Hifuu stories, the accompanying tracks themselves basically only have the smallest thing to do with the characters relating to the track but an intense sounding track for number 04 is still interesting.