#god its all about marisa in the end isnt it. and there were two marisas at reimus party.can you believe that

[sorrowgrove]

sójka suika & others

[qwertyzorovague]

Orochi (The King of Fighters) vs. Yukari Yakumo (Touhou Project): imo, underrated match-up that isnt talked about enough

this will be a RAMBLE-heavy post, meaning it's long as hell. If you don't have some time on your hands, you might be better off bookmarking this post for later or skim-reading a bit, I don't mind either!

So there's one thing that's been on my mind when it comes to match-ups. Yes, Death Battle is a MU-focused show, but in general… MUs are basically who would win in a fight, how would they win, why, and etcetera. Death Battle itself has had rules ever since the latest season, and there is a list of series Ben Singer and the others would never cover.

One in particular has to be Touhou Project. If you were to ask him about it being in death battle, I’m pretty sure the answer would be…

well come on, it’s got amazing characters but the near-majority of the batshit crazy feats come from literal hearsay from the characters and their interactions (AS FAR AS I KNOW-). As for the other franchise I’ll talk about, its feats are more calculable and manageable than the other. The King of Fighters, yes also has its own manga, is an amazing fighting game series I’d genuinely recommend you to check out. Why? Mostly because I love it to death, and also because its gameplay is convoluted and extremely fun. Back on topic, the feats of the characters in KOF are more digestible than hearsay. The two characters I’ll be rambling about may not be covered very well in terms of feats, but you can get a good idea of their power from what you see from them in their respective games and material alone. God knows I used to fear a literal eldritch-horror-vibe-having anime woman for like a whole year.

“What’s the matchup you’re referring to and has anybody already talked about it?” I’ll get into the details later, but for context… Two Touhou characters infamously got pitted against two undertale characters. These being Chara v. Sakuya and Marisa v. Asriel Dremurr. One less infamous but still somewhat known, again as far as I know, I could be very wrong, would be Yukari vs. Sans. Due to being reality-bending (or knowing?) characters, these two were bound to be matched up against each other. But just like the last two, the Touhou characters end up stomping. With Yukari vs. Sans, it’s a matter of someone who knows their shit and how to do it going up against someone who has a vague idea of it. And even then it’s implied that Sans is just fucking with the player, so that’s probably a more evident idea of how bad this stomp is. This used to be my favorite matchup until I got into the King of Fighters. Speaking of which…

Orochi matchups are few and far between on vsbattles.com and I haven’t read through most of them. The one I chose to read through was Gill from Street Fighter 3 vs. Orochi. And as far as I could tell it’s quite inconclusive, as both can break out of what would be their end, so… Onto character introductions… Orochi. The big bad that still pervades current entries of this series, even if its not present. Yes its official gender is literally an object, check the wiki, I’m not kidding or trying to pull a prank. Orochi as we’ve seen it has only possessed human bodies, such as was with the case of Chris in the Orochi Saga. But as a being, well… its powers involve “nothingness” which could clash with its MU. Orochi was implied to be this ultra powerful god that if revived, would be nigh-unstoppable. 

Despite that, the boss of it in ‘97 was… easier than Goenitz and Rugal (again). Probably because of the fact that before Orochi was revived through Chris’s body, Kyo, Iori, and Chizuru fought the New Faces Team and kicked their asses. Chris was weakened. It’s likely that because of this, orochi was weaker than it should’ve been. Most of all, Chris’s body may not have been able to handle the power of Orochi. Which should say a lot since his body was the host for it, and yet someone like Rugal basically got vaporized because he couldn’t use Orochi’s powers. Then again, Rugal wasn’t even part of the Hakkeshu (which are basically the equivalent of if  Orochi had followers on twitch.tv), so uhhhh- to be honest, I haven’t done much research and kind of just wanted to go on a ramble about how much I love the mu I’m about to ramble about, so-

Next up, Yukari Yakumo. The character that could be the main villain, the main hero, or even the protagonist, or perhaps the driving force behind the hero’s actions (and sometimes is). But usually she’s a minor inconvenience pulling pranks, incidents, and several other hijinks that the main protagonists of Touhou Project will have to clean up. I love this character but also am afraid of her to this day. Why? I don’t know, I really don’t-the amount of power Yukari has is unknown but it’s said to be really high which isn’t too surprising. Most youkai in touhou lore have some sort of weakness or flaw, but I shit you not that in canon, Yukari has no weakness, or anything that could stop her. If there’s something she’s wanting to do, you can bet that she’s going to do it. The only reason she loses fights is mostly because of her own undoing, and the fact that she likes toying with every single one of her opponents. Every. Single. One.

Her powers involve the usual powers someone in the touhou universe would have, that being Danmaku. In short, Danmaku is basically any form of bullet, projectile or energy used by inhabitants of Gensokyo to give everyone a fighting chance. There are rules to using them, which include “No Impossible spell cards (which are basically a character’s own unique super art), No danmaku that is lethal or can kill”. Danmaku battles usually end in the opponent being knocked out. Then again, characters including Yukari herself have broken the rules a few times, so… fuck it?

Has this matchup ever been discussed onli-FOR SOME REASON NO…???? I looked all over the internet (I’m not going to count discord servers since I don’t want to join more than I already have to) and the only relevant results I could FIND were M.U.G.E.N. videos with two edits of the two duking it out, so… I guess I might be the first to really post about it on the internet, let alone this hellsi-I mean tumblr. So why am I rambling about it so much? Why am I even talking about it? Why should it be a thing? There’s a lot of vsbattle forums and servers out there, one user might know something and it also might just be straight to the point; Another stomp, right? I’m not even fully aware of how far the power of Orochi and Yukari can go, but lore implications say either they’re really similar, or Yukari and others are bluffing their asses off with a bit of proof. Yes, Yukari was implied to be the one who made the Barrier to Gensokyo, which stretches across quite a few miles.  She excels in the art of Onmyoudou (look that up in touhou wiki because I don’t know how to properly explain that), while Orochi has its own thing that outclasses the mass majority of the cast of KOF. Who would win?

I have no clue. I don’t know if I’m willing to go through with the research on this MU in particular because 1; I’m not that smart, 2; I’m currently in college and have not much motivation to work on something like this let alone research for it. And 3; about every year touhou project gets a new game or bit of lore while KOF takes its sweet time. Or not? I wouldn’t know since I’m still new-ish to the crazy shit characters can pull in these franchises. If I can’t research anything about this, I can’t really say anything about a win condition. Orochi’s a god, making it immortal, but Yukari knows quite a bit about Gensokyo and the gods that inhabit the place, so she might know how to take down a god. I’m not going to go into the why of… well why would the two fight, since in theory they’d probably just tolerate each other or even agree (as Orochi’s whole thing involves the fact that humans pollute the earth, while Yukari’s whole philosophy… is still mysterious ngl) .

There are so many things that I still need to find out about these two… They’re so cool… yet so scary… oh and about me not wanting ot make win conditions? That was kind of a lie-

A win condition for Orochi: SOMEHOW Kill Yukari or incapacitate her into a state where she won’t regain consciousness or be able to affect Orochi. The conditions for Orochi winning are quite complicated, as there’s no lore bits or any material showing Yukari struggling to defeat anybody or almost dying yet, so… The win condition for Yukari: Seal Orochi, or exterminate it. As you can tell, a lot more simple than Orochi’s. Then again, she doesn’t have any canonical weaknesses other than her own tendency to toy with every opponent (though if she ever finds real threats she usually stays back until finds out how to take care of said threats) Prep time? If none, it’s likely that it’s a very close match. But if we were to give any amount, Yukari would probably figure out how to seal or exterminate Orochi and take the win. At the same time, Orochi isn’t dumb either. It’s usually very merciless with humans, but a being that is nowhere near being a human? I dunno. Probably will test the waters, maybe? Without headcannoning any prior interactions or connections, it’s hard to say what either would do with or without prep time. I’m going off of what I currently know about the two and it’s safe to say: probably a close match?

I’ve rambled long enough, so i hope this was a good read. This was a freetype in google docs and it proved to me that; hey typing in many pages isn’t that bad, just gotta type when you want to and you’ll be okay! I think; I don't know. All I know is that this fun little ramble took up 5 pages, double spaced, new times roman font with a font size of 12. so uh. idk