#new-generation-hakurei

[chireikiden]

There's a few things that I think are left ambiguous in the sense of having both a more straightforward and a more intricate/interconnected reading. I kinda lean towards (and simply prefer) the latter on most counts, but feel like it's good to acknowledge the questions too.

Did Suika knowingly screw over Mizuchi (either via her whole offer being a scam, or by relenting and leading the lynch mob to her once it was decided she would die) or did she really not mean for this to happen and just caught up to her for a final talk before the lynch mob did? The latter would also make her motive for helping Mizuchi escape Former Hell more interesting. May still come up in CDS, as I suspect Suika's still going to make an appearance, even if it doesn't get an unambiguous answer. If the Shuten-douji stories are anything to go by, as far as I can remember, Suika actually has a lot of history picking interesting humans to recruit as youkai.

Did the lynch mob kill her for some more basic reason (e.g. revenge on her as a shrine maiden or the Miyadeguchi, her not fitting in well enough, her being inconvenient for them somehow) or because they'd picked this arbitrary point to start enforcing the new "no jinyou"/"no attacking humans" rules? I lean towards the latter because it just makes her rant about the system fit together better, and feel that it's even kinda necessary for the bit about "this land soon becoming a domain of youkai" to make much sense. Plus her title "Casualty of the Great Barrier". Otherwise she's just a casualty of some random youkai who happens to dislike the barrier. While she's still a hypocrite, it's more understandable to be unduingly salty about it if the order of events was: 1.) The youkai strongarm her into becoming a youkai because they are attacking her, a human 2.) The youkai kill her because becoming a youkai or attacking humans is banned However, it's also fair to say that can make the youkai's behavior seem a little weirdly flipfloppy (even if they weren't acting as a coordinated group). Unlikely to be explained further, in my opinion.

Was the scapegoating of the Miyadeguchi just something else that happened later on, or about the betrayal that Mizuchi herself committed? The latter is way funnier/more dramatic/more hypocritical on her part, and thus the superior option. Though the Hakurei punishing the rest of her clan is still something to be mad about. Unlikely to be explained further.

It is fair and funny to note that Mizuchi was absolutely a weirdo in life too, "getting used to" attacking humans concerningly quickly. (I look forward to artists interpreting that as anything between some Kogasa tomfoolery and her taking the first excuse to become a serial killer.) On the other hand, it also makes sense for her to die extra mad about the youkai betraying her because she thought she was on their side now, and apparently even had some pro-youkai attitudes in general. Can't be betrayed by your enemies. Her thoughts on youkai may well be elaborated further.

If this isn't stating the obvious, I'm getting the vibe that she may be trying the classic gambit of "forcing" Reimu to exterminate her properly to teach her a lesson (and/or to commit suicide by shrine maiden). Heck, even her final line in the chapter can kinda be read as a coy way to say "I'm coming over there now, for you to deal the final blow that ends your so-called extermination."

Dunno the details. Presumably the new system of Gensokyo they were helping put into place, which it now seems included purging the entirety of the priestly class besides the Hakurei, which we didn't previously have a clear idea existed. And though I try to make a distinction and not cite it as an "equally canon" source, ZUN's lore bits in Gensou Narratograph reinforce the idea that human society in Gensokyo was thoroughly reshaped only when the barrier was put up, including being herded into the Human Village and having their old hierarchies destroyed. The Hakurei might have helped coordinate this if they could play good cop with the humans.

This (with or without the Narratograph inclusion) does paint an interesting image of the Hakurei as an organized, scheming clan with some agency in what happened, though we can't take Mimi's understanding of the events at face value. It also makes me wonder when and how they were reduced from a proper faction to just one shrine maiden in existence at a time. Maybe they were just purged or allowed to die off, too, once they'd outlived their usefulness.

[devout-khajiit]

Yeeeeeees you've reblogged it so I get to askbox gremlin you back! (:

What's your favorite candle scent?

What's a cozy/hidden favorite store you like to go to in your area?

What's your coffee/tea order?

Tell us a lie ([eyes emoji])

What's your current hyperfixation?

Well met, internet traveler Aese!

What's your favorite candle scent?

I specifically went to my wax melt box to sniff a bunch and report back.

It's a solid tie between Wonderland (berry, apple, and peonies) by ScentSationals, Over the Rainbow (pineapple, passionfruit, cassis, apple, pear, raspberry, white wood, and amber scent notes) by Better Home & Gardens, and Warm Spring Sunshine (white peach, daisy, granny smith apple, rain water, melon, garden florals, and amber scent notes) by Better Home & Gardens.

As a bonus, I quite favor Illusion (cedar, musk, and mystery) by ScentSationals because it's the first one I ever got as a devotional wax melt, for Lucifer. It's Their favorite!

What's a cozy/hidden favorite store you like to go to in your area?

This is sadly one of the boring questions - I don't drive as of yet and am unemployed so I don't have many chances to go places and see new stores! It's very sad I will cry about it /joke at the end

Plus I genuinely live in a pretty boring area for this sorta thing, where there's very few small businesses. I have seen metaphysical stores but those tend to be... unnecessarily expensive. So I haven't breached one yet.

What's your coffee/tea order?

Oh gosh... I can't stand either, and I've tried my dude (/nongendered) I've tried so hard. Can you imagine? Being me who wants to learn to read tea leaves but cannot stand the taste of tea? It's pain!

Tell us a lie ([eyes emoji])

Hmmm. I was gonna jokingly self-deprecate and be like "I'm so good at what I do" but I can feel Lucifer looming over me with a rolled up newspaper to bonk me if I do, so I'll make a more genuine one about myself.

I've got very few spirit companions in general. (How many is the truth? That may remain a secret~)

What's your current hyperfixation?

[ starts vibrating at such a high speed I become a blur and an ominous noise emanates from my being ]

Touhou Project my fucking BELOVED!!!!!!!!!! It's been a special interest since I was like. 11? or some shit like that? And it never really goes away, the hyperfixation.

Lately I'm fixating on the Scarlet Devil Mansion crowd + Reimu Hakurei + Marisa Kirisame. It doesn't help that I worship Touhous and I've been working when I can with them during said haunting, and Reimu and Marisa have been taking turns shooing away any less than friendly spirits (I hope they get to rest now... I just hope the haunting is done but that's yet another reason to hope for that.) But I'm fixating on SDM just because they're cool and thinking of their dynamics from a fan perspective and a worship perspective is fun. All hail Flandre Scarlet, little girl way too strong for any logical sense! (Context: She can destroy anything. She destroyed a meteor once. A giant one. All by just... squeezing Her hand shut...)

I really wanna go and assign more friends hypothetical Touhous they should worship because I think it's fun AND funny to be like "I diagnose you: Depressed capitalist cat with trauma (Mike Goutokuji)."

If you want one Aese... I know you well enough from your streams I could probably assign you one [ eyes emoji ]. It'd be a joke and a hypothetical though, because I don't actually care to convert people lmao. (And converting people without their consent isn't very cool, kids!)

[occasionaltouhou]

For a random stage 2 boss to rotate for a little while, how about Nemuno Sakata? One of the major themes of the HSiFS characters was that they had relationships with established characters rather than to eachother. However, while I can easily envision the other three bosses of the first four stages hanging out with their associated seasonal protagonist, Nemuno seems to be characterized more by how she doesn't spend time with Aya, to the point where her (or anyone else, for that matter) even visiting is unwanted. At the same time though, she gives us a better idea of politics on youkai mountain. There are places even tengu aren't allowed, for one. Makes me wonder how she'd react to Sanae showing up if she'd been playable, or perhaps her relation to Nitori/the kappa in general.

first, it's still really funny to me that the other three protags get a new friend but aya doesn't. too insufferable

ANYWAY yeah i think that nemuno is a really interesting addition to the politics of youkai mountain because like, we kind of knew there were other youkai up there but they hadn't really gotten any focus before. the fact that the yamanba are explicitly kind of isolationist also makes you wonder how many of them are up there

the thing about nemuno though is that unlike most of the rest of the hsifs, she didn't get a follow-up later, so we only really have what she says and does in the game. which tells us that she's relatively friendly and easy-going, but also that she's firm about the tengu's contract with her and that she attempts to kidnap reimu. the reimu thing is actually the most intriguing to me - she seems to not have heard of the hakurei shrine maiden before (though you can argue if that's the best translation of "知らんな" for that statement), which is incredible for someone who in another route is discussing negotiations of land with aya. the implication here being that she simply doesn't have any interest in the world outside her world, and that whatever happens at the bottom of the mountain doesn't affect her - which is, of course, true, and plays into the problem. she simply isn't the type of character who shows up to things.

in terms of her relationship to others... again, that's the problem, isn't it? she kind of doesn't have one. maybe she does some trade with the kappa, but it would be business on both sides of the arrangement. for sanae, it could be something dismissive along the lines of sannyo's "what are you, a cop?" or complete disinterest at the machinations of the mountain god. she's a tricky one to use, unfortunately. i do actually wonder somewhat if that's why zun introduced sannyo - a second crack at the same idea, but who's a bit more connected to everything else

[sukimas]

After reading a lot of your posts about Reimu's role within Gensoukyou and how the status quo operates, I had a hypothetical question/thought exercise: if there was a particularly intuitive human villager who was able to intuit that the youkai of Gensoukyou aren't allowed to attack the human village, then was able to extrapolate from there that the purpose of the human village is for them to believe in youkai, and then begin to try to convince the other villagers of this and that they could hypothetically destroy the youkai by not believing, would Reimu be compelled to address this, and on what grounds in her stated official capacity? Or would this be handled differently in order to maintain the status quo?

I realize there's several dozen reasons that something like this wouldn't/couldn't happen in the first place, and it could easily be easily solved by "powers that be stage villager's murder by unwitting smalltime youkai and then Reimu Resolves The Incident" but the nature of Reimu's role is new information to me (most of my familiarity with Touhou is through fan games, which seem mostly interested in doing EoSD) so I was wondering if you could provide any more insight.

Reimu would theoretically be compelled to address this as part of her duties, yes. This is part of the reason for basically every conflict in Forbidden Scrollery, but especially the final one; Kosuzu has been becoming less and less afraid of youkai (and indeed close to becoming one herself). Humans becoming youkai is not necessarily a problem in that they’d all change for the personal benefits, but that they’d go “Oh, youkai are my neighbors. They can’t be that bad.”

In general it would be pretty hard to convince the villagers not to believe in youkai, since their lives are affected by them to such an extent; it’s like telling them to not believe in the sun, or the weather. That’s the reason that an isolated little village in the mountains was chosen in the first place; everyone there still believed in youkai even in 1885, so the boundary of common and uncommon sense could form around it. It’s the type of place the stories in Kwaidan sprang from.

Even though it would be hard to convince the villagers not to believe, though, it would still be a problem. Likely one addressed by the youkai rather than by Reimu, though, like how the Vampire Incident (not EoSD, a different one) was solved by the sages. The Hakurei shrine maiden can’t go out and kill people for no (seeming) reason; she has to be believed to be on the side of humans. But she would be compelled to look the other way at whatever happened and clean up afterwards.

[gensokyogarden]

Scarlet Claws has even chosen to visit the Hakurei Shrine! For Reimu, she has left a generous amount of cash! Underneath the cash is a basket, filled with treats and baked goods such as bread, cookies, and cake.

Also inside the basket is a note from Sakuya. It reads,

'Merry Christmas, Reimu. The treats are from me, and the money is from the Mistress. We hope you enjoy your holiday feast.'

Wow! What's this? Left under the Donation Tree (her donation box with a star on top) were a set of presents. Presents that thankfully were not snatched away by her fairy neighbors during the night. And what a set of gifts they were. This cash was enough to feed Reimu for a whole year and the treats were enough that she could spend a little bit of that money on a nice spa trip!

"Such a shame. Had I known they were stopping by I'd have invited them in to celebrate together. Oh well, there's always New Years."

Yep, because New Years hasn't happened yet. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

[originspeed]

Yapping about story stuff for my Red x Reimu crackship, read on if you're interested :3

Been thinking about stuff for my Red x Reimu stuff and the thought of writing a story has been on my mind for a bit. I kinda see that comicy thing I was doing as a sort of test run of sorts so I wonder if I could handle actually making a proper story for it. The thing is though, I'm not quite sure where to place the story in the timeline for both series. The idea has been Red gets plucked off Mt. Silver after his defeat by the Gen 2 protagonist which would place the year at minimum at 1999. If I am to say the Pokémon world for this story is just Gensokyo's outside world and not bother with multiversal shenanigans then Touhou's story would be after Mystic Square but before Embodiment of Scarlet Devil; if the year those games released are to be the year they also take place anyway. I'm kind of just wondering how I'd write that. I think it'd be okay to use some characters from the Windows era purely for Red's stuff, at least to get him from Muenzuka to the Hakurei Shrine / generally traverse Gensokyo. I think that's all I got, kinda just felt like typing as I think. Don't wanna give away too much of what I got planned... that is, if I actually end up putting pen to paper. Let me know what y'all think, I'm always open to new ideas and suggestions for the things I do and that's especially true for my writing. Don't really know how I'm actually gonna post the story tbh, I guess I'll just type it in a Google Doc and then screenshot it? I'll figure something out lol.

[paradise-in-k4]

The Gap in the Evening, Report Entry 0: “Retrospective in Retrograde”

The night was dark. But then again, the nights are always dark here. Darker than they were in the last month. But that didn’t stop us from trying to uncover the mystery behind the mega crater that was a thousand times the diameter of Lake Suwa. I had made the hypothesis that this was part of a rogue meteor shower that wiped a whole town and the surrounding mountains off the map, but that couldn’t have been more wrong. Using her ability to see the boundary between what I inferred at the time as past and present, Maribel had realized that the area was alive and well. The story we had heard about a meteor wiping out a whole prefecture and then some was a cover-up, and we had to see this through as we crossed the boundary.

What we had witnessed was beyond belief. We bore witness to a practically untouched Japanese civilization that could date back to feudal times while boasting limited technology that could match the 21st century’s technological advances. Perhaps this was the land that Maribel had talked about visiting so much in her dreams. Was this a discarded second satellite whose mission was to compensate the assumed total loss of the TORIFUNE? Or maybe a botched attempt to test anti-gravity theories with cutting-edge technologies?

Our musings were cut off by one of the residents who claimed to have built her house in the nearby forest, introducing herself as Marisa Kirisame. As genuine as she sounded, her attire just screamed “modern day witch” with her cone-shaped long-brimmed hat accompanied by a poofy dress adorned with ribbons accompanied by a matching broomstick and what I can only assume- from one tabletop gaming session- is a magic focus of her own design. She said that something was wrong with her friend- a shrine maiden whose charge protected this whole region- and one of the authority figures of the land, asking us to help her out with some research in a parallel world where her sealed land of fantasy hadn’t yet gone through an incident of this magnitude. Using a parasol that she had been given from the aforementioned authority figure, she opened a second rift similar in quality to the one that Maribel had found. After being given a list of names of people who were said to belong in both worlds, we stepped headlong through the boundary into a parallel world. One that many called Gensokyo.

-Renko Usami

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Hello and welcome to my general roleplay and writing blog that at first appears Touhou-centric, but some of it is essentially nonsensical ramblings based on some of my other fandom interests and creative works.

Here’s what you can expect from this blog:

Canon muse RP (which is basically all Touhou right now but that’ll change later)

Crossover opportunities for any and all multi/other/non-fandom muses of other RP blogs (I might be Touhou up front, but I know quite a bit about other fandoms)

OC lore/RP

Long lore writing, often with intricate text

Open-Ended Hifuu Logic (The adventures of Renko and Maribel are central to my background blog lore)

An original AU that I call Universe K4 (refer to Touhou Lost Word’s universe coding to understand how I came up with this concept, as well as how universe denominations work with my muses)

Choose Your Own Adventure stories

Ramblings and news about the Touhou Lost Word mobile gacha game (and a few others too)

An original magical girl story that uses Puella Magi Madoka Magica and its characters as an inspirational springboard

A few magical girl ramblings here and there

Feel free to send an ask, tag me for an interaction, or just let me know what your RP blogs are. I’ve only been here a few months and I’m open to new partners, so come on over if you wanna chat. Don’t worry, I don’t bite :)

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Active Blog Events:

Hakurei’s Basement Sick Ward - Personal Seasonal Event: Ever since winter fell, propelled only further by multiple incidents inducing more bitter cold, a mass of fairies has fallen ill from the cold. With some quick thinking, desperation, and begging to Reimu, Daiyousei along with support from Reimu and Marisa have opened a sick ward in the basement for those fairies plus the resident Hell Fairy, drunken Oni, Inchling, Poverty God, and Komainu. Regular medicine runs facilitated by Reisen soon developed, especially when new patients could now flow to either Eientei or the ward. Rumia could also be seen around the shrine more often to help control the light levels in the room and serve the ward’s patients. The spirit of cooperation may help keep everyone in good spirits even when they’re sick, but this winter’s forecast in this blog regardless of incident is bound to be a nasty one that persists across every verse in L1.

The Eternal Dark Incident - Community RP Event, hosted by gensokyogarden: A mysterious being only known as Sugar Sweet has escaped her confinement under the Hill of the Nameless as imposed by Yukari Yakumo, blanketing all of Gensokyo in darkness! Will anyone rise up to restore light to Gensokyo and resolve the incident?

A Koakuma & AQ Christmas Carol - Personal RP Event: Christmas has come to Gensokyo, but trouble’s afoot with the speculation of foul play in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Who could be behind this mystery? Press questions for answers…

The incident has advanced into becoming the Unfinished Report Incident.

The West Mountain - Poll Your Own Adventure: Follow a team of Gensokyo’s incident resolvers and willing helpers to the anomalous West Mountain and investigate how it could be associated with the Parallel Satellite Incident…

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Verses

Default Verse: The default verse for all interactions on this blog is Touhou (and Gensokyo) unless a setting outside that area is stated by either writer. While the Hakurei Barrier exists in this verse as a means to generally enclose the region as intended, individual abilities and various advancements in technology and magic have opened pathways in and out of Gensokyo for most people if they know how to use them. This allows the Touhou muses on this blog the ability to be used in the settings of other fandoms in their own default/alternate verses.

Universe K4: To summarize it quickly, this is a multi-fandom AU where multiple worlds from varying series have been forcefully separated from their original locations and now orbit above and around a towering mountain that exists in another dimension. Worlds that have been included in this hub usually harbor gates of varying nature that lead back to their original locations or to another region in the hub. This dimension is accessible through an invisible gap that can be found around any given mountain. Lore is more visible from starcloud-spire (WIP) as a more dedicated lore-dumping blog, and from the-black-raven-of-voile as a side observer.

Universe Conversion Point M2: The Honkai Star Rail verse for this blog, also visible from travelogue-of-march-7th as a more dedicated blog. It crosses paths with every other universe listed anywhere on this blog. More details under development.

Things to Know About Me

If you get an ask that looks like an interaction request with this blog’s tag from @derpytoad and then this blog reblogs your answer, it’s still me. Both blogs are under the same account because this blog is a side blog.

If I think we could be mutuals and I follow you back, I will follow you from @derpytoad. While I might follow a bunch of blogs out of interest, it varies on whether I end up making the first move.

This blog isn’t restricted to mutuals-only or anything related. If you want to interact, just do it! Anything goes for me as long as you follow the rules. Even if you have nothing related to Touhou, we can make it work!

Communication is key. Please be patient with me and tell me if things seem like they’re not going right. If you don’t want to do a thread I try starting or just want to drop it early due to any reason, if you are less inclined to interact with anything specific on this blog, or if you’re even considering unfollowing this blog altogether, just tell me what might have happened that made you feel this way. I won’t be mad, I just want closure so I don’t feel like I mis-stepped somewhere and be riddled with self-guilt.

Rules

I might be 24, but no NSFW of any kind is going to be a mainstay on this blog (and there’s no side blog for it either). Please keep such content on your own blog if you have any, thank you very much.

No godmodding, metagaming, or similar (the usual rule you see on these kinds of blogs).

I’m open to plotted RP, but I will not do DM RP. That’s just to keep the DMs open for more necessary discussions between writers.

Discord RP is another thing, but that’s for a later date when I have a server open for it. And yes, I am planning on converting one of my servers to make this possible. Community eventually? Maybe.

You don’t have to match the length of my replies or be super detailed/formatted with them, but all I ask is that they’re grammatically legible so I don’t get lost trying to read your post.

Anything said or done by my muses is not done to reflect the perspective of the mun unless specifically stated that they’re speaking on my behalf for any reason. Some of my muses might be jerks, but that doesn’t mean I’m a jerk IRL (especially if we’re cool with each other and/or mutuals).

If your main blog (the one you like/follow stuff with) is a personal blog and you have side blogs for roleplaying, name those blogs so I can see what they’re like, and so I know where to send my responses and interactions.

Feel free to nudge or @ me if you feel like interacting, or if it's been a hot minute and I still owe a reply on an open thread.

One @ or ask is all you need for a starter, and that’s how I will conduct my starters with your own blogs. Also remember to specify the muse(s) you want to interact with, and possibly even a location if you want. If you are a multi-muse blog, also include which of your own muses will be included. All of this makes it easier for me to think of a response.

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Master Links

Canon Universe Muse List

Armored Fairy Brigade Muse List

AU Muse List

File Two: An Unexpected High School’s Impromptu Study Circle for Aspiring Detectives & Magical Girls

Blog Tags

WIP Muse List & Lore Journal

The Second Grimoire of Marisa

About Cupcake The Mun (Leads to my main personal blog, which I use to follow other blogs)

Personal Road Map

WIP Interest Checker

No Thank You (since deleted myself to keep my pings down)

Useful Character & Worldbuilding Generators

Magical Girl Generator Links

Folk Lore Links

Icon Credits:

Icon is currently Renko Usami as portrayed in Touhou Lost Word

Banner is currently the cutscene background of Patchouli’s library desk from the same game

All icon sources are usually canon sprites, images saved from other Tumblr RP blogs, images featured on publicly available games and official media, various (un)official anime/manga, and YouTube screenshots

Sources for other art-based icons like Pixiv & Safebooru will be linked in the muse bios and on the first post that the image is used

If you read the rules and muse list, and you know what’s going on with this blog, send me an ask that says “Yukari, get the train!” It’s not required, but it tells me that you know what’s what with this blog and that you read the rules from top to bottom :)

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Looking for my other more RP-oriented blogs?

@timekeepertwister - Cookie Run AU with fandom crossover implications that are canon to this blog; open to Q&A and RP for various characters related to the Time Balance Department

@kitsune-corps-investigators - Wizardposting blog with a backdrop cast of Cookie Run wizard/detective characters both canon and OC. Open to Q&A and RP for various characters related to the series as a whole, but still under development

@the-black-raven-of-voile - RP blog for Patchouli Knowledge & Koakuma with other AU parallels and limited side muses

@soukou-yousei-ryodan - Dedicated lore blog for the Armored Fairy Brigade (an OC-driven guild consistent mostly of fairies), which includes RP and gaming guides for various mobile games

@travelogue-of-march-7th - RP blog mainly for HSR’s March 7th, but also includes mun commentary on Honkai Star Rail’s gameplay from the beginning

[evilisk]

Another year, another Touhou Popularity Poll.

My picks and reasoning below. (Wall of text warning)

= = =

Seiga / Miko / Mamizou: They're still my favorite characters in the series, though Miko had my favorite canon appearance this year in Lotus Eaters. Very impressive of Miko to, not only outsmart Mamizou, but to also immobilize Suika for a few days.

Oni lore in Touhou (until now) was that "oni are basically impossible to deal with, since the art of fighting/exterminating oni has been lost to time". Even Touhou's specialest girl couldn't do anything in WaHH's climax, so this is a pretty big glow up for Miko (yeah, I know Futo actually did that. But we all know who Futo takes orders from and stans.).

At this point, I believe that the only reason Foul Detective's nostalgia train only goes up to Touhou 12 is because if you go up to Touhou 13, you'd have to involve Miko, and between her hyper-competence AND her desire reading ability (which would be a hard counter to Mizuchi's possession) she'd have Mizuchi caught in under 10 minutes. /miko tangent over.

= = =

The other votes were a lot harder. I haven't gotten to play ANY new Touhou games, official or fanmade, since I was banished to MacBook. Seriously, almost nothing works. (Bless Chinese Touhou fangame developers for usually having Mac compatibility).

The other votes:

Nitori Kawashiro:

When I was first getting into Touhou, I was kind of a Nitori hater. It's not hard to understand why. She's basically that one money hand sign as a character. You know the one:

Though she's still not a character I find subjectively appealing, I have to admit she's a decently written Touhou character overall.

I still find her a bit annoying, but I realize now that's probably a bit intentional. Whenever Nitori appears, it's usually in conflict with other characters. (I'm going off memory here but) I don't think we ever really start with Nitori's perspective first. It's some other character, like Reimu, Marisa or even Mamizou, noticing a scheme and then learning later it was a Kappa conspiracy.

We only see her when she's in the middle of a scheme, and it feels like her schemes are consistently successful, so it's easy to see her as constantly getting her way. After re-reading a few chapters, I realize it's not that simple. Is she motivated by money? Sure. But she also does things that benefit her species. E.g. the Seven Wonders chapter in Forbidden Scrollery, where they just want to scare away humans so they can access one of their warehouses because of the weather. If ZUN ever did a full Kappa manga, and we got to see the highs and lows of Kappa society, I think we'd be more sympathetic to Nitori vs seeing her as a little money gremlin constantly "winning".

The one thing that's really unique to Nitori is that she's completely open to doing mercenary work. She's worked for both the Hakurei and Moriya Shrines, which the other youkai schemers don't usually do. She's collaborated with Reimu without any extra motives beyond "gimme a cut too". I actually respect how practical Nitori is in general. She's not a 4D chess master like Mamizou, Yukari or Miko. It's just "yeah, we don't need want any trouble, we just need to access our warehouse close to the Human Village".

I also think Nitori getting a *little* owned in Foul Detective Satori helped a lot too:

It's funny out of context and very cathartic if you're a Nitori hater. But if you're sympathetic to Nitori, it's actually humanizing to see that Nitori is a good enough leader for the regular Kappa to have this kind of reaction.

I don't think you need to like Nitori, and you certainly don't have to vote for her. But I do think you have to appreciate what she brings to the series. Because it's a lot more than most of Touhou's popular characters (seriously, who are these Momiji fans voting her so high in the Popularity Poll?!)

= = =

These other votes aren't going to be as in-depth but

Sannyo Komakusa

She's just a neat character.

We get a lot of extra worldbuilding from her (she has a Gambling Den on the Youkai Mountain, she's from a subspecies of Yamanaba that was introduced in Touhou 16), I like that she's joined the Lotus Eaters gang and Sannyo X Mamizou has become my favorite Mamizou ship.

Komachi Onozuka

This vote was carried by my Labyrinth of Touhou 1 playthrough. She's a very useful character in that game, and she's also useful in LOT2's main game, even though she falls off in both game (and is generally a lot worse in LOT2).

I've also really started to love her theme, Higan Riverside, specifically the mix on one of the Hifuu CDs.

Nemuno Sakata

My underrated fave from Touhou 16. Like Sannyo, we got some worldbuilding for the Youkai Mountain. I also just love her design. She looks like "a Cavewoman but Touhou", which is super unique and also really fits her backstory (she's from a very isolated youkai race). I also love the completely unnecessary ribbon on her knife.

It's crazy that I didn't vote for her once until now.

The Runner Ups?

I didn't really have any because of the Mac Gaming problem I mentioned earlier. The only games I've been able to play are Touhou Mystia's Izakaya (which is fine, but hasn't changed my opinion on specific characters), Touhou Lost Branch of Legend (same deal) and Labyrinth of Touhou 1 and 2 (thankfully able to emulate on Mac, but I've played those games to death).

I guess I could have voted Akyuu instead of Komachi, but then all the recent stuff hadn't happened. Call me a hipster, but I hate all the recent attention she's gotten. I know most of you didn't even know who Akyuu was before this week.

[msgameandcake]

Thinking about the old "Reimu is Mario and Sanae is Luigi" meme.

Thinking about how Marisa, with her black and white outfit, matches some of Wario's early appearances, alongside her blonde hair giving her yellow in her color scheme too.

Thinking about Marisa having a Sanae-like rival, and Sanae having a Marisa-like rival. The Waluigi of the quartet. Some sort of Ordinary Magician Of The Outside World who could visit the Moriya Shrine near-daily.

Maybe Sanae met her in Former Hell, while the Moriyas were setting up the nuclear reactor, somewhat mirroring how Reimu met Marisa in/near Makai for the first time in TH2; SoEW.

Maybe the repeated mirroring of Reimu's attributes results in this new girl circling back around to being rather Reimu-like again, but under a different context. Sometimes it seems like Reimu wouldn't go about resolving incidents if it weren't her job. She is certainly down for violence when need be, but it seems like she'd much rather relax. This is in contrast to the much more outgoing Marisa and Sanae who practically jump at resolving any incident they catch sight of. This new girl, in turn, gives an idea of what Reimu might've been like if she hadn't been given the responsibility of the Hakurei Shrine. She is legitimately good enough at magic to generally keep up with the protagonists in danmaku, at least as much as any typical playable character, but she just isn't that into incident resolving. Maybe Reimu and Marisa even met her during the events of 11, SA, Marisa getting her new rival just after Reimu got her own with Sanae, but then this girl just proceeded to hang out occasionally and not actually do any notable combat. At least, not any that would warrant being depicted from our perspective. She is just offscreen, just outside the panels, which would be fitting for someone I previously described as a Waluigi to round out the quartet.

Another way she might mirror Reimu enough to circle back around to being Reimu-like is potentially a connection of some sort to one of the sages. Specifically, with her being consistently offscreen, I think of Okina. Maybe Okina brought her in specifically to see how Outside World humans function these days when given a legitimate chance, helping her get started on learning magic before letting her go off on her own. I don't envision Okina as her boss exactly, I think being a free operative makes her a better counterpart to Marisa in comparison to Reimu and Sanae both having people they work for, but rather this gal is Okina's experiment. After Okina got the ball rolling she has kept an eye on the girl, but doesn't substantially interfere with her shenanigans unless she thinks it would be really funny/cool/interesting.

There are definitely more elements to consider for her. Like, I mentioned her meeting the characters in Former Hell, but I don't think that is where she lives. She probably just trained there, similar to how its been stated that magicians train in Makai. This girl just didn't have access to Makai so she tried to find the next best option available to her. If she isn't learning magic to work towards resolving incidents, then why is she doing it? Maybe Okina convinced her that she'd need to in order to survive? Maybe she has a particular goal mirroring Marisa's desire for immortality? Maybe where Marisa says "I want to live forever!" this girl is going "I'd really rather not die tomorrow."

[system-sixteen]

my ideas for the miyadeguchi's relationship with the hakurei

unknown family (five generations) > miyadeguchi (two generations) > hakurei (final six gens to this day)

they, by a certain definition, have each served the hakurei shrine, with the next clan starting off as loyal students just before the previous folks are completely done

mizuchi did everything just plain perfectly and looked down upon the entire hakurei clan, back when she was alive and it used to be the "miyadeguchi shrine". allowed the power and lofty status to get to her head, you see. unfortunately, one day, mizuchi never came back, so the hakurei took it upon themselves to pick up the slack. fast forward to when reimu's in her early teens, learning the ropes on being a shrine maiden.

mizuchi intervenes while reimu's actual moms (one of whom remarried a long time after losing her husband/reimu's dad to a natural disease) hold a festival just to torture all the hakurei and reshape gensokyo into her own kingdom

it all descends into fucking CHAOS

amidst the now smog-covered skies, reimu fights like heck but mizuchi zaps the girl's worst fear into reality - not to toy with her or drive her mad, but to atomize her and then do the same to all the humans and youkai who've been friendly with each other

after mizuchi's intervention, reimu's left buried under rubble, comatose as her great-great-great grand aunt breaks her mommies down and sadistically one-shots them, before wiping out so many innocent youkai that they practically lose their minds. only an old turtle, amidst the destruction, comes along undetected and pulverizes some of the debris to snag the bloodied, beaten girl and drag her away from further harm. eventually mended by magic, the 13-or-14-year-old reimu snaps awake in a frenzy screaming for her parents.

genjii calms her down, then reimu explains all she remembers was going in for the kill against great-aunt mizuchi. genjii doesn't remember it that way: all he saw was mizuchi legitimately defeating the yakumos, kasen, and okina. all he could even do was dig reimu out of the rubble. he points out that her heart seemed to have stopped and he revived her several minutes before she bit the dust. reimu thinks it was her own fault and lets out a deafening...something constituting as a yell as she grieves.

the new hakurei miko, after three years of so-painful-it's-ridiculous training only interspersed by odd jobs to get supplies for her new "gramps", notices something is sus with the hakurei shrine. from there, soew plays out, except reimu mistakes mima for mizuchi at first. this doesn't earn her any favors with mima (whom i headcanon as being similar to the gashadokuro) or her most loyal student, marisa. however, by the end of pc-98, reimu gets to know both of them better now that she and marisa are young adults. and the rest is history.

[devout-of-gensokyo]

Would you say it's best to build up a relationship with the entities involved in Touhou before asking for their help first, or asking for their help and seeing how things develop from there? Or does it depend on the Touhou character?

~Jasper (I am Helping™)

Forewarning I kinda went off in a different direction at the end of this before returning to the question lol

In my experience, I've always been pretty nyoomy in my actual process - I move quite quickly if not stopped. So, I ended up doing the latter a lot of the time (though one can argue that me being feral about Touhou Project since like. 2011? 2012? one of those two, can count as "building a relationship" with how active I was in the fandom and sometimes people in PCP argue that fandom interaction and doing things like writing fanfiction counts), where I just reached out to ask and got a positive response.

Granted, I always make sure to make offering whenever I ask for anything, or otherwise ask what they may want and then make it. Like... I approached Reimu for help with the haunting I had going on (still seems to be resolved, thankfully!) and I, at the time, had no idea what she would want, so I asked for her help and asked what she'd want in return - and essentially she just went "Good food." and so I gave her good food and she did what I asked of her. (Granted, she couldn't perfectly resolve it, but she still did as I requested.)

The Kami (which a list of them can be seen here on the Touhouwiki) might prefer more of a relationship built first, as Kami/God worship is different than Hero Worship in my experience, especially if they're anything like how my TES deity worship has gone.

In general, Touhous are happy to help, but some might want in return a lot before they're willing to help (Seiga Kaku is an example off the top of my head, as is Joon Yorigami), but I've never had problems with just reaching out first and having success.

Part of it seems to be that they're kinda fascinated a bit with the Outside World, as much as our world can be compared to it (remember: Touhou Project is set in our world, just a more techy and less spiritual version of it). Sanae Kochiya especially wants to know all the new shit in the world going on, because she used to Live Here, I've told her all about AI and the hellscape that became (and she's mostly disappointed in people lol) for example. But others are mostly just a "Oh neat, someone from the Outside World wants to speak to me. AND I get shit out of it? COOL!" and I think there's partly a novelty factor for them, the Touhous being worshiped as Heroes. They like getting gifts and other various things, and seem to take in devotional acts the same way that Gods do, albeit not exactly the same. Like they can tell when I do something for them, probably because I state I am doing it for them.

But back to your question because I got sidetracked... generally, I think either or works, it depends on what each practitioner wants to do. I may have had a relationship with them without realizing I did thanks to being a fan of the series for so long and doing things like writing fanfic, but I don't get the idea that they'd mind if someone completely new to Touhou (or them specifically) called upon them for PCP/PCW.

I, from my perspective at the least (which if I asked the Touhous they might have a different answer), asked first and built a relationship later. Like, lately, I asked Letty to bless me with kindness during the winter storm that hit yesterday, and that's the first I've ever really interacted with Letty, and I made sure to give snow (digital) offerings. Letty doesn't seem to mind it at all.

There's also cases where characters are so used to being helpful for people they barely know anyways. For example, Reimu Hakurei is used to being asked to perform work for the Human Village, blessing, performing exorcisms, etc for them. So she doesn't mind. Sanae Kochiya is the same, she's an arahitogami, a living god, and she's used to performing miracles all the time for people.

My point being, I think it's very beneficial to work with Touhous lol. I really suggest it, the world isn't hard to grasp or get into, and the Touhous tend to be helpful, and while some want offering, if you're already used to God, Saint, or Hero worship, that's normal. Like I don't mind Seiga wanting something in return, because there is a "price to pay" in worship so to speak.

(Side note, you can call Touhou characters as Touhous, it's a fandom shorthand for YEARS now lol. If I ever say "a Touhou" or "Touhous" I'm referring to the characters.)

[khajiit-journal]

Sundas, Morning Star 05, 2025

( Sunday, January 05, 2025 )

Dream interpretation first.

So. Alucard was there. My only knowledge of Alucard is from Hellsing Ultimate Abridged (but I need to watch the original anime).

So like. Me and him were heralded as gods because we lived in a very quiet world and we had very loud cars (I hate loud cars by the way), so these four guys heard our cars in the distance and went "Yup. That's divine." But the problem is, they were essentially fascists, so Alucard shot them. Which, fair. I don't like the idea of being heralded as a god either so they deserved it for two reasons.

I lived in this recurrent tower that had a giant mall attached, and I lived at the very top and a key was needed to get to there from the elevator.

As well, in a prior dream, I was cooking and messing with materials and came across a snail. Now, a previous dream gave me a previous snail. So now my snail has a buddy. In my recurrent setting I have a bunch of terrariums and I keep a lot of different creatures.

— ☆ —

So, today, I mostly started and opened up two new sideblogs (I apparently have a penchant for doing that in twos) for Touhou Project and Pokémon PCP/PCW respectively.

It snowed today. Not terribly much, but I collected some snow together. I got a full jar of snow which will be about a third of a jar of water, because snow is mostly air. I wasn't expecting to get so much so easily. I labeled it to not forget, and to not accidentally drink it.

I honored Letty Whiterock and Articuno for the snow. I thank them and appreciate them deeply.

I think that I'm gonna work more on quick starts, because I have plenty of time and want to.

I know how to do it for Pokémon, the spirits that aren't Gods, as a more general thing. Talk about the Pokémon, talk about what you can work with them for, etc, because with something like that everyone is gonna get an entirely different experience.

I'm mostly working on my TES one though, I wrote some for Reimu's quick start before giving up and working on Meridia's.

I haven't done anything much else today. I did the two readings I had to do, and I just got another one that I'll do tomorrow morning, and other than that I've mostly just been setting blogs up and chilling. Until bedtime I think I'm gonna work on Meridia's quick start. It's already partially done, so I just need to finish it, but I won't pressure myself to do so tonight. Then I'll try and work more on Reimu Hakurei's and maybe start Kanako Yasaka's in preparation for year of the snake. But I gotta make sure I get Haki done by the 24th, at least I want to have it done by then. Because I have to put arbitrary binds on myself in order to be properly productive.

I've gotten some more stuff done for the 13 days of January that I do for my TES religion. Just general cleansing. Cleaned my room up some. That was good, makes me feel a bit better.

I think that's all for today. No deep thoughts, no musing, no nothing. Just a sweet and relatively short post tonight.

[grimoiresofseveralmagicians]

Section I, Chapter I - “Friends in Different Gensokyos”

“Gensokyo is full of many different kinds of people. Humans from outside… seemingly ageless youkai… practitioners of magic and medicine… people from the Moon… magicians like me… there’s a little bit of something for everyone. But with the Lost Word Incident going on, we’ve met a lot of different faces in a lot of different worlds. Some of them look the same as our friends back home, but could easily have a completely different story altogether!” -Marisa

——————————

“When you first start your journey in Gensokyo (as a new account), you’ll have L1 Reimu and Marisa to compose the basics of a new team. However, you’ll also get a third L1 friend from a very limited group depending on your decision in Remilia’s Roll of Fate (the opening deal to start your collection) composed of six 3-Star Story Cards, four 4-Star Story Cards, and one of the following L1 characters: [Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, Reisen Udongein Inaba, Cirno, Sakuya Izayoi, Sanae Kochiya, Youmu Konpaku]. If you aren’t satisfied with Remilia’s dealt hand, you can always decline and roll again until you have something you’re happy with! As this is a new account you’re working with, there’s no limit or currency penalties keeping you from re-rolling over and over again until you get what you want.” -Marisa

“Ayayayaya, here’s something else to consider too. Pick Reimu or Marisa in the roll, and you’ll already have a copy to use for your first Limit Break!” -Aya

“If this starter base isn’t convincing enough, a new player login calendar provides an Exchange Ema for a standard L1 character of your choice, while L1 Medicine Melancholy will also eventually follow you after you finish Chapter 1. These opportunities and more provide generous opening formulas for useful starting teams, but knowing their limits is key to knowing where and when you need someone else to resolve your latest incident. Depending on when you create a new account, events and Prayers exclusive to new players containing high-tier characters are made visible to you in order to gather the resources you need to resolve the incident in its early stages.” -Patchouli

——————————

“Buuuuut… just know that the playable friends you have differ from the story’s main cast when they actually appear in the story. How? It’s explained early on that our Incident Resolver from the outside world has a journal that she uses to summon them like shikigami to join the fight. And those friends also aren’t gonna just drop all their story-based plot points on you just because you know them well… usually. There are a few exceptions that aren’t meant for this opening and more appropriate for the characters’ pages themselves because of specific spoilers.” -Yukari

Friends, also referred to as Units, are the playable characters in Touhou Lost Word. While all of them have different abilities and capabilities, they each have their own kit that makes them unique. Although everyone has their favorites there’s a catch. Just like any other live gacha game, there’s always someone out there that outshines the others and is more preferable for late-game content for simply having a better kit. The real challenge is building a team that works based on what you get in the gacha. And one more thing. Powercreep implied through release sometimes results in more recent characters doing better in gameplay compared to others of matching or similar rarities… but not always. Characters sometimes just resist being powercrept by newer ones because they fill all the right roles for content back then, right now, and in the future.

Guide to Understanding Your Friends

Page 1: Understanding Their Kit - The Uniqueness of Friends & Danmaku

Page 2: Leveling Up - Experience in the Field

Page 3: Enhancements - How to Use Incense

Page 4: Upgrades - Expanding Boundaries & Skillsets

Page 5: Limit Breaks & Parting Ways - Duplicates & You

Page 6: Awakening - Trust in the Heart of the Spell Cards

Page 7: Equipping Story Cards - Bolstering your Spell Cards

Page 8: Fantasy Rebirth - There & Back Again

Page 9: Customization - Creativity in Design

Page 10: Bonds of Friendship - Becoming Closer with New Friends

Page 11: Capacity - Did You Buy Enough Pages?

Page 12: Rarity - You Checked the Specifics, Right?

Page 13: Feeling Lucky? - The New Section on Luck as of Valentine’s 2024

[Character List and light Universe Descriptions begin beneath the break. Heads up, it’s long. All characters are sorted in lists by universe, so some (un)expected spoilers might follow by universe association.]

Total Known Playable Characters: 290

————————————————————

“As for the universes themselves, each of them has a letter/number combo denoting the specific universe. This is usually followed by a number that represents the divergence factor of that universe within the larger multiverse. The higher the number, the lower the stability and the further a universe and associated person diverges. At least, that’s the cipher we came up with. It just stuck with a number of other people, and then we adapted the version in-game to publish here based on that cipher. However, upper management’s breakthroughs are making these codes slightly more complex to record, although I’m sure they had a reason for it.” -K4 Marisa

Friends here will be sorted alphabetically.

Universe L1 - Our Gensokyo

“Home sweet home. This is where you’ll usually meet a lot of Gensokyo’s residents who’re willing to help out and resolve this incident like how we resolved countless other incidents in the past. Several masterminds behind those past incidents are even willing to help, although some are less cooperative (and usually more annoying) than others.” -Reimu

“This universe has the most stability of this series, although universal convergences and divergences are VERY commonplace here. Is it due to the looming Lost Word Incident and the constant stream of Events that happen here? Or the fact that the costumes meant for your Friends in this universe can cause larger deviations? Everything has an explanation as to how those things aren’t tearing this universe apart, but it’s most likely due to its stability factor of 1 and how everyone in this Gensokyo’s gone through every recorded incident and event recorded on the internet. It’s almost as if there’s other outside people like Sumireko that are documenting everything going on here in this Gensokyo! Maybe even the fan-made conceptual works as well…” -K4 Marisa

Universe L1 features many, MANY characters from the “canon” universe of the series. Roughly half the roster of playable characters come from this universe. Every standard Friend can be found here and pulled from any Prayer pool, but a few of them are Festival characters and only appear in certain banners and events, as well as the “My First Exchange Ema” which allows you to choose a friend from this universe to meet directly with some restrictions. Eika specifically appears in two permanent banners which you can only access after gaining special tickets from Divergent Spirit boss fights. Yuuma is simply just a Festival-limited friend. But regardless of whether they’re General or Festival, you can always use Paper Dolls to Limit Break them, which makes them relatively to max out at level 100 depending on how much you play the game and clear tasks if you don’t pull any duplicates.

Known Entries: 121

Alice Margatroid

Aunn Komano

Aya Shameimaru

Benben Tsukumo

Byakuren Hijiri

Chen

Chimata Tenkyuu (FES)

Cirno

Clownpiece

Daiyousei

Doremy Sweet

Eika Ebisu (Divergent)

Eirin Yagokoro

Eternity Larva

Flandre Scarlet

Fujiwara no Mokou

Hata no Kokoro

Hatate Himekaidou

Hecatia Lapislazuli

Hieda no Akyuu

Hina Kagiyama

Hong Meiling

Ibaraki-Douji’s Arm

Ichirin Kumoi

Iku Nagae

Joon Yorigami

Junko

Kagerou Imaizumi

Kaguya Houraisan

Kanako Yasaka

Kasen Ibaraki

Keiki Haniyasushin

Keine Kamishirasawa

Kisume

Koakuma

Kohasa Tatara

Koishi Komeiji

Komanchi Onozuka

Kosuzu Motoori

Kutaka Niwatari

Kyouko Kasodani

Letty Whiterock

Lily White

Luna Child

Lunasa Prismriver

Lyrica Prismriver

Mai Teireida

Mamizou Futatsuiwa

Marisa Kirisame

Mayumi Joutouguu

Medicine Melancholy

Megamu Iizunamaru (FES)

Merlin Prismriver

Mike Goutokuji

Minamitsu Murasa

Minoriko Aki

Misumaru Tamatsukiri

Momiji Inubashiri

Momoyo Himemushi (FES)

Mononobe no Futo

Mystia Lorelei

Narumi Yatadera

Nazrin

Nemuno Sakata

Nitori Kawashiro

Nue Houjuu

Okina Matara

Parsee Mizuhashi

Patchouli Knowledge

Raiko Horikawa

Ran Yakumo

Reimu Hakurei

Reisen

Reisen Udongein Inaba

Remilia Scarlet

Rin Kaenbyou

Ringo

Rumia

Sagume Kishin

Saki Kurokama

Sakuya Izayoi

Sanae Kochiya

Sannyo Komakusa

Satono Nishida

Satori Komeiji

Seiga Kaku

Seija Kijin

Seiran

Sekibanki

Shiki Eiki, Yamaxanadu

Shinmyoumaru Sukuna

Shion Yorigami

Shizuha Aki

Shou Tomamaru

Soga no Tojiko

Star Sapphire

Suika Ibuki

Sumireko Usami

Sunny Milk

Suwako Moriya

Takane Yamashiro

Tenshi Hinanawi

Tewi Inaba

Toyosatomimi no Miko

Tsukasa Kudamaki

Urumi Ushizaki

Utsuho Reiuji

Wakasagihime

Watatsuki no Toyohime

Watatsuki no Yorihime

Wriggle Nightbug

Yachie Kicchou

Yamame Kurodani

Yatsuhashi Tsukumo

Yoshika Miyako

Youmu Konpaku

Yukari Yakumo

Yuugi Hoshiguma

Yuuka Kazami

Yuuma Toutetsu

Yuyuko Saigyouji

Universe L10.1 - Neverending Music Festival

“Eh?! Is that… US?!” -Reimu

“I think so! That’s you and Marisa right there! And they’re… holding a rock concert like the ones in the outside world! We gotta find out more about this!” -Sumireko

Universe L10.1 is a sub-universe that was added a few weeks after LostWord’s 3rd anniversary containing two Epic Friends. More research is needed to understand their kits. However, we can assume they’re gonna perform highly based on their rarity, their release date, and the fact that this theme exists because of an IRL concert based on music from this game and possibly the greater Touhou series.

Known Entries: 2

Marisa Kirisame

Reimu Hakurei

————————————————————

Multiverse L? - Hifuu Investigations

“This is where our examinations into this side of the situation began.” -K4 Renko

“Examinations? Situation? What are you anyway, some kinda incident resolver?” -Reimu

“It’s a complicated process that I’ll talk with you about later in private. Too much to explain, and I don’t think some of the people here would understand the entirety of this side of the incident, nor the reasoning for how these codexes were drawn up. But to answer your question directly, yes I am indeed an incident resolver in my home universe.” -K4 Renko

The answers found in the characters of this multiverse can be found mainly in the “Hifuu” story of the game; a side story that follows another presence of the protagonist that is actually a different perspective of the whole plot altogether, as well as her interactions with Hifuu Club members Renko Usami and Maribel Hearn. Their side story also includes interactions with Universes B3 and E9, both of which also have a role to play in the main story somehow… but that’s for you to find out until we make spoiler pages. This sub-divided multiverse features kits that are known to take top tiers in both the discontinued Wiki’s tier list and current tier lists found in the official Discord server.

Renko Usami

Maribel Hearn

Sanae Kochiya specifically is the only “Pure” character in the game so far as of May 10th, 2024, where you can Limit Break her with ONLY her own duplicates. This will make things very difficult for you if you have Shion’s bad luck with her banners or don’t have enough money to force-buy her pity prize when she appears.

For Renko and Maribel, they are “Genic” characters that only appear in highly selective Prayer pools and form tag-teams with other characters. How does that work? The Hifuu Club member interacts with you in the lobby while the being they’ve teamed up with does the actual fighting with a kit slated to their lore… so in actuality you’ve got PC-98 characters Shinki and Mima and Gengetsu and Mugetsu as playable characters while Renko and Maribel are just here for lore reasons. Their rarity is stated as equal to Relic characters, so they also use Relic Paper Discs to Limit Break. Consider it an advisory on the potential difficulty on maxing them out if you don’t prepare properly for their banner (or buy/stockpile some spare paper discs).

Known Entries: 9

Renko Usami & Gengetsu (LR1)

Maribel Hearn & Mima (LM1)

Maribel Hearn & Mugetsu (LM1)

Sanae Kochiya (L0g - Broken Line of Forsaken Rites)

Renko Usami & Shinki (LR1)

Universe Lr - [Shikigami Unclear]

“This was always a bit of a tricky one for us back in our office, but we’re doing what we can to make sense of it… I hope. What did they say the ‘r’ stood for again?” -K4 Marisa

“Idk lol. Ran?” -Sumireko

“Don’t put those shorthand expressions in these grimoires. But seeing how the Violet Detector Incident went as we review the feasibility of your actual answer… the others might let it slide anyway.” -Patchouli

Universe Lr has four Ultra Festival Friends that are currently exclusive to Ultra Festival events and specific Prayer banners. They tend to do much better in battle than their L1 counterparts due to their abundant breaks and modifiers, but situations may dictate who’s the better parallel presence for the job. Their temperaments have changed to adjust to two separate temperaments coming together: their own, and the shikigami they’ve inherited.

They all have special roles in both sides of the plot, but I’m not saying what those roles are here. What I can say here though is that they’ve essentially become the servants of another universe’s Yukari Yakumo (Aya/Nitori) or Okina Matara (Kokoro/Flandre).

Aya Shameimaru (Pseudo-Shikigami: Zendouki Gugaku)

Flandre Scarlet (Pseudo-Servant: Nishita)

Hata no Kokoro (Pseudo-Servant: Teireita)

Nitori Kawashiro (Pseudo Shikigami: Myoudouki Giken)

——————————

Universe L80 - The Edge of Oblivion

“There it is… the End of the Line. This is what happens when the Lost Word Incident erases a massive part of a world and sends it into forgotten oblivion. But these ladies aren’t going down quietly. No, not yet. Far from it. Once you put the pieces of their stories together, they’re just getting started, and they’re on the hunt for the mastermind behind this entire Lost Word Incident. And I think we’ve found their paper trail…” -K4 Marisa

“And each one comes with a super rocking music video from a dev-side massive collaborative MV project! That’s what makes the appeal UBER COOL!!!” -Sumireko

“Their stories and elemental resolve indicate multiple factors. They are all Relic Friends that exclusively require Relic Paper Disks to Limit Break them as substitutes. Their power through danmaku is almost unmatched by anyone else in any Gensokyo, often featuring a large amount of bullets with elemental breaks, shot add-ons, and multiple killer-bound critical factors. Two such killer modifiers seen on almost every shot they have are ‘Parallel Presence-Killer’ and ‘Mastermind (LW)-Killer’ which pinpoints their intentions to find the mastermind or masterminds of the Lost Word Incident… whoever they are.” -Patchouli

“Wanna cross-examine who might be the mastermind? Enter a danmaku battle- er- ‘battle of bullets’ with anyone from this list against someone who you think seems suspicious, then check their bullet lines while you’re targeting the one you think seems suspect. If the ‘Mastermind (LW)-Killer’ modifier on any of their bullet lines flashes red while you’re targeting someone who has this trait, then AYAYAYAYAYAYAYA! You just found a bad guy potentially before they do their big reveal!” -Aya

Universe L80 is completely composed of Relic Friends that only appear in specifically-listed Prayer banners and Exchange Emas. The soundtracks which play by default when they play Spell Cards are based on music videos produced as part of a collaborative project with the LostWord development team, and the specific song associated with each character is also that character’s title.

They perform significantly better than their counterparts in almost every other universe- often breaking the EX-tier- and have exclusive access to the “Mastermind (LW)-Killer” modifier, which targets “Someone Else” who is revealed in the main storyline to be the mastermind of this game’s main incident. Their abundance of breaks, modifiers, (de)buffs, barrier status controls, and skill depth make them stand out as primary top-tier characters, but their reliance on Relic Paper Disks as stand-ins for dupes for Limit Breaking makes them significantly difficult to limit break for free, often resulting in lengthy grind fests for the few events that offer these Paper Disks for free.

This universe has not directly appeared in any part of the main plot, but each character has their own story which you can access for free in the “Ruins of Memory” section of the Special subheading in the Explore menu. Each of those levels feature the highlighted character as a Guest, which allows you to experience their playstyle to certain extents depending on their release date (because they changed the accessibility/power of those guest kits over time, EX: Remilia’s abilities being extremely limited in her guest level since she was one of the first characters of the rarity to be introduced) on your first round in said stage. These stages explain a different story featuring other characters who you really shouldn’t know about until you go deeper into the main storylines.

Known Entrants: 20

Alice Margatroid (Sporadically Margaret)

Flandre Scarlet (I’m Alright!)

Fujiwara no Mokou (Silver Gale)

Hong Meiling (Be the change)

Kaguya Mouraisan (Moonlit Festival!)

Kanako Yasaka (Blue Goodbyes)

Kasen Ibaraki (PHANTOM PAIN)

Koishi Komeiji (Moon Reverie)

Marisa Kirisame (Night-Splitting Light)

Okina Matara (Sorrow’s Exit)

Patchouli Knowledge ((TT) Precious Words)

Reimu Hakurei (Karma Speed)

Reisen Udongein Inaba (Moonlit Festival!)

Remilia Scarlet (The Heat of My Fingertips)

Sakuya Izayoi (The Moon and Izayoi)

Sanae Kochiya (Hand in Hand With a Miracle)

Satori Komeiji (NAЯAKA)

Suwako Moriya (TataeLost)

Youmu Konpaku (Disillusion)

Yuyuko Saigyouji (Boundary of Time)

Universe AA - Take it Easy

“Don’t ask, I’m just as confused as you are.” -Kit

Universe AA is a rather… unusual case. Unlike everything we’ve seen before, they’ve added Yukkuris to the game in a special story called “Yukkuri, Yukkuri, & You” on September 13th, 2024. You can only meet them through a special permanent prayer banner, which has tickets available from said story. They can only Limit Break using copies of themselves, which is a simple ask compared to L0g Sanae since the new banner is permanent and only drops them. They still act as full playable characters, and they’re all capable of taking it easy.

Known Entries: 2

Yukkuri Marisa

Yukkuri Reimu

Multiverse Type A - Alternate Incidents

“This universe class requires a different approach regarding the cipher we use to refer to those universes. The number that is attached after the A doesn’t refer to a universe divergence scale. It instead refers to the number a game holds in the canonical Touhou series starting with 6, also known by the outside world as the start of the ‘Windows Era.’ A1 to A5 do not pose any threat in terms of universal stability and inhabitant behavior, to which everyone in what the outside world refers to as the ‘PC-98 Era.’ Most of the people we have on this list come from a universe that indicates their first notable appearance, but numerous exceptions are also present. But one question still remains across every universe here: did each universe’s source incident get resolved at all? Or are they still going…?” -K4 Marisa

“Nue’s recent presence as of June 13, 2024 as our first EX friend with a sub-codex in universe A12 is making everyone’s job that much harder. But then again, she is unidentified for a reason. However, Eternal Larva’s appearance on our radar with the same “&” symbol in her universe codex as a subset of universe A16 might suggest a correlation on how these EX-grade people appear.” -K4 Renko

“Wait… if Rumia appears as an EX character from universe A6& or something, that’ll cover a popular fandom interpretation on a lot of people’s lists!” -Sumireko

“You’ve jinxed it.” -Patchouli, several weeks later

All A-Type Friends with a simplified universe code are considered Festival Friends who only appear in select Prayer pools and events such as Forever Prayers. They tend to do better when compared to their L1 counterparts due to their increased shot modifiers and elemental breaks, but these cases can sometimes be situational depending on the roles you need to fill on your team. Their Killer modifiers will often target opposing factions depending on their role in their introductory/highlighted game, while their dialogue often refers back to them during the events of a specific universe. Some characters might appear multiple times and even in universes featuring games before their own formal introduction.

As for the characters with a ��&” symbol in their universe code, they are Festival EX friends with currently exclusive prayer banners that feature them in a completely different light. Specifically, they are portrayed as their potential grown-up selves. To Limit Break your EX characters, you either need a duplicate of them or a Jumbo Paper Doll found in very specific events and exchanges.

Known Entries: 54

Universe A6 - Embodiment of (Scarlet) Devil

Alice Margatroid

Cirno

Daiyousei

Flandre Scarlet

Hong Meiling

Koakuma

Lunasa Prismriver

Lyrica Prismriver

Marisa Kirisame

Merlin Prismriver

Patchouli Knowledge

Reimu Hakurei

Remilia Scarlet

Rumia

Rumia (A6&)

Sakuya Izayoi

Sunny Milk

Tenshi Hinanawi

Youmu Konpaku

Yukari Yakumo

Yuuka Kazami

Yuyuko Saigyouji

Universe A7 - Perfect (Cherry Blossom)

“If some of them appear twice here, it’s no mistake. It’s the conception of multiple ideas held by the same person which manifests in two completely different kits.” -K4 Marisa

“This is also a reference to how each playable character had two different shot types which you would choose from before starting a new game of Perfect Cherry Blossom.” -Meringue

Alice Margatroid

Chen

Cirno

Marisa Kirisame (A7A - Magic)

Marisa Kirisame (A7B - Love)

Ran Yakumo

Reimu Hakurei (A7A - Spirit)

Reimu Hakurei (A7B - Dream)

Sakuya Izayoi (A7A - Illusion)

Sakuya Izayoi (A7B - Time)

Youmu Konpaku

Yukari Yakumo

Yuyuko Saigyouji

Universe A8 - Imperishable Night - (Eternal)

Eirin Yagokoro

Fujiwara no Mokou

Reisen Udongein Inaba

Tewi Inaba

Universe A9 - Phantasmagoria of (Flower) View

Aya Shameimaru

Universe A10 - Mountain of (Faith)

Kanako Yasaka

Nitori Kawashiro

Sanae Kochiya

Suwako Moriya

Universe A11 - (Subterranean) Animism

Koishi Komeiji

Satori Komeiji

Universe A12 - Unidentified (Fantastic) Object

Byakuren Hijiri

Nue Houjuu (A12& - The Unidentified, Overly Fantastic Flying Girl - Fantastic EX)

Universe A13 - Ten (Desires)

Seiga Kaku

Toyosatomimi no Miko

Yoshika Miyako

Universe A14 - Double Dealing Character - (Shining)

Seija Kijin

Shinmyoumaru Sukuna

Universe A15 - Legacy of (Lunatic) Kingdom

Clownpiece (A15&)

Universe A16 - (Hidden) Star in Four Seasons

Eternity Larva (A16& - The Butterfly Fairy Who Approached God - Hidden EX)

Multiverse Type B - Another Lunar War

“The B-Series Multiverse is a complicated universe of significant progress in mechanical engineering and technology. For some, this is due to their abilities being sealed away by a Lost Word. For others, it is to keep their abilities concealed while living within the heavily-advanced Lunar Capital.” -K4 Marisa

“Did another Genso-Lunar War break out?” -Reimu

“We can assume some conflict is happening due to the nature of the people in this subheading, including another Reimu, although we can’t necessarily draw battle lines or assume endgames yet due to the changing nature of this region, the large number of factions at play here, and the incompleteness of the ongoing investigations we’re conducting. The only conclusions we’ve drawn so far include the major point of deviation- Universe A8- and the events that happened in that universe. Besides that, this multiverse tends to converge with a LOT of other universes, so we can assume that a definitive conclusion would happen somewhere.” -K4 Marisa

“Reports from the L1 Secret Sealing Club have also turned up here as their first point of interest after meeting with our Incident Resolver… or at least that’s what we think. Incidents are still happening there at this moment.” -K4 Renko

All B-Type Friends are considered Ultra Festival Friends that only appear in Ultra Festival events, specific Prayer banners, and for some of them, in Exchange Emas. Their shot modifiers will often include common Killer modifiers with other members of their faction- usually depending on the faction a specific character is aligned with and their roles in said faction- although other Killer modifiers are also present in their kits. Most of their temperaments are modified to specifically resist one element (and that element resistance is- once again- mostly shared by everyone in the same faction) and remain neutral to the rest, drastically reducing their chances of taking a Barrier Break or being Full-Broken.

Universe B3 is also the first universe studied by the Secret Sealing Club on the Hifuu storyline, where they learn more about the everyday life of the people in that world on multiple sides.

Known Entries: 28

Universe B2/B3/B5 - Kaiju and Moon Enemies

Junko and B5 Reisen Udongein Inaba remain as outliers in the temperament template in Multiverse B because of Junko’s purification ability. Neither of them have elemental weaknesses nor resistances.

Hecatia has no allegiances, as she is an ancient goddess who was banished from the Lunar Capital, but she has a killer modifier set for the Capital’s residents. Her temperament boasts three resistances and one weakness.

Junko (B2 - Nameless Space Terror)

Hecatia Lapialazuli (B3)

Reisen Udongein Inaba (B5 - Lunatic Space Youkai)

Universe B3/B5 - Lunar Base

All Lunar Base combatants resist Moon Essence and have killer shot modifiers that name the Lunar Capital’s inhabitants as targets.

Marisa Kirisame (B3 - Lunar War Enchanter)

Sakuya Izayoi (B3 - Lunar War Servant)

Sanae Kochiya (B3 - Lunar War Oracle)

Reimu Hakurei (B3 - Lunar War Shaman)

Reisen Udongein Inaba (B3 - Lunar War Soldier)

Youmu Konpaku (B3 - Lunar War Gardener)

Fujiwara no Mokou (B5 - Defiant Blue Phoenix)

Universe B3/B5 - Underground Waste Ward

Many of the Underground Waste Ward’s inhabitants resist Moon Essence AND resist Star Essence. They also boast multiple killer shot modifiers that target multiple subfactions aligned with the Moon ranging from the Lunar Capital to Moon Rabbits in general in additions to other modifiers that mark targets based on their canon lore. As an added bonus, some characters like Komanchi and Medicine have modifiers that allow them to target Kaiju.

Benben Tsukumo (B3)

Eiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu (B3)

Hata no Kokoro (B3)

Komanchi Onozuka (B3)

Kutaka Niwatari (B3)

Yatsuhashi Tsukumo (B3)

Alice Margatroid (B5)

Lunasa Prismriver (B5)

Lyrica Prismriver (B5)

Medicine Melancholy (B5)

Merlin Prismriver (B5)

Universe B3 - Lunar Capital

All Lunar Capital inhabitants of this universe resist Earth Phase and have killer shot modifiers that can target opposing Kaiju, whom are mostly present in Universe H5 if not in this multiverse. Why? That’s a spoiler alert if I have to say it.

Kaguya Houraisan

Reisen

Sagume Kishin

Seiran

Ringo

Watatsuki no Toyohime

Watatsuki no Yorihime

Multiverse Type C - Eternal Seasons

“Wow…! That’s a lot of water! Is that what the sea looks like?” -Nitori

“Only someone like Yukari could be so chill on the beach, yet retain a team-healing kit so broken that they put her at the very top of EX-Tier. She oughta see the beaches of the outside world someday, they can be really cool! …and usually very expensive to think about. I bet if I mind-read one of those hoteliers, they’re thinking about their trending profit margins.” -Sumireko

“How’d a beach form there? I thought Gensokyo was landlocked…!” -Aya

“That’s the main feature of this Gensokyo stuck in an eternal summer. After much of the land flooded for an unknown reason an unknown amount of time ago, a lot of the residents moved out quickly and settled down by the beachfronts, which turned the area into a thriving beach town. What still remains underwater is under investigation as we speak, although we might know where on the original Gensokyo landmass everyone moved to. Recent reports also suggest that this universe converges with a lot of other universes, but this report is subject to further study. Points of divergence can’t be determined either, as there are just too many divergence points and not a lot of other reference universes that we can use for comparison. This is because the universes of Multiverse Type C are filled with a tremendous amount of water, as if there’s enough water to swim from the shoreline to Hell or maybe even the Moon. As for everyone else that hails from that world, they’ve never been so carefree and relaxed in their new lives on the beach. It makes me wonder how they’d fare in an actual emergency… but I’d rather not imagine the worst case scenarios. That’s for our research team and that other Marisa to work on.” -K4 Marisa

“What about Universe C5> then?” -K4 Renko

“That… well… we just started that file on May 10th. Y’know… the 3rd Anniversary. I don’t know why the office decided on creating the codex for C5> with that symbol. I gotta check in with them with that since Cz1 is self-explanatory enough with Marisa from Universe Z1 coming to Universe C3. As for the > symbol, that was stated by a close friend that this refers to a major shift in temperaments. In this case, C5> is stuck in perpetual spring instead of summer.” -K4 Marisa

The Multiverse C Friends are considered Epic Friends and only appear in specific Prayer banners, with some of the newer ones having yet to appear more than once. They tend to do significantly better than Standard and (Ultra-)Festival Friends due to their increased stats and shot modifiers. Their temperaments are modified to suit their everyday lives in their universe instead of usual elemental attributes, affecting what elements are strong and weak against them. This usually results in multiple resistances and one weakness.

All Friends in Universe C3 have one things in common: they all have the “Swimsuit” attribute. Despite their lax lifestyle, a lot of their kits have gotten some really high-tier ratings according to various tier lists. Yukari in particular was singled out as the best character in the game at least once. Curiously though, Miyoi is playable here while the one in L1 isn’t.

Most of the “newer” characters of universe C3 (and Cz1 Marisa) are playable on select stages in chapter 4 (including the EX stories) as guests until your first win in case you missed their trial event, as that chapter takes place in that universe.

Koishi and Flandre from Universe C5> have only appeared in events since their debut and have not appeared in the main story yet.

Known Entries: 21

Alice Margatroid (C5<)

Aya Shameimaru (C5<)

Byakuren Hijiri

Flandre Scarlet

Fujiwara no Mokou (C3=)

Hecatia Lapislazuli

Joon Yorigami

Kasen Ibaraki (C3)

Kogasa Tatara

Koishi Komeiji

Komanchi Onozuka (C3)

Marisa Kirisame (C3 - Magician on Vacation)

Miyoi Okunoda

Reimu Hakurei

Remilia Scarlet

Satori Komeiji

Sekibanki

Shion Yorigami

Tenshi Hinanawi

Youmu Konpaku

Yukari Yakumo

Yuyuko Saigyouji

Flandre Scarlet (C5> - Vibrant Sister of the Devil)

Koishi Komeiji (C5> - Blossoming Eyes of Love)

Marisa Kirisame (Cz1 - Witch of Scarlet Dreams on Vacation)

Multiverse Type E - Pseudo Paradise

“What do we have here…” -Alice

“This looks like more trouble than the Scarlet Mist Incident.” -Reimu

“Is that… is that me?” -Patchouli

“We can confirm that one of them is indeed another Patchouli. Many residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion are reflected much differently here, although Remilia in particular is a subject of concern because she has a divergence factor of 9 while the other residents are much lower.” -K4 Marisa

“What we do know is besides Remilia being rated as a 9 on the divergence scale, everyone else in this timeline is at a 1. This can theoretically generate a suggestion that something there took place before the events of Universe A6.” -K4 Renko

“The L1 Secret Sealing Club has investigated this universe as their second point of contact, although claims are surfacing that the residents of this timeline are getting involved in other affairs found in other universes.” -K4 Maribel

E-Type Friends are all Ultra Festival Friends exclusive to Ultra Festival events, select Prayer banners, and Exchange Emas. Their performances compared to their L1 counterparts tends to be better, but certain situations regarding their roles and traits may suggest the employment of different schools of thought. The nature of the Scarlet Devil Mansion as a whole makes almost all of them weak against Sun essence, but each of them has one resistance based on a defining trait they each have… with some exceptions.

Patchouli blocks out both Sun and Moon essences to defend Remilia as her best friend, while Sakuya- who stands against them- solely resists the Moon because of her unclear stance on accepting/denying the existence of mysticism and the occult while being completely neutral against Sun essence. Both of them are instead weak to Star essence instead for their own reasons.

Universe E9 in particular is the second universe showcased in the Hifuu side storyline, where the Secret Sealing Club gets a firsthand glimpse into the life of the inhabitants of this alternate Scarlet Devil Mansion.

Known Entries: 6

Cirno (E7)

Flandre Scarlet

Hong Meiling

Koakuma

Patchouli Knowledge

Sakuya Izayoi

Remilia Scarlet (E9)

Universe F1 - Formulas to the Gods

“That’s the one where the Blue Reimu came from?!” -Marisa

“That’s the one. Our investigation and research teams haven’t gotten around to studying this universe yet, as we only have three useful leads from their universe to observe: Reimu, Sanae, and Koishi. However, recent reports traced back from the Resolver’s journal- which we could do thanks to our Yukari and yours- suggest that we might be putting Suwako and Kanako in a similar yet different list as tiny versions of important figures like their ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️.” -K4 Marisa

“What the- Yukari, did you tamper with her journal again?!” -Reimu

“Perhaps. How else would we trace her findings back here?” -Yukari

“Due to the low divergence scaling of 1 and almost identical divergence points reflecting those of Universe A10.3 (Silent Sinner in Blue), we can infer that this universe closely follows the timeline where Yukari taught Reimu how to summon gods. This is a reminder that ‘Silent Sinner in Blue’ is a manga and not a game, so you’ll have to read through it for reference… like how me and Meringue haven’t read it in full yet and just skimmed through the summaries of both the Touhou and LostWord wikis to write out these articles. If we’re summarizing this wrong, tell us ASAP.” -Kit

“Don’t worry about trying to find a physical copy of the manga, there’s an article of it on the Touhou Wiki (click here to access the wiki’s article on SSiB 🔗).” -Meringue

Universe F1 is composed of Epic Friends which only appear in specific Prayer banners. While they have less- if not as many- shot modifiers and status effects as their counterparts of Universe L80, their kits as of now are so highly-rated that I could consider them to be OP in their field. Something to use to T-Pose over a number of annoying bosses you face. Their temperaments have shifted due to their circumstances to portray their stories only to be slightly held back by something else, resulting in 3 resistances and 1 weakness.

Known Entries: 3

Koishi Komeiji

Reimu Hakurei

Sanae Kochiya

Universe H5 - Kaiju Central

“K-kaiju?! Like those things in those giant monster movies?!” -Sumireko

“It’s a long story. For some reason we’ve tracked some of their movements to universe B3, which may explain the nature of some of those inhabitants’ behaviors and bullets. Reports trying to study their own universe have come up completely empty. The definition of kaiju has changed from what you probably knew in the outside world.” -K4 Marisa

Universe H5 consists of Ultra-Festival Friends that only appear in Ultra Festival events and specific Prayer banners. Their presence in Exchange Emas has not been mentioned much. They perform on-par with other Ultra-Festival characters and generally do better than their counterparts of L1. Everyone in this list also has the “Kaiju” attribute, which is specifically listed as a “Kaiju-killer” shot modifier seen on multiple characters of Multiverse B. The reason for this can’t be explained without spoiling part of a side story in the overarching plot. With the exceptions of Yuuka and Letty, the others are featured in mainline Touhou games that involve the moon (Imperishable Night & Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom)

Known Entries: 6

Doremy Sweet

Keine Kamishirasawa

Letty Whiterock

Mystia Lorelei

Wriggle Nightbug

Yuuka Kazami

Multiverse Type R - Hakugyoku Arena

“Finally! A place we recognize!” -Marisa

“Alright now, let’s not forget that we’re going low spoilers for the chapter headings, remember? We’ve got a major part of our research team covering this universe, and they’ve got a lot to unpack.” -K4 Marisa

“…right. Things got very complicated, but we always somehow end up back here for incense.” -Marisa

“For newer players reading this part, this banter will make sense soon enough. But as the parallel Marisa said, minimal spoilers on this heading.” -Yukari

The R-Type Multiverse has two Ultra Festival Friends that are exclusive to Ultra Festival events, select Prayer banners, and Exchange Emas. Their performances are on-par with other Ultra Festival Friends, but their temperaments have changed due to their associations with various concepts pertaining to life and death. This change translates to at least three elemental resistances and as little as one weakness (3 and 1 for Youmu, 4 and 2 for Yuyuko) defined by their stories.

Hakugyoku Arena also appears as two permanent challenge modes after you clear Act 1 of Chapter 3, as that chapter takes place in that universe. In these modes, you can find randomly-generated daily and weekly gauntlets that you can take on for extra superior incense and incense burners among other miscellaneous rewards. It’s also the only mode where you can take on regularly changing weekly gauntlet battles in Phantasm difficulty- one step higher than Lunatic- as a callback to Perfect Cherry Blossom’s Phantasm stage, where seriously meticulous planning and high-ranking character progression is necessary to win and not get stomped in one turn.

Known Entries: 2

Youmu Konpaku

Yuyuko Saigyouji

Multiverse Type S - Synonym in Former Hell

“Did Satori change the way she rules the Palace of the Earth Spirits, or are her friends’ new uniforms my next big scoop?!” -Aya

“I doubt those outfits are new to them, so there’s nothing new to report on for our world.” -Reimu

“But despite having minimal defining or exceptional elements in her universe, Satori DID show up in latter ongoing investigations as a subject of interest as of now. Her multiverse shares many identical divergence points with Universe A11.” -K4 Marisa

“Field notes suggest that only the Underworld exists in this multiverse, thus changing their temperaments. Thus, the outside world is… gone…? I don’t know why I was assigned to research a region where my ability doesn’t work.” -K4 Renko

The S-Type Multiverse has three Ultra Festival Friends that are exclusive to Ultra Festival events, select Prayer banners, and certain Exchange Emas. Their performances seem to surpass other Ultra Festival Friends based on the amount of breaks and modifiers listed, but their temperaments have changed due to their entire lives being in Former Hell- and by extension the Underworld. This makes them all resistant to Sun, Moon, and Star essences, but each of them is still vulnerable to one phase element that represents a hindrance in their daily lives.

Known Entries: 3

Rin Kaenbyou

Satori Komeiji

Utsuho Reiuji

Universe T5 - Wasteland Track

“Ayayayayaya?! Why are they going so fast?” -Aya

“And what’s with those loud metal machines making them go that fast? Clearly those aren’t kappa-produced! Can’t they just settle things with bullets?” -Nitori

“Doubt it! Looks like those two are having a motorcycle race to settle something. And with a setting like that, things have already begun to get real.” -Sumireko

“And the fact that they’re doing this in a desert of all places when there’s clearly no desert in your Gensokyo has raised eyebrows with our scouting team. Research beyond these two divine people being deadlocked in a desert motorcycle race hasn’t started yet, although a footnote regarding Crazed World Temperaments has been made known by our scouts.” -K4 Marisa

Universe T5 has two Ultra-Festival Friends exclusive to Ultra Festival events, select Prayer banners, and certain Exchange Emas. They both have the “Racer” attribute (and “Racer-Killer” modifier) and an unusually high number of shot modifiers and killers with barely any shots that don’t have an element attached to them. Their temperaments have changed to allow them to survive in the “Crazed World” which results in two elemental resistances representing specific hardships they’ve learned to overcome in their world’s harsh conditions. They don’t have any elemental weaknesses, which makes it considerably harder to Barrier-Break and Full-Break them, more or less allow a similarly-leveled opponent to do any serious damage to them.

This universe has not appeared in the main plot yet.

Known Entries: 2

Byakuren Hijiri

Tenshi Hinanawi

Multiverse Type W - New Land of Youkai Mountain’s Former Hell

“Don’t ask much about this one yet, we just started a new wing of our research here recently.” -K4 Renko

“Besides the number of oni declarations here, Sanae appeared at the end of chapter 🔳 act 🔲 and ended up getting grouped here due to her matching aesthetic and factions.” -K4 Marisa

“Uh oh! Looks like I’m gonna have to gap those numbers out there and there… and also in Section F. This isn’t me trying to cause a Lost Word Incident, it’s just a matter of late end spoiler prevention, but I’ll put the words back after later story updates. If you know the words, you know. We’ll also put spoiler story content inside individual pages beneath other breaks.” -Yukari

“Was the use of that much ink really necessary to block out a few words?” -Marisa

“Yes. I’ll get those spots off the page later when details roll out.” -Yukari

The W-Type Multiverse has seven Ultra-Festival Friends that have only appeared in their premiere Prayer banners so far, as the characters showcased in this universe have only been introduced recently. Some of the earlier characters have appeared in special UF banners and forever prayers.

Known Entries: 7

Suika Ibuki (W1)

Kanako Yasaka (W2)

Suwako Moriya (W2)

Parsee Mizuhashi (W3)

Kasen Ibaraki (W5)

Sanae Kochiya (W5)

Yuugi Hoshiguma (W5)

Universe Y5 - Bunny Rebellion…?

“There’s not much to say here. It’s just Tewi, but she’s a rabbit from a world of divine hermits.” -K4 Marisa

“Almost no research has been conducted successfully on this universe due to lacking resources, as our supervisor put all our resources in other research areas. Besides our surface files on this Tewi, investigations confirm that she has aligned herself with the Lunar Base of Universe B3/5. But that’s just about it. We haven’t completely crossed the boundary into this universe yet.” -K4 Maribel

Tewi Inaba is the only friend (and an Ultra Festival one) who we know of in this universe. Unfortunately, her scarce presence in events and banners makes her harder to find than most characters of this class. But despite being from a completely different universe, she has aligned herself with the Lunar Base faction of Multiverse Type B and shares most of their shot modifiers and attributes… but mostly with B5 Mokou because the Killer modifiers she has can cover every major faction of B3’s storylines, including the Lunar Base. Is this because they’re trying to train their teammates to win? Or is there another endgame I don’t know about?

Known Entries: 1

Tewi Inaba

Multiverse Type Z - The Scarlet Devil Tower

“I remember this one. The residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion turned the whole building into a tower.” -Reimu

“Yeah, you did. This was the second incident in our Lost Word Incident Portfolio that you- the you of your universe specifically- resolved. But there are a few more things here you missed that we covered that we can easily file into one category: Magical Girls.” -K4 Marisa

“Magical what now? Aren’t those just magicians like you and my world’s Marisa?” -Reimu

“Oh… those. As in, like those characters seen in anime from as early as the 90s. Colorful transformation sequences and girls wearing costumes filled with magic, hearts, ribbons, and stuff like the power of friendship. My classmates from school talk about them sometimes, but it’s hard for some people to choose a favorite, especially when some of the newer shows of that genre tend to delve into considerably darker topics. Meri! You’re what I think is a tengu that came from the outside world, so you know what I’m thinking of, right?” -Sumireko

“Meri-?! Uh… Yes I do, but I might need to look into that genre a bit more and watch some full-length episodes. And don’t look now Alice, but there’s you.” -Meringue

“Me as a magical girl themed after constellations and western-style knights… interesting… but I love the way the outfit matches those of her dolls!” -Alice

Multiverse Type Z consists of multiple Ultra-Festival Friends, of which only Marisa appears in consistent Prayer pools and Exchange Emas. Everyone else just appears periodically, which makes it hard to find them. As such, this multiverse is split into two distinctive parts.

Universe Z1 primarily focuses on the Tower itself and someone’s changing role in the story of this universe, which has barely deviated from the original story seen in A6 and the original EoSD. As such, the rest of the SDM residents haven’t changed much as a result of this and appear more like their L1 counterparts. After finishing Chapter 2 Act 1, a challenge mode with its own story which takes place post-Chapter 2- also named Scarlet Devil Tower- unlocks for you to take on at your leisure (although you’ll want a decent team if you want to make significant progress in one day). A side story in the “Special” tab also named Scarlet Devil Tower allows players to take a short look at this universe and its events after the events of Chapter 2, and although it’s available from the beginning and has both very low level enemies and a full set of Guests for new player lore accessibility, you should really finish Chapter 2 before attempting either side mode so this universe’s story makes sense and to avoid early spoilers, as Chapter 2 of the main story takes place in this universe.

Universe Z3 primarily looks at the concept of magical girls and the influence that the Witch of Scarlet Dreams had in turning some people into magical girls. Not much is known about this universe canonically beyond what we know about this universe’s Remilia and Alice. However, the real question is why Flandre isn’t here, but every parallel presence of her in every other universe in this game exists with the “Magical Girl” attribute like these two. In any case, both of them have had their temperaments changed to harbor Z1 Marisa’s temperament as a result of her influence while also retaining their own at the same time. This universe does not appear in the main plot yet.

Known Entries: 4

Marisa Kirisame (Z1 - Witch of Scarlet Dreams)

Alice Margatroid (Z3 - Magical Girl of Constellations)

Remilia Scarlet (Z3 - Magical Girl of Scarlet Stars)

Satori Komeiji (Z3 - Astrological Magical Girl)

Extras Subheading

“We’ve yet to see their bullets as playable characters yet, but they appear somewhere in our investigations of the Lost Word Incidents. Sometimes as enemies that haven’t been added to the playable character list yet, while some don’t do danmaku battles at all. One of them might even be a mastermind…! Universe cipher denominations might not be accurate.” -K4 Marisa

This section is simply an extras list for universes that haven’t been elaborated on significantly for their miscellaneous characters who aren’t “playable” yet, appear as an NPC, or have only been introduced on the Japanese version of the game, although bosses can also get lumped in here. However, due to the LW Wiki unexpectedly going down without a backup… we *might* have some trouble finding accurate data. Once data goes up on these, view with caution since they might be major plot spoilers. And by “might be spoilers” I mean “will be spoilers.” The entries here will not count into the total playable character count.

Recorded Entries: 21

Aya Shameimaru (L?)

Eirin Yagokoro (B3)

Hata no Kokoro (C3)

Kanako Yasaka (L?)

Koishi Komeiji (L?)

Marisa Kirisame (??) - glasses?

Marisa Kirisame (??!?!?)

Marisa Kirisame (L?) - the purple one

Reimu Hakurei (L?) - her first design

Reimu Hakurei (…?) - ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️

Rin Kaenbyou (L?)

Rinnosuke Morichika (L1) - also appears in C3

Sakuya Izayoi (??!?!?) - ⬛️⬛️⬛️

Sakuya Izayoi (hold on what now??!!!)

Sanae Kochiya (L?)

Satori Komeiji (L?)

Suwako Moriya (L?)

Utsuho Reiuji (L?)

Yukari Yakumo (??) - tiny, also appears in some side events

Yumemi Okazaki (??)

[aomine-in-gensokyo]

Hey guys, Daiki Aomine here

I've been watching Reimu compete in this tournament, and I gotta say, she's pretty good. It's not easy going up against absolute powerhouses back to back, but she's beaten 'em all and made her way to the finals. She might even give off similar vibes to the Generation of Miracles. I wonder if she can go into the Zone... Anyways, now that she's here, do your best to support her.

===

REIMU IN SMASH!!! as a disclaimer i absolutely adore the kirby series to death but as my blog is (theoretically) 50% touhou, reimu has my support!

so why should she be in smash?

did you know that reimu debutted back in 1997?? (or technically 1996 if you count when ZUN first displayed the game, but not selling it) so she's been around for a WHILE!

[Image ID: The official cover of Touhou 1 - Highly Responsive to Prayers. It features Reimu's first design, holding her gohei on the left, and a giant Ying-Yang orb behind her on the right. End ID]

She's come a long way from those days. You can see just how much her design has changed since then! And I think it's crazy to think about that she was introduced about 2-3 years before Smash 64! It's kinda funny to imagine her there.

now you might be wondering: but touhou is a PC game! that's true! HOWEVER! barring fan games that have made their way to consoles, Touhou 17.5 - Sunken Fossil World, actually IS on the nintendo switch! it was released last year!!

[Image ID: The Nintendo Switch E-Shop page for Touhou 17.5 - Sunken Fossil World. End ID]

while it's not exactly a mainline touhou game, the official sidegames are still incredibly important for touhou as a whole! it can introduce new characters or expand on things in previous games!! if sans and steve can get in with their games being on switch (i love these 2 as well), then so can reimu!!

finally... and i mentioned this one before, but reimu has been in a few fighting games!! other touhou side games, such as 7.5, 10.5, 13.5, 14.5, and 15.5, were all fighting games!

[Image ID: A picture of Reimu Hakurei (on the left) and Marisa Kirisame (on the right) fighting. The game this screenshot was taken from is Touhou 10.5 - Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. End ID]

and i think we all know how much Sakurai loves to take inspiration from a character's source game these days! so id think reimu has ALOT of material to draw from, if we are ONLY looking at fighting games!

so please vote for reimu!! shes been around for a very long time and also a highly requested smash character!! plus, as big as touhou is, its still an indie title! more indie reps in smash would be fantastic!!

Daiki Aomine heading out

FINAL ROUND

(NOTE: Read the Palutena's Guidance for Reimu Hakurei HERE and for Bandana Waddle Dee HERE, and their movesets HERE and HERE)

[rabbiteclair]

new Yukari/Maribel theory: there's no direct link between them at all, but Yukari has predicted Maribel's future existence and is deliberately manipulating things to make it look like the two are related somehow. This is all in service to a generations-long practical joke that's really gonna pay off two or three Hakurei shrine maidens from now

[anueutsuhos-touhou-profiles]

Dolls in Pseudo Paradise:

Maybe I should have posted this one earlier, seeing as it came out simultaneously with Embodiment of Scarlet Devil way back in 2002.

Dolls in Pseudo Paradise was ZUN's first album. It actually did not feature Maribel Hearn or Renko Usami. Instead, it told a murder mystery story about 8 thieves who found their way into Gensokyo through a hole in a peach tree, only for one of them to become a youkai and slowly kill the rest, one by one. At the end the killer tries to hang themselves out of guilt, but is unable to because being a youkai made her too strong to be hung. A Hakurei Shrine maiden reports on the events as if they're a regular occurrence. Gensokyo is the titular "pseudo paradise", after all.

It's arguably one of the darkest stories Touhou has ever told, but the soundtrack itself is beautiful and harrowing. It also has a somber reality subtext to it, since almost all of the Touhou tracks on it are from the PC-98 games, making it a sort of last hurrah for them. It also features tracks from Seihou Project, an indie game series ZUN worked on, but only as a composer. Additionally, "U.N. Owen Was Her?", Flandre Scarlet's boss theme from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, is towards the end of the album. One of my personal favorite songs from it is its rendition of "Eternal Shrine Maiden", the first level theme of the first Touhou game.

ZUN also rereleased the album the following Comiket, but with the story removed and replaced with shorter stories for each song. They're no less macabre, however, and contain things such as dolls with human eyeballs, or a half-bird man being used at a circus freak show.

The girls in the above images have no names. They are on the jacket and CD label of the album, respectively, so fans just call them Jacket Girl and Label Girl. It's usually theorized that Jacket Girl was the killer in the story, since they're described as a blonde girl, and that Label Girl is a previous generation Hakurei Shrine maiden, considering her outfit's colors. However, other people suspect the killer in the story is someone who appears regularly in the main series, such as Flandre Scarlet or Alice Margatroid.

Apparently, ZUN actually made the entire album without any intention of restarting Touhou Project, and had finished it in 2001. However, he was unable to get the proper license to distribute it at Comiket that year. In between conventions, he decided to make a game to go along with the album, and the rest is history.

Listen to it here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCDF30B0282398468

"There are eight less people in this paradise, "Gensokyo", and seven corpses were carried off by youkai. Gensokyo has lost these honest men forever. It's just a change in the population count.

Not important news in the least."