Disclaimer: None of what is said here should be taken to necessarily be my take on ZUN's meaning and intent; these are analyzes based solely on my take on these stories, whether they agree with the original author's intent, supposed or otherwise.In the spirit of Fightest's
excellent thread analyzing characters through their songs, I intend to examine and criticize each Touhou game, in chronological order, on its story alone. Yes, that includes PC-98 and the fighting games.
One of the things that makes Touhou special for me is that the characters matter to me, in large part thanks to the stories ZUN has written them into. These stories vary wildly in style, influence, depth and consistency. I think a closer look at the stories sometimes reveals more about the author's intent and layers to the characters than is readily apparent. I hope to be able to flesh out these stories as best I can, although admittedly in ZUN's early days there's scant fleshing out that can be done. Speaking of which ...
Touhou 1: Highly Responsive To PrayersIn HRtP's
prologue, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the fact that Reimu Hakurei is human, and it is her lot in life to fight things which are not human. Her attitude is one of sighing resignation, but with a relaxed self-assurance that she'll be able to deal with anything that happens. Here, Reimu Hakurei's identity is born, and it has remained with her from every game since.
The first character Reimu meets is SinGyoku, a being that appears to her as male, female or inanimate. After SinGyoku's defeat, Reimu is given a choice of paths: Makai, or Hell. No matter which route she takes, she will be confronted by one silent, enigmatic enemy after another. But she still has to choose.
Hell and Makai are distinct from one another, in the sense that while the former is somewhere in the Underworld, the latter is an alternate dimension created by a single entity for reasons unknown. It has demons, but it isn't Hell. The way in is through a cave, but it isn't underground. What's the real choice Reimu is facing here?
SinGyoku provides a clue. This is not a hermaphroditic being - its polarity is not male or female but alive or inanimate, living and not living, born and created, real and artifice. These are a reflection of the differences between Hell and Makai - where Hell has the quality of being around since time began, spanning countless cultures around the globe, Makai is a very recent creation of an obscure being with a cultural relevance confined to a very small area. Reimu's choice in HRtP is between the solid reality of tradition, or the strange and ephemeral regions of the universe that she has never explored.
Interestingly, Hell and Makai mirror each other in some ways. Makai's first character is as artificial as Hell's first character is, quite literally, "spirited" - enough so that Reimu will need to lock her up at the game's end. Makai's and Hell's final characters are similar, but with an important distinction - only Makai's changes into an inanimate object. This serves to underline the crossroads Reimu faces.
What sets Reimu off on her journey in the first place? The Hakurei Shrine is wrecked by parties unknown. That is to say, the lauded tradition of the shrine maiden is shaken by forces unknown, beyond Reimu's imagination. Ostensibly she embarks on her quest to right the wrong and restore order to the shrine, but that's only because she can't imagine doing anything else. This doesn't contradict the fact that Reimu is learning, as she will continue to learn for game after game, that the comfort and stability of tradition is periodically challenged by forces greater than ourselves. When that happens, we have a choice to make: yield to those changes, or resist them. But even with the struggle to resist, the effort is just putting off the inevitable.
As Reimu gets older, she will of course be able to imagine other ways to live, but at HRtP's point in her life, she literally knows no other way than that of a shrine maiden, with all those generations of shrine maidens behind her. As we will see in games to come, Reimu maintains her steadfast allegiance with tradition not so much because she can't be bothered to exercise some imagination, but because she is completely, and tragically, convinced that her duties include the defense of tradition itself.
The good: Solidly establishes the core struggle in the life of Reimu, which will propel her through every game after.
The bad: Bit on the short side where dialogue and character backstory is concerned.
Conclusion: Not a bad pilot. Concise, strange and compelling.
