Miscellaneous Questions Thread 3 - Ask Question, Receive Answer

[AnonymousPondScum]

What exactly about Reimu's Persuasion Needles makes them so effective?

I mean, sure, throwing FREAKING NEEDLES at someone is generally going to ruin their day, but some of the people you fight in the Touhou games probably would shrug off an ordinary, mundane needle.

Or two of them.

Or twenty of them. To the face.

So I imagine there's something I'm missing.

[ToyoRai]

The girl used her in Yang Orb as a weapon as it can harm youkais by just touching them. I am pretty sure her needles are blessed with holy energy to allow them to harm others. That, or she has some mad acupuncture skillz.

[cuc]

>Needles

Did I talk about it somewhere? Needles are indeed not a common weapon in Japanese pop culture, which is why even the Japanese find it weird. They are however, a common projectile weapon in Chinese martial arts fiction, obviously inspired by acupuncture, so without evidence to the contrary, my guess is ZUN got this idea from something Chinese martial arts-related.

Yukari's weapons in IN and SA are needles too. The SA one's name is a pun on a Chinese idiom that's based on something from acupuncture.

Some unorganized rambling on 仙人:

When I was young, I was used to seeing it translated as "immortal". The Chinese scholar Qian Zhongshu, when trying to describe the quality of 仙 in Chinese poetry, used the word "aeromantic". "Transcendant" feels overblown to me.

Generally there are the heavenly 天仙 who have ascended to heaven, and the earthly 地仙 who live in mountains. "Hermit" is a really imappropriate word for the former, but since the former roughly correspond to celestials in Touhou (which are a synthesis of Taoist/Chinese sennin and gods, and the Hindu/Buddhist devas), while the latter correspond to sennin in Touhou, it's actually a somewhat fitting translation. Except when things like "hermit power" show up.

For Hindu/Buddhist concepts, 仙 was also used to translate "rishi", extremely powerful sages of Indian myths.

The problem with "sage" is that traditionally, "sage" has been used to translate 聖人 in all the Chinese classics. 聖人 in this context, are not "saints" in the Christian sense, but rather the ideal and perfect leaders of mankind. When people like Confucius and Lao Tzu wrote about 聖人, they were referring to rulers of an ideal pre-lapsarian world; later, people would worship Confucius himself and very few other deified heroes as 聖人, the persons of the greatest virtues. And that's what Miko's "saint" title actually refers to - a one-in-a-thousand-year great ruler of mankind.

"Administrator" is just a typical "corresponding word ZUN found by looking up a dictionary". Clearly the word he meant was the one from Miko's HM ability, 為政者 "statesman".

[CyberAngel]

>Needles

Did I talk about it somewhere? Needles are indeed not a common weapon in Japanese pop culture, which is why even the Japanese find it weird. They are however, a common projectile weapon in Chinese martial arts fiction, obviously inspired by acupuncture, so without evidence to the contrary, my guess is ZUN got this idea from something Chinese martial arts-related.

Yukari's weapons in IN and SA are needles too. The SA one's name is a pun on a Chinese idiom that's based on something from acupuncture.

Mind you, Reimu has always been a "Shinto shrine maiden that used Taoism for attacks", what with Ying-Yang orbs, so if you look at needles as a way of manipulating qi through acupuncture, that may be another Taoist element she uses.

[Imosa]

The only other thing that comes to mind when I think of needles is Quieting Needles from the Pathfinder tabletop RP. These needles are inserted into corpses so that when they are raised from the dead the newly reanimated corpse has to deal with needles puncturing their internals. I'm not sure if this is something that Pathfinder came up with or if that can somehow be traced back to some inspiration.

[cuc]

There could be many cases in Japanese magic, pop culture or historical, where needles play a part. There's even a real festival in some regions of Japan, for properly enshrining and then discarding used needles, so they don't turn into tsukumogami. But needles as a major weapon type, as far as I knew, only happened in Chinese martial arts fiction. We still have no solid proof on where ZUN got this idea though.

[TrueShadow]

Maybe the needles are just, you know, a form of danmaku? Danmaku needn't be actual projectile weapons. Murasa sprays water at you and each drop is still as lethal as Shou's lasers. And Akyuu even suggested using cellphones as danmaku.

Or if you want to talk outside Spellcard rules, note that Reimu uses what are basically pieces of papers as her main projectile. The justification is that youkai are more susceptible to spiritual attacks, but they also work on other humans like Marisa. Surely they must also contain some magical power that also works on non-youkai. Her needles might be imbued with the same thing.

[Tengukami]

Maybe the needles are just, you know, a form of danmaku?

NO YOU ARE WRONG

WE WILL OVERTHINK THIS THING AND ARGUE WITH EACH OTHER UNTIL THAT HAIR IS SPLIT TO THE SUBATOMIC LEVEL

[Sagus]

NO YOU ARE WRONG

WE WILL OVERTHINK THIS THING AND ARGUE WITH EACH OTHER UNTIL THAT HAIR IS SPLIT TO THE SUBATOMIC LEVEL

It is our true purpose here, after all :V

[Tiamat]

Even if the needles are danmaku, that still brings the question as to why Reimu (and Yukari) chose to use them as danmaku. The majority of characters' danmaku is whatever it is for a reason.

(as an aside, I always thought that Yoshika's "kunai" was meant to represent zombie pus. That's what it looks like to me since it moves so slowly in such dense amounts, at least)

[cuc]

I've always suspected Yukari's purple kunai bullets are her "needles". No one else has used kunai bullets in the fighting games. However this is unlikely, since canonically "needles" refer to the small bullet-shaped bullets, such as those in Hina's spell cards, or Orin's Needle Mountain spell card.

By the way, the bullet type commonly called "arrows" in the Western fandom should actually be "scales". That's why they are the main bullet type of Wakasagihime. The TD arrows are real arrows.


I refined my google search, and got some better results.

1. Flying needle are a real thing in China.

2. Accodring to the official website of Iga Ninja Museum (English, Japanese, Chinese) and another article (1, 2), ninjas are known to use needles that may function as sewing tools, acupuncture needles and weapons. As a weapon, needles are used in two ways: fired from a blowgun, or kept in the mouth and spit out at the opponent's eyes. There was also supposed to be a legendary needle art that can kill a row of enemies with one needle projectile, lol.

3. In modern Japanese pop culture, flying needle users seem to be generally associated with Chinese magic and acupuncture, such as "Juubei of Flying Needles", a character from the shounen manga Get Backers.


Specifically for Reimu, I think the main reason for using needles are the same as using ofuda seals, her other main weapon. I can vaguely remember in Japan, needles are often used in exorcism and youkai-sealing in conjunction with ofuda. After all, in MoF, the needle type is called "Demon-Sealing Needles".

However, researching this topic proves quite difficult. I can't find anything to confirm it yet.

Obviously, needles and nails are also used for curses. I'm not sure if there's any relationship between its purpose for curses, exorcism and acupuncture.

[Zil]

By the way, the bullet type commonly called "arrows" in the Western fandom should actually be "scales". That's why they are the main bullet type of Wakasagihime.

Aren't they just Hibachi's bullets from DoDonPachi? Is there any reason to think that they're supposed to be scales aside from Wakasagihime using them?

[cuc]

Indeed, they are just Hibachi's bullets. They are "scales", because that's how the Japanese shooting game community have always called them. Wakasagihime just sort of established the "scales" part as a thing that also exists in-universe for Touhou.

[ToyoRai]

By the way, the bullet type commonly called "arrows" in the Western fandom should actually be "scales". That's why they are the main bullet type of Wakasagihime. The TD arrows are real arrows.

Eh, I always called them "spear points" after TD introduced actual arrows danmaku, just because they vaguely look like that. Really, relation of character using different shaped danmaku doesn't always appy with some cases (like Yukari using kunais for no particular reason).

[Clarste]

Indeed, they are just Hibachi's bullets. They are "scales", because that's how the Japanese shooting game community have always called them. Wakasagihime just sort of established the "scales" part as a thing that also exists in-universe for Touhou.

Next you'll tell me they don't call those tiny white bullets "popcorn"!

[Drake]

Scale (鱗) bullets are also often called wedge (楔) bullets. "Popcorn" are called bead/grain (粒) bullets.

[TrueShadow]

About Yukari, maybe she opened a gap in space to suck air out to create a sharp-shaped vacuum are and then send that vacuum area as needles?...That's needlessly complex, huh?

[Starxsword]

Yukari, like Yuyuko learn some ninjitsu back in the day, so that is probably why she sometimes throws Kunai.

[ToyoRai]

You know, I have been wondering what those rune symbols (magic circles) are there for, story wise and gameplay wise. Especially with some of the "special" ones like Yuyuko's fan, Yukari's snowflake, BYakuren's and Miko's flower...

[Ikari]

Miko's flower...

I was actually told that Miko's glyph isn't a flower, but rather butterfly wings. It's meant as a reference to the butterfly dream thing, which is a taoist tale.

[cuc]

1. Yuyuko's fan
Gameplay-wise, the fan gives her a huge extra hitbox that takes 1/3 damage compared to directly attacking Yuyuko, so you can keep damaging Yuyuko, even when slowly moving through her dense danmaku.

The symbology of this fan deserves another post.

2. Ran's Buddha
Ran's symbol looks like a typical small Buddhist portrait or icon, probably the kind drawn or carved onto a talisman.

3. Yukari's eight-pointed "snowflake"
It's the same symbol that rotates on PC when you focus. It's also the background of ESoD difficulty selection screen. Another special appearance of the symbol is in IN. When a bosss charges up for a special attack in IN, the special effect is many "snowflake" symbols gathering on the character.

SaBND also referenced Yukari's symbol, when she was getting into a battle position to test the fairies' strength.

My personal theory is, this is the symbol of spell card rules.

4. Byakuren's butterfly
It's a butterfly, since her spell cards Magic "Bewitching Fragrance of Makai Butterfly" / Magic "Magic Butterfly" referenced it. This one seems to have no meaning other than referencing Shinki... It will be a Taoist reference if appearing on a Taoist character.

5. Miko's halo
Contrary to popular belief in the Western fandom, this isn't a Taoist butterfly reference. Instead this is a reference to the fiery halo behind Buddhist statues. Prince Shoutoku was thought to be an avatar of the bodhisattva Kannon, and this is referenced by Miko's spell cards Light Sign "Halo of Guse Kannon / Light Sign "Guse Flash" ("guse" is Kannon's title, "world-saving").


Before delving into Yuyuko's fan, I want to post about the various boss charge-up and explosion effects since PCB, simply because I had recently thought about it. Skip to the next post if you are uninterested!

In PCB, the effect is snowflakes for Stage 1-4 (so even Lily White exploded into snowflakes), and sakura petals for Stage 5-Phantasm. Aside from relation to story, this also effectively makes PCB one half winter and one half spring in terms of stage numbers.

In IN, all bosses explode into maple leaves, the symbol of autumn. For charge-up, most bosses use the eight-pointed symbol, except for Wriggle who blinks.

In StB, the bosses' explosion effect is plain and quick.

In MoF, all bosses charge-up and explode with maple leaves. However, ZUN somehow didn't do anything to change this effect for the subsequent games set in different seasons, until TD, where it's at last replaced by sakura petals, in keeping with the spring season.

Since DDC is set in autumn, the effect is maple leaves again.

In summary, the symbols for each season (also see the "now loading" effects):
Spring - sakura
Summer - no idea, the summer games are ESoD and fighting games
Autumn - maple leaves
Winter - snowflakes

[ToyoRai]

I know you put effort searching the "special" signs for characters, but what about the normal one? You know, the magic circles what has hexagram inside it. It doesn't seem to just appear with the bosses, player characters, some enemies and even "familiars" (as in, those things what spawn bullets like in Esoterica "Astronomical Entombing" spellcard) have them. So I would argue that would be sort of official danmaku symbol.
Also, lol for summer having anything noticeable to it, neither with special effects or characters.

[cuc]

Now, the image on Yuyuko's fan. First of all, to state the obvious, this image was not drawn by ZUN. Like all the traditional imagery and photos in Touhou, it is something ZUN found from his stock image libraries.

It is often said among fans that this image depicts hell. But this is inaccurate.

In fact, this image references the same topic as Kokoro's spell card, Melancholy Sign "The Melancholic World is a Melancholic Cart".

Here's a more complete explanation for this reference than the current wiki footnote:

There is a Japanese proverb, 浮世は牛の小車 "the fleeting world is a small ox cart". Both 浮 "floating" uki and 牛 "ox" ushi are puns on 憂き/憂し "worry, melancholy". Kokoro's spell card name actually explained away the puns in the proverb outright.

It originated from "Aoi no Ue", a classic noh play based on Genji Monogatari, so for Kokoro, there's a direct noh connection. To bad her other story mode spell cards don't seem to contain any good noh references...

"Aoi no Ue" actually provided more explanation of the sentence: according to Buddhism, a person's process of reincarnation in the universe's Six Realms is compared to the rotation of a wheel, always moving but with no end in sight. The kanji for cart 車 can mean both "land vehicle" and "wheel". So the sentence is saying, the fleeting world is an endlessly turning wheel of sorrow.

Now take a look at Yuyuko's fan. It depicts an ox cart often used by Japanese aristocrats. However, unlike a real ox cart, its wheel has only 6 spokes. In a standard depiction of Six Realms, they are shown as 6 partitions of a wheel, divided by 6 spokes. This is how we know this image also symbolizes the proverb. Before you confront Yuyuko, you have to go through Youmu's spell cards, which are themed after the Six Realms, so the use of this image here is no coincidence.

EDIT:
Is Melancholy Sign "The Melancholic World is a Melancholic Cart" a good way to translate it?

Melancholy Sign "The Sad World is a Cart of Sadness"
Worry Sign "The Sad World is a Cart of Sorrow"

[cuc]

Ahem, there are two more "wheel of suffering" (the ox cart saying is a reference to that) references in spell cards: Yuugi's SA spell card, and Youmu's fighting game spell cards.

[Drake]

I knew about the connection between the names and the proverb, but I never figured Yuyuko's fan was the same, and you definitely helped me flesh and connect these all together, even though I had nothing to do with the question. Thanks.

[Hinacle]

Ah woah! I never knew the Youmu and Yuyuko proverb thing. That's pretty awesome. Thank you.

And now to what I wanted to ask. I remember reading (I think it was on this forum) that EoSD and PCB were just made so IN would have enough playable character.s Like IN was Zun's Magnum opus for the early Windows Era. Is there anything that can back this up?

[Kosachi]

Ah woah! I never knew the Youmu and Yuyuko proverb thing. That's pretty awesome. Thank you.

And now to what I wanted to ask. I remember reading (I think it was on this forum) that EoSD and PCB were just made so IN would have enough playable character.s Like IN was Zun's Magnum opus for the early Windows Era. Is there anything that can back this up?

I'm not not entirely sure this is true, but I do know for certain that the reason he brought back Alice from the PC-98 era was so that Marisa would have a suitable partner in IN.

[Sungho]

And now to what I wanted to ask. I remember reading (I think it was on this forum) that EoSD and PCB were just made so IN would have enough playable character.s Like IN was Zun's Magnum opus for the early Windows Era. Is there anything that can back this up?

In the おまけ.txt of the trial version of Imperishable Night.

　紅魔郷、妖々夢と勘のいい人は気が付いていたかも知れませんが、二つのゲ
　ーム、人間と妖怪二人一組というキーワードを幾つか入れてたんですよね。人
　間妖怪の二人一組のゲームを作りたい、でも突然新キャラで自キャラを用意さ
　れても愛着がわかない。だからまず敵キャラとして登場させるゲームを創る、
　っていう訳です。それで三部作予定、気の長い話だ。

　　咲夜と妖夢の相手役妖怪を違和感無く出すのは簡単でしたが、霊夢と魔理沙
　の相手を出すのが難しい。妖怪版魔理沙と称するアリスはその為の布石だった
　んですが、妖々夢の時はかなり唐突過ぎて不自然に感じられた人もいたかも。
　あと紫は、霊夢と能力を被らせて、性格も浮世離れしている所を似させました。
　霊夢と釣り合いが取れる様にこんな形に。胡散臭いのはその為。

It says something about that he wanted to make a game with a Human-Youkai team system, but suddenly popping in new characters will be weird, so he made games with those characters as enemies.
(The actual Japanese says something slightly different about 'weird', but I don't know how to express 愛着がわかない)

[Hinacle]

Oooh, thanks for clarifying that up for me.

[cuc]

In the おまけ.txt of the trial version of Imperishable Night.

It says something about that he wanted to make a game with a Human-Youkai team system, but suddenly popping in new characters will be weird, so he made games with those characters as enemies.
(The actual Japanese says something slightly different about 'weird', but I don't know how to express 愛着がわかない)

Thanks! I think I've read it, but can't find it now. Where is the full IN Trial omake.txt text on the wiki?

I'd translate that as "if new character are suddenly introduced as playable characters, players won't feel any attachment to them".