Miscellaneous Questions 7 - To Misc or not to Misc

[Shizzo]

 Aaah so in the end she's a Japanese Jiangshi with a Chinese influenced design.  Got it!

[Clarste]

I'd say she's a Chinese jiangshi made from a Japanese corpse, personally. She has only the smallest traces of the original person.

[Goomba98]

Which boss in the Touhou series has the most health bars?

[Helepolis]

Which boss in the Touhou series has the most health bars?

If you mean the most number of non-spell and spell cards then these would be one of the Extra bosses which can be easily looked up on the Wikipedia you know.

Edit:
Did some research:
- Almost all Extra bosses in the Windows series have exactly 10 spell cards.
- The exclusion is IN and PCB where Mokou has a Final Spell and Yukari has her final survival spell card making it 11.
- Mokou and Yukari are most likely tied in this case.

[Goomba98]

Do characters like Reimu, Marisa, Alice, and Yuuka have their last names in the PC-98 games?

[martelefort]

Do characters like Reimu, Marisa, Alice, and Yuuka have their last names in the PC-98 games?

As i can see on their characters profiles, Reimu and Marisa had their last names the first game they appeared in, While Yuuka only got her in PoFV.

[Clarste]

I believe some of the names were written with different kanji back then though.

[game2011]

How is Yukari supposed to look?  Some people argue that she is supposed to be a loli, as shown in CoLA, and some even claim that her manga appearances lean towards more of a little girl or at least a teen.  ZUN's artwork in Touhou 7 didn't help and only reinforced that she looks very young, but her artworks in the fighting games show her looking like a matured adult, though some people refuse to accept that as the truth, claiming that Alphes is unreliable when it comes to character designs.

[PK]

Honestly, she doesn't look that young in any of the manga (compare her to the fairies or Remilia), or in PMiSS/SoPM/BAiJR. CoLA is the only real case that i can recall, but it's one in a sea of examples.
Also ZUN said she's one of the tallest.

And if people don't consider Alphes' art reliable then everything outside ZUN's art shouldn't be considered as well, they can't just choose what they want.

[game2011]

And if people don't consider Alphes' art reliable then everything outside ZUN's art shouldn't be considered as well, they can't just choose what they want.

The reason for this is because Yukari's eye color being golden rather than the usual purple in their fighting games, so they use this as proof Alphes is unreliable with character designs.

[TrueShadow]

I know who this "some people" is, and he's just a guy from /jp/ who refused to back down after his "most Touhou are loli" statement is proven wrong.

Due to manga artstyle, it's hard to determine exactly how old she is supposed to look, but she looks like a late teen at the youngest. Definitely not a loli.

[the old guy]

Yukari isn't a Loli. And ZUN's art is pretty bad most of the time. So using that as evidence as how one character is supposed to look is pretty dumb IMHO.

She's canonically taller than most of the other characters, and is frequently drawn with a bigger bust size as well. And she's an old Youkai, so it would make sense for her to be older looking.

[Sophilia]

Yukari is canonically a tall, mature looking woman, although in her various official art, she isn't very busty at all.  But if the chest is the only category you're looking at to determine if someone is a little girl, you're doing it wrong.

[game2011]

Is there an explanation for her child-like look on CoLA?  Or is that simply the artist taking creative liberties?

[Jeremie]

It could be a variety of things but it's most likely something like you said related to the artist or limited information on how to draw her, the tone/setting of the series or quite simply that as time passed by, ZUN got or changed how he felt how the characters looks, etc.

I like that Eiki shows up in VFiS and she's not a loli. It was about time that old meme got debunked even more.

[Drake]

Genji Asai drew Yukari as a little girl because he only draws one girl ever.

[the old guy]

But if the chest is the only category you're looking at to determine if someone is a little girl, you're doing it wrong.

Its not, but with the type of art style that is often used in the touhou media, where same face-ness is a problem, the only real way to determine IMO someones age is their height and breasts, as immature as that is.
And while Yukari has been drawn with flat breasts at times, shes been drawn with larger ones more often than most characters in the series so i presume she's "supposed" to have larger breasts.

Genji Asai drew Yukari as a little girl because he only draws one girl ever.

Good old sexism.

[Hello Purvis]

You heard it here folks! Slender women are clearly children, and saying otherwise is sexist. That old guy solves it again!

[the old guy]

You heard it here folks! Slender women are clearly children, and saying otherwise is sexist. That old guy solves it again!

.........Okay, good point. I was being an idiot there.

[Lt Colonel Summers]

When it comes to Japanese media, a character's appearance is NOT suitable for identifying his/her age. For example: the cast of Lucky Star are all high school girls, but they all look like lolis.

[Helepolis]

When it comes to Japanese media, a character's appearance is NOT suitable for identifying his/her age. For example: the cast of Lucky Star are all high school girls, but they all look like lolis.

Or high schoolers like in Bleach. They look as if they are in their late twenties (to me) but are actually ~16. Well, later on in the story they became older.

[game2011]

When it comes to Japanese media, a character's appearance is NOT suitable for identifying his/her age. For example: the cast of Lucky Star are all high school girls, but they all look like lolis.

That's more of the series having chibi art style.

[TresserT]

Does Okina actually have any kind of ability over the seasons? Or was she just drawing seasonal power from the fairies who were amped up by Satono and Mai?

[Lt Colonel Summers]

Does Okina actually have any kind of ability over the seasons? Or was she just drawing seasonal power from the fairies who were amped up by Satono and Mai?

The latter. Okina is only indirectly responsible for HSiFS by having Satono and Mai power up everyone, and the out-of-schedule seasons is just an unforeseen side effect of the power-up being applied to the fairies.

[TrueShadow]

The latter. Okina is only indirectly responsible for HSiFS by having Satono and Mai power up everyone, and the out-of-schedule seasons is just an unforeseen side effect of the power-up being applied to the fairies.

She also have another objective to announce her presence to everyone in Gensokyo. So, yeah, the seasons thing is only indirectly her fault, but not unforeseen. She knows full well what she's doing.

[TresserT]

I'm no so much asking about the season incident and more about power over seasons themself. Her spell cards and talk about absorbing the player's seasonal energy is what makes me ask.

[Suspicious person]

Okina's ability is her power over backdoors : beside creating them, she can also move stuff through them, seasonal energies included. The season related attacks of hers make use of these seasonal energies in some way. Think of ULiL for example : the heroines get to use brand new occult attacks, kinda fueled by occult power : these seasonal attacks kinda go along these lines, save for the occult part.

But it's not exclusive to her : the heroines in HSiFS use and rely on seasonal energy as well (hence the peculiar aesthetics of shot types and bombs), but the heroines only get to use seasonal weaponry and powers thanks to the season door attached to them, and that door is hers : Okina can pump the seasonal energy that was gathered by the heroines on their way, and similarly to the heroines, Okina can also make use of those seasonal energies. So, regarding the abilities she get to display in stage 6, I'd say these season related attacks are pretty much the equivalent of occult attacks, but for seasons.

The thing is, that is only indicative of Okina being able to make use of seasonal energies, the same as everyone else, and that is regardless of any power over seasons (for example, the heroines can use seasonal energies as well despite not having some kind of season manipulating ability). So, does she have an ability to exert direct control over seasons or to manipulate them in some way ? That's incertain, but she definitely can influence it in some way through her power over lifeforce, delegated to Mai, when used in the same way it was used to cause the incident. There can also be some speculations regarding those suspicious, season colored energy tails that oozes from her even in the extra stage (where she doesn't even use seasons), although I doubt them having some kind of super important meaning.

Can she directly manipulate seasons ? That'd be a big, fat question mark, as far as I am concerned (probably not tbh, save for her lifeforce powers). But what is certain is that her fancy, colorful  attacks from stage 6 just derives from a clever use of her backdoor powers plus seasonal energy. At any rate, it'd be pretty safe to stay with what has been explicitly mentionned and just stick with her backdooring ability. Maybe some precisions will be brought when the next Strange CoOW come out.

[Phasm]

Wait a second... does this mean that Okina's ability is basically Yukari's ability

[PK]

Wait a second... does this mean that Okina's ability is basically Yukari's ability

Most characters' named abilities are just what they are best known for, or something particular for them anyway. It's just a fraction of what they can do.
In Okina's case, the only abilities we are supposed to care about, for now, are the door-creation one, and the abilities she gave to Mai and Satono to make everyone stronger, because those are the abilities driving HSiFS story. Also, since her role is to protect Gensokyo from the outside, an ability to pass through the barrier is basically mandatory. ZUN avoided Kasen having the same ability, but she can tear holes in it anyway (although Kasen doesn't seem to be a "guardian" like Yukari and Okina, especially given her personal opinions on Gensokyo as a whole).

[Clarste]

Kasen chanted a spell to open a hole in the barrier, it's likely some sort of passcode entrusted to her.

Also, Okina's ability has nothing to do with barriers, she can just create doors to her door-world. Not, like, the abstract concept of doors, but literal doors with frames and hinges. She can also manipulate lifeforce and spirit to some extend. People always think of Yukari in terms of warping things through gaps in space, but that's not really the core of her ability. Yukari has power over boundaries in a much more general sense; border of night and day, border of inside and outside, etc. Akyu describes the power to control boundaries as the power to create and destroy, in a metaphysical/philosophical sense.