Long Touhou Post desu~
So. Touhou 12.
4 new characters, a bunch of new music, and a lot of very old references.
Captain Minamitsu Murasa - A throwback to the pc98 character Chiyuri (just as Byakuren is a throwback to Chiyuri's boss Yumemi), she's basically a cute sailor ghost who died and now sinks ships angrily. She was saved by Byakuren. Rather like Kumoi, she is obviously very devoted to the cause of reviving Byakuren:
"This ship will be leaving this land
to go to another world, where Hijiri is sealed away.
There, we'll revive Hijiri,
and everyone will be able to forget their troubles.
We'll make a paradise where no-one can brush us aside ...
We'll make a liberating future where we can use our powers freely ..."
Toramaru Syou - Despite the "maru" on the name (which had me freaking out), this is indeed a female character. A tiger youkai and disciple of Bishamonten. She acted as his messenger on earth for many years. Well, obviously as a youkai she was much more capable than a human would be, and so people were extremely impressed by her and as such worshiped Bishamonten all the more. Syou his the fact that she was a youkai from the people. Her motivation for wanting to unseal Byakuren was actually to restore the Buddhist temple that she worked at to it's former glory, as it fell into disarray after Byakuren was gone from it.
Hijiri Byakuren - Once, she was a Buddhist nun with a Buddhist monk for a brother. But after he died, she began to fear death and started to practice black magic to extend her lifespan indefinitely. In order to keep her magic power working, she found that she needed to prevent the exermination of youkai, whose existence kept the power of her magic from disappearing from the world. And so Byakuren began to secretly save youkai from human extermination, even while still acting as a Buddhist nun.
Although she did this selfishly at first, eventually she got to know youkai and began to sympathize with them. She saw no reason that humans should worship gods and persecute youkai when it seemed to her that many youkai were as worthy of respect as the gods themselves. And so she devoted her life to creating a world in which humans and youkai would live in peace.
This didn't last very long, and eventually humans sealed her away in a place called Makai (a world of demons which is currently part of Gensokyo) where she has remained for about a thousand years. Until now, anyway.
Anyway, Byakuren is by far my favorite character from the new game. She's absolutely beautiful, and she has an amazing theme song:
And last but not least, the extra stage boss, Houjuu Nue, with this picture and theme song:
Freaking imagine listening to this song during a high-paced video game battle. It's intense as shit. I absolutely love it. And it's a total homage to "UN Owen Was Her?!" which is one of my favorite touhou themes. Her backstory is pretty generic but fun - she's a trickster who shapeshifts to mess with people. In the end of the story, she ends up as another person following Byakuren, though her motivation is more curiosity than anything else...
I think what I like the most about UFO is how it somehow combines a lot of very nostalgic references with some very, very new material. There have been initial complaints about Nue, and how she is a "Flandre clone" or "her spellcards are unoriginal" or how Byakuren is just a Yumemi clone. I'm not terribly worried about how this will effect the fandom - Remilia is a rather blatant Shinki clone, and everyone fucking loves her. But to be honest, I absolutely love all references to the old PC-98 stuff. I think ZUN is basically saying by this that he appreciates his old fans as much as he does the new ones.
And furthermore, although there are very obvious similarities between Nue and Flandre (and about a million other characters in certain ways) there are also ways in which Nue is very different. For one thing, this is probably the darkest touhou character color wise - we've had people with black hair, and people with some black on their outfits, but never black hair and a totally black outfit. Call it "goth" or "emo" and scoff all you want, but it's new, and it's fun. And in a way, the old references fit Nue's character as a shape-shifter.
As for Byakuren, she adds a whole new dimension to the game of touhou, to be blunt. She is the first character to ever seriously bring into question the conflict between humans and youkai. Touhou has always to a certain extent seen things from a youkai perspective - yes, the playable characters are mainly human, but the overarching story of touhou is really only partially told through the games. The print works, profiles, and even semi-official doujin also give us a more complete picture. But this is the first time we've ever had the human conflict with youkai directly challenged. So it's interesting.
Plus I'm such a huge religion nerd that I love the whole Buddhist/Shinto conflict. As a Shinto miko, it's part of Reimu's duty to exterminate youkai, but as a Buddhist, Byakuren feels is bound to honor all life, even that of youkai. "That humans and youkai can live together as equals in the light of the Buddha ..." Those are Byakuren's words to Reimu.
4 new characters, a bunch of new music, and a lot of very old references.
Captain Minamitsu Murasa - A throwback to the pc98 character Chiyuri (just as Byakuren is a throwback to Chiyuri's boss Yumemi), she's basically a cute sailor ghost who died and now sinks ships angrily. She was saved by Byakuren. Rather like Kumoi, she is obviously very devoted to the cause of reviving Byakuren:
"This ship will be leaving this land
to go to another world, where Hijiri is sealed away.
There, we'll revive Hijiri,
and everyone will be able to forget their troubles.
We'll make a paradise where no-one can brush us aside ...
We'll make a liberating future where we can use our powers freely ..."
Toramaru Syou - Despite the "maru" on the name (which had me freaking out), this is indeed a female character. A tiger youkai and disciple of Bishamonten. She acted as his messenger on earth for many years. Well, obviously as a youkai she was much more capable than a human would be, and so people were extremely impressed by her and as such worshiped Bishamonten all the more. Syou his the fact that she was a youkai from the people. Her motivation for wanting to unseal Byakuren was actually to restore the Buddhist temple that she worked at to it's former glory, as it fell into disarray after Byakuren was gone from it.
Hijiri Byakuren - Once, she was a Buddhist nun with a Buddhist monk for a brother. But after he died, she began to fear death and started to practice black magic to extend her lifespan indefinitely. In order to keep her magic power working, she found that she needed to prevent the exermination of youkai, whose existence kept the power of her magic from disappearing from the world. And so Byakuren began to secretly save youkai from human extermination, even while still acting as a Buddhist nun.
Although she did this selfishly at first, eventually she got to know youkai and began to sympathize with them. She saw no reason that humans should worship gods and persecute youkai when it seemed to her that many youkai were as worthy of respect as the gods themselves. And so she devoted her life to creating a world in which humans and youkai would live in peace.
This didn't last very long, and eventually humans sealed her away in a place called Makai (a world of demons which is currently part of Gensokyo) where she has remained for about a thousand years. Until now, anyway.
Anyway, Byakuren is by far my favorite character from the new game. She's absolutely beautiful, and she has an amazing theme song:
And last but not least, the extra stage boss, Houjuu Nue, with this picture and theme song:
Freaking imagine listening to this song during a high-paced video game battle. It's intense as shit. I absolutely love it. And it's a total homage to "UN Owen Was Her?!" which is one of my favorite touhou themes. Her backstory is pretty generic but fun - she's a trickster who shapeshifts to mess with people. In the end of the story, she ends up as another person following Byakuren, though her motivation is more curiosity than anything else...
I think what I like the most about UFO is how it somehow combines a lot of very nostalgic references with some very, very new material. There have been initial complaints about Nue, and how she is a "Flandre clone" or "her spellcards are unoriginal" or how Byakuren is just a Yumemi clone. I'm not terribly worried about how this will effect the fandom - Remilia is a rather blatant Shinki clone, and everyone fucking loves her. But to be honest, I absolutely love all references to the old PC-98 stuff. I think ZUN is basically saying by this that he appreciates his old fans as much as he does the new ones.
And furthermore, although there are very obvious similarities between Nue and Flandre (and about a million other characters in certain ways) there are also ways in which Nue is very different. For one thing, this is probably the darkest touhou character color wise - we've had people with black hair, and people with some black on their outfits, but never black hair and a totally black outfit. Call it "goth" or "emo" and scoff all you want, but it's new, and it's fun. And in a way, the old references fit Nue's character as a shape-shifter.
As for Byakuren, she adds a whole new dimension to the game of touhou, to be blunt. She is the first character to ever seriously bring into question the conflict between humans and youkai. Touhou has always to a certain extent seen things from a youkai perspective - yes, the playable characters are mainly human, but the overarching story of touhou is really only partially told through the games. The print works, profiles, and even semi-official doujin also give us a more complete picture. But this is the first time we've ever had the human conflict with youkai directly challenged. So it's interesting.
Plus I'm such a huge religion nerd that I love the whole Buddhist/Shinto conflict. As a Shinto miko, it's part of Reimu's duty to exterminate youkai, but as a Buddhist, Byakuren feels is bound to honor all life, even that of youkai. "That humans and youkai can live together as equals in the light of the Buddha ..." Those are Byakuren's words to Reimu.