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Rumia

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ルーミア
ɽɯːmia (♫)
Rumia
Lumia

More Alternative Spellings
Rumia
Youkai of the Dusk
More Character Titles
Species

Youkai

Abilities

Manipulating Darkness

Music Themes
Appearances
Official Games
Print Works
"Is the person in front of me the edible kind?"
"Have you ever heard the saying "good medicine tastes bad"?"
Rumia and Reimu Hakurei (Embodiment of Scarlet Devil Stage 1.)

Rumia (ルーミア Ruumia)[1] is a youkai with the ability of manipulating the darkness. She is one of the few youkai that doesn't seem to belong to any particular species.

General Information

Rumia first appeared as the Stage 1 Boss of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and later as a Level 1 target in Shoot the Bullet. She also made an appearance as a background character in Hopeless Masquerade.

Personality

Rumia is apparently quite simple-minded and doesn't like the sunlight nor the summer heat; in fact, she uses her powers of darkness to surround herself in a mass of dark, as to avoid the heat and the light. It is also said that she only uses this power as a supportive ability when attacking others, using pure strength as her main asset. She seems like to fly around aimlessly during the day and the night, sometimes bumping into trees since she is less capable of seeing obstacles through her veil of darkness.[2][3] Despite her innocent appearance, she eats humans and thinks that a youkai's job is to hunt them down, but she also seems to be quite lazy and has commented that it is generally a pain for her doing it.[2]

Rumia's skin and hair are photosensitive, so maybe that is the reason she surrounds herself with shadows although she can't see through them.[2]

Ability

Manipulating darkness

Rumia has the ability of manipulating darkness. By covering herself in pure darkness, she is able to prevent sunlight from passing through the darkness, as it is magical in nature and can render even traditional lights such as torches useless within it. Because of this, people who happen to go inside the darkness would not able to see anything, but it looks like Rumia herself is also less capable to see, as she might crash into trees while flying. However, she was still able to read Aya's newspaper even with almost no light, while Aya herself couldn't write notes nor reading her notebook. She has also shown that she can control how much light can pass through the darkness, as she let only a bit of it entering to be able to read the newspaper.
The appearance of the darkness outside its region looks like a spherical circle that is moving. Rumia says "I'm fine in moonlight" meaning she doesn't need such ability at night, and although she dislikes heat and sunlight, she was seen without darkness in broad daylight in various occasions, even in summer.[4][5][6]
In-game, this ability is used as part of Rumia's Darkness Sign "Dark Side of the Moon" spellcard in Shoot the Bullet, during which she becomes impossible to photograph when she is covered in darkness.
The names of her spell cards are also related to night and darkness (Moon Sign, Night Sign, Darkness Sign).

Character Design

PMiSS rumia.jpg

Origin

ZUN has mentioned in an interview[7] that because it was the first Windows game, he decided to go with the concept of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil as a deochi (出落ち, lit. "punch line on the entrance") as a main theme. This is why her ability (manipulation of darkness) is an example of deochi; it seems like it would be appropriate to a final boss, yet she is only a stage 1 boss.

Name

"Rumia" (ルーミア), possibly meant to be romanized as "Lumia", seems to come from the Latin word lumen ("light") or its English descendants (luminous, luminescent). Supporting this possible origin is the subject matter of her first spell card, Moon Sign "Moonlight Ray". If "Lumia" is indeed the intended romanization of her name, then it may be that her ability to manipulate and create darkness works by absorbing light. ZUN, however, has used "Rumia" in a 2004 diary post (although he also used the rather erroneous "Frandre" in the same instance), and even supervised an official correction from "Lumia" to "Rumia". "Rumia" was also used on her Perfect Memento in Strict Sense portrait.

Design

Rumia's design shows that she has red eyes and short blonde hair. She wears a black vest and skirt, and white blouse with a red tie bordered by two large red beads around her neck. She also has small red ofuda tied to the left side of her hair, making it look like a ribbon. However, she can neither touch nor remove the amulet. According to ZUN, her height is that of a human in her early teens (from 10 to 14 years old).[8]

Story

Games

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Rumia's sprite in EoSD

In the events of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Rumia bumps into either Reimu Hakurei or Marisa Kirisame near the Hakurei Shrine during her aimless wanderings and attacks them, as other youkai won't do. She is defeated quickly.

Spin-offs

Shoot the Bullet
Rumia's sprite in StB

Rumia appeared in Shoot the Bullet as a stage 1 target. Aya Shameimaru commented that she had some trouble dealing with her, since she attacked suddenly while in the darkness, and complained about how the photos she got were no good because it was too dark.

Hopeless Masquerade
Rumia in HM

Rumia appears as a background character in Hopeless Masquerade, on the Hall of Dreams' Great Mausoleum stage. She is seen looking at the fights while still mantaining her "crucifixion pose".

Literature

Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red

When interviewed by Aya, Rumia complained that other youkai were coming into her darkness because the article Aya had written suggested they could also avoid the light and heat like her by doing so. She also complained when Aya requested there be enough light for her to take notes, as it seems that being often in the darkness makes Rumia's eyes very sensitive to light. Aya was a bit disappointed that Rumia has no goals in life.

Oriental Sacred Place

Rumia appears in Oriental Sacred Place to participate in a test of guts being held at the Hakurei Shrine, along with Sakuya Izayoi, Youmu Konpaku, Yuyuko Saigyouji, Wriggle Nightbug, Mystia Lorelei, and Cirno. At that time, she is first seen talking with Mystia and Wriggle, and then within her sphere of darkness while chasing Youmu. She also reappears later in a similar crowd when the Three Fairies of Light were preparing a festival at the Hakurei Shrine. Rumia, however, did not seem like she was part of the preparation and wasn't visible during the festival itself.

Silent Sinner in Blue

She appears in Silent Sinner in Blue, participating to the party given in the Scarlet Devil Mansion by Remilia Scarlet to celebrate the completion of the rocket that will send Remilia's group to the Moon. While at the party, Rumia is noticed to be talking to Wriggle Nightbug.

Gallery

Illustrations

Screenshots

Others

Spell Cards

Spellcards
Name Translated Comments Games Stage
Total: 5
月符「ムーンライトレイ」 Moon Sign "Moonlight Ray" EoSD St. 1: H/L
夜符「ナイトバード」 Night Sign "Night Bird" EoSD
GoM
St. 1: E/N/H/L
闇符「ディマーケイション」 Darkness Sign "Demarcation" EoSD St. 1: E/N/H/L
闇符「ダークサイドオブザムーン」 Darkness Sign "Dark Side of the Moon" StB St. 1
夜符「ミッドナイトバード」 Night Sign "Midnight Bird" StB St. 1

Additional Information

  • She is the first official Windows boss of the Touhou Project.
  • She is usually drawn with her arms spread out, claiming the pose appears to say, "The saint was crucified."
  • Play, Doujin! localizes her name as "Lumia" in their translations, even though ZUN himself and the rest of the Touhou doujin community uses Rumia.
  • Rumia's non-spell card attacks and her spell card Moon Sign "Moonlight Ray" are similar to the attacks of Mystic Square's first stage boss, Sara.
  • When talking to Rumia during Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Marisa references the phrase "人類は十進法を採用しました" (Mankind adopted the decimal system). It comes from MORI Hiroshi's novel "誰もいなくなった ~ Thirty Little Indians" (Then There Were None ~ Thirty Little Indians) from "まどろみ消去 ~Missing under the Mistletoe" (Slumber Erasing ~ Missing under the Mistletoe).

近づいて、フカシとヨーコが手を振ると、西之園萌絵は、
両手を顔の横で広げてみせた。
人類は十進法を採用しました、というジェスチャではない。

Coming closer, Fukashi and Yōko waved their hands, then Moe Nishinosono
spread her hands next to her face.
This wasn't the gesture of Man adopting the decimal system.

The author commented this phrase was put in to show that she didn't spread her arms to the full extent like the character , but that she spread her ten fingers as if she'd counted to 10.
  • Rumia was one of the characters ZUN wanted to include in Touhou Hisoutensoku. However, she was eventually scrapped.[9]

Fandom

Official Profiles

Rumia ○宵闇の妖怪

  ルーミア

  能力:闇を操る程度の能力


  1面ボスです。妖怪です。

  ストーリー上重要な位置に居ません。何の為に生きてるのか不明です。
  実は髪の毛に巻いているリボンは御札で、リボンは取りたくてもルー
  ミア本人では触れることすら出来ないのです。

  実際、闇を操ってる場面を見れないですが、本当はルーミアの周りは
  いつも夜になっています。

  カードアタック 全3種。

Youkai of the Dusk

Rumia

Ability: Manipulating darkness


Stage 1 boss. A youkai.

She is of no importance to the story, and isn't up to anything in particular in her life. The ribbon tied to her hair is actually a charm; she can't touch it even though there have been times when she wanted to take it off.

There is no evidence of her ability to manipulate darkness in the game, but in truth, places around her are always as dark as night.

Total of three card attacks.

ZUN's comment from Dai Touhouten plaque
久しぶりの作品で、最初に意外性を持たせようと思って作りました。闇の能力者が初っぱなに出てきて「そーなのかー」と緩いセリフを吐く所に、東方の捻くれた脱力世界観を感じられて気に入っています。

ストーリー的には重要なキャラではないんですが、いつも暗闇になるという能力が、日光を嫌う吸血鬼を彷彿させるように配置してあります。ルーミアのリボンには秘密があるという設定でしたが、今のところ活かされてないですね(笑)

It's been a long time since the last title, so I wanted to have a character that had an element of surprise, and here she is. She's a girl with a power that controls darkness, but her first line is so casual and cheerful showing up with an "Is that so~." I like her because she's the representation of Touhou's distorted setting, where the strong have become weak.

Although she's not an important figure in the narrative, her ability to be in the dark at any time was set to create an association with vampires who despise sunlight. Her ribbon was designed to have some secrets within, but it hasn't been used so far. (lol)

Official Sources

Official sources

See Also

References