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Fandom/Perfect Cherry Blossom

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This sub-article lists unofficial content associated to characters or other things that originally appeared in Perfect Cherry Blossom.

Kedama

Typical depiction of a Kedama, this one from Super Marisa World

The Kedama have become rather common in the fanbase for unknown reasons. They're rather popular in fangames, being the most common enemy in Moedan, Concealed the Conclusion, Touhou Mother and Twilight Frontier's platformers Super Marisa Land, New Super Marisa Land, Komeiji Satori no Jousou Kyouiku and MegaMari, also populating the first floor in the dungeon crawler Labyrinth of Touhou. They also appear as the only enemy type in Sanae Challenge! FUSION and Super Marisa World. Related to the latter, they're sometimes called a "fuzz" by Westerners; the reasons are because of either a mistranslation of "毛玉" or due to the little information of them, it was derived from Mario's Fuzzy.

In fanart and said fangames, they are frequently drawn with (°д°) faces to give a more characteristic look. Because of this, they have been compared to IOSYS version of the Etrian Odyssey series FOE (Field-on Enemy) and sometimes the kedama and the FOE are depicted as the same thing as fans sometimes get confused which is which. Because of said fangames, fans have sometimes called the kedama the Koopa (and sometimes the Goomba) of the Touhou Project, or in other words, they're the default common enemy that can be attacked by in Gensokyo along with the fairy, and sometimes the PC-98's Bakebake.

TAAWhiteKedama.png

Another popular aspect is that they're sometimes associated with Lily White, either as pets, subordinates in various doujin works or as a symbol of spring. The origin to this is that the Kedama appeared as Stage 4 enemies of Perfect Cherry Blossom, which Lily was the midboss of. However, it is unknown as to how this was considered, because the Kedama did not appear as Stage 4 enemies of that game; it was in fact the spinning enemies (As identified by ZUN),[1] and are thus an entirely different group of creatures. Because of this however, the spinning enemies are treated as kedama, even though they don't look like hairballs. It is also because of this that another variant of Kedama exists in the fanbase, shown to the right; these type are sort of a hybrid of the Kedama and the spinning enemies, where they appear more twirly-like with a small (°д°) face in the centre. This is more notable in the fangame The Alternative Age.

Letty Whiterock

  • She is said to have a larger hit box than other bosses, probably to make it easier for newbies. However, this fact led to a fan theory that she is fat (太ましい futomashii, a recently made-up word derived from 太い "futoi"). An alternate fan theory is that this indicates her having large breasts.
  • She melts at the end of winter in some fan comics.
  • In some fan comics, she is sometimes seen in a freezer or refrigerator, typically to hibernate between winters.
  • She is often portrayed as Cirno's friend and mentor, despite the former not wanting to be associated with the latter in canon.
  • Due to the shape of the brooch on her dress, she is also sometimes seen wielding a trident in fanart.
  • There is confusion over whether she is a snow spirit or the Spirit of Winter, which leads to some conflicting cases when she disappears at the end of winter or just doesn't feel like appearing.
  • Some fanfics depict her calling herself 黒幕 (Literally: "Black Curtain", Romanized: Kuromaku, Meaning: "puppeteer", "manipulator", "wire puller", "political fixer", "mastermind") from Sakuya's Scenario of Perfect Cherry Blossom.
  • She is sometimes referred to as "white rock" (白岩さん Shiroiwa-san).

Chen

  • A famous meme regarding Chen is: Ran Yakumo often yelling "CHEEEEEEEEEN" (ちぇえええええええん, the number of え/E is not determined but mostly more than seven; they could go on for ever) whenever Chen does something wrong or does something cute that attracts Ran. Derived by this, many fans comment "CHEEEEEEEEN" whenever a Chen-related event happens, mostly occurred on NicoNico Video (in fact, this reaction has become so popular that nowadays, it's considered as trolling outside and sometimes inside Nico). The origin of this meme comes from the line in the 2nd Touhou M-1 Grand Prix.
  • Yet another meme featuring Chen known in the English community is "Honk Honk". A comic strip make by bkub, showing Chen riding a bicycle, stopping in the road because Suika Ibuki is laying there drunk, and Chen honking the bicycle horn. [2] This comic was translated to English and posted on 4chan. Soon, people began rearranging the panels to create new stories from it, editing panels, and the like.
  • Rin Kaenbyou, being the only known other cat character in the series (This is no longer true as of Unconnected Marketeers, which features Mike Goutokuji), is sometimes depicted in fanart fighting or playing with Chen.
  • Due to her intellect and personality, Chen is often depicted as a child and about the size of one, with Ran being way taller than her. She's also shown to have a cutesy personality often with her being a daughter figure to Ran.
  • Because Chen doesn't have a surname while the other Yakumo family member have one, some fans adopt theories such as "because she's not a direct shikigami of Yukari" or "she hasn't yet fully grown to receive the name" to answer the reason of this case. She is sometimes called "Chen Yakumo" (八雲橙) for convenience, however.

Alice Margatroid

See Mystic Square: Alice Margatroid.

Shanghai Doll

  • Even though she has no official profile and has only made three appearances in the gameplay (in canon she is treated more of a spell card name than a character), she has become very well known and is treated as an individual character by much of the fandom, no doubt due to in-depth characterizations in fanworks, especially those by Morino Hon.

Hourai Doll

  • Even though she has no official profile and has only made two appearances during gameplay (and even then only as a spell card that's not often seen by most players), she has become well known and is treated as an individual character by much of the fandom, no doubt due to in-depth characterizations in fanworks, especially those by Morino Hon.
  • Due to the name of her spell card, "Hanged Hourai Dolls," Hourai is often portrayed in fan comics hanging herself for obvious reasons.
  • While official sprites indicate that Hourai's appearance is identical to that of Shanghai, fan comics tend to differentiate it, frequently by giving her a bonnet instead of a hair ribbon, and/or by giving her an elegant red dress instead of the maid outfit worn by Shanghai.

Lily White

  • In some circles, the version of Lily found in Eiki's stage is referred to as "Lily Black", and is pictured as more serious and somewhat impish compared to the cheerful Lily White.
  • Lily is often seen with kedamas, a stage enemy on her stage, as pets or subordinates in various doujin works.
  • Because of her non-aimed bullets in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, fans tend to find this annoying (like ZUN stated in her profile) and have often called her "Constant Annoyance".
  • The phrase "spring is here!" (春ですよー haru desu yo-) is a common quote by Lily in fanworks.
  • When she takes on a darker personality and/or is thought of been unusually strong, she's sometimes associated with the phrase "haru DEATH yo-" (春DEATHよー). This has been used recently to refer to her when she showed up in Fairy Wars.
  • In many NSFW content as well as some simple dirty jokes related to Lily White, people sometimes refer to how "prostitution" (売春) in Japanese literally means to "sell spring". In fact, "to sell spring" (春を売る) means to become a prostitute.

Lyrica Prismriver

Lunasa Prismriver

  • Since Lunasa is the eldest sister, she's commonly referred to as "older sister" (ルナ姉 luna-nee).

Merlin Prismriver

  • Because of Merlin's bizarre glitch that causes her to behave improperly during the sisters' final spell card, fans have portrayed her as being occasionally rebellious or even crazy.
  • A mutation of a computer-programming meme on the Japanese message board 2ch called "Nurupo" (ぬるぽ) (short for "Null Pointer Exception", which basically means "Disregard everything I just said") resulted in someone changing it to "Merupo" (めるぽ). This almost immediately became a popular nickname for Merlin, although it could also be described as her alter ego.
  • Merupo is depicted by replacing Merlin's head with a smiling Shift JIS head with a squiggle of hair down one side of its face, like so: ξ・∀・). As far as Merupo's personality goes, think Merlin, only twice as stupid and twice as crazy (the only word Merupo seems to be able to say is her name).
  • Merlin has a great tendency of being drawn with a larger chest in fanart, perhaps because of the remarks in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense about her being the tallest and most eye catching, similar to Komachi Onozuka.

Youmu Konpaku

Compared to many other characters, Youmu has relatively some fanon that deserves special mention. The usual image of Youmu is "the role of the regular person", "abused by Yuyuko", and "pressed to do regular tasks (being good at all regular tasks, despite having specified to be a gardener)". However, she still appears in many fanworks and is loved by many fans.

Myon~

Many fans call Youmu "Myon", but this is partly canon since this term originates from something she has said when she asked Yuyuko Saigyouji why she is present at such a "myon" place in the Perfect Cherry Blossom extra back story. "Myon-na" is a portmanteau of "hyon-na" (unexpected) and "myou-na" (strange). Western fans more commonly use "Myon" to refer to her phantom half.

Relationshipping

Since she's generally confined to Hakugyokurou, compared to how often she has showed up in the works, she has few definite friendship relations. Fortunately, as she has become a player character several times, in the stories of those games, she has had much experience in meeting others. She is generally paired with the following characters in fandom:

  • Yuyuko Saigyouji: Self-explanatory. Master and servant banzai.
  • Reisen Udongein Inaba: As they're both worldly-wise people in fanon, they're a duo with the common trait of being servants. In the fifth stage of Imperishable Night, she felt a little sympathy with Reisen. Other than that, in the ending of Imperishable Night, as her eyes became like Reisen's red eyes of insanity, there was a scene where she received a medical examination.
  • Sakuya Izayoi: In fanworks, they're connected by battle as they both fight with edged tools. In this case, Sakuya's perfectly elegant style is contrasted with the half-human Youmu full of feelings of adoration and envy. They're also comrades as they are both servants. Youmu also sometimes addresses Sakuya as "Onee-sama", a title usually used to refer respectfully to an older sister or to an older woman one respects or admires.
JoJo association

Youmu frequently gets crossed over with Jean-Pierre Polnareff from the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series. He's a fast-moving sword stand-user. This is even present in Touhou Hisoutensoku, where one of her alternate palettes turns her completely silver, a subtle reference to Polnareff's Stand Silver Chariot. One of her spell cards has her assault her opponent with multiple copies of herself, just like one of Polnareff's supers in the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fighting game. Both Sakuya and Youmu can be seen in the style of "gold&silver" due to these palettes, as Sakuya is a clear reference to Dio Brando by proxy (which also may serve to reinforce their relationshipping in fandom).

  • Concidentally, both of them have shared voice actors in Koumajou Densetsu II with two other characters along with Remilia; Sakuya shares her voice actress (who also voiced Marisa at a prior point) with Jolyne Cujoh, Youmu shares a voice with Reimi Sugimoto (another ghost), while Remilia shares hers with Yasuho Hirose; all three characters were voiced like so in JoJo's Bizzare Adventure: All-Star Battle.
League of Legends Item Reference

In the American multiplayer game League of Legends, there's a reference to Youmu where there's an item called "Youmuu's Ghostblade" which fits with Youmu since it shares her name, she is a half ghost and uses a blade for her attack. It's design clearly shows a katana with cherry blossoms around it, making it a possible reference to Youmu's Roukanken. Another reference to Youmu in League of Legends is the New champion Orianna: Her "pet" ball is referring to Youmu and her ghost half.

Portrait style changes

Since ZUN's drawing style changes a lot in each work, she has been called "Youyoumu Youmu" (妖々夢妖夢), or "YYY" for short, from Perfect Cherry Blossom and "The face that knew men" (男を知った顔) from Ten Desires. With the latter, Japanese fans have noticed that her portrait makes her look cuter, charming and youthful compared to her portraits in previous games, with notable emphasis placed on her hairstyle change. For some reason, some fans have taken this as a sign that Youmu may have made a boyfriend, speculating that she's made efforts to better take care of her appearance as a result. This resulted in "男を知った顔" becoming a nickname for her Ten Desires drawing. Reactions have ranged from agreeance to complete outrage.

Miscellaneous
  • Phantom half abuse: Youmu's phantom half often receives terrible treatment in canon (for example, in Touhou Hisoutensoku, upon losing to Sanae Kochiya, Sanae asks her how "the marshmallow looking-like thing" tastes). In fanon, Yuyuko is frequently seen abusing it, sometimes treating it as food or as a useful object.

Yuyuko Saigyouji

  • Following Imperishable Night, Yuyuko became famous as a "hungry ghost" due to several "gluttonous" lines uttered during her scenario in Imperishable Night. She is often depicted in derivative works as having an immense appetite and/or attempting to eat other characters, most notably Mystia Lorelei and Youmu Konpaku's ghost-half (Kutaka Niwatari being eaten by Yuyuko isn't uncommon either). However, due to her Hopeless Masquerade background presence, constantly eating rice balls, her gluttony has been strongly supported.
  • Yuyuko is for the most part drawn with a shapely figure, sometimes with a big of a belly in reference to her eating habits.
  • The symbol on Yuyuko's hitaikakushi resembles the Sega Dreamcast logo. Many fanworks make fun of this.
    • This is just fandom for a long while but ZUN said her symbol was conscious of Dreamcast logo in " Touhou Project 20th Anniversary drinking party (東方Project20周年飲み会) " broadcast on Niconico Douga,October 15,2015.[3]
    • As of Ten Desires, it has changed however.
  • She is sometimes depicted in fan-works as having had brown or black hair when she was alive. This is because her Perfect Memento in Strict Sense entry mentions that she is said to have lighter hair color and skin tone since her death.
  • As soon as she appeared as a first boss, people started making comments that she has become "Merchant A" (町人 Chounin A), a typical designation in battles against small-fry enemies in RPG games, like "Merchant A," "Merchant B," etc.
  • It is never stated exactly how she committed suicide but some fan works often show her committing suicide with a knife (this is shown in the flash video True Blossom).
    • While generally not seen in fan works due to the difficulty of depicting it, another common fan theory is that Yuyuko used her ability to invoke death on herself.
      • Going along with the above, sometimes the Saigyou Ayakashi's trunk is sometimes shown in the aftermath as being stained in the blood spatter of said suicide.
  • Some fanart depicts Yukari Yakumo as having been present when Yuyuko committed suicide, or right after she did. In some cases, Yukari is then shown grieving.
  • Most derivative works do not depict the phantoms around her, probably because it is bothersome to depict. However, since they have always been depicted in print works such as Silent Sinner in Blue, they are probably 100% necessary.
    • Some derivative works depict Yuyuko as having two "myons", presumably as being the phantoms, although there is a difference.
  • Various fanworks have the giant fan seen in some of Yuyuko's PCB spell cards appear as a sign of her readying to maim someone, often someone who made her angry (not an easy feat given her easygoing personality). Sometimes this is parodied by having her require wires or frameworks to hold up the fan, which are prone to collapsing.
    • One particular example would be Yuyuko in Colonel Aki's life of maid getting it out to be even cuter, which has the nickname "Death by Moe MkII".
  • Because the symbol doesn't exist in the proper Chinese language, her name is usually written as 西行寺幽幽子 in the Chinese community.

Ran Yakumo

  • A standard fan-name is to call her Ran-shama, where "shama" is a childish mispronunciation of "sama" that Chen would call her by. Sometimes, the "Ran-sha" part of it is rendered as 乱射, which means "random firing," a phrase commonly said whenever it seems like she is about to shoot.
  • Ran is sometime portrayed as a flasher in fan works due to the "Suppatenko" (literally, "Naked Heaven-Fox") meme spawned by this page (images on page defunct; archived here). (NSFW)
  • According to Ran's spell card, "Princess Tenko", and the phrase on the first scene of the Extra stage of Perfect Cherry Blossom, "A mysterious occurrence on the crossing to three countries", some fans of Ran think her as Tamamo no Mae, rather than White-faced Golden Fox of Nine Tails, or that being showed above.
  • She's usually portrayed as a motherly figure, especially towards Chen.
  • In certain memetic fanworks, Ran is seen to suffer from excessive nosebleeding whenever she sees Chen.
  • No one really knows how Yukari Yakumo met Ran but it's speculated that she was taken in by Yukari as a baby. The reason for this speculation is unknown but this could have something to do with the fact that Ran has known Yukari for some time and that her original name is unknown (as stated by her profile), leading to fans to think she didn't have one originally and that Yukari gave her that name upon finding her. However, as with most fan-works and theories, this completely omits what has been proven as canon and the fact that Ran was older than an infant when she became Yukari's shikigami, as proven in her interview with Aya Shameimaru in the Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red.
    • Though, it could be said fan theory above just fits well in a typical fan art/ficion scenario.
      • In a related sense, she is often depicted as being child (usually no older than five) when having met Yukari and becoming her shikigami.

Yukari Yakumo

Yukari is a common recurring character to appear in the fanbase of the Touhou Project, being very popular amongst the fans of Touhou. she may appear in many fangames and art, where despite being a high-class boss, compared to Flandre Scarlet, she may have more lower-class appearances to try and fit her better within the fangame. It's common to treat her to have an antagonistic role or a supporting role for Reimu Hakurei. She also tends to have arbitrary weaknesses added to balance her out. For fandom material based on Yukari's Gap, see said article.

Maribel Relations

Yukari is famously associated with Maribel Hearn by fans due to the related nature of their abilities, the "ability to manipulate boundaries" and the "ability to see boundaries", although their exact relationship is never directly stated. When asked what their relationship was, ZUN said a cryptic remark about Lafcadio Hearn, a writer from the past who changed his name to Koizumi Yakumo. This confirms there is a relationship and it's analogous to Lafcadio Hearn (and if directly analogous, Maribel and Yukari may actually be the same person or related).[4] See Maribel Hearn's page for details.

Despite this, Yukari may be shown to be a motherly figure of some sort to Maribel, who will on the occasion visit the outside world to see Maribel. There's also trivial videos and artwork representing a nostalgic feeling that Yukari meets her "young-self" Maribel.

Characteristics

In contrast to her part canon personality, in some fan works, she is sometimes shown as being caring and affectionate towards Ran Yakumo and Chen, being a strict but motherly figure with Ran and grandmotherly to Chen and, in others, going with the fact that she is familiar with Reimu due to an unsaid event, she is sometimes shown as a mother-figure to Reimu Hakurei, as having cared for her when she was younger in the place of her parents.

There is a running gags involving her which plays on the fact that she sleeps a lot and leaves most of her work to her shikigami Ran. Due to the fact she sleeps a lot, fans tend to depict her as lazy, which is somewhat true (she did perform her tasks for awhile before she got a shikigami) and some fans depict her as nocturnal or crepuscular because she is mostly active when it is dark. Due to the fact she sleeps and was sleeping at the time she encountered Reimu (canonically), some fans interpret her outfit in Perfect Cherry Blossom as a nightgown and she's portrayed in one, also she's often drawn without shoes only socks or stockings.

She's often drawn as beautiful and shapely (sometimes impossibly so) and sometimes having a vampish/teasing personaltiy, causing no end of annoyance to Reimu and/or Ran.

Nicknames

Popular fan-nicknames for Yukari include "Sukima" ("gap"), "Yukarin" (a contraction of "Yukari-chan"), and the mock nickname "Babaa" (ババァ, roughly, "old hag," also BBA for short). The last one has been in use because she is known as one of the oldest youkai in Gensokyo. In relation to this, Yukari is also often depicted with Kanako Yasaka and Eirin Yagokoro. This is due to their family names containing the character ya () that, when misread, can mean old hag.

Miscellaneous
  • In some fanworks, Yukari insists on being 17 years old. Usage in fanworks is possibly a parody of Kikuko Inoue, who claims that she is 17 years old despite being way over that age. Musou Kakyou: A Summer Day's Dream casts Kikuko Inoue as the narrator (probably Yukari), in a nod to this in-joke.
    • This, along with her "old hag" reputation above, led to Yukari being depicted as easily offended when talking about her age, and comments regarding it are sometimes left unfinished and/or end with the addition of "*gapped*", as if Yukari herself gapped away the writer to avoid her actual age being revealed or made fun of.
  • Yukari has been compared to (and depicted cosplaying as) Sheryl Nome of Macross Frontier fame, something which became hilarious in hindsight when Sheryl's voice actress, Aya Endo, voiced Yukari in Koumajou Densetsu II: Stranger's Requiem.
  • In fanart, Yukari's fan is sometimes drawn to have Yuyuko Saigyouji's "fan" on her own.
  • She is speculated to be loosely based off of the "sukima-onna", a Japanese urban legend and folk tale (dating from the Edo Period).

Layla Prismriver

Despite only being briefly mentioned with no official artwork, Layla has become notorious enough that she has her own fanart; the most common depiction of her is having long, green, wavy hair and green eyes with a purple dress, which bares the resemblance of the Prismriver Sisters.[5] It unknown if ZUN's aware of this depiction. However of course, illustrations and characteristics of Layla may vary, being completely different to the said description of Layla, such as this image.

Miscellaneous
  • Layla is commonly treated to have become a poltergeist and to have settled in Gensokyo, still living in the Ruined Western Mansion with the Prismriver Sisters.
  • She is commonly shown with the Prismriver Sisters.

Youki Konpaku

  • Youki is sometimes compared with Rinnosuke Morichika due to being one the few males in Gensokyo, and sometimes portrayed as one of the residents of the Human Village.
  • No official image of Youki exists. However, many fans portray him as an old man with long swept-back white hair and a short beard, dressed in a hakama and coat (usually green/white to match Youmu). ZUN is aware of this.[6]
  • There's been various theories on where he went to and why he left as it's one of Touhou's great unsolved mysteries.

Saigyou Ayakashi

References

  1. ZUN's reply to messages on the former Gensou Bulletin Board 1
  2. http://www.kyon.pl/static/img/remiq.net_16153.jpg
  3. http://blog.livedoor.jp/tohomemory/archives/45729835.html ( Japanese )
  4. ZUN (2005-02-19). "Doujin Barrier: The Work Called Touhou and the Fantasy of Game Creation" (in 日本語). Nagoya's Toukai High School: coolier. Retrieved 2011-09-21.
  5. Fanart of Layla on Pixiv
  6. "2011年博麗神社あとの祭り part1大百科". 2011-05-09.