• Welcome to Touhou Wiki!
  • Registering is temporarily disabled. Check in our Discord server to request an account and for assistance of any kind.

Human

From Touhou Wiki
Revision as of 01:31, 2 February 2012 by Tosiaki (talk | contribs) (→‎Books and articles: for the (yet-to-be created) Spirited-away humans)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Humans living in the Human Village.

Humans (人間, ningen) are a species of mammal scientifically known as Homo sapiens that have spread across the world for around 200,000 years. Their success relies heavily on intelligence unlike other previous dominate species like the dinosaurs or the ancestors of mammals, the synapsids who relied mainly on their biological weaponry. While the intelligence of humans is an advantage over other animals, they are considerably weaker in physical strength compared to other species of similar size and weight. While success of humans has often had negative influence to the natural world, other intelligent creatures like the crow have benefited and are often seen near cities and other urban areas.

Sub-Species

Arahitogami

Arahitogami (現人神, Living God) are deities that are human. It is a term used for those who have obtained enough faith to become divine even while still alive. They thus have some of their own power, independent of Gods, even if many living gods used to be priestesses for other Gods who obtained faith from their gods' miracles being mistaken for their own. However, faith in divinity in the outside world is such that even living gods have trouble maintaining faith. Because they are still alive, a loss of faith simply means a loss of power. For example, a human who became a living god would be a normal human, again.[1]

Humans in Touhou

In the Touhou Project, humans from the land of Gensokyo are physically similar to humans in the outside world, but are remarkably different in terms of abilities and their dominance over land. In ancient times, brave humans, who knew how to deal with supernatural entities, traveled to a youkai-infested area that we now call Gensokyo. They settled there in order to watch the youkai and keep them from terrorizing the rest of the countryside. These capable humans battled the youkai often. One day, Gensokyo was sealed away from the rest of the world. Having been separated from the rest of humanity, Gensokyo humans have ignored scientific advances and developed formidable innate spiritual power to survive. Today, the normal Gensokyo human is probably a little more powerful than the average youkai, but the population of youkai greatly outnumbers humans. Most humans live in the Human Village, but a few live in other notable locations.

Of course, there exist exceptional humans who can fight on equal terms against the most powerful beings in Gensokyo.

Magicians appear to be one of the species of youkai a human can become. It is unknown if magicians are specifically youkai human or a general class of youkai like the tengu who can originate from different species. All the magicians so far (Excluding Patchouli Knowledge who was born a magician) originate from a human. Therianthropes appear to be the only other youkai originating from humans.[2]

In Sanae Kochiya's senario in Touhou Hisoutensoku, Suwako Moriya differentiates between a human and an arahitogami.

Characters under this Bestiary

Note: "outside world-type" refers to the Human originating from the outside world or is still living there.

Touhou Project

Seihou Project

Uwabami Breakers

Samidare

See Also

References

  1. Mountain of Faith Sanae Kochiya's profile. "Though she didn't really have much faith, Sanae was able to live as a normal human without any real problems, but this would not do for the god she worshiped, Kanako.", as well other information on living gods
  2. Perfect Memento in Strict Sense/Lycaony