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Kosuzu Motoori

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(もと) (おり)   () (すず)


kosɨzɨ motooɾʲi

(♫)
Kosuzu Motoori
FS Kosuzu2.png
Kosuzu Motoori on the cover of CompAce
Bibliophile with a Deciphering Eye
More Character Titles
Species

Human

Abilities

The ability to decipher books by only touching them

Age

Unknown (younger than Hieda no Akyuu) [1]

Location

Suzunaan in Human Village

Music Themes
  • 判読眼のビブロフィリア (Forbidden Scrollery)
Appearances
Official Games
Print Works
"Miss Reimu's been keeping an eye on me?"
"Indeed. As you're well aware, she's a human who specializes in youkai extermination. She especially hates it when humans admire youkai the way you do."
Kosuzu Motoori and Yukari Yakumo (Forbidden Scrollery Chapter 49.)

Kosuzu Motoori (本居 小鈴 Motoori Kosuzu) is the main protagonist of Forbidden Scrollery. She is a Human Village resident and a worker at the Suzunaan book rental shop. According to her, she's the No.1 collector of the demon books in Gensokyo.

General Information

Personality

Kosuzu has a sweet personality, considerate and optimistic, polite and cheerful with her customers and her friends, and enjoys telling stories to village children. However, she is very confident in herself and her abilities, which frequently gets her into trouble. She thinks she knows better than most other people, distrusting Reimu and often taking matters into her own hands, with disastrous consequences (as when she tried to summon a smoke youkai to deal with a word worm [2]). She's highly curious, and often dangerously so, being unafraid to read and make use of the Demon books she owns, even after learning that they contain the power of youkai, and goes to many different measures to acquire information.

Despite this confidence, she can be quite cowardly as well. She develops a temporary fear of snakes after hearing a rumor that they can eat a human whole, and gets worked up over a horror story she hears from a pair of children, even after dismissing it as illogical. She's also prone to fainting when startled, whether it be in a dangerous situation or even if it's actually something benign. [3] It is said that she didn't enter in panic after knowing Mamizou Futatsuiwa was a youkai just because she read Akyuu's books about youkai infiltrating in human society. [4]

Kosuzu is very conflicted over how she should feel about youkai. While Hieda no Akyuu, her good friend, and Reimu warn her that youkai are not to be trusted, she is on good terms with Aya Shameimaru and Mamizou Futatsuiwa, both of whom she is aware are youkai, and have never attempted to hurt her. She wants a definite answer over whether or not youkai are her friends or foes, and wants to understand her purpose in Gensokyo, but the conflicting opinions of her various friends cause her great frustration, and she struggles to form her own. As a result, she became possessed by the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons scroll.

Once the true relationship between youkai and humans is explained to Kosuzu at the end of Forbidden Scrollery, she reacts with excitement and expresses interest in one day participating in danmaku duels.

Abilities

Ability to decipher books by only touching them

At the beginning of Forbidden Scrollery, Kosuzu had recently gained the ability to decipher any sort of text, no matter what language it is written in, -even if it's not a human language [5] - just by touching it. Despite her ability, she appears to have difficulty writing in other languages (for example, English). However, she could write in fox language, [6] so it appears her ability only partially applies to writing. Additionally, her ability fails to work if the text has been mirrored (such as on a woodblock used for printing).

Ability to read youkai auras

By chapter 16 of Forbidden Scrollery, Kosuzu's deciphering ability had improved to the point where she could "read between the lines" by sensing the energies and emotions imprinted in writing, allowing her to detect demon books and helping her to distinguish real texts from forgeries. Hieda no Akyuu theorises that Kosuzu gained this ability from prolonged exposure to demon books.

Occupation

Kosuzu is a part-timer that works at Suzunaan, a library specializing in books that appeared in Gensokyo from the outside world. She lends books to various characters throughout her manga. After the events of Forbidden Scrollery, she began to lend demon books too from time to time. She also does printing work, as it is one of the services offered by Suzunaan. [7] [8]

Possessions

Kosuzu claims to have the largest collection of demon books in all of Gensokyo stored in the library she works at. It's essentially her pet project and hobby.

Backstory

Not much is known about Kosuzu's past, but she appears to have known Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame for at least some time. At some point she started working part-time in the library Suzunaan.

Character Design

Origin

She is very likely a reference to Norinaga Motoori, a prominent 18th century Japanese scholar in Kokugaku (ancient Japanese literature study) - his greatest achievement was deciphering the Kojiki. Norinaga was also known to love old bells very much, which is called "kosuzu" (古鈴) in Japanese.

Name

Her full name is Kosuzu Motoori (本居 小鈴). Her surname Motoori (本居) literally means "residing books" while her given name Kosuzu (小鈴) means "little bell".

Design

Kosuzu is a young girl with red eyes, light red hair and twintails adorned with bells. She wears a checkered kimono and apron with Kosuzu and 鈴奈庵 (Suzunaan) written on the front. She uses glasses to read. When she goes outdoors she'll wear a coat.

Appearances

Kosuzu's cameo in HM

Spin-offs

Hopeless Masquerade

Kosuzu made her first game appearance in Hopeless Masquerade as a background character on the Human Village stage. She can be seen with a broom watching the fights that happen in this game behind all the other humans.

Literature

Forbidden Scrollery

Kosuzu is the main protagonist of Forbidden Scrollery. She recently gained the power to decipher all writing, though it hasn't yet been explained how. She was responsible for letting loose a smoke youkai called Enenra in an attempt to smoke out a word-eating worm youkai. Her reading of the Night Parade Picture Scroll caused objects around the village to transform into tsukumogami at night, though once this was traced to her she began restricting her reading to once per month to avoid suspicion. After attending Hata no Kokoro's performance at the Hakurei Shrine, an old scroll lead Kosuzu to deduce (correctly) that Kokoro is a youkai and (incorrectly) that Reimu was helping her steal emotions, though Mamizou managed to convince her that Reimu was being tricked and that the menreiki's next play would be under proper supervision.

Her habit of reading demon books fills the shop with a youkai aura that attracts other youkai like Mamizou Futatsuiwa, kappas or Aya Shameimaru. The latter is the first to tell Kosuzu directly that she was one. All of this, along with the recent reading about Hieda no Akyuu’s books about the equilibrium between humans and youkai, makes Kosuzu doubt about the statement that youkai are a danger to human society.

After talking about the matter with people as Marisa Kirisame, Yukari Yakumo or even Akyuu, she decides to read the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons scroll. As a result, she becomes possessed, but it is brought back to normal thanks to Mamizou and Reimu’s effort. After all of that, they tell her directly what it is exactly that equilibrium.

Relationships

Family

Kosuzu is known to have a family. On several occasions, she'd talk or yell to her parents in the shop, but they were always off-panel. One example is the beginning of chapter 13 where she asks her mother if she knew where her shoes were. She also made reference to her grandfather, in which he was the one who taught Kosuzu about the "word-eating worm", but it's unknown if he's still alive.

Mamizou Futatsuiwa

A regular patron of the store in her human disguise, Mamizou Futatsuiwa speaks to Kosuzu in a friendly manner and offers her advice on supernatural matters. While Reimu frequently warns Kosuzu of the dangers of interacting with youkai artifacts, Mamizou has no such compunctions and merely advises her to keep her hobbies secret so that people like Reimu won't take her books away. Unaware of Mamizou's true nature for most of the story, Kosuzu looks up to her as a role model, seemingly trusting her more than any other adult.

Hieda no Akyuu

Hieda no Akyuu is Kosuzu's closest friend, and the two often meet to discuss books and strange happenings. Kosuzu is noticably more casual and outspoken around Akyuu than while speaking to her elders like Reimu and Marisa. However, it seems Akyuu has a preachy side, which annoys Kosuzu. [1]

Minor Relationships

Reimu Hakurei

Kosuzu seems to know and respect Reimu very well, speaking to her in a friendly and polite manner. However, she has heard the rumours of the Hakurei Shrine being infested by youkai and it sometimes colours how she interprets Reimu's actions. Reimu addresses Kosuzu as "Kosuzu-chan".

Marisa Kirisame

Kosuzu is friendly with Marisa, but does not appear to know her as well as Reimu.

Aya Shameimaru

Kosuzu and Aya have become business partners in the selling of the Bunbunmaru Newspaper for the Human Village.

Gallery

Covers

Illustrations

Others

Additional Information

  • The logo of Suzunaan, Kosuzu's shop is a turnip (you can find it in 庵 on the graphic design of title logo of Forbidden Scrollery). It should be derived from the fact that a traditional name of turnip is suzuna (菘 / 鈴菜), which is also used these days when they celebrate new-year festival as one of the special seven vegetables of spring, but is normally called "kabu" (カブ / 蕪).
    • This vegetable also appears in the 恩頼図 ("onrai-zu" or "mitama-no fuyu-no e". It means "the graph of influence".), drawn by the adopted child of Norinaga. This turnip-like picture explains graphically the lineage of Norinaga's Japanese Study; Norinaga stands in the center, the upper part lists the names of people who affected Norinaga, and the lower does those who are affected by him.
  • In chapters 10 and 11, Kosuzu uses a kimono with a hat that resembles the famous fictional Japanese detective Kosuke Kindaichi created by Seishi Yokomizo.

Fandom

Official Sources

Official sources

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Forbidden ScrolleryShe's always like that! Treating people like kids. Our ages aren't even that far apart! - Kosuzu Motoori (Chapter 48)
  2. Forbidden Scrollery – Chapter 2
  3. Forbidden Scrollery - Chapter 43
  4. Forbidden Scrollery - Chapter 47
  5. Forbidden Scrollery - Chapter 1
  6. Forbidden Scrollery - Chapter 19
  7. Forbidden Scrollery - Chapter 29
  8. Forbidden Scrollery - "The "Gensokyo Chronicles" is also printed and bound at the Suzunaan as well" (Chapter 1)