Medicine Melancholy

メディスン・メランコリー me̞disɯ̃ᵝm me̞ɾ̠ã̠ŋko̞ɾiː (♫) Medicine Melancholy Medicin Melancory More Alternative Spellings
Medicine Melancholy in Phantasmagoria of Flower View Little Sweet Poison More Character Titles
Species	Doll gone youkai
Abilities	Manipulation of poison
Age	Ageless
Location	Hill of the Nameless
Music Themes
ポイズンボディ　～ Forsaken Doll (Phantasmagoria of Flower View)
Appearances
Official Games
Phantasmagoria of Flower View (Playable Character, Possible Opponent) Shoot the Bullet (Stage 4-2, 4-5, 4-7 Boss) Hopeless Masquerade (Background Character)
Print Works
Silent Sinner in Blue (Prologue Cameo, Chapter 9 Cameo) Perfect Memento in Strict Sense (Article) Wild and Horned Hermit (Chapter 20 cameo) Strange Creators of Outer World Vol. 3 (Profile Section)

"It's not good spreading the smell of poison so much. It'll make others want to run."

"Poison? Oh, poison. It's my life. That won't change."

— Yuuka Kazami and Medicine Melancholy (Phantasmagoria of Flower View Episode 7)

Medicine Melancholy (メディスン・メランコリー, Medisun Merankorī) is a young doll youkai that lives on the Hill of the Nameless surrounded by poisonous lily-of-the-valley flowers.

General Information

Medicine first appeared in Phantasmagoria of Flower View as a possible opponent. She was then later shown as a target on Stage 4 of Shoot the Bullet and in the background of Hopeless Masquerade. She is a doll who became youkai after being left in the lily-of-the-valley field on the Hill of the Nameless.

Personality

Due to her becoming a youkai only recently and never leaving the Hill of the Nameless, Medicine is very immature and her experience and knowledge are overwhelmingly shallow. Medicine harbors an extreme hatred for humanity, and will actively try to poison anyone near her presence. This combined with her dreadful ability makes Medicine a very frightening youkai who should be avoided at all costs. After being judged by Eiki, Medicine starts to learn how to empathize. Between the events of Phantasmagoria of Flower View and Silent Sinner in Blue, Medicine has learned to be more sociable.

Abilities

Manipulating poison

Medicine is able to manipulate poison, where she can use the poison on everything; food, attacking and even herself could be covered with poison. It seems to be not merely the poison of lily-of-the-valley, but of all kinds. For example, the poison of wasps, snakes, spiders, alcohol, nicotine, etc. It has the effect such that even touching her will cause inflammation; there's currently no definite treatment method. Even strong youkai could be at risk from her poison, and it may cause after effects too. However, since she's in the early childhood of not having lived around the range of several hundred years, she is not able to skillful control her own power, and does not know how to go easy. Even when the opponent is a human, she puts forth all of her power. Because some of her attacks create clouds of poison in the player's side of the field which slow the player's movements and make dodging difficult, she can be a very troublesome opponent for those that don't take care while near poison. Though supposedly not especially powerful or experienced among youkai, the right poison can affect even very strong people or large numbers of people at once.

Incidentally, since she is not a living thing, the poison has no effect on her at all. Since all poison are raw materials for drugs, she would have good compatibility with the drug maker Eirin Yagokoro. The ingredients of seeds that can be taken from plants can cause animals to go insane. She learned that from experience, and she established a way to freely manipulate humans with poison.

Species

Since a few hundred years has still not passed from the time she became youkai, she is a novice youkai. Dolls are usually manipulated by humans. Because of this, she wishes for doll emancipation, but there aren't many dolls who agree with her since dolls can't move to begin with. She was a large doll used in ventriloquism. Although she is labeled as a youkai, Medicine's true nature may be that of a tsukumogami, as described in the Perfect Memento in Strict Sense article about the Eight Million Gods.

Character Design

Illustration of Medicine in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense

Origin

She may have been inspired by Agatha Christie, whose favourite flower was none other than the lily-of-the-valley. This is backed up by ZUN's obvious love for Agatha Christie's stories as seen in other characters like Alice Margatroid, Letty Whiterock, and above all Flandre Scarlet. Also, she may have been inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, Rappaccini's Daughter, where the title character, Dr. Rappaccini, keeps his daughter, Beatrice, confined in a garden of poisonous flowers, until she became poisonous herself.

Name

Her full name is Medicine Melancholy (メディスン・メランコリー), which may have derived from A Medicine For Melancholy by Ray Bradbury. Also, "medicine" can mean a "drug", and a drug can be "poison" – thus, a natural medicine can be poisonous if it were corrupted for harming purposes. "Melancholy" means to have great sadness or depression, and in archaic terms it means "black bile", or "Melancholia".

Design

Medicine has silver-blue coloured eyes and blonde curly hair. She wears a dark red-purple shirt with red seams, a red skirt with red-purple seams, shoes in the same color and a pink bow at her back. She has a red ribbon in her hair.

She is accompanied by a tiny doll that is similar to her appearance.

Appearances

Games

Phantasmagoria of Flower View

Medicine's back sprite in PoFV

Medicine's sprite in PoFV

Main article: Phantasmagoria of Flower View Story

Medicine attacks the player with lily-of-the-valley's poison for no apparent reason other than because they happened to be in her field. Eventually they all get overwhelmed by the poison and leave after the fight. She eventually leaves the field and encounters Eiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu, where she decides she will go against the humans and the status of dolls rise. Though, Eiki states that she is selfish and should understand the pain of others as well. So she gets judged by Eiki at that moment.

Spin-offs

Shoot the Bullet

Medicine in HM

In Shoot the Bullet, Aya Shameimaru encountered Medicine on stage 4 and took photos of her danmaku.

Hopeless Masquerade

Medicine made a background cameo appearance in Hopeless Masquerade on the Hall of Dreams' Great Mausoleum stage. She is seen sitting high on the mausoleum whilst cheering something.

Relationships

Humanity

She despises all humans that she encounters. Though, she doesn't actually know how to deal with humans. In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, her human friendship level is listed as "poor" while her danger level is listed as "high".

Eirin Yagokoro

Eirin Yagokoro goes to the Hill of the Nameless to meet Medicine after learning of her from Reisen. Eirin takes an interest in her poisons.

Minor Relationships

Alice Margatroid

Medicine was seen chatting with Alice Margatroid on chapter 9 of Silent Sinner in Blue. However, knowing that Medicine fights for "doll independence" and wants to free them from the hands of humans, it is expected that Medicine doesn't have a good opinion of the puppeteer.

Gallery

Artworks

• 

  Medicine artwork from Phantasmagoria of Flower View

• 

  Alternate outfit from Phantasmagoria of Flower View

Illustrations

• 

  Medicine from Who's Who of Humans & Youkai - Dusk Edition

Others

• 

  Medicine's sigil in The Grimoire of Marisa.

Skills

Skills

Name	Translated	Comments	Games	Usage
Total: 2
「ポイズンビー」	"Poison Bee"		PoFV	Charge attack
「スウィートポイズン」	"Sweet Poison"		PoFV	EX attack

Spell Cards

Spell Cards

Name	Translated	Comments	Games	Stage
Total: 5
毒符「神経の毒」	Poison Sign "Nerve Poison"		PoFV	Use
毒符「憂鬱の毒」	Poison Sign "A Poison for Melancholy"		PoFV	Use
霧符「ガシングガーデン」	Fog Sign "Gassing Garden"		StB	St. 4
毒符「ポイズンブレス」	Poison Sign "Poison Breath"		StB GoM	St. 4 —
譫妄「イントゥデリリウム」	Confusion "Into Delirium"		StB GoM	St. 4 —

Additional Information

• In Phantasmagoria of Flower View, Medicine, Sakuya and Aya are the only characters that learn from Eiki's lecture.

Fandom

Main article: Fandom: Medicine Melancholy

Official Profiles

Phantasmagoria of Flower View - キャラ設定.txt

○小さなスイートポイズン 　　メディスン・メランコリー 　　Medicine Melancholy 　　種族：人形 　　能力：毒を操る程度の能力 　　　鈴蘭畑に捨てられた人形が、長い年月を経て妖怪化した物。 　　　妖怪化してからはまだ数年程度しか経っていない、妖怪の新米。 　　　毒を操る程度の能力を持つ。 　　　植物から取れるある種の成分は動物を狂わせる。彼女はその事を経 　　験的に知り、人間を自由に操る方法を確立した。 　　　また、自分は生物じゃないので一切毒は効かない。 　　　人形は普段は人間に操られている。その為、彼女は人形解放を強く 　　願うが、賛同する人形は居なかった。そもそも他の人形は自らの力で 　　は動かなかったのだ。 　　　まだ咲くはずのない鈴蘭が、今年は一斉に咲き始めている。それど 　　ころか、一緒に咲くはずのない秋の花も咲き始めたのだ。彼女はは幻 　　想郷には未知なる力が存在する事を強く思い知らされた。

Little Sweet Poison Medicine Melancholy Species: Doll Ability: Manipulating poison A doll thrown away into a lily-of-the-valley field; over the long years she became a youkai. Since a few hundred years has still not passed from the time she became youkai, she is a novice youkai. She possesses ability to manipulate poison Certain kinds of ingredients, taken from a plant, can drive animals mad. She learned that through experience, and established a method of manipulating humans as she pleases. In addition, as she is not a living being, poison is harmless against her. Dolls are usually manipulated by humans. Because of this, she wishes for doll emancipation, but there aren't many dolls who agree with her. To begin with, other dolls don't move on their own... The suzuran, which weren't expected to bloom, have begun blooming all at once this year. In addition to that, even autumn flowers which weren't supposed to bloom are blooming too. She learned that there are many powers she has never seen in Gensokyo.

Official Sources

Official sources

• 2005/08/14 Phantasmagoria of Flower View - Medicine Story dialogue; キャラ設定.txt (official profile)
• 2005/12/30 Shoot the Bullet - Stage 4 Spell Card comments
• 2006/12/27 Perfect Memento in Strict Sense - Medicine Melancholy
• 2008/02/09 Silent Sinner in Blue - Chapter 9
• 2009/07/28 The Grimoire of Marisa - Medicine Melancholy's Spell Cards