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Shikigami

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Shikigami (式神) is the term used for the summoned spirits of an "onmyouji", a Japanese sorcerer. Shikigami are used to protect and serve their master, much like the Western concept of the witch's familiar. There are many types of shikigami described in legend, the most common type being enchanted paper cutouts that can produce the illusion of another real-life object.

Shikigami often share a special link to their masters, which may cause their onmyouji to receive sympathetic injuries dealt to the shikigami. Because of this link and the enormous amount of energy needed to maintain shikigami, onmyouji do not usually summon more than one or two shikigami at a time.

Shikigami in Touhou

In the Touhou Project, shikigami are entities such as spirits that can be utilized to "possess" a youkai through certain techniques. For example, Ran Yakumo was formerly a denizen of the Animal Realm, and as such she's implied to have been a beast spirit without a physical body, but is now a shikigami used by Yukari Yakumo to possesses the body of a nine-tailed youkai fox. In this role, she is bound to do what Yukari tells her to. Chen, however, is only a part-time shikigami at this time and can have her possession removed by getting doused in water.

Though it can be assumed that owning a shikigami requires a large amount of energy in the Touhou universe, Ran has been around long enough and is powerful enough to have a shikigami of her own, Chen, who is being "converted" from a youkai the same way she was.

Hieda no Akyu describes this process of converting a being into a shikigami with the word "installing", as if one was installing software onto a computer. (On this point, there have been many sayings in Touhou that likened Shikigami to computers.[1][2][3][4][5]) Even Yukari compares a shikigami to a computer.

Characters under this Bestiary

References

See Also