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Touhou Faction Writeup: The Underworld
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Past writeups: SDM, Eientei, Youkai Montain
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I said hell but "hell" is a complex word to use in Touhou that means like four or five different things
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So, there's a whole elaborate underworld beneath Gensokyo, with different layers that have/had different purposes
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A number of particularly nasty youkai live down there
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It was first explored in Touhou 11, Subterannean Animism, in an incident where swarms of vengeful spirits were pouring out of a geyser
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Since this is a bit more scattered of a location and it's really stretching the definition of 'faction' I'm gonna talk about it in a different way than usual
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We're gonna start at the surface and work our way down
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Starting with the bridge between the surface world and the underworld
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This bridge is guarded by the bridge princess, Parsee Mizuhashi
https://images.plurk.com/2b7dDjfysZX65FJvHPAZlx.png
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The hashihime is a fairly obscure youkai, characterized by boundless envy
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Parsee's power is the ability to manipulate jealousy, and she's jealous of everyone she meets
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She'll always find something to be jealous of, and it fills her with anger until she attacks
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An interesting thing to note is that her clothes are based on surviving murals of the Tocharian people
https://images.plurk.com/2dRoSJIol4FhOXkR4EMh98.png
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Once you get past her, you enter Old Hell
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This used to be where sinners judged by the Yama were sent to be tormented
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but due to overpopulation issues, the yama relocated hell to somewhere else
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Old Hell is now mainly home to vengeful spirits that were abandoned in the move
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and also oni
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like one Yuugi Hoshiguma
https://images.plurk.com/7JNAF3cUZHxKlE53ACdIHa.png
Overbringer
That mural is rad
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One of the Four Devas along with Suika
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Yuugi is famous most for the end of her battle in Subterannean Animism
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she's only a stage 3 boss, so she's not an especially brutal fight
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but afterwards, it's pointed out that she was carrying a dish of sake the whole time, and didn't spill a single drop
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So, she's extremely strong, but wasn't taking you all that seriously
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Very friendly and fight-happy, she seems to be something of a leader to the oni of Old Hell
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and a bit jealous of Suika for being able to travel freely above ground
Th▲t M▲n
not even drop...
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But at the bottom of Old Hell, you'll find the most notable structure, the main point of interest in our journey
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the Palace of the Earth Spirits
https://images.plurk.com/6AxdxPYxBFTboR4SvHJTsK.png
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(Yuugi is also touhou’s designated thirst trap)
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Even demons from hell avoid this place
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Not because it's too dangerous, but because its mistress is the worst person in the world to hang out with
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(She’s the one who’s most often drawn hot in official works)
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https://images.plurk.com/vXHkS8XcBVaFidLsGWZ0o.png that being Satori Komeiji
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A rarity in that she's the only main series boss who appears before any of her underlings
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Satori is, well, a satori
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A kind of youkai famous for being able to read minds
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Satori's weird eyeball orb is her third eye that lets her to that
Overbringer
I really like Satori’s design
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It's good
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anyway nobody likes getting their mind read during a conversation so she's largely isolated from hell society
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but animals love her because she can read their minds and understand them without the use of language
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So she's essentially a touhou crazy cat lady
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amongst her countless pets are a variety of normal animals, but also a few proper youkai
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two in particular are of note
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https://images.plurk.com/521kBVYcRPuBL5oElXtMJS.png Rin Kaenbyou is a cat
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Her job in hell is to take corpses down to the next level down, the Hell of Blazing Fires, for incineration
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She's very friendly but also kind of distressing
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because she LOVES her job
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however, she doesn't have any interest in killing people
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she just hangs out near people who are dying, being stoked about carting them off to hell
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https://imgs.plurk.com/QCY/fuG/M1dfRq2gk4F5eDAk3avAX98Bkwo_lg.gif she did this little dance in a fighting game background once
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Oh, some more on Satori actually
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There's a side work called Strange Creators of Outer World, that includes a bit where various characters give 0-10 ratings to various youkai
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Satori is really positive on all the underworld denizens
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she calls Parsee kind, treating her jealousy as being good at seeing the best in people, and thanks her for keeping out all the detestable people from the surface
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she talks about rin the same way humans talk about their own kbitys
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10: Orin often hugs me, and her fur is so beautiful and cute! Whenever I notice her sleeping next to me, she's so warm and comfortable that I can't help but want to pet her.
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Satori is also the protagonist of an ongoing spinoff manga, Foul Detective Satori
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where she tackles a weird and complex mystery by cheating, because she can read minds
https://images.plurk.com/3EDQONOt4Fmr6Y4JBWVqG1.png
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Anyway back to our descent
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Rin took us to the Hell of Blazing Fires, but that's in service of something else below it
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https://64.media.tumblr.com/4eb6764169e724658e85fa056edd15a6/aa99cd451dcd81e3-d3/s500x750/fe26ae7e90b02fd70e4a0dc6b45b9a8d81d6f0c6.gif a nuclear reactor
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it was built in order to revolutionize energy production for the kappa
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Gensokyo does not have nuclear technology
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but they do have Utsuho Reiuji https://images.plurk.com/XsBO6YEGB6EppnlRYbMLx.png
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Otherwise known as Okuu, the strongest of Satori's pets
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Okuu is a hell raven who accidentally ate a sun god
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this gave her the power of nuclear fusion, so she works in the reactor
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I've already talked about her at length over here
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Utsuho is the final boss of SA, being driven mad with power and planning to incinerate the surface world with nuclear hellfire
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she's chilled out now. she's just kind of stupid and easygoing
Vehrec
she's a bird, she doesn't have particularly complex wants
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The reactor ties SA back into Mountain of Faith, since its construction was overseen by Kanako and it mainly benefits the kappa
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the main thing the humans know it for is that there's now a hot spring on the surface powered by it
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Reimu accordingly describes nuclear fusion as "a power only useful for heating water"
EsperBot
She's not wrong. https://images.plurk.com/6VQ8JqYWxmE6CUZ50HPy7d.jpg
Vehrec
the human's hot spring is the kappa's cooling pond and they're working at cross purposes
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There is however one more person in Satori's orbit
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that being her sister, Koishi Komeiji
https://images.plurk.com/3PvprxWG3Yyc9S3RzoJYCH.png
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Koishi is almost completely unlike her sister
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She sealed her third eye, so she can't read minds
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Her power is related to the subconscious
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Her mind is closed, and she only acts unconsciously, giving her a nature similar to buddhist enlightenment
Overbringer
Okuu’s theme is probably my favorite touhou theme
New! XC
it's a lot more of a big and aggressive theme
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It's impossible to notice Koishi unless you're looking directly at her
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and people often forget about her as soon as she's out of view
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It starts with big alarm klaxons so you know shit is getting real
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she's a childlike free spirit with a tragic nature as someone doomed to never be remembered
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people like this character.
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"How much" there's a yearly popularity ranking, and Koishi is one of a tiny handful of characters who's beaten out both Reimu and Marisa, claiming the top spot in 2015.
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So, having gone through all of Satori's people and hit the nuclear reactor, we're probably done here
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except, we aren't. not anymore
Overbringer
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2020 saw the release of Touhou 17.5, which revealed another layer of the underground, below the hell of blazing fires
New! XC
(Sakuya and Youmu have also won those polls)
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a hell of blood pools and oil, wherein one may encounter
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https://images.plurk.com/7c3bCtGPSRzpIvEGj5o1t4.png Yuuma Toutestu
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A Taotie, a kind of demon from Chinese myth
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she's a fucker
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the touhou version of an oil baron
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she has the power to absorb and eat anything, making her extremely difficult to deal with, because whatever you throw at her, she just absorbs
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In the end, the only one capable of defeating her was Flandre Scarlet, with the power to destroy anything
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so, Flandre destroyed all her absorbed power and defeated her
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I haven't played that game yet, so I don'tknow the details, but it gets into another group I'll be talking about later
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to wrap this ramble up, here's a lavishly animated 13-minute retelling of the final battle against Utsuho Reiuji
[Touhou 3D] Subterranean Stars
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Next up will be Myouren Temple
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fun Satori fact: she has the most spell cards of any character and it's not even close
New! XC
Buddhism imminent
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because in SA you play either Reimu or Marisa and one of three possible partners for each - Reimu gets yukari, suika or aya, and Marisa gets Alice, Patchouli or Nitori
Rama
Okuu is one of my favorite antagonist types
Rama
A being with unfathomable cosmic power and zero brain cells
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and Satori has two unique spell cards for each possible partner character, since she reads your mind and draws out attacks from your partner's past
New! XC
SA Stage 6 Boss - Utsuho Reiuji's Theme - Solar Sect...
anyways since we keep talking about it
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so that's one of her own spells, plus two three apparently spells each for each of six possible partner teams, across four difficulty levels
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plus cameos in other side games she comes out with 76 spell cards total
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Okina Matara is in second place with 46
merrylor
a fun koishi fact that kills me is that satori is one of the only people who consistently remembers her, having known her before she closed her third eye
New! XC
she gets a lot of angsty and creepy and weird fanworks
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Koishi's the extra boss of Subteranean Animism and the stage leading up to her has another of my all time favorite touhou songs
SA Extra Stage - Last Remote
ooh mama suemay
yeah, fanworks seem split on whether Koishi should be a tragic display of ephemerality or a horrifying slasher villain

for what it's worth the official sources mostly portray her as vibing constantly and doing things arbitrarily like a dog or a ghost, save for the one game about urban legends where she adopted the persona of BUT WHO WAS PHONE
Dragomorph
and also the one where she got a nice mask and then didn't wanna give it back
Dragomorph
i will say again that it's magnificent to me that the first time Flandre appears in a game in twenty+ years she's the main victor
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Flandre actually won 1st place in the latest popularity poll
Dragomorph
back again and it feels so good
NekoIncardine
Koishi loves not thinking! (Actual quote from the games turned meme, from my understanding)
merrylor
correct
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