Neo Quinn
Touhou faction writeups: The Animal Realm
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SDM, Eientei, Youkai Mountain, The Underworld, Myouren Temple, Taoists, Moon
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so, animals
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in Buddhist cosmology, there are six Desire Realms, the lower planes, the hells
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one of these is the Tiryagyoni Domain, which holds the foolish and prejudiced reborn humans and also the spirits of nonhuman animals
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in Touhou, this is roughly mapped onto the Animal Realm, a realm that's sort of part of hell but also sort of just nearby hell
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it contains mostly animal spirits, but some human spirits, too
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it's a cruel, ruthless place where the strongest rule and the weak serve
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law of the jungle
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so, you've probably got a pretty good mental image of what the animal realm looks like, right?
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WRONG
WRONG
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it's a towering skyscraper metropolis
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there's only one part of it that's forested, called the Primate Spirit Garden, and it's where the animal spirits have put all the humans
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the Animal Realm comes into the story in Touhou 17, Wily Beast and Weakest Creature
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in which an animal spirit comes to the surface and asks your protagonist of choice for help, as the animal realm is being conquered by a mysterious evil army
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on the way to figuring out who that is, let's talk leadership
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the Animal Realm is ruled by four yakuza-style supergangs
eggnogflavored
well, specifically, they pretend that the animal spirits want to invade the surface and they broke rank to warn the surface
eggnogflavored
to trick the shit out of the protag
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that
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Yacchie Kicchou is the leader of the Kiketsu Family
Yacchie Kicchou is the leader of the Kiketsu Family
rose time
Otters
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Yacchie is a dragon! The first one you fight in the series
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Dragons are super high rank creatures, considered to be above gods, so she's kind of a big deal
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we don't really know much about her, though, aside from that she's a real schemer
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She might be the one behind the idea of "let's lie to the humans and make them thing the enemy is planning to invade the surface"? I'm not quite sure
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Saki Kurokoma is the leader of the Keiga Family
Saki Kurokoma is the leader of the Keiga Family
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Which consists of the wolf spirits of the animal realm
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or leads them at least
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she's the EX boss, and she resembles her minions, in that she's strong and stupid
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She hears the rumors that were spreading about the invasion of the surface world and is like "oh that sounds rad, I'm gonna do that too"
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as a youkai, she is based off of the flying horse said to be owned by Prince Shotoku
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her ability is peerless leg strength
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she'll kick you apart
she'll kick you apart
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Yuuma Toutetsu is the leader of the Gouyouk Alliance
Yuuma Toutetsu is the leader of the Gouyouk Alliance
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I touched on her already in the writeup on the Underworld
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she's mentioned but not present in WBaWC, she got her own game later
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the fourth animal clan, like the fourth deva of the mountain, has not been touched on
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so anyway what's all this about an invasion?
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Well, the source is the oppressed human population of the animal realm
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the human spirits prayed for salvation, and their prayers gave way to the birth of a new god
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Keiki Haniyasushin
Keiki Haniyasushin
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Keiki is a god with the ability to create idols
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so, she answered the prayers of her worshippers by creating an army of terracotta soldiers
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the human spirits deposited their faith in the idols, bringing them to life as tireless soldiers
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the haniwa army was immune to spiritual attacks, so the beast spirits had no way of harming them
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so, the animals went to the surface and pretended Keiki was planning to invade it, in order to get some humans to come down into hell and beat her
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in the end, it seems like her conquest of the animal realm is thwarted, and she ends up on good terms with the humans of the surface. I'd need to play the game a few times and see all the endings to be sure how things shook out in the animal realm afterwards
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she has one main underling:
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Mayumi Joutouguu
Mayumi Joutouguu
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a living haniwa doll created by Keiki and given command over her terracotta army
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she reveres Keiki and has the ability to turn loyalty into strength, so she's VERY strong
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mainly acting as an extension of Keiki's will
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but in the end, she's a typical stage 5 boss, the stage 6 boss's right hand who gets defeated just before the finale
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but Mayumi is still the one who gets the final spotlight in this plurk, because:
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【東方ヴォーカルPV】HANIPAGANDA【暁Records公式】
fucking listen
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This is the last major faction in/around Gensokyo, so we're mostly done here, I may do a 'various minor factions' roundup tomorrow
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but you know about gensokyo now
Vehrec
tommorow we learn about the power of Tanuki 
Uncle Royd
I opened this plurk thinking "Quinn had BETTER have fuckin' linked Hanipaganda"
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it fucks so unbelievably hard
Uncle Royd
You think you have the measure of the song and then you hit the key change
Uncle Royd
and you're like 
Uncle Royd
but also like 60% of the lyrics are gibberish
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they do apparently have more meaning than one might think
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HANIYASU HANIYASU is chanting the name of the god the character is based on, etc
ooh mama suemay
somehow it was only on this, my x+1th listen, that I realize that "hanipaganda" is a portmanteau of haniwa propaganda