Touhou 15.5: Antinomy of Common Flowers - Tenshi/Shinmyoumaru Story

"𝘈𝘯 𝘈𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘯"
Tenshi's a bit of a mixed brawler so to speak. Ultimately her strengths are in her ability to get in close and start whaling on people , however unlike other brawlers she actually does have some serviceable projectiles at her disposal. Stones for spread out attacks or lasers for shutting down any projectile spam from the opponent. She does feel somewhat stiff however with the way she moves, so keep that in mind when moving her about the field.
Sukuna on the other hand is a spacer character. She's really fast and has the smallest hitbox, however her attacks require more accuracy than most. A lot of attacks involve stabbing with her needle, as such while she hits hard at times and has great range, it's also quite easy to miss with her.
Characters
Superficially Scarlet and Otherworldly Celestial: Tenshi Hinanawi
Fairytale-esque and Bowl-Riding Inchling: Shinmyoumaru Sukuna
Spell Cards
0:46 - "A Person from Heaven and Clouds"
1:54 - Non-spell
2:10 - Fist Water Sign "Nyuudou Murakumo Water Bomb Fist"
3:22 - "A Celestial and a Dream Dweller"
4:32 - Non-spell
4:52 - Mask Sign "Four Humors' Maddening Masquerade"
6:55 - "A Celestial and an Inchling"
7:56 - Non-spell
8:13 - Mallet Rubble Sign "Rolling-in-Riches Psychokinesis"
9:54 - "A Celestial and a Hermit"
11:18 - Non-spell
11:39 - Thunder Transform Sign "Mukou and Leaf Danmaku Transformation"
12:34 - Dragon Transform Sign "Dragon's Alien Capsule"
14:29 - "Earth's Natural Enemy"
16:33 - Non-spell
17:02 - "Perfect Possession and Fantasy Seal"
19:00 - "Boundary of Spirit Medium and Divine Spirit"
Translation's courtesy of the Touhou wiki

[@gypsysprite4824]

congrats tenshi for being the only character in all of touhou to actually piss off *Yukari*

[@elegant_lilligant]

The Rock and Roll duo as I like to call them. Since one uses rocks and the other rolls (also they're as smart as a rock but they roll with it)

[@yuanamat9335]

I find it interesthing how the final boss of Tenshi and Shinmyoumaru's story is Yukari but instead of Unknown X playing, it's Necrofantasia

[@Zsaver3]

Somewhat true, but Necro's been Yukari's Story Mode theme the entire time. Including her final scenario with Reimu/Kasen. Why should it necessarily be any different here? After all, Yukari, as seen in the pre-fight convo is still researching/verifying a means to beat the Yorigamis.

[@prizmastarz742]

This Touhou Episode Sukuna having identity crisis

[@Flygoniaks]

It's a shame that ZUN prefers that we not show the endings. Philosophical Shinyomaru is one of the funniest things this whole game has to offer.

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

"Tenshi's just a royal Cirno" Accurate!

[@Team_Orchid]

Did...Did Yukari just figure everything out because Tenshi's a dumb?

[@MegamanOmega184]

Not Tenshi, rather because Dream Shimmy's a dumb. She's been using and watching other people fight the Yorigami's to figure out how to beat them (plus exchanging information with people as well, such as Miko and Byakuren). But this is the final piece of the puzzle, when she realized how that slaves can be swapped mid-battle like dream Shimmy did, proving it's not something special the Yorigami's have control over.

[@gabrielwright-dunn9355]

Is this a case of Achievements in Ignorance?

[@extremmefan7305]

You know there's a problem when Tenshi fooling around with someone is how Yukari figures the answer to an incident.

[@dragonboimmdvideos]

And to think that back in 2010 and so on we considered Tenshi to be Yukari's excellent rival 😭

[@Latency345]

Woof Woof she is pretty smart. But her ego and recklessness often throttle that.

[@forceedge2005]

Love how everyone just trash talks Tenshi seeing how much of a brat she is. Damn Yukari is having none of Tenshi's shit So if Doremy knows a person's inner thoughts from their dream self, doesn't that mean she has dirt on EVERYBODY!? That's kinda scary in a way.

[@luckluster]

6:31 Believe it or not this is the main offender of why the official translation is believed to be bad by many. A celestial from heavens was banished from eating a beef tongue... banished from place where peaches are the only food according to canon. Y'know that Tenshi is a great character if *she's got beef* with everyone including the translation team.

[@MegamanOmega184]

Oh yeah, I remember that "beef tongue" controversy. I really don't know how you get that out of Cinnabar I think it's supposed to be. Honestly I didn't even catch it here, I really don't pay attention to the subtitle translations _at all_ when playing or annotating this game.

[@Flygoniaks]

I've been paying attention to both to see how they compare, personally.

[@scienceboy3618]

I follow Clarste, who's the unofficial main translator for the manga serries. From following their blog, this is what I understand happened. In Japanese it’s written as 丹 with たん (tan) written in furigana. This implies that it’s a word that the readers may not be familiar with and needs an explanation of how it’s being pronounced in this context. They might think that the furigana ‘tan’ was one of those cheeky things where a word is written one way and pronounced another. Under the belief that "tan" was being said out loud, tan is equivalent to "tongue" in English. The most proper translation of the word is "Elixir/Pill of Immortality." This is the same one that Miko spent her life trying to make, and probably the same ones that the Monkey King ate that got him kicked out of heaven for as well. A literal translation of this would be Cinnabar. Cinnabar was a main ingredient in Chinese Alchemy, and was belied to be the key ingredient in concoctions that would grand immortality.

[@Flygoniaks]

I rarely care if translators take some liberties. It must be remembered that there are not only differences in language, but culture as well. For example, in several cases Japanese games use the word "black" to symbolize evil or darkness, but this must be changed in translation to "dark" to avoid offending people. Also, many cultural references could be lost on a western audience, so changing them can actually make the game more enjoyable, even if it's less accurate.

[@Latency345]

Well, in WaHH she was banished around the same time as AoCF and according to there, she was banished by eating the Elixir of Celestials which takes the forms of Dumplings.

[@hjt091]

Ichirin's talking about how Tenshi was one of the spectators in Hopeless Masquerade, nice call back.

[@gabrielwright-dunn9355]

I thought she was referring to the previous scenario with Byakuren and Miko.

[@Flygoniaks]

^

[@paintbrushtape]

This is actually my favorite pair as their both dumb(duh), uses a thing that they are mostly seen livitating on, uses another thing as projectiles, has a pretty good species, and has a main op weapon

[@GniefFiar]

She dissed my boy Unzan. How could she? Shinmyoumaru's portraits were always adorable, but now there's two of them! I especially like double surprised Shinmyoumaru. Miko also has piercing lasers. Does training to become a celestial come with the added benefits of lasers? Might be time for me to start looking into becoming one.

[@lunatic0verlord10]

18:53 Tenshi really was helpful in the grand scheme of things. *Local Delinquent Celestial does something right for once* I can already foresee that in the next issue of Bunbunmaru...

[@stillmelon]

Iku acts like a mother for Tenshi,due to her being a completely delinquent (lol) Iku does care for her and watches over so she wont cause (more) trouble.

[@minhkhangtran6948]

Huh...Kinda weird that Yukari called herself a “Divine Spirit”, even though she’s a Youkai. Guess that how name work

[@gypsysprite4824]

1: remember that one of the few differences between Gods (which include Divine Spirits i think) and Youkai, is that Gods subsist on the Human's faith in them, while the Youkai feed off the the Human's fear of them, and Yukari doesn't really fufill either requirements, but probably chose to be a youkai because border manipulation hax 2: If you had the ABility Yukari has, wouldn't you call yourself a god

[@Zsaver3]

I feel like Reimu's actually the divine spirit here. Yukari, if you've paid attention to the first spell card (whenever she's solo) is the spirit medium/master (depending on translation).

[@pankotheseaweed]

@@gypsysprite4824 oh yeah you right if she turn herself into god she will loose youkai ability.

[@lunatic0verlord10]

15:19 She could try ruling the Moon. Knowing how her sword works, she could have a decent shot at it...

[@ITAndroMedian]

There're Possession Sisters, who can forcibly possess anyone and force defeat on them. And there're rampaging dream dwellers, who, as we can conclude from Sukuna... Can do... EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Why not send all the dream dwellers towards Concert Stage of the Sun and watch the incident getting choked down by it's side effect? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooope, gotta make Raymoo do her job, so she won't be a lazy miko. Also, you're showing us new Last Words when possible (and we're grateful for that), but you're not showing us regular Occult Attacks (Z+X). It would be nice to see then in the next episode, because Yukari's Z+X is rather... unique.

[@lunatic0verlord10]

10:31 Keep in mind that, according to ZUN words and Harukawa Moe's art, Marisa's pretty short herself (Akyuu has actually outgrown her).

[@lunatic0verlord10]

16:27 So Tenshi was actually helpful in the grand scheme of things just by showing up with the Little Princess' Dream Self? With what I heard about how the climax of WaHH played out, at this rate, she'll solve an Incident on her own...

[@davincause1842]

3:42 for the bubble chat: Ye she is really silly and stubborn

[@tyriquecoleman3794]

Yukari Yakumo's Emancipation Proclamation

[@abrahamrangel2326]

10:47 that small pause with tenshi just smiling and the music stopping lol, her height is not laughing matter

[@Flygoniaks]

Let's see... what to talk about today? *(Warning: This is rather long. Click "Read More" at your own peril!)* I really like what Harukawa has done with the character's eyes in their portraits. Though a lot of this will seem like a stretch, and I admittedly doubt myself for a lot of it, I believe in general the characters eyes are indicative of their general species or origins, though not always the specifics. I'll go over each character in groups of commonly-shared eye traits: Reimu, Marisa, and Sumireko all have normal human eyes both in shape and color. This shows that even with all of their powers, they still are fragile but pure humans (I say "pure" because of Tenshi's inclusion in the next section). Byakuren, Mokou and Tenshi all have the same shape and properties of the former three eyes, but they are all in colors not natural to humans. The common thread between these three (and Miko, who I cover later) is that they all were once human, but were eventually overcome by some greater power and lost their status as completely human - Youkai, Immortal and Celestial. This one is _really_ going to sound like a stretch, even to me, but Ichirin, Futo, Nitori and Shinyomaru all have pupils that are slightly highlighted compared to the human characters. In other words, their pupils appear gray, and this seems to be a general "youkai" look. I'm curious how both Ichirin and Futo, former humans, have this trait while their masters do not. Perhaps it's what side is in control - Byakuren and Miko both try to stay connected to humans, whereas Futo and Ichirin have embraced their existence as youkai. (I think... I'm not sure Futo entirely fits this though...) Or perhaps it's a matter of influence? Moving onto something I'm far more certain about, both Koishi and Kokoro have white pupils. Both of these are youkai related to emotions, and are very distant from humans in behavior, so this gives them the mystical look they deserve. Doremy, Yukari and Shion all lack distinct pupils. In the case of Doremy and Yukari, this grants an "otherworldly" appearance which, frankly, is well deserved considering they might as well be presented like so. In the case of Shion, this could be interpreted as having really large pupils, thus implying she lives in darkness and evoking feelings of pity for her. Miko also falls into the category of "former human but overcome by power and then became inhuman," but instead of having an unnatural human eye color she instead has the light and dark halves of her eyes more greatly emphasized, like the yin-yang symbol of Taoism. Of course, this could be accidental. But I had to put something! Mamizou's eyes are extra cartoony, which is perfect considering all of her wacky attacks. Nothing else to say here! Kasen's pupils are slits, like that of a cat or a reptile. Since her horns are hidden, this is another tell-tale sign of being an oni, and if Suika or Yuugi were here they presumably would share this trait with her. This is visible on her game sprite, too, but hard to see except for a few frames, such as during one of her player spellcard attacks. Besides their color, Reisen's eyes don't have anything to set them apart. This is understandable, however, since it's Reisen. For a rabbit whose eyes are such an important part of her character, giving said eyes a weird design could ruin Reisen's entire design. I doubt Harukawa wanted to do that, which is perfectly understandable. Lastly, Jyoon. Her pupils are smaller that those of the other character, which is really neat when you consider that all of the treasure she's stole is definitely sparkly. Since she spends so much time in the presence of sparkly things, her eyes would become accustomed to intense light. Funnily, this also implies that Jyoon has poor night vision, which explains her poor AI in her fight. (EDIT FROM OVER A YEAR LATER: I FORGOT I WROTE THIS PART AND I'M CRYING FROM LAUGHTER. ) Again, much of this is speculation, but a good portion of it is certainly intentional. I really appreciate little details like these~

[@Wizzard220]

Still think they should've translated that last card as "Boundary of Master and Slave" since those are the terms used during the story. As for team shorty, Tenshi is just her SWR self: doesn't lose out on ranged nor melee, but I'll agree I hated playing as Sukuna. Can't wait for the final storyline.

[@lunatic0verlord10]

7:53 You really like to compare her to a chihuahua, huh? I do know a friend who owns one. She just barks at me angrily the moment I get too close...

[@gabrielwright-dunn9355]

17:57 - your face must be beaming.

[@Flygoniaks]

I swear, we're getting ourselves into a pun war with Bee.

[@MagGunDO17]

That Elixir Tenshi mentioned? I don't exactly remember what it's called, but it's basically an Elixir of Immortality. Read Wild and Horned Hermit for more Tenshi btw, she's a major part of the final chapters

[@korohacker]

Ooh, I can't wait for next week's new year episode, to see the incident being resolved somewhat xD

[@lunatic0verlord10]

10:00 First time I see this place. How did Tenshi get here, anyway? This place has a super specific path that Kasen changes every so often and a barrier comparable to what the Lunar Capital can pull off!

[@MegamanOmega184]

Keep in mind, it's not the whole _area_ that Kasen puts a barrier around, it's just her house. in particular. Anyone can go to this part of the mountain range if you so desired (even Marisa pulled it off) but between this dense fog and Kasen's magic, chances are you'll get yourself turned around before you even know where to _start_ looking for her house.

[@lunatic0verlord10]

@@MegamanOmega184 Now that you mention it, I don't see Kasen's house anywhere. I guess they're just on the, very confusing and hard, way to it. It's such a shame this stage hardly shows up. It would've hilarious if someone got this stage trying to get to Kasen's house, only to admit that they're totally lost. And they fight someone who is just as lost.

[@captaintsubasa7430]

Tenshi's a good character, but I dislike her so much lol (personality). That and the fact I get frustrated at her spells at SWR.

[@extremmefan7305]

That stage 3... WHY DOES SUKUNA KEEPS GETTING THE BEST GIRLS UGH Edit: you gotta admit, for how stiff she is, Tenshi has cool combos to end on (they look so flashy it makes for great material in videos like this) Edit2: I know I would bow before Tenshi… just not to get squashed by a rock.

[@alphamoon8367]

I forgot how short the story mode is because of the tag-team gameplay.

[@emishimaru-sama6449]

2:34 Is that a One Punch Man reference? ;0 3:50 I'd say that was a nice gift already. 4:02 lmao x'D 6:43 She's only gottem those over her head, tho ;l 7:47 Who are you refering to again? ;D 7:53 But you're not supposed to hear them.. 9:20 I'm not gonna ask how she got powers... 9:45 Can we finally Rip off that old Sonic-Shadow reference already ;0 10:29 Didn't know sizes were relevant In touhou. She looks kind of like Seija's size >.> 13:05 Seeing all those UFO-like creatures, It might have been a good Idea to bring back old monsters from the old touhou games (th1-5). 13:49 Ice Fairy? 14:36 So she Is okay to be Yukari's new Shikigami? lmao ;o 15:19 (boo xD) 15:29 Were her clothes rotten like that before? [the purple part of It, I mean..] 15:44 It seems the plot thickens *a little..* 16:26 [Still better than having a backdoor -_-'']

[@rudolflc1684]

Best story duo Imo :p

[@raphniamagna2567]

Tenshi shouldn't be talking about Kasen's asceticism when she is the same Celestial that caused SWR because she was bored

[@okguy167]

And a merry Christmas to you

[@youdonotcare]

I understand why the duo made perfect possession, but I still don't get how.

[@marthedge]

The urban legend incident makes even mere rumors turn into reality. Spreading it as a rumor made it real, side effects be damned.

[@renarena9279]

Hey MegamanOmega, I just learned youtube is going to completely do away with annotations in around a week or so. That's going to affect your previous touhou walkthroughs won't it? You should try to back those up while you still can.

[@zemyla]

Are Kasen and Mamizou making a Pokeball?

[@emishimaru-sama6449]

eeeeEEEEEEH? What Is that Overdrive difficulty? :0

[@Flygoniaks]

You unlock it after clearing all chapters on any difficulty. The AI is the same as in Lunatic mode, but the spellcards are even harder and some chapters have an extra final spell at the end.