Touhou Abilities and Power Levels Explained | Touhou Lore
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- Опубліковано 25 гру 2022
- Every Touhou character has a special ability or two. But how powerful are they actually? What do the abilities even mean? It's a little more complicated than one might think. Luckily, I'll be going over the translations and lore implications in this video!
Pixiv Dictionary Explanation of Teidou no Nouryoku: dic.pixiv.net/a/%E7%A8%8B%E5%...
Songs Used
Sealed Gods - ZUN
G Free - ZUN
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So many roadblocks just to get a 3 minute video out. I'm just surprised I managed it somehow.
In any case, I'd like to thank @NaokiP72 and @richard_effendi for their research into the topic. I wouldn't have known about the Pixiv Dictionary link otherwise. And with that... I'm getting on my plane finally.
Hey while you’re there, if you ever visit one of the mountains in Nagano (probably mount Haku) look for the hole by a peach tree. If you find it give coordinates.
I do want to say, depending who causes the incident their power would gain and unnatural boost in several ways which is why yuyuko who is a late stage boss is very difficult vs when shes a stage 1 boss in another game. Extra bosses do not follow this format because by default they're just that naturally strong. Unless another game comes out and proves this wrong in some way. Just something I've noticed
I think that Zun just wanted it to be vague since that’s his style of writing like how he mostly leaves a lot of the lore to the reader’s imagination. It can also be that he wanted a special ability for each character but didn’t want to restrict them to only one or make it the only defining characteristic of a character.
Yeah, I think it's nice that he does that for writers.
*cough cough* Yukari *cough cough*
Eika Ebisu is the epitome of "vaguely described abilities that can be described in multiple ways". Some people see her as being able to stack literal _planets_ on top of each other, making even the strongest gods shiver with fear.
Even the idea of her being able to stack the particles/dusts of destroyed stones and then turning it into a sharp (Might as well monomolecular) object is enough
The power of stacking Koishis and Dwayne Johnsons.
To *fully* understand the extent of Ebisu Eika's ability, we first need to define a stone. How big is a stone? How mutch stone needs to be in an object to be a stone? What IS stone?
@@totallyalpharius507the power of stacking boochis
I think something a lot of people overlook when talking about Eika's ability is what it represents: Along the shores of the Sanzu River, the spirits of aborted and miscarried children, those who died too young to have any positive karma that could allow them into Paradise but also too young to have any negative karma that'd make them deserving of Hell, stack stones in the hope that they will one day be able to climb the stacks out of their Limbo and into Paradise... Eika's ability could, from this perspective, be regarded as the ability to connect Limbo and the Afterlife, or something akin to a primordial ability predating the entire afterlife bureaucracy which could allow the departed to find their way into paradise -- and that _still_ would allow Eika to bypass the afterlife bureaucracy and the Yama's judgment if she felt like it... Any power can be awesome if you allow it to be.
Some of the confusion is due to characters like Yukari canonically using multiple definitions of a word in her powers. There's also special cases like Kogasa, whose ability to "surprise" is sometimes understood as surprising the *player* from beyond the fourth wall for being the CD poster girl and extra boss.
Kogasa is great in that regard. Not *surprising* she's so popular.
I think the true interpretation for an ability is just in how it manifests itself. Like, Akyuu's ability is complete recall, but her memory also extends into past lives because of how the in-universe mechanics work out. For Remilia's ability to manipulate fate, she says in the PCB prologue that Spring would return ONE DAY after Sakuya left the mansion, and Sakuya's ingame route has her mentioning that it took her ONE DAY to reach Yuyuko & return spring. Yukari can manipulate many boundaries, but she presumably can't manipulate the boundary between good & evil because she states that she can't oppose Shiki Eiki. Sakuya uses her time manipulation ability to also manipulate space, as stated by Patchoulli in EoSD, when asked why the mansion seems bigger on the inside than on the outside.
I would take the ability descriptions as more of a metric by which you measure an ability, as opposed to being the actual measurement. It's like saying, the extent of a ruler's ability is in its measurement of length. This doesn't describe WHAT that extent is; the information isn't given on how long the ruler is, how precise its measurements are, what units it uses, we just know that the ruler has the ability to measure length.
Similarly, when we say Parsee has the ability to manipulate jealousy, we don't know to what extent, just that the extent is measured in how well she manipulates jealousy. She's able to make herself jealous of other people to find reasons to attack, she binds one world to the next through her regrets, she can "fan the flames of jealousy in the hearts of others," but we don't know if she can also reduce or eliminate jealousy, if her ability drains her like Satori's does, if she has precision control of how jealous to make someone, if she needs the person to have already been jealous in order for her to fan the flames, if there's an upper limit to how jealous she can make someone, just a lot of things that are open to interpretation but that still all fall within the ability to manipulate jealousy. It describes the nature of the ability, the extent or degree BY WHICH you measure it but not the extent or degree TO WHICH it measures up.
For what purpose, I would say it's because it's very healthy for discovery writing, as ZUN both doesn't know what he'll want his characters to do in the future and enjoys there being a plurality of fan interpretations since he was a patron of doujin circles to begin with, even before he made Touhou.
Personally I think that Remilia is trying to manipulate magic into granting her the ability to influence fate. Flandre says that Remilia is just making that ability up and Kanako says that gods can develop abilities through myths. They can gain abilities that they previously didn’t have if they can convince enough people that they can do it. Other characters such as Kosuzu develop abilities based on their natural tendencies. A lot of people see her looking at unreadable books and she developed the ability to read them. I think Remilia is trying something similar by trying to convince people she can manipulate fate so that she can start being able to do it for real.
@@magicyber909 my theory is that Remilia can't manipulate fate , only predict it .
@@magicyber909 1) Remillia did know about a meteor going to hit Gensokyo while Flandre was outside. So it was either predicted or Remi manipulated fate.
2) the example with Kanako doesn't work. Kanako can do it specifically because she is a god(神霊). Gods can change their nature or smth of the sort. Remillia(and youkai in general) are not gods and therefore can't change their nature like that through spreading myths.
@@ssjcrafter8842And what’s the difference between gods and youkai? Shinto gods use faith while youkai use fear. They are two sides of the same coin. Why would faith be able to change abilities while fear cannot? Also Suwako has even suggested that Remilia could become a god herself if she wanted to. Remilia on the other hand mocked Sanae for claiming to be a god because western standards of godhood are way higher than eastern.
@@magicyber909 I'm pretty sure that there are slight differences. Kinda like different species. But I'm too lazy to search for this now... you might be right
but, where did Suwako suggest to Remillia to become a god?
I like to think that having the characters abilities so vaguely described allows for some pretty interesting interpretations, and the mystery of how much of their descriptions are true and how much are just deliberate exaggerations makes it all the more fun to speculate about it all.
And i agree, Kosuzu definitely has the ability to be cute no matter what she is doing : D
Yukari be like: My pwrz r teh greatestest! Totly OP godlike infinite wishes lelvel stuff! (
Zun "ability to drink beer nonstop and making game at the same time"
If I recall, the credits of a Touhou game describe ZUN as "Capable of making games", so you might be somewhat right on that ability
Yup.
The comparison of abilities in Touhou to Stands was presented as a joke in the video, but I actually somewhat share that theory; I believe they're pretty similar in the sense that they're deliberately left vague enough to allow for more creative freedom in how the characters utilize their powers. In Touhou, this is of course expressed primarily through Spell Card bullet patterns; whereas in JoJo, a large aspect of its confrontations is figuring out how the opponent's powers work, and that often involves said enemy utilizing their Stand is unexpected ways.
This is just one other reason out of many why touhou is a nightmare for power scalers.
Imo it's for the same reason why ZUN doesn't directly tell the complete backstories & whatnot of each character. To keep it vague to allow interpretations, but also to encourage interpretation & to encourage people to create.
Its for the "doujin spirit" as ZUN himself once put it. He's always wanted people to get into creating doujins & find the same success that he has. And if you look at pretty much every aspect of Touhou, you'll realize that a lot of it is built in a way to really make you want to create something yourself; whether simply creating your own interpretation, or loving a character so much you want to tell a story with them, or maybe hearing a piece of the OST & thinking it's got a lot of potential if applied to a particular genre, etc.
Big agree on this. Everything is made such to encourage derivative works.
I think Touhou characters are suppose to be a halfstep between powerful entities who can influence the rules of the world and normal relatable people. It is true that they have absolutely crazy ablilties, that however have set limitations. I think this approach works extremely well for the series, with some hickups here and there in the printworks, which is understandable, because writing such characters is extremely hard.
Yeah, i love the interpretation that they never go all out with their powers thanks to Spell cards, like they to all this OP sht but that is only half or even less of their ammount of power
@@ironmaster6496 Also watching cute girls blowing themselves to bits is kinda sad
It makes them a lot of fun to write derivative works for.
@@dionysos7735 for some, yes. for myself, no.
Zun be like: we do some trolling to an extent
Ability to f with the fans to some degree.
Honestly one of the vague powers I love to death is Seija's power to flip things. While it was primarily used to rotate things, the thought that she flipped the roles in her special spin off game was fun. Plus it makes me think of what god like things she could do if strengthened, like flipping night to day
Yeah, ZUN's plays on interpretation are great.
Flipping life to death.
Anything that can be considered alive and that can die, would die instantly.
Her ability is so monkey vague it could be as broken as flanderes or the opposite. Its very fun
Or flipping your innards out
@@user-zv9es6so8uC-MOON!
Also, yes, Seija’s ability could possibly be extremely busted. Think about how many things could be represented as a boolean. Actually, don’t, I don’t think even Eirin has a large enough brain to comprehend it. For an example of something that seems like it can’t be done with Seija’s ability, at first glance it doesn’t look like you could “flip” a 3 to become a 5. However, if you picture it as her flipping whether the number is a 5 or not, it suddenly seems perfectly reasonable. And something VERY overpowered that not many people realize powerful characters can do is increase their own power. Does Seija have the ability to destroy absolutely anything? No? Flip that. Is she the strongest 2hu? No? Flip. Will she become the main character? No? You know the drill, *flip it*.
@@victorvirgili4447That’s probably not possible without some of the Sages going “Hm… let’s make this small child overdevelop her powers so much that she could become the god of this reality!” But still, lots of places you could go with that.
Really like how vague ZUN makes their powers to be as it allows for a huge range of interpretations/creativity.
Especially like how Kaguya's power is interpreted in some doujin works I.e turning a single instant of time into an infinite one (stopping time) or shortening a certain length of time into an instant (fast forward)
kaguya being able to cancel her ability to make things stay eternally kinda makes it not eternal
@@realperson9951I see it as using her ability over the instantaneous to “cancel out” the eternity, making it pass in an instant.
If this is true, it might be plausible to create a Hourai Elixir Antidote, but if Eirin hasn’t figured out how to do it yet then I doubt it’s possible
@@victorvirgili4447 if eternity ends in an instant, it still has an end, making it not very eternal
@@realperson9951 but if time passes and it hasn't ended, it isn't very instant, now is it? "and there we have our paradox" -flash
Touhou is so vague that the characters could be just street level or world ending depending on how much you stretch the extension to their abilities. And i love to see fan works reimagining those abilities.
Good video, I always thought that yokai and the magic in gensokyo were powered by "faith" /the humans perception of things and that extended to how things work. Like yes if someone in our world could fly they would have the ability to manipulate gravity or whatever other forces they use to do it, but since most people when asked to imagine a person flying they picture someone just moving as they please that's how yokai and magic flight works. Like Reimu has the ability to create barriers and people think of barriers as something that blocks or impedes not the underlying physics of stopping something she can seal things because yeah barriers keep things in, but couldn't manipulate gravity to separate an atom.
Sakuya is perhaps the worst case scenario for this. Do you have any idea just how many problems arise when you stop time? The list is huge and would not only kill sakuya a hundred times over, but would also destroy the universe.
The first video (instead of a forum thread/post) discussing this
Only takes the fandom some 20 years
I think we can all agree Reimu nocliping out of reality is broken as hell
That power deserves its own video.
@@GensouChronicle If you say so ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ ) That's certainly something to look forward to
Well you weren't joking about this video being 3 minutes, it definitely felt shorter than usual. That being said, i quite enjoyed it as it was brief and right up to the point while still being informational. Good work!
Glad you enjoyed it!
The closest translated meaning that I could explain is that the characters have the listed abilities, but they aren't always capable of using them. Basically, they cannot be used at any given time and are circumstantial. Some abilities are more circumstantial or limited than others, like Remilia's fate manipulation (limited in practice) versus Kosuzu's ability to read any text (nearly unlimited).
That said, the style of the phrase is also likely to do with its usage, as ZUN is a known fan of using unusual Japanese stylistically.
I think that's more a Japanese thing than a ZUN thing, but yeah.
I see it as, instead of the ability just being something they can do, it’s more something “in their skill tree”. Some characters have very weak abilities simply because they themselves are weak, like how Kogasa still sucks at scaring people, but others have taken their apparently weak abilities and stretched it to its absolute limits, like Reimu’s ability to float
Nah, to me once he started with the windows era Zun just wanted to mess around, he didn't expected it to become so popular, so he just kept with the bit and now he can't back down, a true Chad
The god.
if the abilities of youkai were stated more clearly, humans would fear them less. and youkai need human fear.
but that is just an in universe explaination for one group of people.
Fear is an emotional response to avoid consequence. Having the consequence be an unknown variable can end up making it more or less feared depending on the circumstances. But there will always be people who will use the knowledge they have to their advantage. Most people are afraid of nuclear war despite knowing the consequences while other people will build a bunker and then say do it.
That is true the ambiguity is needed to maintain their own power and to generate enough fear from the masses and any information regarding that would be shutdown hence that's why it's Youkais who handle how information is distributed
True, even power scalers fear them lol
Yes! Each wonderful character is unique to themselves! Let us further this to love each character more! There is a movement of Touhou literalists, and I say: implicated power levels say much in themselves; I'll love the characters and rank them on my own accord!
0:05
You got that freaking right
Naturally.
Would love to hear in-depths explanation to ALL of the tuhu abilities, or what of power degree it implied so far in the series.
I always wonder why Remilia power is manipulation of fate, when it has nothing to do with her skill, or mentioned/shown to use her power at least once?
I likely wouldn't. At best, they would be covered in videos focusing on an individual character, which is something I could plausibly do eventually.
@@GensouChronicle much appreciated!
hey man stacking stones is difficult
Yeah man CoB is very hard to find when you put multi rocks
Way back, years before I got into Touhou, one of my friends used the phrase "ability to the extent of" when he was doing write-ups on a bunch of the characters. I thought it was just a weird translation thing at the time. Neat to finally learn where that comes from and what it could mean!
My interpretation of Touhou power levels is whatever will piss off dumb powerscalers the most at any given moment.
Lol.
0:45 Ahh yes. My favorite source. Even better than wikipedia and the invisible voices.
Hecatia's power is to be three people.
This topic needs to be expanded more. Especially when Ms. "Ability to manipulate flower" ability is shooting giant laser, Ms. "Having three bodies" canonically being the strongest, Ms. "Ability to heal sore throat" is something and so much more
"did you know"
"that in terms human male and touhou girls bree-"
@@pika_chanynge to avoid bullets shot at them.
@@pika_chany Medicine is the most compatible one.
@@MedsieLovr "It has the effect such that even touching her will cause inflammation; there's currently no definite treatment method" Ayo????
@@pika_chany That's natural selection for the normies, only *I* can do her without any harm
2:44 ...okay you're gonna have to explain this one to me.
Lol.
I'm 100% in agreement with your idea why he used the terminology and gave them the powers.
I think you're right about the JoJo similarity. It's not out of character for him and there are a lot of parallels. Thanks for the concisely made video!
0:45 So in other words "My source is that I made it the f*ck up!"
Pretty much.
I really like how "powerscaling" and tier list shenanigans don't really work in Touhou due to how varied the abilities are. The Lunarians beat Yukari, and lost to *fairies*. Matchups are far more important than simple stats or... weapons, armor and skill.
Kinda like real life.
I do have a gist that any fork of biological weapons and disease (that we are immune) is more than enough to cause havoc in the Lunar Capital provide transferring them are possible
@@Re-2005 well yukari can just remove the border between the sun and the moon(believed to be each other's opposite in many cultures) and watch the lunarians burn, only downside being earth will be pretty much destroyed
@@friendlyneighborhoodshinigami You don't need to as funny diseases would be enough. I mean Eirin is a genius in the medical field cause someone has to make sure the inbreeding doesn't kill them like the Hadsburg
@@Re-2005 haha true💀😂
All abilities are born with some extent of ambiguity, but some abilities are better defined than others. I like to believe the latter are what ZUN put some deep thoughts into.
e.g. Hina Kagiyama is specified to absorb phantoms of misfortunes, rather than the vague and wild 'manipulate fate'. In conjuncture with what was written about phantoms, it can be theorized that it is the feelings or ideas on misfortune that give the phantoms the properties to cause bad things to happen. I think ZUN wanted to imply that the zeitgeist on bad luck has changed so much in the outside world that the old-fashioned faith spirited away.
That's an interesting interpretation on it.
I think they are purposefully left vague because power scaling has never been the focus of the series, especially looking at the entire concept of Spell Card rules. It may also be that those powers aren't absolute, like Yukari manipulating borders or Yuyuko manipulating death can only work on those who are weaker than them. Either way, everytime there's a power level discussion about Touhou, it usually becomes stale if you mention Lunarians, which powers are on a complete different scale than the humans and youkais on Earth... even though even them aren't invincible. It's kind of useless to just make 1 vs 1 discussions when the focus of the series is entirely different.
STRONGLY AGREED, that's why i hate those Vs battles videos, especially when they feature Touhou characters (though to be fair power scalling is never really a thing the creators care at all when writing something)
@@ironmaster6496 it may be fun to do some power scaling for fanmade content and just comparing characters and what they're able to do, it makes for nice discussions, but people really take it too far or too seriously sometimes
ZUN made the right call with Spell Card Rules as these rules can render power scaling irrelevant. Under these rules you can supposedly win a Spell Card fight against power (though not intellect/skill) comparable to God.
Yuyuko's death manipulation can make any one die without exception and without permitting any resistance(not necessarily instantly but with absolute certainty) i don't think if her opponent is more powerful or not really matters as long as they are a living being, the only exceptions being hourai immortals, and i think it's because of the special properties of hourai elixir, i.e. it doesn't make you immortalthrough conventional immortality but instead through the concept of eternity and eternity rejects all change, death is a change hence it will be negated
Technically, Yukari's ability shouldn't be limited.
Yukari herself may be limited, but her ability has absolute potential, considering a boundary serves as the duality between two concepts, it's user can freely alter definitions and reach whatever desired outcome, the only limit is their imagination.
By manipulating the border of infinity/totality, she can become the most powerful expression of Omnipotence, since everything is defined by borders.
Stuff like this is why I feel like ZUN both puts relatively little effort into his plots, but also plans them out with a tonne of thought and creativity. Kinda feels like Reimu's Fantasy Nature, I guess. Takes the writing with a chill mindset, but doesn't skimp out on the results. Maybe if he stressed out over writing more, he'd get weaker results.
I wouldn't say "relatively little" but certainly less than the fun ideas that they can present.
Honestly a lot of (if not most) touhou characters have an ability that's completely busted and strong enough to destroy the entire world or turn it to chaos. Remilia, Sakuya, Yuyuko, Kaguya, Flandre, Yukari, that one-winged Lunarian, and many others.
Gensoukyo is pretty much an utopia and it's a miracle, because all it takes is one strong individual and everyone is dead. Good thing they all respect the balance and the spellcards rules and don't execute us on the spot (ie: what Yuyuko could have done in 7)
sagume
@@dinodude7290 sagoom
Don't forget suika and seija(if a theory i saw is correct the seija could literally flip life into death and suika's ability is pretty common knowledge i guess)
The new strongest Touhou character will have the ability to exist
Flandre: ability to destroy anything.
How it actually works: Can teleport the energy within her hand to the most fragile location within an object. In other words she can implode an object which has its weakest point being weaker than her hand. Pretty ineffective against things that aren’t solid.
Yup these ability descriptions sound legit.
It does make sense considering her weakness is Water and Water is liquid it can change it's form in accordance to the environment or the will of the controller if it's magic
But against things that are solid (mostly PEOPLE) its a ctrl+alt+del button that cant be evaded :D
I would like to know Did you read this description somewhere or is it your own interpretation??
Also flandre's ability bypasses conventional durability so how does the object being stronger than flandre's palm matter
@@Re-2005 i think flandre stated somewhere that she'd destroy all the water in sanzu river, i don't think she'd say that if she couldn't destroy water
This was a conversation between kutaka and flandre so it was probably a game or a book that came out after wbawc
@@friendlyneighborhoodshinigami If that is true than how come it is water that is used to control her. Also they're Youkais they would lie to gain advantage and hide their weaknesses. Only way to know is to send her to the Sanzu and let her do the deed if to prove it. If normal water is enough to restrain her you think she would escape from Sanzu River water.
Flandre's ability to be adorable should not be mentioned
Power scaling in touhou be too goofy bruv
And with Spell Card Rules power scaling is rendered irrelevant (or nearly so) anyways.
@@NuclearFalcon146 true
keeping it up to interpretation seems like the motto even by pc-98 standard ig. at least it sure became convenient once we got into deep lore. an artificial mean for depth is to just say "you will probably never know", just to remind the ropes of this world actually stretch on a scale far bigger than daily life. besides fanwork loves to mess with these, so it flourishes with slightly distinct powersets or tackle dilemmas relating to it. well not they necessarily need that much, a damn ribbon is all it takes to get fan writers going.
though honestly zun seems a little more bold than this explanation would suggest. one of the manga once tossed a simple "iunno sakuya stopping time is just her moving at infinite speed or zero mass", whereas we could have stayed at "sakuya fucs with tiem" forever. just hilarious how the magical world gets actual physics into the mix.
As Frank Hebert would say "The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it", so I don't really dare try to explain powers in Gensokyo lol, I just accept the basic description as fact, and consider everything within that description as "acceptable" to some degree.
Pretty much. Even my explanation was more about explaining why we can't truly pinpoint the truth to it all.
ZUN clearly made the abilities vague so the fans can imagine how they want to be but it just leaves more confusing questions.
I mean I love the series and setting but WTF.
Large planet level MFTL Cirno? Seriously?
She was unable to freeze a lake where the fuck is "large planet level" coming from?
The most impressive thing done with magic (that can be kind of quantified) that I know of was changing the orbit of the moon slightly.
The highest firepower "showing" that I know of is extrapolating on Yukari being said to be able to "devastate Gensokyo" to being able to life wipe a small country or The Lunarian fan said to be capable of purifying a forest on the atomic level.
Yeah there are more esoteric stuff like using dissolving the boundary between truth and fiction to get to the true moon via a reflection in a lake. But that is hard as hell to quantify.
But there is literally nothing near planetary/moon destroying. This level of fire power also dose not make sense from a narrative perspective because Marisa's Mini-Hakkero is supposed to be impressive yet on the high end it can only store enough energy to turn a mountain into ash.
There is at least a little "truth" in the MFTL component. There are three feats and I believe there is a spell card description that can be used to justify FTL speeds.
Marisa and Watatsuki no Yorihime in SSiB. Though this one is kind of weird because in the double spark one Master Spark travels faster than the other one.
Marisa possibly dodging a beam of light from Sunny
Sunny Milk blocking light. Sunny is not a very strong resident of Gensokyo, though her ability is specifically to bend light so that should have been light. Though notice the other Fairies are unable to dodge the same attacks.
While these are all pretty decent but,
In Extra of the Wind (#MFTL) Marisa gets food stolen out of her hand by a crow.
In Oriental Sacred Place Reimu gets surprised by snow falling on her.
Chen gets scratched by normal cats in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red. (Chen is also supposed to be capable of going FTE to normal humans)
Characters also worry about travel time and silly shit like "it will get dark before we get home" when if they are relativistic they could do that in less than a second.
In Imperishable Night it takes hours to travel from the start to the bamboo forest (Gensokyo is not very big). Though to muddle this a bit they were constantly fighting things along the way.
There are also some feats much lower than the speed of light but still on the higher end of the scale.
In Legacy of a Lunatic Kingdom, the player character travels half way around the moon in presumably minutes to hours.
In Cage in Lunatic Runagate, Yukari's familiar crosses across the Seas of Tranquility and Serenity on the moon over the course of a conversation.
In Silent Sinner in Blue, Remilia presumably travels the moon in a few panels.
Touhou speed is not consistent. I do not think we can definitively call a character that is relying on a degree of power scaling to say they are FTL.
Though as a disclaimer I have not read all the mangas so their definitely could be feats I am missing.
About the Sunny Milk part her ability to manipulate light is in multiple ways. She can make light or objects brighter or remove the light from the object or subject so it's invisible and impossible to see. And also manipulate the light in you eyes so you can't see stuff correctly or at all but that part also relates to Rumia manipulating darkness.
Neat explanatory video, for how short it was, it made the idea of the abilities pretty clear.
Now, answer me with your words.
What do you understand about Remilia's ability?
Secondly, I hope your trip to Japan goes well! (despite the internet problems)
My understanding of Remilia's ability is that despite the fact that she's probably hamming it up a bit, it probably exists but isn't a conscious activation. Probably more passive. And thanks! Currently wandering Shinjuku.
@@GensouChronicle "passively" I had not thought of it that way and it makes sense, it could work like that lol.
i enjoy when zun makes things vague because it leaves room for independent interpretation (i enjoy filling in the gaps of speculated things)
also mima wtf
Writing about the abilities of characters worries me as a (hopefully soon to be) novelist, but I came up with a really good excuse of interpreting the powers of some characters in my series.
I can't really elaborate on that here though because it's actually a big spoiler lol. Even though my novel is really just about action and entertainment, not plot.
Have you written your novel yet?
Power levels in Touhou are basically impossible to imagine, mostly because of spellcard rules and the fact that some bosses do not scale with power
Also, ZUN is really really good at making vague lore. He said once in an email that Hecatia was the strongest canon character, even though Junko’s stage was arguably more difficult. And if we fixed the spellcard rules situation, some character would end up winning because of what is literally stated in the wiki (Ex: Sakuya would do the old abdomen stabbing, Flandre would just explode everyone)
pretty sure ZUN just phrases it like that cause he doesn't like clearly defining things
anyways i once wrote a wall of text about how yuuka was pretty powerful, just don't take it too seriously
Yuuka Kazami is the second boss in the series to have timeouts. One of them is Master Spark in Stage 5 which is borrowed by Marisa Kirisame. She's invincible while using it, and it's larger than Marisa's Master Spark, and about as big, if not bigger than even her Final Spark.
What's more interesting however, is her Stage 6 and Extra Stage timeouts. In all of them, she turns into an intangible ball of light. Since spell card rules didn't exist yet (or rather, spell cards in general), she can probably stay invincible all day and shoot you at the same time. Who else does this? Reimu Hakurei, of course. While she doesn't become a ball of light in her spell card, Fantasy Nature, the concept is essentially the same. She even becomes a ball of light in her third last pattern in Shuusou Gyoku's Extra Stage. Of course, both Yuuka and Reimu aren't the only ones to have timeouts, but they are a unique case in this regard, because it's more like an ability rather than a spell card.
Marisa also borrows Yuuka's cloning ability in said stage. Again, spell card rules didn't exist, so there exists the possibility that she can have more than one clone, or her clones can clone themselves.
Yuuka's other abilities are teleportation, invisibility, and of course, controlling flowers. At first, her flower ability sounds useless. However, if you saw Reimu B's bad ending in Lotus Land Story, you would know that a huge flower destroyed her entire shrine, so this ability is probably better than you think.
She also has a parasol that can block rain, ultraviolet rays, lasers, and danmaku. In Phantasmagoria of Flower View, it is said to be the only flower in Gensokyo that never withers, whatever that means.
She's said to be very strong physically. Although it's claimed that she's as slow as Internet Explorer, this is most likely false, as she can become a ball of light to go faster, or just teleport, and she probably intentionally slows down to challenge herself.
In her Mystic Square ending, she knows no magic, so she tries to learn from Marisa, but ultimately acquires Ultimate Magic from Alice Margatroid in her Extra ending, as stated in Kioh Gyoku.
Yuuka has beaten Shinki without any magic, the God of Makai, who can create and destroy infinite space (if you assume that the burning background in her final phase is the entirety of Makai which is infinite according to Murasa).
Yuuka has also defeated Eiki Shiki Yamaxanadu with full confidence, who is vaguely implied to be stronger than Yukari Yakumo and Yuyuko Saigyouji in Seasonal Dream Vision, A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty Years, a story that takes place before PoFV's Extra Stage. Yukari considers Eiki to be a very strong presence, and hesitates to oppose her, retreating with Yuyuko.
Only Medicine and Komachi truly beat Yuuka. Everyone else runs away from her. You might think she's weak to poison, but in VS. Mode, if Yuuka beats Medicine, she mentions gelsemium elegans, which are the most poisonous plants that could kill even Medicine. You also might think she's weak to fire, but MS Extra Alice has two red phases, which can be assumed to be fire-elemental, but she still gets beaten by Yuuka anyways.
Basically their ability is only the rough guess or in a nutshell description the only way to know for sure is to have someone fight them to truly gauge their abilities. As in the wiki itself it is written with ambiguity to the point that despite being the most reliable source one must take it with a grain of salt in order to fully determine the ability like for example Remilia's Fate manipulation may or may not be working and a lot of variables take into account such as the willpower of the target, strength and magic as someone who's stubborn enough or powerful enough may not or perhaps cannot be manipulated by her
Yeah I think ZUN was just inspired by Araki's thing of describing a power very broadly and then blowing your mind with all the creative ways it could be interpreted. In JoJo's there is no E-to-S linear power level per se, there's just the different ways powers can interact with each other and the creativity with which characters deploy theirs. It's an ingenious way of dodging the power creep problem that long-running series' face and why comparative small fry like the Yorigamis, Megumu, and Kokoro can be credible lead antagonists even after literal world destroyers like Okuu and Junko
I like to think of this as " These characters' abilities are not set in stone, this is their current basis but over time, under proper conditions, their ability could change into something different but similar to the original". Kinda like MHA's quirks I suppose.
Thanks a lot ! I finally understand why Remilia lost
More seriously, the lines that graduates the differents powers, even if there are really vague sometimes are the key to understand and those lines are too often neglected on the western community which is kinda sad.
So thank you for bringing that up ! Keep it up !
Do you have any social media to talk?
I too see touhou project as a underestimated masterpiece.
I can see abilities describing things that characters can do to a certain degree, but after seeing Kogasa's ability, that degree ranges from 0 lol
Kogasa’s degree is in the negative
To me they seem more like some of HXH's powers, the one about cirno which is to absorb heat and turn it cold.
Maybe he just never wanted to give it too much thought, because if you do then there is ton of follow-up questions to resolve, and the more you build your fantasy universe the harder it gets. No time for that, no desire, "I just want a colorful game with cute girls and cool music". When Touhou blew up it got even worse to try and resolve all that. It's easier to "she kinda maybe can to some degree" and move on, leave it fo fans. Fans gain more freedom, you have less work to do, profit, beer time (it's always beer time). Not sure how much of % "it's too bothersome" and "I want to give my fans freedom and encourage creativity", but I'm pretty sure both reasons are there. It worked before and still works, so why not.
He's more or less confirmed this, yeah, at least for his desires. It's more that before the idea it would get so big was a thing he used the term. Which prompts the question.
@@GensouChronicle well, what I've said applies both to before "becoming big" and after. Isn't he just wanted to make small games for himself without too much bother first, but after blowing up he kinda... hasn't changed his ways much, they've just got more romanticezed by fans. Man's still a genius all in all, but people tend to get blinded and dig too deep, forgetting basic human weaknesses like getting tired
ot wanting to bother\etc., no one is an alien or superhuman. Surely he started to think about Touhou fans a lot more after it blew up, so more % shifted to "give creative freedom", but still. As a fantasy writer myself, I perfectly understand the struggle of actually answering the questions about your (big) universe lol, one question leads to a million of others. It's a lot easier not to answer at all, and even then Touhou has a lot of plot holes. Personally I prefer to be a lot less vague in my works, though I still won't answer 100% of the questions and it's not needed anyway (not physically possible either if being reasonable with your lifetime), you have to leave people enough freedom and intrigue. In any case, Touhou is a creative paradise for fans which is damn amazing.
You have great videos, keep it up!
It's just vague and roundabout, "illogically" so if you will. And you know what else is not defined by the boundaries of logic? GENSOKYO!
well... ZUN is a jojo fan since he did make some references with kaguya's items and sakuya. or you know the man's just drunk when making them lmao
Most of EoSD is just a big JoJo reference.
@@GensouChronicle Even nowadays he's showing his love for jojo in cannon works. The recent manga Foul Detective Satori features that "guessing the real gimmicks in your opponents' abilities" jojo archetype.
Strong legs
Horse 🦵
The "self interpretations" thing is definitely the most probable reason why all the abilities seem so open-ended/vaguely stated.
I believe that part of Touhou's popularity comes from the fact that ZUN actively wants the community to make their own interpretations. If he were to specifically and clearly describe each character's abilities, it would make more logical sense in-world, but it can end up causing a lot of fanworks to be super obviously fan-worked.
aka, instead of "this character's ability in X game is very different from the canon ability," it's instead "this character's ability in X game is a plausible interpretation of the character's canon powers."
Leaving the abilities as more guidelines than hard-set rules allows for more creative freedom both for ZUN and Touhou fans.
Yukari exists. Entity stronger than Yukari exists. Manipulates the border between their gap in power and becomes more powerful than said entity anyways. - Touhou
@Last Theres never been a real conflict between the Lunarians and Yukari, especially since it's heavily implied the whole thing was a lesson from Yukari to Gensokyo(at the time) against expansion, the "revenge" was a troll and the whole manga she was just bored and wanted to mess with their heads, which she did flawlessly. Also if I'm not mistaken the Gensokyo Sages and the Dragon God made a pact of eternal peace not to harm one another, this implies that their power, Yukari and the other Sages, are sufficiently powerful to challenge God himself and make it worth his time to make a peace treaty, but it also ensures that the Sages and the Watatsuki sisters who are also OP as fudge will likely never, ever, actually fight seriously, since they are from the Dragon God. The sisters also don't play by spellcard rules, which is why they are never playable, so I don't think the story would ever develop that way, cool to imagine though.
I mean, knife maid is literally DIO down to the vampire house. I think you hit the nail on the head at the end.
2:45 Are we supposed to be seeing something here or am I being had?
No reason to rank and tier Touhou characters Power Levels, because they're all strong. Good point
As someone who is kinda trying to get into the series-
Perhaps he means that these abilities are meant to make sure that whenever you see them in the story, their power will range from “oh yeah, I can do this skill”, to “I am perfect in this skill”.
It leaves room for improvement.
Say you have someone who’s ability is to “Have the ability to control Jump height” or something like that.
When we first meet them, they could be using their power in obvious ways- essentially flight with small hops in between/kick attacks. But when you meet them later, their ability has been fleshed out, and they have learned that as long as a being “jumps” they can control that beings height.
Basically letting gravity kill any being that can’t survive re-entry, or just let them fly into space.
Both of these abilities fall under the description given, so the vague wording allows for advancement of a person’s skills throughout their existence.
maybe "flight is to some extent is what Reimu is capable of"
the abilities have a theme but the extent they can go to is unbound as long as it stays in that range
I clicked on this video knowing nothing about Touhou but having heard the word
...so Touhou is...Eldritch gods, but cute little girls?
Not quite... Rather than horrors, they are reinterpretations of various myths and concepts in the form of cute girls.
Not all of them are little girls
zun just wanted to make something that we can measure, it is all on tje mind of the player/lore rat, if you explore mythology it will be clear
Being vague is how Touhou works.
🙏
Another complexity to the Abilities is that they aren't necessarily descriptive of the user's actual power. Like Miko's understanding of the Ten Desires™or Eirin's doctorate in magic medicine.
That's how I interpret how anyone could win against Yuyuko or Yukari anyway since Hecatia is supposed to be the strongest with the very OK ability of having three bodies.
I heard a theory that Hecatia is THE actual hecatia from Greek mythology, the fucking primordial goddess of magic even Zeus didn't fuck with and let her do what she wants.
If shes an actual capital G God, the ability to have 3 bodies in different planes of existance could have a different meaning (extend of the ability, neat) that, it isn't the worlds her bodies are tied to, but the WORLDS are tied to her bodies.
Making her different bodies existance the basis for hell/gensyoko/outerworlds and the moon to even exist in the first place. (Which would also go nicely hand in hand with Zun stating shes by far the strongest, she cant be beat IF she takes it seriously, because her bodies would personify the 3 worlds + hells existance in the firstplace)
@@brosephstinson1297 neat theory you got there👍
@@brosephstinson1297*Hecate
Tbf this discussion is more on hax not powerscaling. But it would be quite interesting to analyze all the direct feats in the verse cuz Touhou has a lot of infinite statements and feats like with the infinite corridor for example. And I think most people know them translated like that and not in the original Japanese, so it would be fun to see if these feats are actually meant to be literally infinite or just hyperbolic and we're misinterpreting them
It's a discussion on why you can't powerscale as per the creator's intention. The interpretation of each power can simultaneously be taken literally to its strongest, all the way to its weakest depending solely on the whim of ZUN. The video isn't about explaining the powerscaling itself, but why you can't.
@@GensouChronicle no I mean like the abilities themselves are usually just considered hax in most scaling circles and not raw AP. For example vs. wiki acknowledges the character's conceptual abilities like Death, Fate, Boundary Manipulation etc. but they don't use them to scale the characters anyway, they just list them as hax. Because unless the character is very clearly some sort of Outerversal God, then things like this are basically always just hax. What people generally use to scale Touhou characters, which usually comes out at around low to high multi, are things like the infinite corridor from IN, which Miko considers unimpressive and would make touhou mid tiers by default universal. So what I'm thinking is that if the way abilities are described very vaguely in the Japanese text and somewhat mistranslated into English already, then are these infinite feats and statements, which are actually used for scaling, also mistranslated in some way? Like maybe the infinite corridor isn't actually infinite, and the original text also maybe uses a more vague, metaphorical term for infinite, which just describes something very large and not a mathematical literal one. That's just something that the video got me thinking about
My answer to that would be that using feats like traversing the infinite corridor to determine the power or speed of a character is silly. Even if it was infinite, would ZUN's intention be that the characters can actual move that fast? Absolutely not. Even ignoring abilities as "hax" or whatever, using feats in a series where some things probably aren't going to be consistent doesn't really amount to anything, because there's no underlying logical basis. I wouldn't say this is exactly Touhou specific, but it's certainly applicable. Does that make sense?
@@GensouChronicle yeah I do get that. There usually is dissonance between author intent and actual feats displayed in a series, simply because authors generally aren't powerscalers. Like for example in Bleach Kubo clearly intended for verse top tiers like Yhwach to be of a narratively omnipotent, basically Outerversal nature, but then the raw feats are so miserable that he's like around planet level really. Or when in the DOOM franchise Doomguy is clearly able to destroy multiverses and fight near omnipotent beings lorewise, but then ingame he's like Supersonic. The thing in Touhou though is that it's generally a more light hearted series that plays very fast and loose with things like that. So I don't actually believe that it would be contradictory if characters literally could create and destroy infinite spaces, or traverse them, but then literally be shown to be affected by "normal" things. So if these feats exists and then there's maybe an anti-feat to contradict that, people aren't really going to consider that especially in a franchise like this. I mean especially when in addition to that things like the spell card system exist in addition where you can just argue that characters have a very broad power level, meaning that they can both be weak as to get damaged by like a fairy's bullets but then also having fights with high tiers. Or in other words be both normal level people and universal
Having read every piece of canon, referred directly to the original Japanese text which is readily available on the wiki, and read many interviews, not only would pretty much every character be less than that level in power, but I think even ZUN would confirm that's not the case. I typically don't involve myself in power level discussion just because of how easily it usually falls apart, but there would be many "anti-feats" that would put characters at a much weaker level. The spell card system, I think can best be described as "the great equalizer" in world. It's a gentleman's duel that ignores actual power levels.
one thing i've found confusing here with good ol teido no nouryoku is that it doesn't imply that the ability is unique nor that it is all that they can do. i usually see it translated as "capable of", which can even just be something like a learned skill. marisa, for instance, is "capable of using magic", which is not just not special amidst youkai, it's not even special for a human. youmu's, and even renko's, could be interpreted as just something they learned or have a great aptitude for and not part of the series of anomalous special abilities like kosuzu's or yukari's
2:52 When you think about it, Reimu has been manipulating the positive and negative flow for years before the concept even existed in JoJo
Suck it, Wonder of U and D4C love train
I think Zun meant with Degree of Ability, how does Abilities are effective for this Character.
Some Characters Like Reimu are both Gifted to be naturally Strong in Terms of her ability to perform barriers but also have the experience and knowledge to perform this Ability Very effective, which is why Reimu is the best at Youkai Extermination.
Some Characters Like Marisa and Sanae don't really have a naturally Strong Abbilites, which is why they depend more on their experience and knowledge, which is why Marisa only uses Stars as her danmaku while the Master Spark is more of a copied Ability, Sanae at this Point only can use Danmaku, since Miracle is either Just her Gift to Land either lucky Hits or Its Just plain uselsss.
Some Like Cirno and Youmu are naturally Strong, but their Lack in experience might Limit the degree of this Ability.
You can argue over the power level of every single character for at least 10 minutes straight, heck for some not even an hour would cut it.
Power level discussions are interesting but it's utter chaos for Touhou there are too many different aspects. The kind of abilities on their own are not even clear most of the time and the extent of those even less often and can your own power level simply counter certain abilities?
For a lot of character we simple have no idea how strong they are, do we go by shown powers only, or told/implied levels of those? Most conflicts are solved by the "Danmaku rule" and certain character like Marisa excel in that discipline far more than her general power level (not that she is weak). Would an "all out fight" even work? and how would it work? Could someone like Yuyuko just kill you? or can she only kill you if you would lose anyway?
Way too many unknowns to have any form of conclusive power ranking.
I think I could take Marisa in a real fight. And if she gets to bring weapons then so do I.
@@magicyber909 I highly doubt that. Unless you're far above the average internet dweller she could very well even be physically stronger than you and even if not she's still vastly faster than you and can fly.
She may not have something special in terms of abilities like most of the cast but she is still a highly talented magician, wielding devastating spells even without the Mini-Hakkero.
Except for the non-fighting characters, (almost) every single character could easily wipe the floor with an average human in a serious battle.
@@tripple-a60311. Shes a girl. Girls have to be at almost peak physical form to have any chance at beating a very out of shape man. And unlike Youkai she doesn’t have any superhuman buffs to her strength. 2. If you think her mushroom magic is scary then you have never seen a real Murican bust out the Yee Haw. Lets see her 50mph candy stars go up against some 96.5 shore A traveling at 1800mph. She got a broom? Meet FV101 Scorpion.
@@magicyber909 Alright you're obviously a troll, go bother someone else.
@@tripple-a6031I see. So bringing military equipment against magic = troll. Have a good day sir.
What I gather from this is that Cirno could, in fact, be the strongest.
It could perfectly be that, but it has a counter that is a fairy
Cirno is Boundless lol
I think the "To some degree" part is so that characters don't spam that ability/keep doing it unlimited times
An airplane has the ability to fly to some degree, but since every airplane comes with its flight envelope, it doesn't have the absolute capability of flight.
Capability of flight can be interpret as being able to get to any point in an atmosphere, while Capable of flight to some degree means being able to get off the ground.
cant we just ask ZUN
i think these powers are vague on purpose because gensokyo is all about fantasy mystery etc. (like some myths are told differently and noone knows which version is right)
They are also vague to give fan creators freedom with their interpretations.
If I was warped to gensokyo and could give myself my own ability. I would choose "To be able to manifest and manipulate metals to some degree"
GOOD VIDEO!!!!!! .... Mima?
Perhaps!?
could it be that he is messing with us
"even the humans"
Rika and Yumemi: Guess I'll die.
(Unless you count the engineering/scientific genius as a power. and yes I know it's PC-98 early shenanigans, but you still have PC-98 Reimu and Marisa.)
Yeah, PC98 is its own can of worms I simply don't bother including. The abilities specifically start in the windows era.
@@GensouChronicle Fair enough.
The powerscaling thing made get alot confused in the first time, even when i saw yukari ability, it made me wonder "how she isn't supposed to be just a deus ex machina in any incident?" Or "how she is not the strongest character?" And it got even worse when i discovered a official work that has shown her breaking the 4th wall, i still quite confused about how it works
My conclusion about yukari is that she is capable to do powerful things, but it would demand alot of energy to her, and also she would need to recover her energy after doing the funny manipulation and that is her disavantage if compared with gods like okina and others, i like to think about what happened in pcb, when she manipulated the boundary beetwen the world and the netherworld, and after that she got tired after doing that and she has gone to sleeping during the incident until we reach the phantasm stage.
Don't matter when sunny milk negs
As someone who's spent a little too long analyzing the character's abilities, powersets and scaling and such, I feel like his wording was to allow for a degree of interpretation for how abilities can be used. Something like Seija's ability could have a bunch of potential uses, and since we only ever see it used a few ways in canon, someone creating a fanwork could make up a lot more applications for the ability due to the ambiguity presented in the description.
In something like a Versus Debate, we'd only be able to take the ability's description at face value, and what feats the characters have actually performed with said abilities (Yukari has an extensive list of usages of her Boundary Manipulation that back up the explanations behind it, for instance) because of the specific limitations/expectations of Versus Debating as a whole. But when it comes to just, simple interpretation, I think ZUN's wordage allows for people to take things in their own ways while still having the characters similar to their original intent.
So that means I can scale touhou to boundless?
Is 'scaling to boundless' some sort of power scaling terminology?
@@GensouChronicle yea it is lol, particular it’s the one that is above outerversal pretty much meaning complete omnipotence. Powerscalers have been debating so much abt touhou cus of how vague the abilities are and due to the lack of feats even though they have statements.
@@marisakirisame2366 I would say that I highly doubt any of the characters are at that level unless someone takes very liberal interpretation of what is presented.
Mima!!
Can someone please tell me what track played at the end? :)
G free
@@magicyber909 Thank you very much.
Im not touhou fan, or really know alot about this universe at all, but from all what I know, I think it's better to not take those powers and abilities seriously, touhou not have balance **absolutely** and never will, because even abilities described just in two words like "can control" or "can manipulate" there's no exact description of limits of abilities (by the way that's why you shouldn't try compare powers of (almost ) any touhou character(s) to character(s) from other games, animes etc. in my opinion, it just not have a point) , and as one of comments I saw under this video says: "it's left to readers imagination" and I agree with it.
Tho, im taking touhou more as "comedy" where everyone just (mostly) fights with different abilities for fun, so it's better to nor focus on their abilities and powers im sure, personality of characters, their relationships between each other and etc. is alot interesting (atleast for me) for sure. So im trying to know more about this universe and just enjoy it.
(P.s. sorry if there mistakes in text, English not my main language)
This was pretty much what I wanted to get across with the video. Thanks!
The capability of 1CCing Lunatic to some degree...
I think it's probably because he's lazy to be specific/precise or just wants to screw with the power scalers
whats the ending song?
G Free. I keep forgetting to update the description with the music lol
@@GensouChronicle No worries Friend-Pal
200834 what's your favorite code?
The only exception here is the hourai immortality which is.. well.. true immortality. A lot of characters in the series have the ability to be immortal but it has to follow some rules.
Fairies are immortal but they can actually die and respawn where there is nature.
Monks and celestials are said to be immortal but they are not, they extend their lives by defeating every once in a while the shinigami/kishin who hunts them. Gods can live if only enough people give faith to them. Something similar can be said for the Youkai ( believing in their existence can make them real ).
But Hourai Elixir "makes one completely immortal to the truest sense "
Being a hourai immortal isn't a character ability. Kaguya's is manipulation of eternity and mokou's is manipulation of fire, for instance.
@@GensouChronicle why not tho, is a passive ability? an inability?
@@misterooreo Character abilities are a specific category ZUN lists out. Characters might be able to do lots of different things, but their 'Character Ability' is very specific. Even though Orin can turn into a cat, it's not her character ability. Hers are: Carrying away corpses and controlling and communicating with spirits.