It has been a persistent rumor in the Touhou fandom that Kaguya and Mokou were once planned for Hisoutensoku, yet ZUN vetoed the idea for the reason that "they are too powerful". Not many people have actually investigated the rumor, despite that everything we know about Soku's development came from a Nae Radio livestream, of which a recording has long been uploaded to the internet.
In this post, I will attempt to assemble information on Soku's creation. Unfortunately, the loud music combined with ZUN's low voice to make it difficult to discern anything new from the recording, and all I could do was to verify the available text against the recording. Even so, the findings should be enough to give us a better picture of Soku's development.
I. The informationNae Radio ("Wither Radio") is a doujin game dev livestream show, hosted by ZUN's friend D.N.A. We will investigate the broadcast from Sep 21, 2009, taking place after the Summer Comiket where ZUN released UFO and Tasogare Frontier released Soku. ZUN and Tasofro's NKZ were both guests.
Most people's knowledge about the show, like how Mokou was planned, or the whole design of Suwako was ZUN's idea, came from a fan's summary:
http://nico2c.com/acq/archiver/?tid-5140.html The wiki has an English translation:
http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Interview_on_Nae_Radio_%28September_2009%29A recording can be found here (in 7 parts):
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10791530MP3 downloads:
http://pan.baidu.com/s/1kUJbqGf1. Hong Meiling and the Touhou fighting gamesAs preparation, we need to understand why Hong Meiling was added into IaMP in a patch, without her own story mode.
In
a diary entry from 2005, Tasofro's leader Unabara wrote:
追加キャラの美鈴についてですが、時期的にシナリオモードの追加まで手が回せず
アーケードと対戦のみの仕様になってます
まぁ本当に黄昏での二次創作としての意味合いが強いキャラなので
言い回しや技などに余り信憑性期待しちゃいけません
最低限のZUNさんの監修は受けてますが、黄昏サイドの味付けが強いですので
On the new character Meiling: at the moment we are too busy to add a scenario mode for her.
So she is playable only in arcade and vs. modes.
Um, to tell the truth, the character is to a large degree Tasofro's fanfiction.
That is to say, you shouldn't expect her moveset and what not to be trustable [as a canonical source].
ZUN-san only had a minimum amount of oversight, and Tasofro's own flavor is stronger here.The implication is that ZUN's concept for IaMP only encompassed 10 characters, and adding Meiling was Tasofro's own idea. The character's design comes mostly from Tasofro, and ZUN's work might have involved only writing her dialog and attack names. This would also explain why Meiling was the only character whose moveset changed greatly between IaMP and Soku.
2. The Meiling route in Soku was originally planned for SWRIn Part 3 of the recording, around 10'41'', ZUN said the Giant Catfish was intended for SWR. NKZ followed by saying, they didn't have enough time for "China" (Meiling), so they ended up putting her in Soku.
At the beginning of Part 5, ZUN said, (SWR's) final boss was to be the Catfish rather than Tenshi.So, the initial plan for SWR had included Meiling, as well as her story of fighting the Giant Catfish. Yet her part was cut when the devs faced time constraints.
This explains why the Meiling route in Soku was earthquake-themed, with an unmistakable connection to the SWR story. "The final boss is the Catfish" should be understood as a joke. It's likely that the player was supposed to unlock Meiling's joke route after finishing the main story, making the Giant Catfish literally the very final boss.
3. The conception of SokuThe 2012 announcement of HM again stirred up people's interest in the mystery of the Soku roster.
Some fans, including writer of the Touhou news blog
Tohomemory, had dug out the recording for a more careful listen. The relevant part starts in Part 5, around 21'.
22:13
ZUN:「非想天則はにとり出そうとしたら嫌がられた」
ZUN: "Nitori was supposed to appear in Hisoutensoku, but they didn't like it."
22:33
ZUN:「最初キャラクターはリグルとチルノとにとりと??1、2面で固めようとしたら嫌がられた。テンション下がっちゃった」
ZUN: "Initially the characters were like Wriggle, Cirno, Nitori... a collection of Stage 1 and 2 bosses, but they didn't like it. Their motivation dipped."
ZUN then said they originally intended to make only a patch, yet this turned out to be too much trouble, so they just went and made a full game.
NKZ:「HALTさん、リグルか輝夜か妹紅の担当になると言われてたら早苗になった」
NKZ: "HALT-san [a sprite artist] was like, 'you told me I'll draw Wriggle, Kaguya or Mokou, but I ended up with Sanae.' "
23:33
ZUN:「早苗が決まったのは後の方」
ZUN: "Sanae was decided on later."
23:53
ZUN:「ゲームって人数少ないから弱いキャラが要る。ラスボス妹紅で他の人たち出そうみたいなこと、まあ言った気がする。でもやっぱり黄昏のメンツのテンション下がっちゃった」
ZUN: " 'We have too few characters for a full game, so we need the weaker characters. Make Mokou the final boss, and let the other characters have a go.' I must have said that. However, the guys at Tasofro still had low motivation."The above shows that the concept for Soku developed gradually:
Initially it was to be a patch that adds new content to the game (which would at least have included Meiling and her story);
They felt making such a patch would be so much work, they may as well turn it into a full expansion pack. ZUN proposed to fill up the roster with Wriggle, Cirno and Nitori, who together with Meiling would give the expansion a minor character theme, yet the idea of a weak character lineup dampened Tasofro's enthusiasm for the project;
The lineup was also supposed to include Kaguya and Mokou, with Mokou as the final boss;
In the end, ZUN came up with a story driven by Sanae and Moriya Shrine, which is the Hisoutensoku we saw. Cirno was the only remaining character from the old plan. The Kaguya and Mokou plot was abandoned.
4. Tenshi's visual designAside from the more important issues, in Part 3 around 11', and a later part (which I couldn't find), ZUN also explained Tenshi's visual design. The original idea was for Tenshi's skirt to display a cloud pattern, which would be displayed as a separate image layer moving on its own in the game. In the end, the effect was not implemented in SWR, but later used on Utsuho's cape (we now have Miko and Sumireko in the cool cape club).
The Anime Weekend Atlanta T-shirt showed how Tenshi's skirt was supposed to look