Miscellaneous Questions Thread 4 - Bring us your Questions!

[Drake]

Because the whole of HM was a farce. The "faith" that each faction got was not actual belief in the religion, it was just popularity gained from the fights. The humans weren't actually wanting to convert to some religion, they just needed some excitement. The religious war provided that excitement. This was speculated early on, but was outright confirmed in FS.

[neetori]

I'm aware of ZUN's "answer" from AWA, but...
How could the Moriya Shrine possibly not have gotten involved in Hopeless Masquerade?!
I just can't think of any explanation that doesn't leave their inaction seeming like something out of a bad fanfiction. They couldn't have just stopped caring about getting faith when it would be easiest to do, and even if they knew it was actually an incident that'd just be more reason to send Sanae, not less. Any speculation from previous games/SoPM/fanwank would be much appreciated.

Don`t know if its canon and if you read it, thus spoiler alert?


In Touhou Ibarakasen, it is mentioned that Sanae didn`t notice that there was a war going on.
Reimu had noticed because her ?stick? (forget English name) reacted to something (Kokoro?) but Sanae`s did not. (Maybe due to spiritual power differences)
Kanako tells her after HM was solved that she did notice to Kanako, but meddling in incidents (the war was just a incident to her)  isn`t their job so they stood out.  (They usually cause it, not solve it, lol)
She also said that she believed that sort of action wouldn`t increase faith/followers, and would rather fight other Shinto sects than other religions, speaking of which, (in?)famous Reimu already joined as a Shinto candidate in the war.

Moriya Shrine in Ibarakasen tries to increase faith by other means (use of technology).

[Sagus]

Don`t know if its canon and if you read it

Wild and Horned Hermit is canon, yes.

In Touhou Ibarakasen, it is mentioned that Sanae didn`t notice that there was a war going on.
Reimu had noticed because her ?stick? (forget English name) reacted to something (Kokoro?) but Sanae`s did not. (Maybe due to spiritual power differences)

You got that wrong, the event that Sanae didn't notice was the incident from DDC. The Miracle Mallet made Reimu's gohei act weird, but not Sanae's oonusa, which's why she didn't notice anything unusual.

The rest you said is right, though. As Kanako says here, she doesn't think fighting other religions will win them any workshippers (not really because it was an incident, although she does say that incident solution isn't their main business).

[Clarste]

Kanako explains herself in WAHH. Basically she knew it wasn't a good source of long-term faith, which is supported by what happened: people were just betting on the matches and didn't care about the religions. So Kanako figured it was a waste of time and instead focused on further negotiations with the tengu about letting people pass through their territory, which is way more important. And she actually succeeded.

Also, resolving incidents is apparently not one of Sanae's duties, and Kanako actually discourages that when she can. Which just makes sense. I mean, it's not like Reimu's shrine is successful either.

[Camilo113]

Is Youmu afraid of ghosts, darkness, dares, etc due to the effects of looking at the true Moon?. And in Ten Desires she tought she was a hermit. Is this also due to the effects of the true Moon?

I never understood any of this :s.

[Drake]

The effects of the real moon were temporary. Youmu is just afraid of cliche spooks for comedic effect and to show how kidlike she is. The Ten Desires thing you're referring to is the parallel endings, which all have silliness like that.

[Fuyuumi]

Why Cirno sometimes holds a sword made from watermelon?

[neetori]

Why Cirno sometimes holds a sword made from watermelon?

It`s a series of fan fiction and/or memes.

To try to put it short, there is a ice cream (more like sherbet) product in Japan called (lit.) Watermelon Bar.
It`s a watermelon sherbet flavored popsicle, looking like a acute (22 degrees to be exact) watermelon slice with chocolate seeds.
It is a popular snack/dessert in Japan during the summer, since watermelon and popsicles (derived from shaved ice) are a summer thing. (seasonal reference)

It started appearing in memes with the start of Z Gundam, where (spoiler alert?) Z Gundam in one of the last episodes, kamikazes in Waverider mode into Sirocco`s G.O. In that scene, the red pointed tip of the mobile suit with flying specks of debris resembled a watermelon bar very well.

Since Cirno (and Kaito from Vocaloid) both are fanon-ed to love popsicles, it was natural before artists started drawing them with watermelon bars.

After a while, watermelon bars started to become joke weapons because we all love jokes and swords and combinations.
(In Japanese, watermelon bar is スイカバー which is like Excalibur エクスカリバー, so some memes started with them wielding エクスイカバー which is a horrible pun/mash. It is accompanied by another horrible pun, ?wielded by a idiot who should be loved,? where love in this usage is pronounced aisu, which sounds like ice.)

But the largest impact associating Cirno with a watermelon blade is most likely the Advent Cirno series by circle One Night Stand, main artist Yoshitaka Ushiki, who is more known now as the author of Dream Eater Merry. It is a very popular/known Touhou doujin. A. Cirno in Touhoumon is from the Advent Cirno series.
In those series, Cirno is loosely given concepts of Cloud in Advent Children, one of them being the fusion swords.
However, to be Cirno-fied, all the swords consisting of the Fusion swords (which are a total of six), are all popsicle related.
She often uses the main edge of the fusion swords and the inner sword the most, the main edge sword being watermelon bar motif, so making it iconic to her.

[Fuyuumi]

Is anywhere said how fast can Aya move? I'm pretty sure she can't go absurdly fast like Sonic the Hedgehog or Flash or that Road Runner... or can she?

[Sagus]

Remilia can fly the entire circumference of the moon (10,917 km/6783.51 miles) in a few seconds (she does this in SSiB during her battle with Yorihime), and Marisa states that Aya's probably faster than Remilia, so... she's probably very VERY fast.

But no absolute values are ever given, so you can think what you want.

[TwilightsCall]

Is anywhere said how fast can Aya move? I'm pretty sure she can't go absurdly fast like Sonic the Hedgehog or Flash or that Road Runner... or can she?

mild digression

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze_uxxFJTvE

[CyberAngel]

Two words: Illusionary Dominance.

[Biakmon]

Wow I just realize that Remilia is really amazingly supernaturally ridiculously fast as Hypervelocity Stars if she has indeed manage to cover the entire circumference of the whole Moon in a few sec. (according to her that it)

[Kwak]

Kanako explains herself in WAHH. Basically she knew it wasn't a good source of long-term faith, which is supported by what happened: people were just betting on the matches and didn't care about the religions. So Kanako figured it was a waste of time and instead focused on further negotiations with the tengu about letting people pass through their territory, which is way more important. And she actually succeeded.

Also, resolving incidents is apparently not one of Sanae's duties, and Kanako actually discourages that when she can. Which just makes sense. I mean, it's not like Reimu's shrine is successful either.

Ohhh. Wow. Hadn't read WaHH 19 yet. It addresses every issue I had perfectly. Thanks, guys!

[Darkness1]

To add; is it mentioned somewhere how fast (or far) Youmu can move during her "sword charge"?

How is "200 Yojana in 1 Slash" as a measurement? How far exactly would that be?

[Biakmon]

To add; is it mentioned somewhere how fast (or far) Youmu can move during her "sword charge"?

How is "200 Yojana in 1 Slash" as a measurement? How far exactly would that be?

For how far I don't know, need to look up but if it's for how fast see below.
If I'm corr I think there was a doujinshi that try to calculate the speed (in a excessive way if you want my opinion). Basically it's about 1/4 to 1/3? the speed of light! WHAT???
But if I can recommend not to interpret spell cards too literally if not you may overheat your brain.

[Sagus]

200 Yojana is more or less 1600 miles/2574,95 km, so even if a slash took an hour to perform it'd still be really goddamn fast.

Although I'm with Biakmon here in believing that you shouldn't take spellcard names at face value.

[neetori]

To add; is it mentioned somewhere how fast (or far) Youmu can move during her "sword charge"?

How is "200 Yojana in 1 Slash" as a measurement? How far exactly would that be?

The 200 Yojana is originally derived from Yuyuko`s garden being that size. 200 square Yojana.

Determining speed is now up to you. I gave up calculations.

I don`t know if this was the doujin they were talking about, but it is available here: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=7463
under the tag, 幻想郷大運動会～二百由旬の一閃～

first episode:

[Drake]

To add; is it mentioned somewhere how fast (or far) Youmu can move during her "sword charge"?

How is "200 Yojana in 1 Slash" as a measurement? How far exactly would that be?

The length of one yojana historically varies, but Maribel once gives an estimate of seven kilometers, so it's reasonable to assume that ZUN also uses that estimate. So, 200 yojana is about 1400km.

That being said, 200 yojana in one flash/slash essentially boils down to some arbitrary fraction of the speed of light, depending on how fast you think Youmu's slash itself is. However, at that point you have to propose how fast she is, in order to figure out how fast she is, so it's pretty redundant to try and get anything more accurate than "arbitrary fraction of the speed of light".

[Fuyuumi]

mild digression

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze_uxxFJTvE

I watched that...
Just try to mod Sonic to move at mach 1 speed. You either hit first hard thing before you manage to proceed what happened or you'll glitch through the map. Propably both.


Also if we say that few seconds fits between 2 or 10 seconds (using mostly common sense here) the Remilia's top speed is somewhere between 5458,5 km/s or 1091,7 km/s. Mach 1 is 0,34029 km/s. Thus Remilia is said to be able to move at least 3208 times faster than sound... either that or I went full retard with calculations.

For Youmu I couldn't find how fast a sword swing is (yahoo anwsers gives 90mph here) so... dunno

[Tengukami]

For how far I don't know, need to look up but if it's for how fast see below.
If I'm corr I think there was a doujinshi that try to calculate the speed (in a excessive way if you want my opinion). Basically it's about 1/4 to 1/3? the speed of light! WHAT???

A yojana is approximately 8 miles. 1,600 miles in a single slash is pretty damn fast, but not faster than the speed of light.

e. No new replies warning? I ought to learn to refresh.

[Sagus]

Also if we say that few seconds fits between 2 or 10 seconds (using mostly common sense here) the Remilia's top speed is somewhere between 5458,5 km/s or 1091,7 km/s. Mach 1 is 0,34029 km/s. Thus Remilia is said to be able to move at least 3208 times faster than sound... either that or I went full retard with calculations.

That's correct. Which's why I'm reasonably sure Zun didn't research the actual size of the moon when he wrote Remilia's "The moon is pretty tiny, so I just flew around it once" line.

I'm considering it canon anyhow :V

[Drake]

You could also go the extra mile and consider that just as the distance between Gensokyo and the Lunar Capital was basically the power of imagination, the size of the moon could be as well, even if you took Remilia absolutely seriously.

[Sagus]

If distances are variable like that, then the top speed of the characters can follow the same logic, no?

[CyberAngel]

Which's why I'm reasonably sure Zun didn't research the actual size of the moon when he wrote Remilia's "The moon is pretty tiny, so I just flew around it once" line.

I'm sure that's one of the things he DIDN'T write. Something like this sounds like it was thrown in by Aki★Eda, just like Toyohime's Fan'o'Doom and Marisa's two Master Sparks. There's a reason some fans take SSiB with a grain of salt - ZUN only wrote the basic story for it, unlike later mangas where he went into great detail, including cameos. I remember from some interview that ZUN himself was amused at some of the artist's decisions in SSiB.

[Tengukami]

Although he signed off on SSiB, including artist contributions. I think it could be argued that this makes SSiB canon.

[Tiamat]

They were inside/within the Lunar Capital's barrier/border at that point, weren't they?  The real length of the normal moon might be an apple compared to the inside moon's length's orange in that case, possibly.

[Drake]

That's what I was getting at with the comparison to the distance between Gensokyo and the Capital.

[hungrybookworm]

Do shikigami *have* to be beasts, or can anyone in theory become Yukari's servant?

[Sagus]

AFAIK, anything can be turned into a shikigami by someone who knows how to "install" the appropriate "software" in it.