The New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium!

Knowledghe of giant robots does not = otaku. They're NOT just an anime, thing after all. (Examples which I know of? Transformers, and even Britain got in on it with that CyberKing!)

Hang on. I'm a bit curous now Do you think Sanae watched stuff like Doctor Who before entering Gensokyo?

EDIT: VWORP VWORP VWORP PAGETOPPER VWORP VWORP VWORP

edited 2nd May '11 10:33:24 AM by TARDISES

Does Dr. Who have any sort of fanbase in Japan?

EDIT: WAIT FUCK THERE WAS ANOTHER PAGE IGNORE ME

edited 2nd May '11 10:32:00 AM by Metaflare

I'm not sure... I'm pretty sure they do get it, though.

Sanae apparently knows about jiangshi and zombies in pop culture, too.

I think she's just very cultured.

I think she's as cultured as I am

AKA: GAMES AND TOONS

Wouldn't it be kind of a culture shock to have all this pop culture knowledge and then go into gensokyo where all the monsters are girls?

Maybe. She probably got over it a bit after the extra stage of SA, though. (Makign her line before the battle with her in that stage jsut her own justification for thigns.)

Or alternatively, the Outsidfe of Touhou is very simialr to ours, INCLUDING GETTING TOUHOU ITSELF. Or am I getting a bit too recursive here?

...hang on, we seem to have hijacked the line of discussion TWICE. First Alice, now Sanae.

Anyway, I wonder how characters (other than her or Yukari, for obvious reasons that they knwo what the outside is like) would react to the outside world?

edited 2nd May '11 10:58:12 AM by TARDISES

I'm voting for Alice.

Woohoo! I'm back!

My schedule is finally clear and had an awesome time at Kawaii Kon 2011.

I'm voting for Alice I guess.

You went to Kawaii Kon? .... I'm jealous.

Yes I did go and it was awesome. Got a lot of Touhou doujins and there some girls cosplaying as Reimu, Marisa, and Cirno. Oh and my friends did Okuu's Nuclear Fusion Dojo.

Jealous!? that makes me want to discuss Parsee!

edited 2nd May '11 7:44:16 PM by raigakuren

URUSHI LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE

...not that I haven't done it myself... multiple times... (albeit with no one around)

...uh, I'm only saying this because we covered Utsuho already? Yeah, let's go with that.

If you do something at an anime convention you are pretty much guarunteed somebody will join in.

I vote for Shou. None of Byakuren's crew have been done yet, and Shou has the most awesome theme music out of them.

edited 3rd May '11 12:21:13 PM by asterism

If anyone still wants to rally for someone other than Alice, well, uh, good luck! I've been kinda absurdly busy for a while and will probably remain so until Friday (German timezone, of course). If I can collect my thoughts, I'll try to get us started on Alice today... if not... well, maybe I'll have to pull another Yukari-style trick. But let's hope it won't come to that.

I just know I'll be glad when all the absurdly popular characters are out of the way. Those are always a pain to write about and collect info for.

Alice Margatroid

Theme:
Plastic Mind (MS)*

the Grimoire of Alice (MS)

(Hisoutensoku version)

Doll Judgment ~ The Girl who Played with People's Shapes

(IaMP version)

Stage (MS 3): Makai
Devil's World
bgm: Romantic Children*

Stage (MS Ex): "Open the door to the picture book"
"Open Sesame"
bgm: Alice in Wonderland*

Stage (PCB 3): One night in the settlement of the dolls
"Is it snowing even in this paradise? The paradise that is already Alice's playground."
bgm: The Doll Maker of Bucuresti (PCB)*

(IaMP version)

(SWR version)

Spellcard Motif: Dolls | Colors
Notable spellcards: PCB, StB, IaMP, SWR, Hisoutensoku, Hisoutensoku boss
Curse "Eerily Luminous Shanghai Dolls", Curse "Hanged Hourai Dolls", Blue Sign "Benevolent Orléans Dolls", Darkness Sign "Foggy London Dolls", Red Sign "Doll Mira Ceti", Magic Sign "Artful Sacrifice", War Sign "Little Legion", Evil Light "Devilry Light Ray", Knight "Doll of Round Table", Sacrifice "Suicide Pact", Testing "Level Titania", Testing "Goliath Doll"

Write-up:
Dolls. Artificial, small figures in the shape of humans, usually children. Some find them endearing, others are unsettled by the face of a human filled with no life. Some may be downright obsessed with the collection of these items. One would expect these people to be elderly women with a passion for kitsch. At least one of them has entirely different ideas of the beauty of dolls, however.

Her obsession with them is the defining trait of Alice. Anything about her, it all comes down to dolls. Yet instead of making her a one-note character, this quirk opens up many doors for interpretation. Where does the obsession come from? Where does it go? Is she a cold maniac with the deep-seated desire to play god, cruelly commanding killers attached to strings by her hand? Or is her former human, now youkai heart longing again for human warmth, a thing that has eluded her for as long as she can remember, a lack she tries to fill with the only thing she knows?

Of course, speaking of human warmth and obsession, it's impossible not to also note her relationship with Marisa, possibly the most famous and infamous ship the fandom has to offer. Although canon offers little reason to assume that their relationship is anything more than friendly, it's not hard to extrapolate more intense emotions from the superficially cold and sarcastic dollmaker's obsessive tendencies. From a dangerous psychopath lover, to a misunderstood loner, to a plain loving wife, there's probably not a face Alice has not worn yet for the mischievous witch.

Questions about her true nature only just begin there, too. Is she in fact the same Alice as the one from Makai, if such a person ever existed? What is her relationship to Shinki, then... if such a person ever existed? Who did she use to be, and who is she now? She became a youkai, yet humans are safe from her. Her dolls are sent to explode for the sake of her personal victory, yet are also used to set up puppet shows for the children of the village. She will welcome lost travelers into her cottage, only to then ignore them in favor of continuing her work. Is it coldness, or does she simply not know how to act? What is the purpose of her work, and what is the reason? What are the secrets that lie behind the doll-like face?

Don't keep stringing us along, Alice!

Relations:

• Marisa (vitriolic best bud or so much more)
• Shinki (?)
• Shanghai, Hourai, Titania and Goliath Dolls (the stories they could tell)

Alternate Character Interpretations:
Blasphemy
-by Bocaj

Alice - Ruin
-by Durazno

Mother
-by Fawriel

The Process of Creation
-by horselesshorseman

The Seven-Colored Marionette Mistress
-by KH fujoshigirl 98

Alice's Playground
-by Metaflare

Alice Margatroid ~ The Doll of Shinki, the Magician of the Rainbow
-by Pulse

The Sealed Grimoire
-by stardf 29

Character analysis by way of musical impressions
-by Tacitus

Alice~Mother
-by yarrunmace

ALICE
-by zealotglob

edited 8th Oct '11 3:59:54 PM by Fawriel

Alice has got a rocking collection of themes, especially Doll Judgement. Such an earwormy piece of music.

I'm pretty certain Alice in Wonderland and The Doll Maker of Bucuresti are also about her, rather than the stage

So, one of the more interesting parts of Alice's personality, in my view, is that she is Willfully Weak, refusing to fight at full power in fear of what it would mean if she lost. My interpretation is that she went at full power during Mystic Square's Extra Stage, and got depressed when she lost, so she instead turned back to her doll-work and decided to go more for showy, theatrical fighting rather than trying to win with sheer power.

Whats interesting is that Alice holding back still qualifies for the playable character power tier.

She can accept defeat when she's weak, but not when she's strong. Interesting sort of self-handicapping there. She'd like to imagine the potential that she has rather than face her limits.

edited 6th May '11 1:00:35 PM by Fluid

Ahh... Finally, I've prepared for this one. PC-98 char... Let's Rock!

Overview: Alice is certainly loved by the fandom. PC-98 status and Marisa shipping will do that, though. She has a lot to note, and I have so little time to note it all, so I"ll try to find the most important stuff.

Of Note:

1. Alice's grimore is locked, and has only be opened in the PC-98 games. Perhaps she has cut off her ties to Makai.

2. Alice fights with strategy, and will throw a fight if the opponent can only be beat with strength. Definitely makes a nice foil to Marisa.

3. Alice is Eirin's only known customer.

4. Alice will accept any fight to learn new strategies, but is a bit of coward at times.

5. Alice is a human who used magic to become a Youkai and become more powerful. She still appears to have retained her humanity though. Also, she's still appears weaker or even with human Marisa on strength.

6. Alice is quite skilled at physical combat because of her dexterity in doll making.

7. Alice's dolls do everything for her, but make more dolls. That's her job.

8. Alice's goal in her now extended life is to create a living doll/homunculus.

9. Alice built the Goliath doll to combat the many different fight styles of Gensokyo, but Cirno proved to be a Spanner in the Works.

10. Her dolls contain gunpowder. They explode because they have gunpowder. She really likes mentioning the fact that she put gunpowder in her gunpowder filled dolls. About once per game.

11. Alice performs puppet shows for children during festivals

12. If someone gets lost in the forest they can stay at her house, but if you name isn't Marisa or ends in Hakurei, you're going to be ignored.

Danmaku: Dolls

Dolls of the world in fact... and by world I mean Shanghai and Hourai. Probably because they shoot sparks in IN and IaMP.

Music:

Alice's theme and it's many variations are one of my favorite Touhou themes. Probably around 3rd or 4th favorite to be honest.

Power: Maaaagic! and puppetry, but that's a learned skill.

tl;dr

Touhou is a cool dude, ehs makes puppets and doesn't afraid of anything.

I rather thought that the fact that the Goliath Doll spell wasn't perfected yet was the spanner in the works rather than anything Cirno did. Alice did mention she was still testing it.

And neglects to mention it when it counts. Does it seem like common sense to her that people would be okay with having gunpowder-filled dolls?