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Does Shinigami fall under the category of youkai? "A youkai that provides passage for the river between Gensokyo and the other side." I always thought of shinigami as something completely separate, maybe not?

Mmm, does it matter what species the individual who has the job of "Shinigami" is? I took it that "Shinigami" is no more a species than "Door Guard" or "Maid" are. --Psieye
The official profile lists her as "Species: Shinigami," and even though I can't read kanji I noticed the point in the Japanese text where all of the profiles from that game say "Species: something" the word for species 種族 is the same in all of them, so I'm guessing it means that's her actual species. It seems that the term shinigami is a relatively newer term, not having the long cultural history of other terms here like youkai, so most of what I can find of it are references from modern fiction. That's why I have to wonder if in ZUN's mythos he's created here that maybe shinigami is actually regarded as a species, and if so then I'm wondering why that line is translated as youkai.
Youkai is a blanket term for non-human beings (similar to its usage in actual Japanese) as well as being a specific race, it seems. It's quite confusing. -7HS

First name alt spelling[]

Has Komachi ever been romanized as Komati in any official work? I've never seen it romanized that way. Can anyone provide proof that her name has been romanized like that.

I'm sorry, I didn't understand the meaning of the item "alternate spelling" in her personal information list. "Alternate spelling" means the spelling which can be seen in games, CDs or books under the supervision of ZUN. I thought "alternate spelling" means the spelling which we can write as another Japanese romanization style. I don't know whether or not there is "Komati". It's my fault, I'm sorry.
There are some Japanese romanization styles from Hiragana into Latin Alphabet. The popular, formal styles are these two: the one is Hebon Shiki (Hepburn romanization style), and the other is Kunrei Shiki (Capital-order romanization style). As Hebon Shiki we can spell "ONOZUKA Komachi". As Kunrei Shiki we can spell "ONOZUKA Komati". If you write in less popular romanization style, you may write in Nippon Shiki (Japan romanization style) as "ONODUKA Komati". I don't know which is better.
In fact, ZUN seems never to care about how to write a character name in Latin Alphabet. I think it's t h e Encyclopedia's role to collect data --- to gather and record what spelling we can see in certain person's orginal creations. So it's OK to put that item in the character's personal information list. However, it's ridiculous to adhere spelling, checking only whether or not it appears in Zun's works, I think. It's not an attempt to blame you, but that is curious for me. --Masuo64 09:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


Charon[]

Komachi pretty much EXACTLY fits the role of Charon, Hell's ferryman in Greek mythology. That coin-looking thing she has could maybe be Charon's Obol. Also, the titanic- apart from the ship, could she also mean Saturn's hellish moon, Titan (see my Keine-boring post to Sikieiki's talk page)? Anyways, do your own research. I'm ironically too lazy to obsess over Charon like I did with Saturn. And Parsee.71.246.250.130 03:51, 25 October 2008 (UTC)An ironically lazy Nameless Fairy

You know, maybe rather than bringing up all this stuff on characters' talk pages it'd be better to create a new Contemplations page about it. (This page was used in the past for only a brief period when the forum was down and not much discussion took place on the imageboard. But if you like discussing on the wiki...)
Thanx for your lesson. But most Japanese know a popular story that the died spirits are supposed to go over the Sanzu no Kawa, or, it may not be proper, the Styx. Then they are separated owing to their good behaviors in life: This point is different from PoFV. And Shinigami brings the best spirits on his boat to Emma Daiou, or it may not be proper, to Yama. This story was made by mixing Buddhism belief with Japanese folk beliefs.
Of course it's possible for ZUN to use the settings of the Old European mythology. But I think it must make confusion to bring the European or Hellenic concepts. Probably most Japanese don't find the relation between Komachi & Charon, because it's too japanese-styled. --Masuo64 08:01, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Let's not forget that ZUN used Michaelangelo's "The Last Judgement" for Sikieiki's spell card background. I think it's not a question of what he's referencing, but a question of how in-depth he's referencing it. Anyone will eat up a story with religious overtones and objects named after Bibilical figures(See: Evangelion.), but what if ZUN is trying to tell us something with a deeper meaning? Maybe not like, The Da Vinci Code- well, maybe like The Da Vinci Code. If you think about it, ZUN is kind of like a lolicon Da Vinci. Maybe someday people will study him like Lewis Carroll and William Shakespeare, both famous figures which he has referenced. Or maybe he's just an alcoholic doujin soft developer trying to please his fans. Well, we know that for a fact, but maybe he's both?

(How long until someone writes "The ZUN Code"? 50 years? 40 years, anyone?)

Some nonsense[]

I quote, from the first line of her introduction: (every 60 years, a great many spirits are 'produced' in the outer world that migrate here) this does not make any sense, please fix it.

Why I changed "Tokyoite" into "Edoite" in character introduction of SWR[]

In おまけ.txt of SWR, Komachi is introduced to have 江戸っ子っぽい気前の良さ, 江戸っ子-like generous heart. On [the recent edit http://touhou.wikia.com/index.php?title=Komachi_Onozuka&curid=2044&diff=107355&oldid=107352], I fixed "Tokyoite-" as "Edoite"; In presentdays 江戸っ子 (Edokko, Edoite) & 東京人/関東人 (Tokyoite, Kantō regional people) imply different nuance. The former is a sterotype of Edo people's tendency of personal character like "waste money without worrying his/her own tomorrow life", "fighter, saviour of the loser side" or "quick with his/her fists". And the latter is a stereotype of that of Tokyo/Kanto region people like "cold for others", "uninterested in other people", or "bad at making jokes". So I think they should be classified.
I translated "江戸っ子" as "Edoite", not as "Edo child", because "子" is used in order to show speaker's estimating attitude for them affectionaly — meaning "people" essentially. --masuo64 Talk 17:09, August 7, 2010 (UTC)

Komachi's portrait art[]

Apparently someone changed the character art. I don't know how to fix it, and it didn't seem to tell anyone it changed, so just putting it out there :I
Haruhi57 00:17, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

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