"FUKKIN. PAGODA. OF. BISHAMONTEN!!!"
-If there's any Buddhist here, I apologize.
High Definition (For straight lasers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG4Hg0HFbMc&fmt=22
High Quality (For curvy lasers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG4Hg0HFbMc&fmt=18
A video of me fighting against the disciple of Vaisravana, Shou Toramaru.
Shou (So... where are the ears and tail?), is the Stage 5 boss of the game Undefined Fantastic Object, the 12th installment of the Touhou Project. The Touhou Project is a series of danmaku shoot'em ups where divine beings bring torment to our mortal souls via esoteric means such as basic conic and trigonometric movements like sine, cosine, parabolas, and hyperbolas. Or, ZUN forbid it, a combination.
So... where are the ears and tail? If Shou is a tiger turn youkai, shouldn't she have some ears and a tail? Like Chen... and Rin... and Tei... and Ran... and Reisen... and Nazrin... and Mystia (although this one along with Tokiko makes even less sense than earless Shou). I think those are all the non-primate mammal youkais. Except for those last two, they make no sense. Although, to be honest, having a painfully obvious youkai around a temple doesn't make good business, so she probably does some fancy magic a la Aya Shameimaru to hide her animal characteristics. Let's go with that.
Shou has gain a level in infamy in the Touhou canon that very few characters have ever achieved. She stands up there, alongside Yuugi's CPU rape and Orin's existence as one of the most infuriating moments in Touhou history. Is like ZUN, after MoF, is trying to surpass his new ways of torment one after another:
MoF:
ZUN: I'll overhaul the entire power and bomb mechanic in MoF while making grazing useless.
Us: Meh =/
SA:
ZUN: I'll bring back graze!
Us: Yay :)
ZUN. And make the game so hard you will cry tears of blood by adding nukes... and zombies... and over 9000 danmaku on screen at once. More than what your CPU can handle and the eye can see. Oh, and you need to graze those if you expect to have the power to bomb it.
Us: |=/
UFO:
ZUN: (Demo) Two words: Brofists
Us: Awesome, but WHY IS IT HARD!?!? D:
ZUN: (Game) Two more words: Curvy lasers.
Us: **** you |:(
FW:
ZUN: *Thinking about how to make a game about fairies difficult* I got it. You're playing as a fairy, so the difficulty is artificially augmented by her mind.
Us: Wait, what? ಠ_ಠ
So yeah... Shou's gimmick is those damn curvy lasers. In case you don't know, they are difficult and infamous because they... well... curve. How is that hard? Have you ever driven in a straight line just to impact some guy who made a sharp curve out of nowhere? The lasers are that guy. Their path, while established, is hard to follow. And, to make matters worse, the straight lasers either explode into millions of dense pieces or simply move faster than you can outrun them while flying through an obstacle course. So yeah...
As for the character herself, I already talked quite a lot about her in the Nazrin and Murasa video. She's unknowingly Nazrin subordinate and lacks the backbone of Murasa, making her more of a figurehead to either Murasa or Byakuren than an actual leader. As a matter of fact, she is literally Bishamonten's figurehead. Seriously, her job description practically says "Bishamonten's figurehead". That doesn't mean she cannot take responsibility when neither Murasa or Byakuren are around, it simply means that if either of those is around, everybody else will magnetically be attracted to them rather than Shou. But she doesn't seem to mind. I mean, is not like she's getting pay to boss around and if you mess up something, the one who has the blame is the boss, not the minions. It is more responsibility that it's worth.
I wanted a golden text, but somehow ended up with a tiger text. It looks too gaudy, but let bygones be bygones =/
Also, images for Shou are hard to find, although these two are nice.
Finally. I dig this stage song. Is so... majestic. Is like you really are approaching the realms of demons. Too bad Shou's theme screams "METAL", so I only found Takase to accompany papos.
As for the actual stage, not the boss... my hatred for feral Hakurei Orbs burns with the intensity of a thousand Utsuhos. That is all.
Music:
Title: 魔界地方遊戯ソリテェア
Artist: papos
Circle: Sound.AVE
Album: Lotus
Original: Rural Makai City Esoteria (魔界地方都市エソテリア )
Title: 虎柄の毘沙門天
Artist: Takase
Circle: Magnum Opus
Album: 東方核煉獄 ～ Purgatory Nuclear fusion ～
Original: The Tiger-Patterned Bishamonten (虎柄の毘沙門天)
Artwork:
Title: 飛 鳥 5150: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=319018
Ending: パセリ: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=414162
His style is so eerie.
For more info on the Touhou Project, check the wiki:
www.touhou.wikia.com