Touhou Doujin: Grimoire of Dawitsu

Deified Human of the Wind, Sanae Kochiya

Sanae Kochiya is a human shrine maiden, similarly to Reimu Hakurei. However, Sanae has a unique distinction from Reimu- she's the ancestor of her Shrine's ex-patron Godess, Suwako Moriya. Lord knows how the ancestry went from God to human, but apparently it happened. I guess if outside world Christians can believe Jesus of Nazareth was a human son of a God, then I can believe that. Sanae thus, like Jesus of Nazareth, has miraculous powers.

However, unlike Jesus, who used his powers for healing and the good of mankind, Sanae uses her magic as mere demonstrations to gain faith, that and to pummel her enemies to dust. She's no ordinary human, and it's totally worthwhile to mimic. She'd probably be okay with demonstrating some techniques for you as well- as long as you donate to her shrine.

Personality

Sanae is brilliant for someone like me- she has relatively recent experience of the outside word and can talk up storms about animé... the other day I talked to her about Gundam! Gundam! I was on the side of 'It's not good to take seriously, but if you watch it intending to laugh it's great fun to watch' while she was all like 'But you have to take it seriously otherwise there's no point in watching the show!'. Oh, having someone to get into heated debates with is great- she doesn't just agree with me, either, she's a full-on otaku!

Aaah! I would kill for her to be into Haruhi Suzumiya, but she hasn't heard of it... an utter shame... I'd want to see if she was the kind of female otaku who's into Yaoi or not... 'cos I don't like Yaoi Doujin... it's creepy. Yet I have no problem with Yuri... something tells me she's be vice versa. Oh, sorry, I'm talking more about animé than about Sanae...

Sanae is a far more dedicated shrine maiden than Reimu, and she actively encourages people to worship at her shrine, something Reimu hasn't done since... well, I don't recall ever. She seems to like stars in her demonstrations... simply stellar... eh... heh... that wasn't funny, was it?

Anyway, what can I say apart from she's an outside-world savvy, highly devout shrine maiden with... around the same Danmaku ability as her red-white rival. Next section, please.

Notes on Mimicry

To be honest, her abilities, despite being derived from divine powers, are quite easy to mimic. She forms star shapes in most of her non-spell attacks, done by simply waving her shrine-maiden stick and drawing out the shape of a pentagram. I don't have the luxury of having Godly powers, but I can mentally trace myself Danmaku patterns- and that's what you'll need to do.

Focus on the shape, and once it's formed, allow it to collapse of it's own accord and usually it'll look like one of the non-spell attacks used by Sanae. Once you master doing that with one star, then try it with three... then five! You can even go higher in number than that, but to avoid space issues, shrink the star shapes down accordingly. When it comes to her spell-cards... well often she's re-enacting classic miracles, but isn't actually performing the miracles themselves, so they're also very much mimickable. My favourite is the 'Splitting of the Seas' re-enactment. This is referencing several variations on the same old historical wonder, the variation that sticks most out in my mind is the splitting of the red sea. What she does is make two halves of a Danmaku 'sea', which is a totally impenetrable wall of lasers... sealing the opponent in a limited space. She then fires knives at the opponent. It may seem simple, but it's damn effective.

I've tried a combo that I like to call 'Combination Sign: Danmaku reduction'. What I do is I use Sanae's 'sea' and Eirin's sheets of stationary Danmaku, followed by simple spread barrages once the trap's set up. It's almost unbeatable, I tell you! So why don't you try using her techniques, too? She works best as part of a combo routine. Any notes, Yutaka?

Typist's notes: Sanae is a bit of a geek, and that's saying a lot, coming from me. We invited her over for some food and she decided to take a look at the Boss' animé gallery... and she laughed at all of his hand-drawn four-panel mangas... even I can't keep up a fake laugh that well, she must have got them and found them funny... that takes a true Otaku.

I thought I would be the one doing all the talking to her, but her and Dawitsu really hit it off... they're like nerdy and nerdier... it's an adorable sight, really. Otaku in groups are far more heart-warming than Otaku in singular form...