Gensokyo Festival day 15: Immaterial and Missing Power

Let’s talk about Remilia’s “Spear the Gungnir”.

It is everyone’s favorite weapon to pair up with Remilia, it even seems somewhat lacking if Remilia wasn’t holding one. One can argue that the weapon has become a symbol of Remilia’s personality and identity, especially when she needs to be represented with “charisma” of her good old days.

The fact is, Remilia was not associated with this legendary Norse weapon not even after 2 and a half years of her introduction from EoSD on 2002. That’s PCB, and IN, two major series already passed, with PCB featuring Remilia in the endings, and IN featuring Remilia as playable character.







There are three variations of this spell card:



1. Divine Spear “Spear the Gungnir”



2. Certain Kill “Heart Break”



3. Second Card “My Heartbreak” (story mode only)



It was first introduced from Immaterial and Missing Power, and continued it’s presence on Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.



Now, here is where it gets more interesting.

Remarkably, it was never on ZUN’s mind that Remilia should be wielding some sort of weapon. Remilia carrying a spear was Iruka Unabara’s idea, who is very famous for making graphic sprites for Tasogare Frontier even up to this day (obviously, the sprite pictures above are done by him too).

Unabara revealed this little secret from the commentary of Immaterial and Missing Power OST (https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Immaterial_and_Missing_Power_OST/Iruka_Unabara%27s_Comments), which I jot down the transcription and translation below:

＜レミリア・スカーレット＞

あのダッシュが完成したときに頭抱えました。開発初期はさらに速かったですが、かなり丸くしてもこの按配、まあスーパーお嬢様なので良いかなと。蝙蝠化、吸血、高い身体能力、高い魔力、運命を操る程度の能力と、アクションにするならネタに困らないどころか全てを再現するのが難しいくらいのキャラでしたね。

グングニルは妹様と対になる技が有れば絵になるなぁとお願いして作らせて貰いました。でも妹様不在なので消化不良気味という罠が…。

<Remilia Scarlet>

When her dash move was on process of completion, I was ripping my hairs out. The process was much faster on the beginning, but the balance just turned out this way. Let’s just leave it at that she’s a “super ojou-sama”. Turning into bats, vampirism, high physical abilities, high magical abilities, the ability to manipulate fate, all that into a fighting game was not a mundane task at all. Rather, I was overwhelmed at how much settings I would have to recreate.

For the Gungnir, I pictured that if Remilia had a pairing skill with respect to her little sister, so I asked ZUN’s permission for it, and he approved of the making. But this game doesn’t have the little sister, so it might trap some people with indigestion…





Of course, the little sister Unabara is referring to is Flandre Scarlet, and the skill to pair up with is Flandre’s Spell card, Taboo “Lävatein”, which is another Norse weapon.







By at this point, it should be obvious that Remilia’s Gungnir was not ZUN’s own work, but rather was a work influenced by a group of people whom he collaborated with. This seems like a surprise, for ZUN doesn’t look like a person who would be interested at all in being influenced by other people creating Touhou derivatives. But if you follow ZUN closely, we can see that he is more or less chill about it, and is able to make exceptions if the ideas seem good in his own judgment.

One can even argue that “Spear the Gungnir” is one of the most successful derivative work that has officially made it into Touhou ‘canon’. It even gets mentioned in “the Grimore of Marisa” published on 2009, which of course, is all ZUN’s writing in perspective of Marisa.

So ZUN has thought the spell card through and made it part of his own Touhou. Great. And I think that’s what Touhou is all about… well at most partly.

Everyone has their own Gensokyo, their perception of Touhou, and many different ideas. We are encouraged to keep sharing those ideas in forms of expressions, arts, words, and whatever that fancies you to do the things you like. Sometimes, those ideas make it to the original creator, and we all share, accept and reject on our viewpoints. Touhou Project is a macrocosm where everyone’s Gensokyo is accepted.

