Nitori Kawashiro

“	See you, human! By the way, it's dangerous if you go any further!	„
	~ Nitori Kawashiro

Nitori Kawashiro is a shy Kappa heroine from Touhou who lives on Youkai Mountain. In fact, the first time she sees the heroine, she runs off with barely a word. She's good-natured enough, but has an odd way of showing it when she tries to scare the heroine away from the mountain via danmaku and spell cards. It's for the heroine's own good, though, as the mountain is a very dangerous place for humans, and Nitori just doesn't want her to get hurt. She actually likes humans; she just doesn't seem to know how to act around them. During the events of Subterranean Animism, she is one of the Kappas who hears from the Goddess of the sky about the new power of nuclear fusion in the Underworld. However, they are unwilling to go there due to the Oni living underground. Learning that Reimu is going underground to investigate, she convinces Marisa to explore there as well, since she doesn't seem to have anything better to do.

Appearance[]

(Touhou 10, 12.5) Has blue hair and eyes. She wears a blue dress with lots of pockets for tools around the hem of the skirt and her upper arm, and a dark aquamarine backpack with a golden key on the strap in front of her. She also wears a green hat, blue wellington boots and carries a cattail.
(Touhou 13.5) Same as above, except her backpack is blue and considerably larger, and has a necklace with 2 red beads. She now wields a wrench.

Personality[]

Nitori is a shy kappa by nature, and if she is alone and sees a human, she'll run away, like in Mountain of Faith. She considers herself to be superior to humans and even other youkai, and when she's by herself it's easy to see. However, when among her own circle of friends, she is quite cheerful. As a kappa, she is easily persuaded to leave you alone by a cucumber or two. However she has a greedy side when it comes to running a stand and is quick to come up with plots to maximize profit.

Relationships[]

Marisa Kirisame (ally)

Trivia[]

The characters for Kawashiro mean "River Castle", while Nitori is in hiragana. There is a home furnishing chain store named Nitori in Japan, but it seems she has nothing to do with it.
Nitori is also a Latin word defined as either "brilliance, brightness, glow; splendor" or "perseverance; reliability", all fitting things to associate with such a brilliant engineer.
Her name might have originated from Ryunosuke Akutagawa's novel Kappa the second chapter of which begins with the sentence 「そのうちにやっと気がついてみると、僕は仰向けに倒れたまま、大勢の河童にとり囲まれていました。」(Sono uchi ni yatto kigatsuite miru to, boku wa aomuke ni taoreta mama, oozei no kappa ni tori kakomarete imashita.) "When at last I came 'round, I found myself lying on my back surrounded by a large number of kappas." — from the translation by Seiichi Shiojiri.
The Kappa in the series seem to be inspired by the Kappa in the above mentioned novel where they have their own civilization as opposed to their bloodthirsty nature in folklore.
Nitori's "Optical Camouflage" spell cards may refer to another aspect of kappas that Akutagawa writes about: "But what is most remarkable about kappas is that, unlike human beings, they change colors according to their surroundings."
Her backpack resembles a tortoise shell.
Nitori is the only playable partner in Subterranean Animism who never appeared in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody; all the rest of the partners did. However, according to an interview with ZUN, she was intended to appear in Touhou Hisoutensoku, but was scrapped due to time constraints.
As traditional depictions of kappa show a bald spot at the top of their heads, rumor has it that her hat is concealing that bald spot. However, ZUN discredited this rumor during a discussion on 2ch after Mountain of Faith was released.
Nitori is also well known for being one of the first subjects for the 'Geddan/Get Down' dance.
Nitori's stage theme, The Gensokyo the Gods Loved, is similar to Remilia Scarlet's theme, Septette for the Dead Princess, most notably in the choruses.