| “ | I've always been looking for my arm. But not the unsealed arm, or the living arm that moves on its own. What I wanted was what's in this box. My dried up, mummified arm. To keep it right besides me, like my own death. To take both opposing paths to extremes, for that itself, is the way of the hermit. | „ |
Hello Heroes Wiki, this is my second proposal, this time I brought the second Touhou character to this wiki, it's surprising that Touhou has not only one but two candidate, so let's begin!
What's the work?
Touhou Project is a Shoot 'em up video game series developed by Team Shanghai Alice, as well as its spinoff manga and book series. The series is about Gensokyo, a remote place filled with youkai, who often cause various incidents that disrupt the balance. The heroines Reimu Hakurei, a shrine maiden responsible for keeping the barrier, and Marisa Kirisame, a human magician who the best friend/arch-rival of Reimu, are tasked with resolving every incident and defeating the youkai behind them.
The spin-off manga, Wild and Horned Hermit follows the story that Reimu Hakurei meets Hakurei Shrine's guest, a mysterious hermit named Kasen Ibaraki. Having seen how poorly Hakurei Shrine is managed, Kasen decided to become the shrine's regular visitor, teaching Reimu her knowledge and lesson as a hermit.
Who is She?
Kasen Ibaraki (茨木 華扇) is the titular main protagonist of Wild and Horned Hermit. She is an oni who became a hermit after her evilness was sealed away. She has an artificial arm and has the ability to guide animals.
What has she done?
About one thousand years ago, Ibaraki-Douji was a evil oni coming from the hell, who has devoured countless of people. However after her arm was cut by the youkai blade Oni-Cutter (鬼切丸, Onikirimaru?), her evilness was sealed away in the arm. Having lost her malice and interest in the hellish reality, Kasen Ibaraki became a hermit (仙人, sennin?), dedicating to the right path and help others. At the same time, she had been searching for her lost arm, since the arm cannot be completely destroyed, it was still filled with malice and waiting for the seal to be weaken. She later became one of the Sages of Gensokyo alongside Yukari Yakumo and Okina Matara, a group responsible for creating Gensokyo and keep it isolated from outside world, though she is less publically active than Yukari since she is spending most time looking for her missed arm.
At some point, Kasen has finally found her lost arm in an old temple from the outside world. The seal of her arm was almost undone, and has already eaten several people. In order to prevent the arm from killing more people, Kasen takes the arm to Gensokyo for safekeeping and tries to reseal it. However Kasen finds that the seal of the arm is placed on her own body instead of the arm itself. So in order to completely reseal it, she needs to first fuse with the arm and let someone cut the arm with the Oni-Cutter blade, and the only one likely to do it would be the shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei. Kasen then pays to visit Hakurei Shrine and meets Reimu. However as she finds that Reimu is very lazy and manages the shrine poorly, she decides to become a regular visitor of the shrine to teach Reimu. Kasen often lends Reimu, Marisa and Sanae her advice to help them become better people, gives Reimu discipline and helps Reimu in various small events, while at the same time she hides the boxed arm near the shed of the shrine for safekeeping.
During the events of Urban Legend in Limbo, as Occult Balls are dropped into Gensokyo which is rumored to grant the person a wish if one collect seven of them, Kasen is the first one to notice how dangerous the Occult Ball is, and decides to collect and investigate it. After Kasen collects all seven of them she is teleported outside of Gensokyo and confronts Sumireko Usami, a highschool student responsible for putting Occult Ball into Gensokyo, and finds out the real power of Occult Balls is to damage the Hakurei Barrier and let one person travel through it.
During Antinomy of Common Flowers, Kasen partners with Reimu to investigate it, but they finds the incident cannot be handled in regular ways (the incident is eventuallly solved by Yukari Yakumo instead).
In the finale of Wild and Horned Hermit, Reimu picks up the cursed box containing Kasen's arm near the shed of her shrine, which caused her fall into unconcious state while her soul is dragged into the hell. Ibaraki-Douji's Arm manifests her form in the hell, tries to kill and eat Reimu, and summons an army of skeletons to attack Reimu, all of whom are the remains of the people Ibraki-Douji has devoured. As Reimu is overpowered by the arm, Kasen travels to the hell and interrupts the battle. The arm feels happy to see Kasen has arrived, and fuses with Kasen and the two fused into Ibaraki-Douji's full form. Ibaraki throws a onigiri for Reimu to eat, claiming it isn't fun to fight Reimu while her belly is empty. Suddenly, Tenshi Hinanawi arrives at the hell with the help of Komachi Onozuka to rescue Reimu. Tenshi informs Reimu that the wrapping of the onigiri hides a fragment of the Oni-Cutter blade, which Kasen deliberately hides in it so that Reimu can use it to cut her arm and reseal it. Realizing Kasen's true plan, the arm forcingly takes control over the body and tries to finish Reimu off. Reimu manages to mix the fragment in her "Fantasy Seal" to cut off Ibaraki's arm, sealing it once and for all.
Admirable Standards?
Let's start with the main heroines who set the admirable standard for others to follow:
- Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden of Hakurei Shrine who protects Gensokyo's Hakurei Barrier on her own, and the most active incident resolver who has saved Gensokyo from many crisis.
- Marisa Kirisame, a regular human magician who studies magic through hard working, and manages to be as prominent and active as Reimu in resolving incident with her lower resources.
The other Incident Resolvers (Sakuya Izayoi, Sanae Kochiya, Youmu Konpaku) all fail the admirable standard to the two due to not active enough, but still there are several characters who manages to pass the admirble standard:
- Yukari Yakumo, the youkai sage who is responsible for the creation of Gensokyo itself, and maintains the border of Gensokyo hundreds of the years Gensokyo ever existed.
- Yuyuko Saigyouji, the ghost princess who committed suicide to prevent her ability from causing deaths, and seals Saigyou Ayakashi with her body for eternity.
- Byakuren Hijiri, the buddhist magician who dedicated her life to achieve peace between humans and youkai, having helped and redeemed many youkai and stop them from hurting humans.
Then it comes to Kasen. She is one of the Sages of Gensokyo, responsible for creating the Hakurei Barrier itself alongside Yukari and Okina, and has been protecting Barriers for hundreds of years. However, one could argue that the act is shared by Yukari and Okina, and her involvement is less prominent than Yukari who started the Youkai Expansion Project and signed the Vampire Pact. No matter, she has an additional Goodness Zone on her own to make her don't fail to Yukari, let's focus on the one thing actually make her pass the admirable standard.
| “ | Here they are, here they are... The unlimited servants of hell. How about joining them then? Doesn't being a skeleton sound fun? Those skeletons are all remains of the people I have eaten. Looks like I'll have one more servant. | „ |
| ~ Ibaraki-Douji's Arm |
As I have mentioned before, Ibaraki-Douji's Arm is a extremely malevolent and dangerous youkai who has devoured countless people. In the hell, Ibaraki-Douji's Arm summons a legion of skeletons to attack Reimu, all of them are the remains of the people she has eaten, giving her at least thousands of kill counts. Even during the time the arm was sealed in the box, it still managed to almost unseal the box and eat numerous people in the half sealed state. So if the arm was fully released, we can imagine how horrible the consequence would be.
Knowing the arm's danger, Kasen had been searching for the arm for hundreds of years, in order to make her sealed again to prevent the arm from causing more potential deaths. And after finally finding the arm and knowing the arm cannot be sealed on its own, Kasen brought it to Gensokyo to turn to Reimu to seal it. Kasen comes up with the whole plan to fuse with Ibaraki-Douji's arm, and let Reimu cut her arm again with Oni-Cutter's fragment. With Reimu successfully sealing it on her plan, the arm is truly sealed once and for all, preventing any future deaths that the arm would cause.
Mitigating Factors?
Moral Agency?
An evil oni who got her evilness sealed away within her arm and turned good? Sounds like a case of Faux Redemption and make her moral agency questionable. But fortunately Kasen doesn't have any moral agency issues. Even if her supposed turn good is forced, throught the story she shows clear moral code and understands what's right and wrong, choosing to become a hermit to make herself walk on the right path. This is even more evident that even after she fused with Ibaraki-Douji's Arm, she still keeps her seperated good personality that can instruct Reimu to seal her, and her evil self even tried to forcingly take over the body after knowing this. So there's no doubt she has clear moral agency.
Jerkish/Control Freak?
Kasen is often considered preachy and critical to others due to her tendency to criticize others misdeeds, but this is only because she has a clear moral code and wants to teach others to become better person. And unlike Reimu and Marisa she is never outright jerkish, keeps a polite attitude even when she feels angry. So this is not really a corrupting quality.
Final Verdict?
I would give a yes for the One-Armed Horned Hermit, but it's always you to decide.