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tatara kogasa and sukuna shinmyoumaru (touhou and 1 more) drawn by syope

Artist's commentary

  • Original
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    小傘のアトリエ

    「霊夢の針を作ったように、私の針も強くして！」
    「うーん…この類のものは…」「このハンマー使えばもっと強くなると思うの！」

    今回の茨歌仙、すごい事実が発覚しましたね
    まさか小傘ちゃんが鍛冶が得意だなんて思いませなんだなあ…
    超有能妖怪じゃないですか…　妖怪殺しの道具を作る…　まさに…死の商人…！
    しかしどこに工房持ってるんでしょうね　小傘ちゃん謎多し…！

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    Kernel
    [hidden]

    It shouldn't be too surprising. Kogasa is partially based on the ippon-datara (where she gets the Tatara name). Ippon-datara and karakasa-obake are quite similar... they're both one eyed youkai with one leg, so their legends get a bit conflated, because there isn't much legend for karakasa-obake alone. The ippon-datara is a blacksmith youkai.

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    • TiamatRoar
    [hidden]

    Blue_Stuff said:

    I wonder if Zun had Kogasa being a blacksmith in mind when he first created her character?

    It seems like there's a good chance. As stated, Tatara (Kogasa's last name) is Japanese for smelting iron. If her last name was Datara (the name of the youkai she's trying to resemble), it'd be more questionable. Datara was a blacksmithing youkai but that was only one aspect of it. Tatara meanwhlie...

    Well, "Kogasa Tatora" pretty much translates to "Little-Umbrella Iron-Smelter" or something like that. Basically blacksmithing has been in her name since Day 1, although it was only with this chapter that something was actually done with it. Although it does make one wonder just how often ZUN stops and says to himself when he initially designs a character, "Hey, here's an aspect of the character I have in mind but I might not reveal it until years later in a printed story work and not one of Akyuu's compilations."

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    • Kernel
    [hidden]

    When you drop the "ippon" it becomes Tatara... Japanese often voices leading consonants in the middle of compounds. The kanji remain the same, and the hiragana you'd use just become accented to mark the t -> d change. It's pretty apparent that the Tatara in Kogasa's name comes from the ippondatara, meaning that the blacksmithing connection would have had to have at least been in Zun's back mind at the time. Because, given the choice of using the name with Kogasa, it seems unlikely that there will ever be an ippondatara character... Kogasa's staked the territory (so eventually it was bound to come up with her). Much like how Bankikki seems to have staked out multiple head/neck based monsters.

    Ippondatara uses the same kanji as the smithing bellows. Kogasa, though, only has the pronunciation. The kanji used there gives a meaning more like "very many and good small umbrellas".

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    • Jarlath
    [hidden]

    [KN] said:

    Too bad some humans don't pay their bills and throw arm-long-needles back instead. Stupid filthy humans.

    Given the customer is basically a yakuza thug without an oyabun to enforce any code of honour... it wasn't a surprise, unlike Kogasa being a blacksmith.

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    • Hoobajoob
    [hidden]

    Blue_Stuff said:

    I wonder if Zun had Kogasa being a blacksmith in mind when he first created her character?

    I doubt it, the stuff like this that goes on in the sideworks is usually the guest artist's idea.

    I'm pretty sure some of the other sideworks or main games have even said she doesn't have a home and spends all her time drifting around and sleeping in trees, so where did a blacksmith workshop suddenly come from? It's another one of those sidework contradictions that pushes it into the non-canon category.

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    • Kagekagerou
    [hidden]

    Tapper said:

    Have you ever read the Touhou Wiki? These "sideworks" are specifically written by ZUN himself.

    He's just making excuses to support his silly crusade of "side works being not canon", trying to find contradictions where there aren't any. He always does that, for whatever reason he might have.

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    • HedgeLord
    [hidden]

    LALA867 said:

    This makes me wonder how does Sukuna's sizes actually work in the canon?

    It's pretty well-established that she uses the Miracle Mallet to grow to roughly the size of a human child, and it seems to be one use of it that doesn't come with a cost significant enough to be worrying. Her natural size, however, tends to vary from artist to artist.

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    • Sirius767
    [hidden]

    Hoobajoob said:

    I doubt it, the stuff like this that goes on in the sideworks is usually the guest artist's idea.

    I'm pretty sure some of the other sideworks or main games have even said she doesn't have a home and spends all her time drifting around and sleeping in trees, so where did a blacksmith workshop suddenly come from? It's another one of those sidework contradictions that pushes it into the non-canon category.

    Considering the actual mythological being Kogasa is based on was a blacksmith, its a pretty easy connection to make.

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