PC-98 Touhou VS Strategy Guide

 

Ah, today's exciting as today, I get to discuss not only one of my favorite Videogame series, but also a much more obscure, lesser known corner of it. Today we aren’t talking about Touhou Project in the traditional sense, but rather its Prototype series, PC-98 Touhou. Yeah for those unfamiliar, ‘PC-98 Touhou’ refers to the first Five Touhou games that were made for the PC-98 Computer system while the series’ creator ZUN was in college. Starting with the 6th game ZUN upgraded to making the games on Windows computers and the series itself was softly rebooted, with events and characters from these first five games being largely unacknowledged and in some cases even contradicted by the games that came later, essentially establishing both as pseudo related separate canons. But not today, today we will be looking into the unique canon and characters established in these Five PC-98 games, Touhou 1: Highly Responsive to Prayers, Touhou 2: Story of Eastern Wonderland, Touhou 3: Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, Touhou 4: Lotus Land Story and Touhou 5: Mystic Square, to see their power, their abilities and most importantly, how to counter it.

For the Record, This Blog will treat PC-98 Touhou Content as its own separate continuity from the main Windows Touhou series. Many VS Sites Amp these characters by scaling and ability-scaling them to feats, lore and information established in Windows games, or vice versa, due to the unclear continuity. I will not be doing that, if Yokai are stated to have x powers or traits only in Windows, that will not be applied to these characters, PC-98 Material only. Beyond that, we are looking at All the PC-98 material including the 5 games, their manuals and omake and the various alt endings and scenarios to get the truest sense for what these largely forgotten characters are capable of, so let’s get into it!

Stellar Tier:

Okay so first off we have the stellar tier, which for the most part includes characters from the 2nd and 3rd PC-98 games plus a couple characters from the first game as well. Now for why that is, I will just say out the gate, PC-98 Touhou is an incredibly difficult verse to scale, due primarily to a lack of general information about almost anything presented. Reimu is established to be really weak in the first game but then fights opponents with a powerful item that can circumvent power gaps, we know nothing about the level of ease the playable characters defeat the bosses with in almost all cases, and many bosses from previous games go on to be playable in later ones which gets wonky with the default scaling, as they have to be getting stronger themselves. So you’ll have to bare with me as a Lot of establishing who scales to what requires assumptions and guess work, but I have combed through the series thoroughly and I think have come up with an estimate of where everyone places that is the most logical based on what we know. (Also its not like anyone can prove me INCORRECT for the same reason)

Even as early as the first game, PC-98 Reimu believed weaker characters like fairies would be capable of Breaking the planet in two. And while it is true that PC-98 Reimu is a bit of a goober, this level of power is quite common in these early games, with Yumemi, the final boss of 3, having technology that is capable of Shattering the Earth to pieces and moving the Moon around like a Toy. But to get a real look at how powerful these characters are, let’s look at first-game Reimu. In Touhou 1, Reimu is the latest in a long line of Shrine Maidens who have protected the Human Village from Yokai, and she was just starting out at doing so, possessing Natural Spiritual power and Martial Arts skills, but being untrained in the former. Reimu in this game for the most part was stated and shown to be Incapable of harming any of the bosses directly, and had to rely on her greatest weapon, the Yin Yang Orb to win. This basically means every single character in this series has to at least scale above Reimu in the first game in a physical sense. So how strong is that? Well in separate endings of Touhou 1, Reimu point blank tanks either her Orb detonating in a Large Exaton Explosion, or her Orb transforming into a Black Hole comparable in size to the Moon, which immediately consumes the Earth like nothing, and she's just completely fine other than having messed up hair. A Black Hole of this size would have a Mass approximately 600x that of the Sun, and would consume the entire solar system with no issue. So we get Stellar to Multi-Stellar DC and Durability for this tier, as characters in Touhou 2 and 3 are able to compete with a much stronger post training version of Reimu and should scale well above this. In terms of Speed, basically every playable character including first-game Reimu can dodge laser beams with ease. These beams are consistently described as Lasers in all the game Manuals and are shown to refract off metallic objects at various points, so are clearly light beams. This is consistent with Reimu being able to escape that aforementioned Black Hole, which also requires Faster than Light speeds as not even light can escape a Black Hole. 

PC-98 Touhou takes place in ‘The Eastern Country’, a ‘strange, strange world where the shrine maiden lives.’ Here, centuries ago, many powerful spiritual humans gave their lives performing a ritual to seal away all yokai and monsters into other dimensions forever, dimensions such as Hell, The World of Fantasies, and the Demon realm, Makai. Peace was achieved, but after all this time the seals on these places have started to weaken and fade, and it's up to their current descendant, Reimu Hakurei to protect the Human Village from these troublesome creatures. This lower tier however mostly consists of powerful human characters and things associated with Reimu’s shrine, with a couple creatures thrown in here and there. This includes Reimu’s pet Yokai Turtle, Genjii. Genjii is a wise old ally of Reimu’s and has the ability to speak and fly, and allows Reimu to ride on his back throughout all her adventures, as PC-98 Reimu does not possess the ability to fly herself. Genjii also possesses supernatural senses that allow him to detect foreign sources of magic power, and even tell when beings like ghosts and smaller yokai were being controlled. Even more mysterious than Genjii however is the Gatekeeper of the Hakurei Shrine, and first boss Reimu ever took on, SinGyoku. SinGyoku is a creature that can shift between 3 different forms at will, able to transform into a Male Human Priest, a Female Yokai Magician and a large spinning Yin Yang Orb similar to the one Reimu fights with. It can use divine power similar to Reimu to both fly and launch various Danmaku projectiles, Danmaku being waves of energy projectiles, capable of hitting even intangible spirits, that flood the whole environment making dodging near impossible. The reason it attacked Reimu isn’t known, though my personal headcanon is it existed as a Test for Reimu, a challenge to overcome to prove she's ready to face the creatures a Shrine Maiden has to take on. While we are on the subject of supernatural creatures, there are two more found in this tier, the first of which is Kana Anaberal, a poltergeist of a young and mentally unstable girl. Kana haunts a large, western style mansion, however the residents of the mansion got used to her and no longer think she's scary. She has typical ghost powers like levitation and intangibility, plus she can also teleport, fire a variety of Danmaku attacks and has some manner of Invisibility too given Marisa was unable to see her face. The other one is Ellen, who is a Witch, a former human who gave up her humanity in exchange for eternal life. Ellen is ancient, yet remains a child forever, slowly forgetting more and more of her past to make room for her newer experiences. She’s a goof but has powerful magic, able to do the typical powers in this tier like fly, teleport and fire a variety of Danmaku attacks. She also apparently has a magic shop, and has no idea what Science is, relevant for later. Now the rest of this tier is populated by powerful Human Beings who were able to make a name for themselves in this series. First up is Meira, a Samurai girl protecting the Human Village, who wished to take Reimu’s power of Hakurei, as she believed she’d make a better protector. Meira has various magical powers that allow her to Teleport and or Mask her Presence, it's not totally clear which one. But what IS super clear is she is Not a Lesbian, given how her response to Reimu flirting with her was to challenge her to a duel. In combat Meira can use her sword to make giant damaging sword projections which turn into Danmaku streams, fire a variety of Danmaku herself including ones that track and hone in on your location, and use Telekinesis to control large orbs to come at you nonstop. Though the strangest character in the human village is definitely Kotohime, who claims herself to be a Princess, believes herself to be a Cop, and is clearly Completely Insane. She goes around being a local nut, collecting things no one would have interest in, and even Reimu finds her scary. Fitting as she has the ability to telekinetically control and toss around powerful bombs, in addition to fly, teleport and fire danmaku. Then we have Rikako Asakura, who is a powerful magician, in fact, she's so good at magic that No one else here could challenge her, if she fought with magic that is. See, Rikako Hates magic and instead loves Science, something many in this world just do not look into, care about, or understand, and refuses to fight with magic instead relying only on Science Gizmos she created. Rikako has a Jetpack that lets her fly at similar speeds to the other characters, a teleporter, a Forcefield Generator, lots of Energy projectile weapons, and various robot drones she can control including projectile shooting orbs and sentient flying sawblades. She's also really sharp, being able to recognize Yumemi’s runes were made using science, not magic. Then we have the Other human genius from this world, and someone who would probably be Rikako’s bestie if they met, Rika. Rika is a Genius Engineer who specializes in building powerful Tanks to fight with, ranging from her original Flower Tank or Shrine Tank which both had armor strong enough to protect from early Reimu, to her masterpiece, the Evil Eye Sigma tank. This behemoth of a death machine was modeled after the Evil Eye creatures, is capable of flying and is loaded with weapons ranging from Danmaku, to Bombs that blow up huge portions of the screen, to Bouncing red projectiles, to giant laser beams and a self destruction attack. Rika has also created a ton of other nifty things, such as teleportation tech for herself and her tanks, Aquatic Cannons, robot turrets, and both created and controls the Bakebakes which are Intangible Ghost-like beings that fly and launch Danmaku. Bakebake’s are a species so whether she made them through technology, bioengineering, or possibly by mass murdering people to turn them to ghosts is a little unclear, I would lean towards the first two though. Rika also displays awareness of the 4th Wall, understanding what ‘Stage 1’ and ‘Stage 2’ mean, as well as how skilled Reimu would have to be to ‘unlock the Extra stage’ in her dialogue in game. But believe it or not, Rika isn’t the smartest character in the series, for that we have to look to the Outside World. In PC-98 the Outside world is significantly more advanced than our own and people are naturally more intelligent, with humans entering Universities at 11 years old and Graduating at 13. In the Outside World Scientists have effectively proven The Grant Unified Theory, The theory that all natural forces in the universe like Gravity, Electromagnetism and the Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces are actually, at their core, all the Same Force. So the last thing we have to cover in this tier are the characters from the Outside World, starting with Chiyuri Kitashirakawa, a 15 year old College Teaching assistant who has a Gun she believes can threaten even the strongest magicians. Chiyuri fights using Magi-Tech, an artificial replica of magic using Positively Charged Photons and Light Waves invented by Yumemi. This gives her the standard powers of flight, teleportation and Danmaku, but also a few of her own, like shooting lasers and hitting people with folding chairs WWE Style. And that leads us to the Final character in this tier, Chiyuri’s Master and Final Boss of Touhou 3, Yumemi Okazaki. An 18 year old Physics Professor from the Outside World, Yumemi sought to disprove the Grand Unified Theory by showcasing a natural force that Doesn’t fit into it, that being the mysterious power known as Magic. But when Yumemi presented this hypothesis to her peers, she was laughed out of her job for believing in such fairy tales. So she did what any logical scientist would try, invent a way to travel to this world, find a really strong magic user, and kidnap them to bring back to her world and rub those nerds faces in it. To do this Yumemi invented the Probability Space Hypervessel, a nuclear powered ship capable of traversing all of space and time, fading into other dimensions and chronal points, Doctor Who style. Yumemi has scanners able to scan the Entire Eastern Country Dimension no problem, and fights using numerous science gizmos that enable her to fly, warp herself through space, shoot an equivalent to Danmaku and spawn powerful Laser Crosses from nowhere. She invented a Cloning device that can make perfect clones of herself and others and has tech on hand that allowed her to Move the Moon 75% further away to lock it in Geosynchronous Orbit. Yumemi is a Type 3 supergenius, Able to invent Time Travel, multiple Artificially Intelligent robots like Ruukoto and Mimi-Chan, and her ultimate weapon, a Fourth Dimensional Positronic Bomb that would be able to obliterate the Earth according to her. 

So what are some major strategies one could use to combat this tier? The Tier does a good job at diversifying its abilities, while this is a highly magic and fantasy themed series as a whole, nearly half the characters in this tier are Science based fighters who rely on technology to some extent. But, while this means that abilities like Anti-Magic and Technopathy will not stop everyone here in and of themselves, either one will be very helpful and having both would work wonders here. Another interesting thing is, besides Kana, basically all these characters are living creatures who need to breathe, rest, eat etc in order to survive so manipulation of those abilities could also do quite a number in this situation as well. But a huge weakness I can see this verse having, which is a common one in a lot of Bullet Hell series, just have really good Attack Reflection. Almost all these characters fight by spamming projectiles at their foes, and that's basically it, all their other abilities are either defensive or mobility based. If one were able to easily deflect away all their projectiles, possibly back to sender and force them to bareknuckle it, then it's just a simple matter of having ways to overcome their defenses. That leads me into my first counter.

Kitty White:

One of the first characters I thought of was Kitty from the Sanrio series. In the game Roller Rescue, Kitty was able to destroy the Block Empire Mother ship which was able to endure the point blank shockwaves of its own weapon, which went on to shake the entirety of Earth from an interplanetary distance away. The distance between planets in our solar system even at the closest is still well over 2 dozen times the diameter of the sun, meaning this shockwave covered an area over 13,000 times larger than our sun and would have had an energy output of over 17.9 Tenatons. Speed wise, Kitty has many times been able to dodge lasers and photon beams, and travel to the moon in seconds, as well as move in a blur relative to other characters who can do the same like The Block Mecha. This would mean Kitty would be notably weaker, but just as if not several times as fast as the other characters here, which is more than enough for her to work with. Kitty has used a lot of powers over her 50 years of publication, including many found within this tier such as flight, telekinesis and even seeing the 4th wall like Rika, counteracting any advantages they could gain from those powers normally. Kitty, like the rest of the Sanrio characters, is an entity from human dreams, able to become an intangible imaginary foe and change her appearance into effectively anything. While these characters who are capable of harming ghosts and spirits should still be able to attack her in this state, it does give her some other handy abilities, most notably the ability to summon new environments around herself, imaginary pocket dimensions for which Kitty sets the rules for. Not only would these prevent her from falling to any form of spacetime BFR that may befall her and potentially remove access to many of these characters arsenal such as Rika’s tanks or Yumemi’s Hypervessel, but the environments she can summon even include deep space or an entire galaxy where essentially no one would be able to survive due to inability to breathe, unlike Kitty who totally can breathe in space. Heck, these pocket dimensions can even cause time to flow differently, such as when weeks and months took place in one of them despite each story Kitty tells with these happening in 22 minutes, potentially allowing her a massive speed edge over her foes while inside. Unfortunately it's not as simple as dropping them in space as some characters, namely Kana and possibly SinGyoku do not need to breathe, but that's alright, she's got a ton more she could do. One power that made Kitty an especially appealing choice is she can create force fields that reflect attacks back to sender, which should just outright counter all the characters danmaku, she even has a magic pendant that further increases this, allowing her to reflect back the magic of a much stronger witch, meaning here she could effectively do the same and use their only offensive power against them. Without their main means of attack, these characters will be stuck with trying to outmaneuver Kitty but unfortunately for them Kitty can also produce a Light that paralyzes any that see it, something these characters have no resistance to, and would even work on the intangible ghost, Kana, as Kitty is easily able to interact with basically anything from thoughts, to dreams, to emotions to even Metafictional stuff like the Iris In. Speaking of which, Kitty’s own natural Charisma enables her pretty much instant control of any nonpure evil animals, robots and mystical creatures in the area, essentially winning them to her side, and from there she can bestow great amounts of power onto them, beyond even her own, enough to threaten the whole universe and move at speeds millions of times the speed of light. Its not out of the question to imagine she does this to some of the characters here, or even some of the more simplistic enemies like the BakeBakes and Evil Eyes to fight on her behalf. Between her ability to disable their offenses, redirect their power, BFR them, paralyse them, or summon a universal beatstick on them, she has several ways to defeat any character she could come across in this tier. And considering Kitty can scale in intelligence to beings like Chocolat, a type 4 intellect, she's actually smarter than even Yumemi to help make it happen. That said, Kitty can be very reckless, pacifistic and easily distracted, and these characters' greater power and ability to hit her means she would be in pretty constant danger if she slipped up like that. For someone safer and more on top of things, I’d suggest…

Dashi:

The Grandmaster of the Xiaolin, Dashi would do extremely well in this situation. Dashi is far more powerful than the Heylin witch, Wuya, who was able to permanently imprint her Insignia on the Moon and Sun just by waking up. Dashi would also be Notably faster than light, scaling off Omi being able to at least somewhat keep up with Raimundo while he was using the Fancy Feet, a Wu that explicitly makes you ‘Faster than Anything’ including Light and the FTL feats displayed by some of the Xiaolin Showdowns. This makes Dashi around the level of these characters, likely having somewhat lower power and somewhat higher speed. As a Grandmaster of the Xiaolin, Dashi is the single most skilled character in the entire series, his superhuman stats being due entirely to his mastery over martial arts, and can easily take on fighters as skilled as Wuya who is older than Humanity as a Species. As such, Dashi would more or less be able to out fight any character in this tier in melee just based on a massive skill gap. But these characters largely don’t engage in Melee combat, relying much more on projectile attacks and special powers to get the job done. But if they want to have a powers fight, Dashi has quite a lot at his disposal himself. Dashi is the creator of all the various Shen Gong Wu found within the series, making each and every single one of them with his own Chi before scattering them around the world. This means Dashi should be able to just use any Wu ability himself if he so chooses, and quite a lot of those would be helpful. With the power of the Reversing Mirror, Dashi could reflect projectile attacks back to sender, removing their best attack option. With the Glove of Jisake, Dashi could rob the scientist characters of their tech to depower them. With the lightning blasts of the Eye of Dashi, he could destroy intangible entities like Kana, etc. Basically anything this verse could try to throw at him, Dashi is bound to have some ability to counteract it based on the Wu, he could match their flight and teleportation with the Jetbootsu and Golden Tiger Claws, avoid a BFR with the Yinyang Yoyo and Sands of Time, and see basically any attack coming a mile away with the Crystal Glasses or Mind Reader Conch. Plus Dashi also has several Wu that these characters would have no solid counter to like the Golden Finger freezing them in Stasis, the Shadow of Fear summoning out their worst nightmares, or the Sapphire Dragon or Zing Zom-Bone turning them into his zombie servants. Even without Wu abilities, Dashi does have one solid method of defeating these characters, the ability to Seal them inside of Puzzle Boxes, which kept Wuya contained for 1500 years, only freed through the aid of outside help. All that said, while Dashi has the offenses needed to win here and some pretty solid defenses against the verses powers, they do require him to be on his A game in an active defense to pull it off. These characters ARE strong enough to potentially kill him in 1 hit if it were to connect, and while he is unlikely to make a mistake like that, him being taken off guard is possible. So for my ultimate counter to this tier…

Crowley:

Yeah this one was a bit of a no brainer. Crowley from the Good Omens series is a Demon who walks among men in Human form, sent from Hell to help ensure the awakening of the AntiChrist, but he doesn’t actually want to do it, working to indefinitely delay that so he can stay on Earth and chill with his Angel bestie. As a Demon, Crowley wields incredible power, at one point directly creating a Nebula, which is a Multi-Solar System level feat essentially equal to the Early Reimu feat of tanking the 600 FOE Black Hole. Crowley has also directly turned himself into, and traveled as a Mass of Electricity going 1/3rd the speed of light, and almost certainly could travel faster than light as well given the nature of Angels and Demons as being unbound by physics. This means Crowley is equal to if not slightly slower than these characters in general stats. Demons are naturally non-corporeal, and likely spiritual plane beings, who can shapeshift their body however they want, able to take human form, change size from subatomic to celestial scale, and turn into various elemental states. While I do think it's a cheap tactic to just be a higher plane entity than the verse can effect, being a spiritual plane being is not enough to protect him from the spiritual plane attacks found in this verse, so it is free game. With that said, let's get into how he WOULD be broken here. Crowley has a lot of abilities, including a general demon ability that allows them to be immune to ordinary physics, capable of just ignoring the laws of gravity and traveling through space and dimensions at will, which would enable him to match the common Flight and Teleportation abilities found in this verse, as well as avoid any potential BFR Yumemi may try to pull on him with her Hypervessel. Angels and Demons from GO also have the general ability to perform ‘Miracles’ which is a general form of reality warping, through which they have showcased a lot of abilities. A famous example of this would be the time Crowley decided to go to a random company Paintball game, transmutated all their paintball guns into Real guns shooting actual bullets, but then also manipulated probability so that everybody missed every shot, no one got hurt and they never even realized there was danger. With this in mind, Crowley would not be able to be harmed by any Danmaku or projectile attack, as not only could he use his shapeshifting to avoid them, but he could just control probability to make it so every shot misses its target, something these characters would have no counter to since PC-98 Touhou doesn’t have the advanced probability manipulation of the Main Series. Crowley also has shown the ability to manipulate technology, both shutting it down, controlling it to do things it shouldn’t be capable of via sheer willpower, and even using it as a form of sealing against foes stronger than himself. Against the various scientist characters found in this tier like Yumemi, Rika or Rikako, this would be devastating as it essentially turns their assets into liabilities, since they not only cannot reliably use their tech against him but he could cause it to backfire on them. Without the ability to harm Crowley through offensive magic or Gadgets, this really reduces these characters to trying to fight him with their baser abilities like physical attacks, melee weapons and telekinesis. But not only is Crowley a highly skilled warrior with countless millennia of experience, far more than anyone in this tier cept maybe Ellen who doesn’t even remember it all, but he's also a master infiltrator and spy, who could easily manipulate most of them, or just sneak around them and take them by surprise with his subatomic shrinking, a stealth ability to advance for them to see coming. Even if they did land attacks on Crowley, Demons are able to eventually regenerate themselves from complete physical destruction. The only way to permanently destroy a Demon in GO is to use Holy Water, something that would not be easily found in the heavily Feudal Japan inspired Eastern Country, and while it is possible it exists in the very Christian inspired Makai dimension, None of the characters in this tier have been there or have easy access to it. On the other hand, these characters’ defenses are not enough to stop Crowley’s own powers such as transmutating them or manipulating their minds, another thing PC-98 doesn’t have any good feats of defending against unlike their Windows counterpart. The character with the best defenses is Kana, but Crowley’s super senses, which should be potent enough to sense powerful entities on a planetary range, would let him eventually track her down if invisible, and he almost certainly would have the ability to attack and destroy intangible Ghosts. Even if you assume he doesn’t for some reason, he still has ways around it like the aforementioned Mental Manipulation, or possibly getting his hands on Hellfire which destroys non-demonic spirits. No matter how you slice it, Crowley has everything you could want and then some to counter this tier. 

Galactic Tier:

Up next things get a lot more serious as we enter a Tier of the actually powerful Monsters that the Shrine Maiden has to contend with. This tier is mostly populated by general bosses found in Touhou 1, 4 & 5, Yokai of the World Of Fantasies, Specters from Hell and Demons of Makai. One such yokai is Mugetsu, who is established to have created her own dimension known as Dream World using her Yokai Energy, this environment contains several distant stars that form their own constellation, with even some of the smallest constellations visible in the night sky covering an overall distance equivalent to galaxies. Similarly the distance between stars within constellations is often thousands of Lightyears across, meaning even if you assume that it took Mugetsu a whole year to make this dimension, her energy still must have traveled thousands of times the speed of light, though most likely this took her significantly less time given the casual boasting of their powers, and considering the downscaling from higher characters in the next tier, these characters are likely at least high millions and probably into the mid Billions of times Light. Now before we go further, I need to address why the other characters in this tier scale to this. Mugetsu is the first Extra Stage Boss in Touhou 4, and gets defeated by the main characters, Reimu or Marisa, who then go on to defeat her even stronger sister Gengetsu, meaning the player characters at the time were clearly above Mugetsu in power. Despite this even the first stage Boss of the same game was able to use her energy to create a Barrier strong enough to stop Marisa’s advance until she defeated her, meaning that the earlier Yokai in 4 must overall be on the same relative level as Mugetsu for this to make sense. Touhou 5 takes place after the events of 4 when Reimu and Marisa have already defeated Mugetsu so they clearly also have to be stronger than her, which lines up well with Makai’s status as a more dangerous location with stronger creatures. As for the bosses from Touhou 1, Makai Demons are presented as relative towards one another, they all literally come from the same being, meaning the ones in Touhou 1 logically should be comparable to the ones in Touhou 5. Meanwhile Kikuri has her own celestial feats similar to Mugetsu for consistency, being a Hell Moon, and her placement in the game suggests she was stronger than Mima at the time and a similar threat to Elis. As for why an earlier and weaker Touhou 1 Reimu was able to defeat them if they are that strong, remember that she was using a magic item that uses a creature's own power against them to battle in that first game, allowing her to beat foes out of her league at the time.

So to start, we need to go over the general traits of these creatures. First off, Yokai and Demons in the first game are stated to be incapable of being harmed by Reimu at the time, through her traditional means, only able to be damaged through the use of her Spiritual Orb, or through the use of her Bomb ability, specifically when down to her last life, suggesting her Spiritual Power mustered up the ability to briefly affect them when her life was at stake. This suggests that these creatures are not able to be traditionally harmed with normal physical force, but require magical or spiritual enhanced attacks to properly interact with them. On a similar note, according to Yuuka, magical creatures cannot be seen by normal humans at all, being naturally invisible, so the creatures in this tier are naturally invisible and intangible to those that don’t possess some Magic or Spiritual based abilities. Basically every character in this tier displays the ability to Summon their own personal Dark Dimension around themselves and their opponent in combat, to remove any environmental effects or advantages their opponent may have had. These Dimensions can be pretty large, Alice’s encompassing several mountains, and Kurumi’s housing a whole Island. These characters abilities all stem from use of Magic, which enables them to Fly, Shoot a wide variety of Danmaku capable of hitting on the spiritual plane, and while not AS common, most of these characters are able to Teleport as well. Going into individual characters, let’s start with Yokai from The World of Fantasies, the antagonistic force of Touhou 4. The World of Fantasies exists between the realms of Makai and the Eastern Country, and although it resembles space, it is a habitable world with breathable air that Yokai reside in. These Yokai include Orange, a Baton wielding warrior who displays several unique abilities such as creating invisible barriers that prevent the player from advancing, generating Fire, and having Awareness of the 4th wall since she is aware that she was a Stage 1 Boss. More advanced than her is Kurumi, a powerful Vampire who has all the traditional Vampire abilities one might expect. Kurumi was stationed as the guard to the entrance of the World of Fantasies, and was apparently very good at it given she has defended this post for ages and never lost before the events of this game. Then there's my favorite boss in Touhou 4, Elly, a Scythe weirding yokai who, fun fact, is the character most associated with the most popular Touhou song, Bad Apple. Elly’s primary power is Telekinesis, which she uses to toss giant pieces of the stage at you, as well as make her scythe fly around as a constant spinning projectile to watch out for as she bombards you with Danmaku. Elly also has awareness of the 4th wall, as she knew she was in the trial version before the game fully came out. Lastly there's the extra bosses, the sisters Mugetsu and Gengetsu. Mugetsu is the aforementioned creator of Dream World and walks around in a Maid outfit, despite not being a maid, cause she’s freaky like that, and Gengetsu is her older and presumably stronger sister. Both sisters have the ability to make Barriers to protect themselves from spiritual AOE attacks, and Gengetsu has additional super deadly attacks including firing giant lasers and having an Insta Kill Move that's impossible to survive if you take too long fighting her, as even the Manual points out. Moving onto Hell, there's exactly one character there found in this tier, Kikuri, Hell’s Moon Goddess who orbits Hell’s Rotting World of Flames. Kikuri can take on multiple forms, from a Girl to a Copper Mirror to an actual Moon, has powerful Umbrakinesis that can cover the whole sky, can summon and manipulate fire and explosions and also can shoot laser beams from her eyes. Then last but not least, we have to cover the Makai Demons. Makai is a universe created long ago by the Goddess Shinki, referred to as the Magical Mecca, implying it to be super rich with, and possibly the source of all Magic. The local inhabitants of Makai are Demons who are naturally highly skilled with Magic, possessing all the standard abilities of the aforementioned Yokai and then some. In Reimu’s good ending in Touhou 5, literally all the Makai demons learn the ability to make Holes in dimensional Barriers, allowing them to travel between Makai and other dimensions at will.

Even the civilians of Makai are stronger than normal Yokai, such as Sara, the appointed guardian to the entrance of Makai who has the higher tier ability to shoot lasers, or Louise, a civilian Makai Demon who simply wanted to go on Vacation to the Eastern Country, who had a lotta extra powers including manipulating her own colors, shooting lasers and surrounding herself in a damaging ghostly aura. Getting into some more of the Unique Demons, there is YuugenMagan, a creature from Jewish folklore known as The Evil Eye. YuugenMagan appears as a young female in a Kimono puppeting a freaky collection of 5 Eyes using electricity. She can turn her body into electricity, leaving the eyes as the only vulnerable area in this state, and can additionally make them impossible to hit via closing them. These Eyes can fire a Wide Variety of projectiles when opened, including Danmaku, Laser Beams and even large amounts of Missiles, the latter 2 of which are unable to be destroyed or reflected by Reimu’s spirit power. YuugenMagan can also form a large Pentagram Construct out of its lasers and launch it towards her opponent as a giant projectile that also shoots its own Danmaku. While we are on the subject of elemental beings, let’s talk about the partner magicians Yuki and Mai, who fight as a team using opposite magical powers. Yuki is a Makai Flame Witch who has a variety of Pyrokenitic abilities including launching fireballs and concentrated fire Blasts and surrounding herself in a damaging Flame Aura. Her Fire power is matched only by her Warm Passionate Spirit, she considers Mai to be her dearest closest friend, cares for her deeply and will go berserk on any who dare harm her. Mai is a Winged Ice Harpie, who possesses abilities such as shooting lasers, turning herself into a demonic form, and of course, a variety of Cryokinetic powers that let her generate ice and freeze people. Mai’s Ice is similarly matched by her own Cold Heart as she cares not for Yuki and claims to only be using her as a means to an end, laughing if Yuki is defeated before her like a psychopath, but may find she regrets such an outcome before long. Getting into the powerhouses of Makai, we have Elis, a Winged Vampire-Like Magician who resides in the Ruins of Vina, implied to be a disciple trained under the fallen angel Sariel. Elis can cast everything from Lasers to Missiles to Energy Blasts, all distinct from normal Danmaku, as well as shapeshift herself into both a Monsterous Demon Form, and a Smaller Bat Form which notably can still fire Danmaku. Last but not least we have Yumeko, The Assistant and Maid to the Creator of Makai, Shinki, who is directly stated BY Shinki to be her strongest creation, meaning she is clearly the most powerful character in this tier. Yumeko has a lotta powers, having all the standard powers found in this tier, including lasers, plus more. Yumeko’s primary offense is to both Summon and Telekinetically control a seemingly endless amount of Swords, which can fly all around the screen trying to slice you to pieces, like if Elly and the Windows character Sakuya did a fusion dance. Yumeko also has a defensive power, she can enter a state where she turns both invisible and intangible, and I mean Invisible in such a way that the spiritually aware characters still can’t see her, and Intangible in such a manner that she can STILL phase through your Danmaku attacks despite them being able to hit intangible beings like ghosts and spirits no problem.

So what are some strategies that would be effective on this tier? Well this tier has a few more requirements than the last one. Firstly, a counter likely needs to have some form of Spiritual Awareness or Manipulation to them in order to see or harm these characters, and additionally would benefit from some form of dimensional travel/manipulation or they could easily end up losing or being sealed off by these characters thanks to their own impressive dimensional powers. Beyond that we can talk about the weaknesses found in this tier. These characters are not vulnerable to any form of technopathy powers like the last tier, but their reliance on Magic is even stronger, and thus are still vulnerable to the same Anti-Magic, Attack Reflection and even Asphyxiation Weaknesses as the last tier as there is no reason to assume they can breathe without oxygen. There is also a pretty large weakness for the Touhou verse as a whole we can bring up here, one that I did get to briefly talk about in my last Touhou Blog as well. Touhou is a verse that has really good anti intangibility abilities, it often doesn’t matter if you are a ghost, or a spirit, or a living concept, they are still able to hit you with their attacks, but something they consistently cannot hit for whatever reason, is Logia. Logia, or the ability to turn into a formless entity made of non-solid matter to allow attacks to pass through you harmlessly, cannot be affected by conventional attacks in this verse. When YuugenMagan turns completely into Electricity or Yuuka turns into a mass of Light, they are presented as Invincible in gameplay with the characters not being able to affect them until they turn it off. The Logia weakness is even present in mainline Windows Canon such as when Reimu and Marisa were incapable of normally harming an Enenra, a monster made of Smoke, despite it being far weaker. If you get a Logia being in here, this tier has no real means of stopping them besides potentially sealing it, or using one of their own elemental powers to manipulate them, depending on what element they are.

Luke Skywalker:

In the Legend’s Canon, Luke Skywalker is basically the strongest Jedi and overall Force User in the history of the series. Being far above characters like Darth Sidious who could manipulate the energy of stars, and being directly stated to have power enough to Light Up all the Stars in the Galaxy. Believe it or not, this still only puts him on the lower end of raw power for this tier. Speedwise, in terms of movement speed, Luke is able to dodge lasers and blitz other characters with FTL Reactions no problem, but in terms of his own reactions, he once fought Abeloth, and being who can casually fly around the galaxy herself, which would give Luke more than the ability to react to any number of these characters despite technically being much slower in raw movement. Luke is able to do these things as a human thanks to his mastery over the Force, that being an invisible cosmic energy that creates and binds all life, existing everywhere, being responsible for holding matter together, and making the universe itself function. Force is the Lifeforce of all living creatures, which does mean it is a spiritual manifestation, which enhances Luke’s own body and senses, giving him the ability to both see and interact with these creatures as if they were flesh and blood. With the Force, Luke can both detect everything happening in the environment around him and even use precognition to see attacks coming before they happen, allowing him to weave through Danmaku attacks basically automatically as if using the Spider-Sense. Heck, Jedi regularly take on entire armies all blasting at them at once so a bit of bullet hell isn’t even anything new for him. But Luke doesn’t even have to resort to just dodging, with The Force, he can create Shields to deflect away these projectiles, use his Telekinesis to directly influence their path away from him, or even use Tutaminis to absorb the energy of the projectiles, to amp himself or launch them back. But this is all if Luke chooses to fight them directly, which he totally doesn’t have to, thanks to his abilities such as Force Illusion or Force Mask, which allows him to essentially make himself invisible and mess with these characters' senses. These abilities even work on other high level force users despite their own enhanced senses, meaning to these demons and yokai, Luke can just make himself undetectable if he wants, easily letting him sneak past their defenses to get the jump on them. With Force Levitation and Spacefolding, Luke can effectively both fly and teleport to keep up with their similar abilities. Against the various Elemental powers, the force can protect Luke against extreme levels of heat or cold, and considering the wide varieties of Force Lightning that Jedi can use, interact with or absorb, YuugenMagan's Lightning form would be little trouble to him. And despite not having as easy access to Dimensional Travel as the Makai Demons, Luke’s ability to use Force Storms which allow full traversion of Space and Time, would more than enable him to follow them or return from potential BFR’s. With his defenses clearly being able to allow Luke to hang with these characters, how could he overcome their own abilities? Luke has multiple hax that could allow him to potentially oneshot these stronger foes, including using Force Telekinesis or Shatterpoint to rupture parts of their bodies, assuming they actually have organs to do that to, it's fairly vague. Even if they don’t, Luke can also just completely take over their minds, scaling past the Mind Domination abilities of Dark Sidious that lets him completely wipe others memories and control them like puppets, or even use Force Drain which drains the very life energy out of the target, which regardless of how their anatomy works, they need that to live and Luke can just take it away. Also, while not easy to pull off, Luke would be aware of the broken Deadly Sight sith technique which lets one completely erase a foe from existence with your gaze, the only one who could potentially survive this is Yumeko with her intangible state of being. But Luke actually has something similar to this with the Oneness state, where Luke literally becomes One with The Force Itself, similar to Yumeko’s intangible state being unable to be normally interacted with by the spiritual plane powers of Reimu, The Oneness State is able to interact with and destroy beings who were Immune to being interacted with by spiritual plane force powers, giving Luke the Wincon he needs to take down anyone in this tier….from a certain point of view. Yeah Luke is strong, but these characters would be stronger than him and are much faster than him in movement speed, Luke could possibly end up getting blitzed and oneshot if he’s not very careful, and while his track record makes me believe he would be, we can use even safer options.

Cyprine-Ptilol:

You can always use Cyprine-Ptilol from Sailor Moon: Another Story. Despite the appearance, Cyprine-Ptilol is a single entity divided among two bodies, and is the strongest member of the Witches 5, a group of powerful perfect Daimons who work for Pharaoh 90. These twins are powerful enough to fight against the Sailor Senshi after they scaled above a large number of obviously large galaxy level feats, including but not limited two, Sailor Moon tanking a full power attack by an entity that consumes galaxies, scaling above Snow Kaguya who is capable of freezing the universe (Calced at galaxy level), Base Sailor Moon’s power being compared to the Thyoron Crystal which maintains the galaxy sized Tau Dimension and many, many more. Speedwise, they would at least scale above Normal Lunarians who can travel galactic distances, as well as the Makaiju, an alien tree that traveled across the universe in only a Decade, and Base form Sailor Saturn being able to fly to the center of Pharaoh 90, a sentient galaxy sized dimension in minutes. With this in mind Cyprine-Ptilol could easily compete with any of these characters in terms of stats. 

Cyprine-Ptilol is a Daimon, an artificial alien race from another dimension which merge with humans to become superbeings with various magical powers. Due to being a Witch, they will have no problems seeing and attacking the various Yokai and Demons in this tier, especially given the general Daimon ability to sense enemies around them. Due to being from Another Story, Cyprine-Ptilol has access to all the abilities they showcased in both the Sailor Moon Manga, and the Toei anime, giving them their most versatile arsenal. They can levitate, teleport, and have a very familiar ability to warp the battlefield into another dimension, allowing them to match all of these characters’ normal mobility options. Heck some lower level Daimon like Ikasaman have been able to merge countless dimensions and seal people inside playing cards, outright superior spatial hax to even the Makai Demons, although it may be a stretch to assume Cyprine-Ptilol could replicate this. Both of them wield Staves, magical staffs that allowed them to absorb any of the Sailor Senshi’s attacks, and fire them back at them, which is a really busted ability to have against characters who shoot energy projectiles as their primary method of attack. Even if you assume the staves cannot stop all the Danmaku flying their way, it will be extremely hard to win a long distance fight against Cyprine-Ptilol, who were able to use Mind Manipulation, potent enough to effect the Sailor Senshi, on an entire city at once, and even created a weather event of Hail that drained the energy of people it came into contact with. Both of these would be quite effective Hax to use on these characters, and can be used not only from a much longer range than their danmaku, but also from enough distance to coat nearly any of their pocket dimensions completely. She’s also got other useful powers like Bodily Control, Soul Stealing, and the anime ability to steal beings “Heart Crystals” which generally renders the foe unconscious, all three of which would also serve as oneshot hax that would either let them insta-win, or set them up to insta-win. Cyprine-Ptilol likely can also interact with and attack YuugenMagan in her lightning form, not only is her Stave able to absorb lightning attacks from Sailor Jupiter, but she also has her own Lightning Manipulation powers, making it possible she could control her in this state as well. The Biggest defensive obstacle would likely be Yumeko turning intangible, though Cyprine-Ptilol does have multiple powers that could probably still effect this, including her ability to potentially trap her in a phasing magic bubble, or more likely, using the esoteric Heart Crystal Rip to render her unconscious, which would deactivate this state of being. All that said, Cyprine-Ptilol is still not unbeatable here, if she gets taken by surprise and disarmed of her staff she’d be a lot more vulnerable. While her wide variety of effective hax I think would let her bring any foe down first, for the safest possible option…

Dark Schneider:

Yeah if there's one verse in this range you can rely on to be busted as heck, it's Bastard!! and not many are gonna do a better job showing it than Dark Schneider himself. Schneider is so strong he was able to battle the likes of Fallen Uriel, the strongest of the series’ angels who are directly stated to be able to “Destroy Galaxies” Upscaling him from that level of power to a similar degree of the strongest Makai Demons in Touhou. Speedwise, even Lower Tier versions of these characters were capable of traveling 28,000 Lightyears in a timespan of 4 years, or 7,000c. As Schneiderr’s Majin form multiplies all stats by millions of times over, that would suggest he should be in the high billions to low trillions of times the speed of light which is exactly the range these characters line up with, giving him the needed stats to fight these characters head on. Dark Schneider is the self proclaimed greatest wizard in the universe, and as arrogant as he is he may just be right as he has an absolute Ton of Magical powers, including the ability to manipulate the spiritual plane, leaving no doubt he would be able to both See and Interact with these characters. As a wizard his arsenal is diverse, possessing a lot of the same abilities these characters have, including Flight, Teleportation, Elemental Powers, Dimensional travel and even 4th Wall awareness, allowing him to keep up with them in these categories. As Majin Dark Schneider he has two famously busted defensive abilities, the first of which being his body is made entirely of Eternal Atoms, Atoms that exist on the Physical, Astral and Spiritual planes simultaneously, and allow beings constructed from them to immediately regenerate from anything unless every single atom is destroyed on all three planes. This would be somewhat helpful, but actually not insurmountable, Danmaku in Touhou are actually capable of hitting on all three of these planes in question, and with the lasers that could easily cover his whole body, destroying an Eternal Atom being is something they could pull off. If not for his second and significantly more useful defense, his Dispel Bounds. Dispel Bounds are countless layers of millions of Force Fields which are able to block basically any kind of power, including nullifying Magic, which is what these characters use to create their danmaku projectiles. Given there are Millions of these, a far greater number than any amount of Danmaku these characters have shown to summon at once, and the fact that Dispel Bounds can be regenerated instantly upon being destroyed, Schneider can just walk through their Danmaku without it ever making any progress in reaching him, and that's if you assume they can penetrate them at all given their magic resistance. With this, Dark Schneider can ensure that he, a traditionally close range fighter, will always be able to get up close and personal with these traditionally long range fighters where he’d be at a major advantage. With Schneider having similar stats and an Ironclad Defense against their offenses all that's left to consider is can he overcome the defensive powers the Yokai, Spirits and Demons have? Given the advanced dimensional powers of these characters, Schneider would not be able to use Black Sabbath to seal them, and most likely won’t be able to use his matter manipulation hax given they are spiritual beings not made of matter, however he can still mess with their bodies through his forms of spiritual manipulation, the same type of ability Reimu has to combat them. Also given his use of countless Elemental powers including Electrokinesis, he’d have no challenge harming YuugenMagan’s logia lightning state. These characters also likely would be able to be harmed by things like his various Soul or Mind screwing abilities as again, they don’t have the great feats of resistance to these things the more well known Windows canon has. Schnieder also has several powers to bypass their attacks and score hits on them that they don’t really have answers to, including casting complex illusions or stopping time. The biggest hurdle for Schnieder to cross is Yumeko being able to become SO Intangible that even the Spiritual Plane attacks of Reimu cannot interact with her. However, even if she can turtle in a state he cannot interact with directly, Schnieder has some means of reaching her anyway including potentially his Existence Erasure and potent Probability Manipulation powers, which may work past it cause her to turn it off, and also him potentially using the Bloodstone, which would trap Yumeko in a cursed space where she’d be forced to be the one to feel the effect of anything she tried to do to Dark Schneider, regardless of if she's intangible. Also if that somehow didn’t sell you enough that he's got this, in his highest states, Schneider can literally just recreate any entity he's met before out of his memories of them to fight on his behalf.

Universal Tier:

Lastly we have the true top tiers of the verse, populated by the strongest characters in PC-98 Lore, only the mightiest of playable characters and the strongest of final bosses are found here. This tier is the home of Shinki, the Great Creator God of Makai, an entire Universe she made for herself on a Whim. This Feat is often claimed to be one of Infinite Power and Speed, given statements that Makai is Infinite in size, however, all statements suggesting this come from the Windows Era game, Undefined Fantastic Object. Meaning in Windows Canon, Makai is an infinitely sized realm with no clear origin, while in PC-98 its a Realm created by Shinki, who gets bested by the Player Characters, but there is no such infinite size statement. If you composite both these canons together then Sure, Shinki would have Infinite Stats, but as you already know, we are not doing that. But even without that, Makai is still quite clearly a Universe in this era so Shinki would easily have Universal Level power. Meanwhile the Player characters manage to fly from the Door to Makai in the mountains to the Heart of this universe to fight Shinki throughout the course of Mystic Square, a game that can be beaten in 1 hour and 22 minutes, and that's with them stopping for dialogue and boss fights, this would require speeds of 305 Trillion times light speed. As for why the characters in this tier scale to this, All 4 of the playable characters in Mystic Square are able to defeat Shinki, with Mima even having the audacity to call her a “Weak God” after doing so. Then there's Alice, who was the Stage 3 boss in Mystic Square and was clearly weaker than Shinki and the main characters at the time, but then in the Extra Stage, Alice returns now having acquired her Grimoire, a spell book that raised her power to the point she was a serious threat and even Mima respected her after their battle. Lastly we have the final bosses of Touhou 1, Sariel and Konngara. Sariel is a powerful fallen angel who was clearly set up to be transcendently stronger than Elis, one of the strongest Makai Demons, and Meanwhile Konngara’s placement in the Hell route suggests she has a similar threat level to Sariel within her realm, in addition to being stronger than both Kikuri and Mima at the time. Also, again, Reimu was using her Orb to best them during this event, to explain how they could have lost with them being this strong.

With all that in mind, let’s get into the individual characters in this tier! Starting in Hell, we have Konngara, the Astral Knight of the Silent Temple. Konngara is a giant and incorporeal warrior creature known as a Yaksha. She uses Magic to fly, summon forth an energy aura, and release large amounts of Danmaku, with which she can additionally use Telekinesis to hold these in place near the bottom of the screen to block her opponents path. Konngara also wields a giant sword which she can use to refract light off its blade to travel as lasers. Just like Last Tier, any magical creatures like Yokai, Demons and Hell Creatures are both Invisible and immune to the attacks of those without Magic or Spiritual abilities, including Konngara. Going back to Makai, let’s address the Shinki in the room. Shinki is Makai’s equivalent of the One True God, Creating not only the entirety of the Dimension, but also Yumeko and presumably every single other Makai Demon from the entire series, are her artificially spawned Children. Not only can Shinki use a lot of similar abilities to them like flight, teleportation, Dimensional Portal Creation, Lasers, Danmaku, and summoning new environments, but she can logically use Quite literally any powers any of them displayed, including Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis, Cryokinesis, Electrokinesis, Launching Missiles, Resisting Attack Reflection and Making herself Invisible and Intangible towards even the player characters. In addition to this, Shinki has Super Senses impressive enough to sense people calling her from other planes of existence, can transform into a larger 6 winged arch demon form, use Photokinesis to flood the whole screen in Light, and presumably summon/create any of her subordinates to assist her midcombat. But hey, guess what, there are actually two other beings who were found residing in Makai that Shinki did NOT create, who wield power that can threaten her own. The first of which is Sariel, a fallen Seraphim Angel of Death, and also the inspiration of Asriel Dreemurr from the Undertale Series, Fun Fact. As an Angel, Sariel’s presence wards away Evil creatures, and she has an unbelievable mastery over magic, with her presumably being the master of Elis and being able to use her abilities. In addition to Flight and Teleportation, Sariel can create portals to different dimensions and parts of space and time at will, as well as warp both you and herself to different locations with no effort. She can transform into a Silhouette form, Summon and control Bats and Danmaku shooting objects, telekinetically control her Danmaku with her wand, and can generate Lasers from quite literally any location on screen. With that squared away, it's time to start getting into characters that Fans of Mainline Touhou might recognize, as the Other resident of Makai Shinki didn’t create is none other than Alice. In PC-98 Canon, Alice is a significantly younger Magician who is still in training. She is found in Makai and the common interpretation for why is, she went to the “Magical Mecca” to train her magic and become stronger, which lines up with her getting her Grimoire and becoming a real threat by the game's end. Despite not being a Makai Demon, Alice HAS mastered many of their usual tricks, like Flight, Teleportation, Summoning her own Pocket Dimension, plus presumably dimensional travel as well. But she has a LOT of her own powers too, including her Signature ability, to summon and control multiple Flying Dolls with her puppeteer magic. Both Alice and her Dolls are capable of firing Danmaku spreads, and should her Dolls be destroyed she can seemingly always summon more to replace them. Alice also can generate a shield that reflects Danmaku back to sender, and has displayed 4th Wall Awareness considering she knows if you are playing the trial version of the game or not. With the addition of her Grimoire however, Alice has a lotta extra powers to throw out using the 7 Magic Colors, including Pyrokinesis with Red Magic to shoot fire balls and projectiles, generate a fire aura, and even summon massive waves of fire that cover huge parts of the screen; Cryokinesis with Blue Magic that lets her generate a variety of ice projectile attacks; and Lasers with Purple magic. Next up, we got Yuuka, the main villain of Touhou 4 and certified Most Powerful Yokai in this series. In PC-98, Yuuka is a crazy strong Yokai who lives in an Extra Dimensional Mansion, and believes overwhelming power is everything, noted for her lack of charisma and off the wall presence that make her intimidating to others. She seems to have control over Plant life, able to summon Miniboss Plant monsters like the Bewitching Lotus Flower at the start of the game. She's got all the standard Yokai abilities I have stated a million times already, plus a lot of her own. Yuuka can turn herself into a logia mass of light that cannot be traditionally attacked by projectiles, create illusions to mess with your eyes or make herself briefly disappear in invisibility that even the Player characters cannot see, create a Duplicate of herself which has her same power and stats but shares a health bar, and can even completely hide her presence from the likes of Marisa if she had to use continues, implying it is incredibly difficult to detect her. In terms of offensive power, Yuuka is the original inventor of Marisa’s signature move, MASTER SPARK, an incredibly powerful energy beam that basically takes up the entire screen. By opening her umbrella, she can trap you inside a Force Field that spawns omnidirectional Danmaku at you at close range, and her Final attack is so secret, not even the games Manual knows it. Yuuka is very sharp witted, able to receive the Ultimate Magic after Mystic Square’s ending, and is also able to see past the 4th wall, not only in her dialogue in the trial version of Touhou 4, but if you get her bad ending in Touhou 5, she’ll actually blame the player for getting a low score. While we are on the subject of MASTER SPARK, now we have to get into the deuteragonist of the Touhou Franchise, Marisa Kirisame. Originally introduced as a Boss in Touhou 2, Marisa has returned as a playable character in every single mainline Touhou game since, in both PC-98 and Windows. Like her Windows counterpart, PC-98 Marisa is a normal Human being, but her very high intelligence and high work ethic, has made her unrivaled in the use of Magic, but beyond this, their origins are very different. PC-98 Marisa was the apprentice of, taught magic by, and idolizes the Vengeful Spirit, Mima, with the two being implied to have a close relationship that began before Marisa even met Reimu. Since she is a human, Marisa is perfectly visible to normal people and can be harmed by conventional attacks, but she also has high-end super senses to see unseen creatures, and has the ability to harm intangible spirits with her attacks and Danmaku to balance out. Marisa also has really impressive 4th Wall Awareness too, she teases the player of what's to come in the full game in trial versions, can tell and comment on how many continues you’ve used when you face her, is aware that Orange is the ‘Stage 1’ Boss in Touhou 4, and she even literally is the one who explains all the games Mechanics to you in multiple Manuals, which implies some ability to interact with the 4th wall too. Marisa can fly using a Broomstick, Teleport and Travel into other Dimensions, spawn large illusionary bat wings on herself, rain large amounts of shooting star projectiles, and can both Summon and Telekinetically control groups of 4 Orbs that revolve around her, these can be used for a variety of attacks and shield her from taking Damage while they remain on screen. Some of Marisa’s lesser known powers in this canon include making an invisible barrier that trapped Reimu until she defeated her, creating portals which can produce gross extra dimensional slime to pour down on people, and summoning objects like the time she suddenly just waved her wand and made Reimu instantly tied to a burning wooden stake…for training. And one other trait that PC-98 Marisa shares with her canon counterpart is her proclivity for stealing other characters spells, allowing her to attain some new powers such as the Yokai ability to warp you into a dark dimension, Yuuka’s MASTER SPARK, and, after ‘borrowing’ one of Reimu’s spellbooks, her Sealing Techniques as well. THAT sounds like as good a transition as any to discuss Touhou’s Main Character, the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, Reimu Hakurei. Located on the outskirts of Civilization, near the entrances to both Makai and Hell, sits the Hakurei Shrine, where its Miko have protected the human village for many generations using their power to Channel the Gods. PC-98 Reimu is quite different from her later Windows Self, being a Purple Haired, inexperienced goof who doesn’t even have the ability to Fly of her own accord, a direct contrast to Main Reimu whose Ability to Float is literally her main power. Reimu in this canon is a skilled martial artist and spiritual fighter who has a variety of powers at her disposal, which only get stronger and more numerous over time. Just like Marisa she is human and doesn't have natural Yokai defenses, but she can sense and directly attack supernatural spirits and ghosts just fine, even able to sense the presence of Evil and recognize the specific individual responsible for it assuming she met them before. She’s also every bit as much of a 4th Wall Breaker as Marisa is, being aware if a game is the trial version, knowing Rika is the boss from ‘Stage 1’ in the extra stage, and narrating the walkthrough in multiple of the game manuals, even arguing with Marisa in them. Reimu can use her Exorcism power to purify ghosts and reflect Danmaku away, and has the typical Bomb ability, which destroys projectiles and heavily damages all foes on screen. It is not a literal explosive she is using, but rather a massive AOE attack she makes using her own Spiritual power. Though Reimu’s most famous ability is her power to Seal things, able to do stuff like imprison all the evil spirits attacking her shrine inside of an ordinary glass bottle, or trap Ghosts and Yokai like Mima and Orange inside of objects. In Touhou 1, when Reimu was at her weakest, her sealing was still presented as able to seal off the entrances to either Hell or Makai depending on route, allowing her to close off powerful dimensional portals. Another power Reimu has is her extra lives, which is like, an actual thing that is referenced in game by Marisa, who claims to have killed her in her route only for Reimu to say “Don’t kill me off like that” meaning she maybe used extra lives to straight up come back from the dead. Also Reimu canonically has the power of Hakurei, which gives her the ability to Eat ‘All the Sweets she wants without gaining any Weight’, which is her most sought after power by the other characters. Reimu has also been able to use her spiritual powers to replicate a whole bunch of common abilities in the game including Danmaku, Teleportation, Summoning her own Dimension, Creating Orbs to drop on you and possibly Dimensional Travel given that sometimes she goes to other dimensions without explanation. She typically carries Yokai hunting gear like an endless amount of Ofuda Cards which can be used as damaging projectiles and to destroy Danmaku they hit, as well as her Gohei stick, which can reflect Danmaku back to sender. But by far Reimu’s best weapon is her Yin Yang Orb. A powerful ancient artifact of her ancestors, the Yin Yang Orb can only be used by members of the Hakurei Clan, allowing them to launch it at their foes and bounce it around, Brick Breaker Style, until it eliminates the target. The Yin Yang Orb is so deadly because it steadily Absorbs power from the being it is being used against in tandem with Reimu’s, allowing her to defeat beings far outside of her weight class by using their own power against them. The Orbs attacks can be positively or negatively charged depending on the morality of the targets it absorbs from, which can be dangerous as too much positive energy will cause it to violently explode, while too much negative energy will cause it to become a singularity. In addition to that the Orb also has a few random powers, like Producing any Fragrance Imaginable, or transforming into other forms such as a Pixie, a Bizarre Creature, or a Super Adorable Kitten. Now Finally, we get to the last character in this series, the Top Tier of PC-98 and easily the most requested character to return in Modern Touhou, Mima. Mima is an Akuryou, a Vengeful Spirit from Hell who is bent on enacting her Revenge on Humanity. Originally introduced as a Boss all the way back in Touhou 1, Mima returned as the Main Villain of Touhou 2, and then returned again as a Playable Character in both Touhou’s 3 and 5, easily making her one of the biggest players here. She also has a very strong personality and personal ties to the backstory of both Marisa and Reimu so it's not hard to see how she got this status. Once a human who died in the ancient past (Although she vehemently denies that), Mima is a vengeful spirit who is literally so old, that she's lost nearly all her malice and now has a more human like personality, that of a Chaotic Neutral Scary Prankster who likes to mess with the shrine and even took Marisa under her wing. Because she's a ghost, Mima is naturally intangible, able to levitate, and can shapeshift her form in various ways, giving herself different amounts of bat wings or even growing a pair of legs. She has the most advanced teleportation in the series, able to teleport not only herself but others, such as when she swapped her own and Marisa’s locations, and can even warp herself to crash into you at instant speeds. Mima was even able to escape being spiritually sealed by Reimu on two separate occasions without much issue. She also is the one who taught Marisa a lot of her early spells, having directly displayed the use of Marisa’s attacks like those four satellite orbs that block damage, and the rain of shooting star projectiles. In addition, Mima can shoot Danmaku, Missiles, and use pyrokinesis to erupt large wells of flame from the ground. Mima also has some degree of 4th Wall Manipulation herself, not only acknowledging it in the Trial version of Touhou 5, but in Touhou 2 she was literally able to give Reimu an extra life before her boss fight, because she's cocky like that. Mima’s magical power and energy comes from the Moon, as she has the ability to absorb its power, and naturally is stronger at night, and during Full Moons. She was even able to take over and operate as the deity of the Shrine, against Reimu’s wishes, and heck, even claimed to be able to take Reimu’s Orb and powers for herself if she defeats her.

So what would be some effective strategies to defeat these 8? So many of the same weaknesses from the previous tier still do apply, such as the aforementioned Logia weakness from the previous tiers, these characters still do not have any means of harming a similarly powerful Logia being directly, with the greater majority of their abilities being Mobility or Defensive based. Any powers that would nullify lots of projectiles coming your way would naturally still be helpful, but while this tier has less restrictions on how powerful the counters can be than the last tier, it has more restrictions on the type of character that can be used. An example being that since Sariel is here, your counter cannot be an Evil entity or her passive presence will drive it off, the enemy still needs to be some form of magic or spiritual user to see and interact with half these characters, but they also cannot only rely on that for their powers or Reimu’s orb will destroy them. Another more unique weakness of this tier I noticed is a lot of these characters tend to rely upon magic items of some sort for their abilities. Alice’s Grimoire is the only reason she wasn’t featured in the last tier, and beyond her, Reimu has her orb and other weapons, Yuuka her umbrella, Mima’s staff, Marisa’s Broom, Kongara’s Sword, Sariel’s Wand, really its only Shinki that goes into fights bareknuckling it. So any kind of slick disarming ability like telekinesis or teleporting objects would be pretty useful here. With all that said, let’s get into the counters!

Takofanes:

Someone I wanted to start out with is one of the Ultimate Villains of the Champions Online Series, Takofanes! Being a 70,000 year old sorcerer lich, Takofanes is one of the strongest villains in the series, above the likes of Therakiel the Nephillim who was stated in game to be a universal threat, and Skarn who has control of his own dimension which is many magical dimensions merged into a single universe, as well as likely relevant to some of the Kings of Edom who in their backstory were able to consume universal sized dimensions into their being. Speedwise, ol’ Tacos is far above normal heroes who have numerous lightspeed statements and abilities, but he is stated to be "the most powerful magical villain threatening the Champions Universe (save perhaps for Shadow Destroyer and Tyrannon the Conqueror)", the perhaps suggesting its somewhat up in the air whose better between him and Shadow Destroyer, a character who can fight or at least react to Galactic Champions who can patrol large sections of Galaxies, Lantern style, and travel Millions of Lightyears in a short timeframe. This all suggests Takofanes would be able to keep up with these characters in stats. Takofanes is an undying skeleton who is immortal towards essentially anything unless his magic is overpowered. He’s got a lot of useful powers to use here, such as the ability to fly and teleport across dimensions to match the similar powers common in this verse. Takofanes’ two most famous abilities however include his ability to use necromancy to create vast and powerful armies of the undead, and also his ability to create his own dimensions, which bolster his power and he can adjust at will. 

With these two powers in mind, Takofanes would be a fairly similar entity to someone like Shinki in context, who can also create dimensions and armies of creatures to serve her. Takofanes can seal disembodied souls as he did to the fallen heroes of the battle of Detroit, meaning against a Ghost like Mima, he can likely just lock her away, as given his sealing works across the city of Detroit, his sealing is likely even stronger than Reimu’s. Another thing he brings to the table is Telekinesis and even the ability to Teleport Objects to himself, which could be used as a means of disarming many of these characters of their deadliest tools mid combat to give him an upper hand. His most powerful spell is Darkest Sorcery, a reality warping ability that lets him make things be how he decides. Effects he can use through this include, but are not limited to, causing mental and physical weakness, ripping out souls, inducing sleep, mind controlling beings and transforming people into werewolves. These are pretty much all potential oneshot hax against these characters which even defenses like Shinki’s intangibility and Yuuka’s Logia Light form wouldn’t be able to protect against. Couple this with Taco’s being able to shrug off Danmaku damage to his body and trap them in Paralysis with the Thandaki spell and this could end quickly. Almost at least. There is however, one character that does have a real good chance at stopping Takofanes, that being Sariel. Takofanes is specifically weak to holy abilities and Sariel is a goddamn Angel whose presence wards off Evil, something that would be highly effective against literally the most Evil Being in Champions, and she would easily be the biggest obstacle to Takofanes as a result. If Tacos fights her alone, there's a lot he could do to win, including using Power of Command to subtly increase his own presence and intimidating aura to resist against this, or detecting the threat of Sariel early on with his various detection abilities and fighting her at a distance. However if Sariel double teams him with other characters in this tier, it could get bad for him quickly, for a safer option.

Cronus:

One could use Cronus, the powerful Greek Titan from Samurai Jack. Cronus was a being who forged the entire Universe and, with his Gauntlets, had full control over time and the cosmos. He is also relevant to other gods such as Ra, Odin, and Rama who created the core concepts of the universe, and were able to chase down The Formless Evil throughout the Universe, with even the emanation of said Evil, Aku, being able to fight beings that can cross the galaxy in an hour like Vilgax, with these characters notably upscaling from this. With this in mind, Cronus is well into the power and speed tier of these characters. Cronus is a literal god character who has a lot of powers at his disposal, able to fly and teleport, travel to other dimensions, and pull a Shinki and easily create his own universes and pocket realities, complete with any number of beings inside. Considering that the Gods in Samurai Jack created Jack’s spiritual cutting Sword, and literally created the Core Concepts of the universe, Cronus should be capable of physically interacting with Conceptual plane things, easily letting him score hits on any characters here, even if Shinki used her SUPER intangibility move from Yumeko. Cronus is an Eons old warrior god and would be significantly more skilled than any of these characters in terms of melee combat assuming he gets in close, and fortunately for him, a lot of his abilities would let him do just that. Gods in SJ can generate complex illusions which only Shinki would really be capable of seeing through easily, they can possess people, a new kind of hax that this series hasn’t had to deal with before, and they have even showcased the ability to resurrect the Dead, something that would hard counter Mima in particular as she would lose all the hell energy she performs magic with. Cronus’ deadliest weapon is his helmet and Gauntlets, with which, he is stated to have complete control over the concept of time, this means his time manipulation abilities would be superior to that of The Rope of Eons, an item that grants its users the ability to generate Time Portals, Physically Travel through Time, Manipulate the Age and State of beings and objects, Rewind or Fast Forward an area of time, or even Stop Time Completely. Sariel’s Time manipulation is laughable next to this, and there isn’t any major form of time hax resistance in PC-98 to stop Cronus from simply freezing time and walking around all the Danmaku, or rewinding time to make them call all the Danmaku back, meaning they have no effective way to defend themselves. All that being said Cronus could still lose here, if he was blindsided and disarmed of his armor, he could well be stopped by Reimu’s sealing powers, much like he was stopped by his son Zeus in the lore of Samurai Jack. That's why, for my final option…

Smoke:

Yup, that's right, in an earlier blog we saw that Smoke from the Mortal Kombat series could not quite handle taking on Windows era Touhou Characters, but in PC-98? Yeah I think he’s got this. Smoke is a Powerful Ninja from the Lin Kuei Clan, and has been able to best several big name foes in the MK series such as Kitana and Sheng Tsung, the same Kitana who managed to defeat Shao Kahn, who tanked the combined power of the universal creating, big bang tanking elder gods, and brought down Blaze when he had the power to destroy all the universal sized Realms, and the same Sheng Tsung who beat the Injustice version of Green Lantern who flew to a different galaxy in minutes. This easily would let him compete here in terms of stats, being stronger yet slower than the cast. Smoke is an Enenra, a literal Yokai from Japanese mythology, leaving no doubt that he could see and interact with these characters, and his primary power is to transform into a Logia Smoke Monster form. As we have explained, Logia is Broken in this series, and leaves no way for any of these characters to attack or even interact with it, as their Danmaku will just phase right through. Even without his Logia form, Smoke can surround himself in a Smoke Armor that consumes projectiles before they reach him, making him just immune to Danmaku unless he is being super careless, forcing them to try and fight him more traditionally. But good luck with that as Smoke is a world class ninja who is a master of several different martial arts to the point of pulling off superhumanly precise moves during his fatalities. Smoke is able to fly in his logia form, and can use his smoke powers to teleport and create portals, allowing him to match their mobility. His Typhokinesis can be used to suffocate those that need air to breathe like Reimu, Marisa or Alice, he can spread his Logia Smoke form out to cosmic distances to make it impossible to seal him, and his ability to pass through peoples bodies or generate Heat enough to burn characters like Scorpion would give him the ability to tear several characters bodies apart. Plus with his power to turn Invisible, only Shinki could really see Smoke coming. Smoke’s biggest obstacle to take on in this verse would actually be Mima, due to being a naturally intangible ghost, she isn’t in any real danger from anything mentioned so far, however that's where his Ace comes in, something that let him down against Sannyo. Smoke can just straight up mind control people, and turn them into his smoke ghoul puppets, which in this verse, with no real feats of resisting mental control, is the thing that would let him inevitably win that stalemate. And that's how you Smoke PC-98 Touhou.