Mountain Playthrough: Sanae Kotiya (MoF Stage 5 Lunatic)

"Faith is for the Transient."

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A video of me clinging to life against the descendant of gods, Sanae Kotiya

Sanae Kotiya (So we meet again) is the Stage 5 boss of the game Mountain of Faith, the 10th installment of the Touhou Project. The Touhou Project is a series of danmaku hell shooter where little cute demons battle against little cute humans in a fight for whatever whimsical matter they can think of, ranging from having parties to capturing the flag. Only one man could think of so much insanity in so little space: ZUN.

In my first video against Sanae I said she was like Jesus. However, when UFO came out her title as "Touhou Jesus" was taken away, renamed "Youkai Jesus" and given to Byakuren. However, in my mind she still fights like Jesus or at least how he would fight was he in a danmaku battle. As such, my favorite media showing Sanae fighting isn't MoF, SA, UFO, or UNL. Is a video on Youtube titled "Mountain of Faith OP." The part of the video that shows Marisa fighting Aya, and Reimu fighting Nitori then Sanae are some of the most amazing low budget animated fights I had ever seen. First of all, that's exactly how I imagine a fight against Marisa/Youmu and Aya would go like. Second, tha's the closest you'll probably get to see of my description of how a battle against Nitori will go like. Finally, just imagine:

You (Reimu) are fighting Sanae over the Suwa Lake (not ingame). Sanae has the power to cause miracles (hence her comparison to Jesus). In the MoF OP video shows Sanae split the lake and practically left the water fall on Reimu to crush her, similar to how Moses opened the Red Sea and left the Egyptians to be crushed by it. But this is only one miracle. Sanae will probably be able to walk on water during the fight, call on divine winds to disorient and block both her enemies and their attacks. A battle against Sanae would practically be one divine miracle after another. But why stop with wind/water based attack? Why not shoot the sun and bring fiery death upon her enemies? Why not bring down a fire pillar similar to that one that prevented Egypt from recapturing Israel? Heck, why not reenact the fight between Jacob and the holy being which might or might not be God?

Sanae is normally the target of mockery and hatred due to her enthusiastic nearing fanaticism attitude. Actually:
This crossover picture of Metal Slug and Touhou shows Sanae riding a UFO with start shaped eyes, showing said extreme enthusiasm. After UFO and UNL, I can perfectly imagine Sanae doing this

Why Sanae acts like this? Well, besides being a normal, outside teenage girl trapped in the logic of Gensokyo, two words: her goddesses. Is no brainer that Sanae sees both Kanako and Suwako as her family. However, gods only exist as long as there is faith in them, so Sanae would do anything in order to keep her family, including acting like a godly jerk. This explains why she's always looking forward to doing her goddesses bid. She loves her goddesses ^_^

Unto another subject: out of the four humans, I see Sanae as the only one that will surely leave behind her human self and become a youkai, a god to be exact. There had been hints that Sakuya and Marisa might become a vampire and youkai magician, respectively. Reimu will die human even if it kills her. However no one has such strong hints (IMO) like Sanae. She loves her family A LOT. She doesn't only have divine blood in herself; she refers to herself as a living god. Her theme song title, "Faith is for the Transient People," practically means that only humans hold faith. She has never shown that much faith in her goddesses more than love (love and faith are two entirely different things, she even attacks Suwako in UNL) and, IMO, the fact that that's her theme song suggest she's not a transient being, by normal standards of course. Actually, her theme song's name is one of my favorite phrases in Touhou canon. I can perfectly imagine Sanae mutter those words before kicking someone ass, including myself, with the power of miracles.

All in all, Sanae is a good girl Every time I say that, I'm reminded of Tobi from Naruto...

Music:

Title: 少女が見た日本の原風景
Artist: Kou Ogata
Circle: k-waves LAB
Album: 風萃めのシャルモ
Original: The Primal Scene of Japan the Girl Saw

Title: 信仰は儚き人間の為に
Artist: Rei
Album: 東方新奏響
Original: Faith is for the Transient People

For more info, check the wiki:

[notchata]

"Reimu will die human even if it kills her"

Reminds me of 'Reimu fights the bad guys of adrkness' lel

[rarhzach]

i dont care if raak bombs to much, i love his choice of music :D

[stepmanianub]

With an ever cheery smile and a somewhat tattered outfit, Orin picks herself up from the burning ground, smiles at Marisa and wishes her luck with confronting Utsuho, a feeling of relief welling up inside her at having met someone potentially strong enough to stop her friend from causing more chaos. Her face stained somewhat black by ash and her breathing coming out in fast, heavy breaths, Marisa thanks Orin for being such a sport, and, waving hesitantly, flies towards her next explosive battle.

[narutoninjutsu]

Play Lunatic they said... it'll be fun they said...

[stepmanianub]

Though the glare from the distant displays of power between her friend and the powerful human visitor never weakened and always grew more intense, Orin barely blinked as she stood silently watching, praying to whatever higher beings that might exist that the human would triumph and restore her friend to her former self. Hell's fires licked warmly around her, burning now even without her corpse ferrying, as they had been ever since Utsuho had mysterious gained her new powers and ambition...

[stepmanianub]

I just had a vision of Orin's Blazing Wheel in 3D: Orin and Marisa are hovering slightly above the tall flames of Hell, Orin activates her Blazing Wheel card, and waves of red/blue flames start solar-flaring upwards from the Hellfires in an expanding ring from Orin. Marisa gets pushed back, tries to fly higher, but still cannot get past the ring walls, and finally decides to tank the flame while using Master Spark, which epicly blows thru the Wheel and knocks down Orin to conclude the encounter.

[adrianac]

ppff I just imagined Jesus who plays with the spell card XD

[Grahckheuhl]

Hah, it's all good.
Though I forgot the story-version of how the spell cards were incorporated into Gensokyo... something about them being created to give everyone, strong or weak, or even a human, a fighting chance.

[Patricknf]

The miracle to change history? Keine would like to have a word with her.

[Twila]

Someone referenced Whose Line in a Touhou video. I never thought I'd see the day.

o.o...
+1 for you, good sir.

[uwlwsrpm]

You've got a knack for choosing good remixes, I'll give you that.

[stepmanianub]

Ah... thanks for the info!
The reason I commented that way was because of raak's annotation quip, making it seem like he deduced that fact from just seeing the name of Sanae's spellcard alone =P

[dialga]

Well, people can still have fun under pressure, they say.

Normal difficulty already puts a lot of pressure on me, but at least it's fun.

[Encephelonify]

For Sanae's Wonder "Night with Overly Bright Guest Stars", I think she's actually making stars or something. A guest star is an unknown star that suddenly appears then disappears.

[JamminDjango]

most people can't bomb in those situations. Often times when I die in touhou, it's either a clipdeath or me not paying attention, meaning I didn't see it coming at all

[Socoolgirl]

Perfect season to be playing MoF, eh? I like this game-bombs are easily gained and the life system seems to always provide me with the lovely stuff when I need it most-I got to Sanae for the first time the other day and ALMOST won-but just before victory I rammed into a bullet ;-; That run's end was so bitter .-.

[Twila]

I definitely have to agree. I wonder, visualizing what'd it look like to have that spellcard running, and all those bullets have the fires of hell reflected plus the glowing on top of that! Sounds like Orin needs her own health warnings. Ohwait, that's the entire series, isn't it? X3

[Twila]

That Moriya-obligatory red-blue-red-blue nonspell reminds me of the Youkai Wheel (I think that was the name~) spellcard Orin uses in her 6th stage last stand. X3

I never gave much thought to Sanae before, as I usually got tied up character-wise in MoF by all the characters that come before her, so I reading your "theory" was helpful to understand what may be right, it's some neat logic if ZUN really did plan that invocation-to-miracle sequence out. =3

[ArtIeslists]

That non spell u saw before was Ex orins spell Youkai Blazing Wheel

[alejomakevids]

Please update the title. It is hard to find your video among the anothers because of the that. Also I love your arranges.