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Overview

Kotohime (小兎姫) is a character in the Touhou Project franchise who appears as a playable character in the Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream.

An out of place princess. Her personality is supposedly un-ordinary and because of that she does not get along with many people, being dubbed weird even by the people who are considered strange themselves. It is unknown what of is she a princess or if she even is a one. She is a collector, but only gathers things that other people find uninteresting. It is said that she does not get out too much.

She also claims to be a police officer in Gensokyo (however it is worth noting that Gensokyo was first mentioned in Lotus Land Story, and previous works have taken place in a world called The Eastern Country, so it may be in some strange way contradicting the current setting).

If she was to reappear in modern time setting, she would probably be involved with the matters of the Human Village, given her status and that she may be a human (however that information is uncertain as she was just called a "strange kind of human" in her VS dialogue against Mima).

For those who are not familiar with PC-98 era characters, she may be compared to Kaguya Houraisan, but not directly as Kaguya appears to be more reserved from her, and is an actual princess.

She ended up on the 12th place in the first Touhou Project popularity poll that was held up in 2003, making her the second top ranked PC-98 character, after Mima and exclusion of Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame and Alice Margatroid.

May 10th of every year is consider to be her day.

5 (Ko) 10 (To) = Koto (hime).

Etymology

Her full name is Kotohime (小兎姫), which means "little rabbit princess". It doesn't seem to hold any significant meaning as she has no known relation to rabbits, nor is a rabbit.

Music Themes

Maniacal Princess

Mania in Japanese may be considered as an equivalent of the word "geek" in English, hence why she may not be maniacal in a traditional sense).

Appearance

Kotohime is shown wearing a purple junihitoe with red flower pattern over it. Under it, she seems to have a blue layer of clothing and a white kimono with red belt. Her eyes and hair are red and tied in a ponytail with a yellow ribbon. Her 2P design swaps the red with purple, leaving everything else untouched. In her ending she is seen wearing her police uniform which consists a light blue vest with a skirt of the same color, and a white shirt with long sleeves, along with a yellow tie on her collar matching her hair ribbon. In her box art design she is seen wearing a reddish-purple kimono with a pale, dark blue bottom part. That design is not seen anywhere else, and is usually dismissed by artists.

Her purple coat appears to have a red jagged pattern in the selection screen, but it is not present anywhere else. Alternatively, it may be just a part of the glow that surrounds all characters in the selection sprites.

She is seen riding a cloud in her boss attack. The cloud seems rather grotesque as it has some sort of veins and claws.

The original source for her design is Izumi Takemoto's Strawberry Times, where a character named Shiori Honda (本田詩織) cosplays a character from a game called Mysterious Murasame Castle. Additionally, Shiori is portrayed as a somewhat maniacal girl who is a bit out of her league compared to Mikan, who has a more popular hobby. You can learn more about Shiori here and here

Personality

As stated earlier, she is considered to be a strange person. There is not too much to go off in regards to her personality, however there seems to be a trope that she does things on a whim, and underestimates people on purpose. The first point originates from the fact that she had no real reason to go to the ruins. The second thing originates from her ending, as Yumemi Okazaki is shown to be quite a powerful character. In Mima's ending she is capable of stopping the Moon in one place, along with that she also threatens Kotohime to blow up the world. Kotohime on the other hand does not seem to be impressed by her anyhow, and just requests her to deliver Reimu Hakurei to her cell for arrest. Besides that, she requests Yumemi and Chiyuri Kitashirakawa to leave this world as they are supposedly out of Kotohime's jurisdiction.

Relationships

She lacks any defined relationships with the character she had interacted with, however fanworks often pair her with the imprisoned Reimu. Apart from that, there appears to be a common trop to pair her with Rikako Asakura, but overall she mostly appears in random combinations with other characters of the same game.

In Games

She has a fast movement and recharge, yet her POWER is only at the lowest, 1st stage. Despite that rank, her charge shot is capable of defeating a boss at close range in just two hits. It is not likely that everyone will draw out her potential, but she is highly valued by people trying to score as she is good for exploiting higher scores. Her bomb is probably able to cause an epilepsy attack as her smiling artwork is flashing at a very high speed.

In Fan Works

In many cases, when she appears in fan made media, she appears eccentric, and is seen joking, fooling around. Alternatively, she is depicted as fully dedicated to her police officer work.

Trivia

Because she is seen smiling with her mouth open most of the time, the western community often associates her with the " :D " emoticon.

In her full body sprite she is only about 5 heads tall in total, so her actual height may be considered to be quite short. Additionally, the character she was based on is a junior high school girl. Incidentally, the Metropolitan Police Department in Japan requires female police officers to be at least 154cm tall. This standard varies from prefecture to prefecture, but someone that is just 5 heads tall (less than 140cm?) definitely does not meet the standard, which actually fits with her being unordinary. Additionally, it would also explain her name origin a bit better.

Some fan art depict her wielding a jitte, an equivalent of a nightstick of the Edo period in Japan. It collides with her uniform however, and it is more modern by Gensokyo's standards.

Due to her 2P colors, she is sometimes compared to Meira, Watatsuki no Yorihime, and Sannyo Komakusa, due to all of them having a purple hair with a ponytail and a yellow ribbon in their hair (with the exclusion of Meira who has white ribbon).

Name of Kaguya's theme, Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess, may be a homage to Kotohime's theme which is Maniacal Princess.

Maniacal Princess' intro is somewhat similar to Nostalgic Blood of the East ~ Old World from Imperishable Night.

"This one is so nostalgic... I'm sure those who are familiar with Touhou's older works will recognize it, but it sounds like a song I did a few years ago."

However it is unknown which theme ZUN is referencing. Plastic Mind also sounds similar.

Maniacal Princess also uses a leitmotif that is common in other themes from that era.

Related Illustrations

Related Articles

Touhou　Touhou Project　Touhou Old Works

External Links

English

Kotohime - Touhou Wiki - Characters, games, locations, and more

Kotohime | Touhou Wiki | Fandom

Japanese

小兎姫 - アニヲタWiki(仮) - atwiki（アットウィキ） (Aniwota wiki - atwiki)

小兎姫とは (コトヒメとは) [単語記事] - ニコニコ大百科 (NicoNico Encyclopedia)

Chinese

小兔姬 - THBWiki · 专业性的东方Project维基百科 - TBSGroup (THB Wiki)

Article in Other Languages

小兎姫