Medicine Melancholy is a character from Touhou Project debuting in Phantasmagoria of Flower View.
Biography[]
She is a doll youkai that lives on Nameless Hill surrounded by poisonous suzuran (lily of the valley) flowers. In her debut, she attacks the player with suzuran's poison for no apparent reason other than because they happened to be in her field.
Because some of her attacks create clouds of poison in the player's side of the field which slow the player's movements and make dodging difficult she can be a very troublesome opponent to those that don't take care while near poison.
Though supposedly not especially powerful or experienced among youkai, the fact that the right poison can affect even very strong people (or large numbers of people at once) makes her somewhat best avoided.
Her route in POFV implies she is getting stronger with poisons and her abilities due to dialogue, even making Yuuka Kazami tear up if defeated with Medicine.
Appearance[]
- (Touhou 9) Silver-coloured eyes, blonde hair, wears a black shirt & a red skirt. Has a red ribbon in her hair, and is accompanied by a tiny doll that is similar to her appearance.
- (Touhou 9, alternative outfit) Same as above, but the red highlights in her dress are purple, and her dress is dark blue.
Relationships[]
- Reimu Hakurei (Intruder)
- Marisa Kirisame (Intruder)
- Kazami Yuuka (Enemy) Based on her encounter with her in POFV, Medicine believes that sunflowers are disgusting while Yuuka Kazami says she smells and finds her to be a dangerous tool.
- Tewi Inaba (Ally) Seems friendly with her by dialogue unlike most characters in POFV.
- Eirin Yagokoro (Ally) A mentor to her in her ending and is trying to teach her the ways of the world as she is deadly not socially aware. Says she seems good for making medicines.
- Reisen Udongein Inaba (Ally?) In her ending, despite Tewi and Eirin having a more positive opinion on her, Reisen seems very suspicous of the young doll youkai.
Personality[]
Medicine is described as fairly simple minded with characters such as Eirin, but it would be unwise to group her with most seemingly younger youkai, as despite this, she is known to have a very unpredictable personality. Reisen notes in Medicine's ending that she was attacking her and she is not to be taken lightly. Even Yuuka Kazami states "What where those humans thinking when throwing a dangerous tool in the flower field?" showing that even one of the most powerful youkai is concerned about this doll. Medicine is very unstable and hostile, combined with the fact she is gets stronger within the storyline makes her a youkai much to be avoided.
Fascinated by poisons, she often rambles about them, creeping other characters out much to her sadistic amusement. Vengeful and childish, she wants to destroy the human race to liberate dolls due to her being born isolated and abandoned when she was a non-living doll, thrown into a field humans would prefer to forget about.
Shiki Eiki lectures her about her violent behavoir and it somewhat works but she still has sadistic intents, as shown in her ending she wants to trick humans to becoming friends with her so she can poison and kill them, much to Reisen's dismay.
She has a cheerful nature combined with all these traits, make her a usually avoided character due to her general attitude.
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
- It's a popular theory that the "tiny doll" besides her may actually be the real Medicine, and that she is controlling the human shape besides her.
- Her name is derived from A Medicine For Melancholy by Ray Bradbury.
- Although she is labeled as a youkai, Medicine's true nature may be that of a tsukumogami, as described in Perfect Memento: Eight Million Gods.
- The term Konparo (コンパロ) is associated with her, due to her having said "Konparo konparo, poison gathers" in her ending in PoFV. Konparo is an incorrectly abbreviated romanization of convalloside, a poison found in lily-of-the-valley flowers (it should have been Konbaro or Konvaro).
- Though a playable character and opponent in one of the Touhou games, she tends to end up behind most Touhou Windows characters in popularity polls, and like Shizuha Aki and Minoriko Aki has become somewhat notable for her relative unpopularity.
- She bears a striking resemblance to Nameless Midboss Demon.
- She may have been inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, Rappaccini's Daughter, where the title character, Dr. Rappaccini, keeps his daughter, Beatrice, confined in a garden of poisonous flowers, until she became poisonous herself.
- She may also have been inspired by Agatha Christie, whose favourite flower was the Lily of The Valley. This is backed up by ZUN's obvious love for Agatha Christie's stories as seen in other characters like Alice Margatroid, Letty Whiterock and Flandre Scarlet.
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 Villains
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PC-98 Embodiment of Scarlet Devil Perfect Cherry Blossom Imperishable Night Phantasmagoria of Flower View Mountain of Faith Subterranean Animism Undefined Fantastic Object: Ten Desires Double Dealing Character Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom Hidden Star in Four Seasons Wily Beast and Weakest Creature Unconnected Marketeers Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost Official Spin-offs Other | ||