Article#1 : Sakuya Izayoi, the Chief Maid of Scarlet Devil Mansion
åå…夜 咲夜 (ã„ã–よㄠã•ãや)
[size=12]Sakuya Izayoi [/h]
Age : Appears to be between 16 to 20 years old (but since she can manipulate time. You cannot be so sure)
Species : Human
Personalities : Cold, Calm, (kinda) Anti-Social, Loyal, and Perfectionist
Abilities : Time Manipulation (slow down, fast forward, or even stopping time), experienced with throwing knives
Occupation : Maid of Scarlet Devil Mansion, Manipulator of Time
First Appearance : Embodiment of Scarlet Devil ( Touhou 6.0 )
Easily one of the most enigmatic characters. Her whereabouts and origins are completely unknown.
(currently) She working at Scarlet Devil Mansion. Serving her mistress, Remillia Scarlet and is apparently the only human working at or living within the mansion.
She has the power to stop time. She is known to place knives in midair and resume time to allow these knives to fly towards her targets. Stopping time is also a handy way of doing large amounts of maid work in a short time. Because nearly everyone living or working at the mansion are maids, being the chief of them all means there are few people there with more authority within the mansion than Sakuya.
[size=15]Perfect Memento[/h]
- Nobody had ever seen her before she started working in the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
- A mysterious girl who works in a place that normal humans don't dare approach.
- Sakuya has no close friends from the village. The girl is shrouded in mystery indeed.
- She does come to the village to shop though, carrying a refined atmosphere around herself. There, she is never seen showing hostility towards other humans
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Ability
- Time Manipulation is a top-class ability for a human to possess, and it is not something that can be learned through training.
- However, it is generally rather difficult to revert things that have already happened. Things that have been, for example, destroyed, burnt down, or eaten can not be turned back even if time is reversed.
- Reversing time only has an effect to the extent that things that have been moved return to their original position.
- Effectively, you can say there is no reversing time.
- Besides that ability, she is skilled in knife throwing and conjuration.
- It's said she can pierce an apple on the head of a fairy maid 20 ken (more than 20 meters) far above her in the sky.
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Maid Job- The Scarlet Devil Mansion's policy regarding maids is quantity over quality, and large numbers of fairy maids are used to somehow keep it in one piece.
- She is the only human maid among them, and as the head maid she gives orders to the fairy maids.
- The fairy maids are mostly useless.
- Cleaning their own uniforms and making their own food is about the best they can do.
- About the only thing worth saying about these maids is that they basically have no pay or vacation, but they receive food and tea, and can generally consider themselves free beings.
- They are also free to leave and regain their posts, as well.
- The fairy maids' lives are quite comfortable, and if they can come to enjoy their masters' occasional impossible requests, almost none choose to run away.
- In contrast, the chief maid's job is tough.
- As her ( Sakuya ) duties include cleaning the labyrinthine Scarlet Devil Mansion, taking care of its selfish master, keeping track of the useless maids, going out to buy supplies in the human village, and making pointlessly gorgeous meals, she has no time to rest.
- It would be impossible to do all this work alone without being able to stop time.
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True Face
- Since the maids at the Scarlet Devil Mansion receive no break time, they have no private life; thus, her character is not well known.
- It is unknown why she works in the Scarlet Devil Mansion where demons dwell, and why the vampires trust her.
- She even seems to possess a certain degree of power in the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and can sometimes give orders to the vampires.
- It's still unknown whether the vampires sought out the services of her inhumanly extraordinary powers, or whether she herself asked for the position of head maid at the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
- In addition, it is said that the name she bears now was given to her by the vampires, and is not her true name.
- According to one theory, she was a vampire hunter from the outside world or another world, and followed the vampires into the Scarlet Devil Mansion to try to slay them, but was defeated instead
(Sakuya, the vampire slayer theory's story)
- The reasoning behind this theory is that the silver knives she uses are for defeating vampires, and also because of the abilities the vampires possess.
- She was training to slay vampires in a remote location.
- She normally would have taken down small demons for training, and had never tried her hands on a vampire.
- However, she had great confidence in her powers, and thought she would be able to defeat a vampire in decline of power easily herself, and, setting out on a journey to slay vampires.
- Then for searching her, she reached the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but the vampire there who looked so young was surprisingly strong, and she was easily defeated instead.
- The vampire, taking pity on her for her level of ability, spared her, and gave her a new name, which also gave her a completely opposite fate.
- She became the vampires' servant at once, and since she had strong abilities, she was able to reach the position of chief maid and become useful to the vampires.
- Later, the Scarlet Devil Mansion relocated to within Gensokyo, but the strange environment made her uncomfortable, so at first she resisted against the vampires and the humans of Gensokyo.
- However, upon seeing the vampire (Remillia Scarlet) who she could not defeat easily beaten by a human in Gensokyo, and that afterwards the vampire and human got along well as if nothing had ever happened, she slowly began to open herself towards those around her.
- Nowadays, it seems that something has broken through her facade, and while she still allies herself with the vampires, she can deal with humans in a positive manner as well.
- However, it's possible that the vampire who manipulates fate planned for it all to be this way from the beginning.
( Sakuya, the vampire slayer theory's story END )
- Also there are many theories such as ones suggesting she is actually a Homunculus, a zombie or simply just an eccentric, but the most widely believed theory is the vampire hunter theory detailed above.
- She claims to be in her late teens, but this is unlikely judging by her refined manner and the level of her abilities. Rather, she seems to be a human who has been living for hundreds of years
Bunbunmaru Trivia
> The characters for Izayoi literally mean "Sixteenth night" (the night just after that of the full moon), and Sakuya "Flowering night."
> Sakuya is a homage of Dio Brando (a vampire who is known for stopping time and being skilled at throwing knives) from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fame.
> As the head maid, 「メイド長〠or "maid-chou" or "maid-boss" is the common title used to address her among fans. Another common nickname is 「ã•ã£ãゅん〠or "Sakkyun."
> In some fan-produced works, Sakuya is depicted with puppy ears and a tail (commonly called 「犬咲夜〠or 「ã„ã¬ã•ãや〠or inu-Sakuya), which is probably a reflection of various characters referring to her as Remilia's dog.
> Another recurring joke with fans is the idea that Sakuya pads her chest to make it seem bigger than it is and goes to great lengths to hide this secret, even from Remilia herself. The origin of this joke was due Sakuya's portraits in Immaterial and Missing Power, which for some reason showed her with larger breasts than were seen in all of her other ZUN-made portraits (with the possible exception of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil). Thus, 「PAD長〠("Pad-chou") has become a popular phrase that is frequently seen with 「メイド長ã€... but be careful when you try to use it. There are many people hating that nickname. Thus, another common joke is to depict Sakuya as knifing everybody who says that.
> There have been several clues spread across the Touhou series that suggest that Sakuya may not actually be human. Most of these occur in Imperishable Night, where Eirin Yagokoro is surprised to see her not going insane when seeing the Full Moon . Reimu also questions her humanity in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil as well.