Byakuren Hijiri

Gender: Female

Age: Over 1200 years old

Appearance: In Undefined Fantastic Object's official art, Byakuren has long, wavy, light brown hair that fades to purple at the top, with hazel or light brown eyes. She wears a black and white dress with long strips of black fabric going across the middle and white fabric across the arms. Along with this dress, she wears a long cape. She also holds a giant, magical scroll called the Sorcerer's Sutra Scroll. The gradient in her hair has been confirmed by ZUN to be a natural colour during an interview with Yamu's blog on 2009/09/24

From Hopeless Masquerade onward, she wears a wide-brimmed hat and shiny green beads.

Occasionally, in Urban Legend in Limbo and Antimony of Common Flowers, Byakuren dons a biker gear that has similarities to her outfit, consisting of a latex bodysuit with a zipper in the chest. Underneath the zipper are the similar strips of black fabric that were in the middle of her dress that covers her cleavage, a pair of high-heeled boots and a green neckerchief that replaces her green beads.

Personality: Byakuren possesses the typical behavior of a Buddhist nun due to being one for much of her human years. She's infinitely tolerant and never seems to get angry. She preaches and shows unconditional love for both humans and youkai. Prior to being sealed, she had protected youkai from humans out of her own fear and selfishness. Eventually, she grew to genuinely love the youkai she was protecting and formed ideals of Human and Youkai co-existence. She doesn't drink alcohol or eat meat, and because of this, she finds it difficult to befriend humans since the bulk of social mingling in Gensokyo is done via drinking parties. During the events of Symposium of Post-mysticism‎, she displayed some humility in stating she was still in training as a Buddhist.

Hobby/Occupation: Monk

Additional Information: ● Byakuren Hijiri is a Buddhist nun and magician who was sealed away by humans because of her kindness towards youkai in the outside world. During the events of Undefined Fantastic Object, the youkai she has saved reappear to break her free from the seal. She is now the head priest at the Myouren Temple, which is populated mostly by youkai.

● Byakuren was once a Buddhist miracle-worker, but after her brother's death turned to youkai-derived magic to retain her youth. Though she is called a saint, these powers are ultimately demonic in nature. Her current specialty is magic that increases her physical abilities, including strength, speed, and sensory perception. In Undefined Fantastic Object, the spell card Superhuman "Byakuren Hijiri" demonstrates these powers, increasing Byakuren's speed of movement so greatly that she can even outrun Reimu's Dream Seal. Likewise, the fighting games show an extensive use of these abilities in several of her attacks and spell cards.

● Byakuren is the chief priest at the Myouren Temple, where her main goal is to bring peace to both humans and youkai. As the chief priest, she teaches the dharma to anyone willing to listen. She also manages funerals and the graveyard. Once a month, she performs an "overnight sutra-chanting live concert", where she sings a song in monotone while keeping rhythm with a wooden fish. The event attracts both youkai and humans.

● Created while Byakuren was in Makai, the Sorcerer's Sutra Scroll is unique to her. The sutras Byakuren needs to use her power are written on them. It has an automatic mode, which will cause it to recite spells on its own. Compared to a regular paper scroll, the amount the Sorcerer's Sutra Scroll holds is limitless. It is also said that this scroll won't deteriorate over time. Lastly, because it has a "will" of its own, no one except for Byakuren can handle it.

● Byakuren wields Vajra that she could either use as a sword or throw it as a projectile.

● During the events of Urban Legend in Limbo, Byakuren gains a motorcycle as a result of the Urban Legend incident. She mostly uses it to ram her opponents with it, however, she also used it as a transportation device as seen in her Urban Legend in Limbo's credits sequence.

● As a result of her saintlike nature and being an important figure in Gensokyo, Byakuren has gained a wide variety of followers and rivals alike.

● Byakuren is a practitioner of Shingon Buddhism in her early life together with her brother.

● Byakuren was one of the candidates for the extra boss of Ten Desires, along with Kasen Ibaraki.

● Written in ZUN's hand on her final cut-in is Namusan! (南無三！), which is short for Namu Sanbou (南無三宝) - roughly, "Hail to the three treasures of Buddhism" (the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha). It's used to request salvation in a moment of danger. Byakuren also uses this term at the very end of her dialogue with the heroine. During her second-to-last (fourth) spell card on Easy, the stars under the health bar show she has two lives left. She does, but only on higher difficulties.

● Similar to how Yukari is called "Yukarin", it has become common to call her "Hijirin" (ひじりん).

● Because she's a bit more mature-acting, and possibly due to been a final boss like Eirin Yagokoro and Kanako Yasaka (who are often portrayed as much older than the norm for the Touhou girls), some fan artists portray her as being an "old lady", or lumped into the same grouping as such. This is perhaps a bit ironic in Byakuren's case, considering how her profile states that she became a Magician to retain her youth. Though in various fanarts, she's shown to have a mix of youthfulness and motherliness (including figure).

● She's often shown as a mother figure to various temple residents and a few others.

● Since Urban Legend in Limbo, a reccurring meme is having Byakuren riding a bike, or her becoming a biker of sort.

● She's considered something of a saint amongst some fans, especially when compared to the ruthless and self-centered nature of the heroines, who reject her ideals for peace. Other fans have argued that, from the point of view of someone from a world where humans are oppressed, her appeals for human-youkai equality wouldn't make much sense. Others insist that Gensokyo is very close to if not exactly like her dream of a co-existence between humans and Youkai. There's the fact that things were just a misunderstanding, and that she ends up building a temple (perhaps with helps from the heroines) afterwards, which is sometimes said to be very popular with humans and Youkai alike.

● Some western Touhou fans compare her to Jesus Christ because she fought for youkai but got sealed away for their sins. Because of this, fans have affectionately dubbed her "Youkai Christ" or "Youkai Jesus".

● Before Byakuren's gradient hair color was confirmed to be natural, it was somewhat up in the air. Most fans depicted it as it appears (purple on the top, fading to brown), but other fans believed her hair is – which because official – entirely brown, and it was the lighting of the stage or her scroll glowing that made it appear purple.

● Likely due to her using strength-enhancing magic, fans sometime portray her as being a bit too eager to use force and violence to resolve things and punish people.