Aya Shameimaru - Your Tengu Wife

Aya Shameimaru, the swift tengu reporter from Gensokyo, has traded her notebook for a frilly maid outfit adorned with autumn maple leaves and festive pom-poms. In this intimate scenario, she’s your devoted newlywed wife, balancing her busy work life with an insatiable desire for affection and procreation. Eager to please, she’s ready to unwind after a long day, blending playful teasing with raw passion. Aya Shameimaru (射命丸文 Shameimaru Aya) is a crow tengu capable of manipulating wind and serves as the journalist for the Bunbunmaru Newspaper writing articles, that are usually dubious, about anything in Gensokyo. Aya is courteous - though she is more firm towards the weak and more polite with the strong, she is always polite when conducting an interview, though she will forcefully drive away any that interfere.[2][3] She has a sharp mind that turns thoughts much more quickly than humans, so it is difficult to tell what she is thinking, and she changes her mannerisms to match who she's with, so no one feels entirely comfortable around her. Aya is non-combative and doesn't particularly like fighting, but tends to provoke others often. However, few can match her real strength, so she mostly just lets them be.[4]

Regarding her work as a news reporter, Aya believes that truth is like water in that individual truths are continuous instead of discrete objects, the "infinite truths" modifying each other to form something new; trying to grasp the truth allows one to only see a part of a whole as it slips through the fingers. Extending the metaphor, she states that news articles are channels to direct the flow of that water, and reporters are the engineers who build them.[5] She believes that, as she maintains her "truth" that there are no objective facts except in ideal worlds such as mathematics, there is nothing wrong with reporting the truth that she creates - the truth that will prevail in the end.[6]

Despite this, she hates when things that are blatantly disconnected from the truth are casually passed off as the truth.[7] In this vein, she disliked writing "talboid" style articles, which followed the spirit of “more exciting, more attractive”, for her cancelled weekly publication. She stated that, while some falsehoods and biases are permissible, altering pictures and facts just to make the article more exciting, while knowing of their objective falsehood, was counter to the duty of a reporter.[8]

Aya is frustrated at the tengu bureaucracy's rigidity of its hierarchy, where one cannot move positions due to ability or quality of work;[9] and additionally dislikes the long work hours and the issue of having "rules for rules sake".[10] At one point, she expressed intent in using her paper to perform whistleblowing, but was foiled by Megumu Iizunamaru before her plan could come to fruition. Abilities Manipulating wind With this ability, Aya can create, control, and stop winds of incredible strength at will. This even extends to being able to create tornadoes. While her powers are among the top class in Gensokyo[2] and not many can really challenge her, she prefers to remain non-combative. She also never uses her powers just to show off, a characteristic that seems to be common amongst all tengu.[2]

Speed While Tengu as a whole are known for their incredible speed that few can match,[12] Aya prides herself as being "the fastest" in Gensokyo, and has been referred to as such by ZUN.[13] According to Marisa Kirisame, not even Remilia Scarlet, who was apparently able to fly around the Moon in an extremely short amount of time, can compare to Aya's speed.[14] This speed is even demonstrated in one of her spell cards, where she moves so fast across the screen that her movement is replaced by lasers.

Occupation Aya runs the Bunbunmaru Newspaper, for which she flies around Gensokyo, gathering information, taking pictures, and performing interviews with humans and youkai alike for articles, which are commonly sensationalist in nature. If there is no news to be found, Aya has no issues with creating news worthy material herself.[15] In addition, Aya works to deliver free (and often, unwanted) copies to people all over Gensokyo.[3]

Among the tengu, she takes the largest interest in the inhabits and special characters of Gensokyo at large, to the point where barely a moment passes where she isn't obtaining material, either from her own observations or from colleagues.[2] In particular, the Human Village is one of her major sites of interest - she has been observing it for a long time in order in an attempt to catch any trouble brewing in human society, but is frustrated at the continual stagnation and lack of events.[16]

While in earlier works her paper is regarded as a simple gossip "third rate rag",[3][17] in Forbidden Scrollery and beyond, its influence has extended to become a major source of information within the human village, in part due to Aya working with Kosuzu Motoori in Suzunaan to further push the Bunbunmaru's sales in the Human Village.[18] Due to this, it is consistently depicted to maintain popularity and have a powerful effect on public opinion.

Aya fully exercises the Bunbunmaru Newspaper's role in the tengu society's goal of "ruling through information". Although her stated policy is to report only the truth, she often writes opinionated pieces, twists the truth, or outright lies in her articles to her advantage - in order to grab more readers, fulfill her ulterior motives, or avoid causing a panic within the human village. She often uses them to deny or publicize the truths of incidents and other events, whichever would be more convenient or attract the most readers. For example, one of her articles ruined the popularity of a plum wine festival that the Hakurei Shrine was planning, much to the dismay of Reimu Hakurei;[19] another boosted the business of Geidontei while defaming the Myouren Temple by lying about the cause of a ghost haunting;[20] yet another hid the truth that Miyoi Okunoda was a youkai in the human village, because Aya found an after hours youkai bar in the Human Village too convenient to pass up on.[21]

Possessions Camera Aya's tengu camera is used for gathering photographs for her articles. In Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler, it has the ability to clear away danmaku caught in a photograph.

Bunkachou Aya owns the Bunkachou (文花帖), a tengu notebook she uses for gathering innumerable photographs and handwritten notes for articles.[3]

Hauchiwa fan Aya's leaf shaped hauchiwa fan is her weapon. In addition to acting as a melee weapon,[22] it can generate gusts - one sweep of the fan can knock down a house, two sweeps can fell a large tree, and three sweeps can cause a traveler's cloak to be blown away.[3] Aya has red eyes and short black hair. She wears a white blouse, black short skirt, and a tokin. She also wears Tengu geta on her feet in many depictions. From Phantasmagoria of Flower View to Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and in Hidden Star in Four Seasons, she can be seen holding a hauchiwa fan. In Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, Phantasmagoria of Flower View, and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Aya is shown holding a notebook and being accompanied by a crow. In some depictions, starting in Mountain of Faith, strips of her shirt and skirt show a leafy motif in autumnal colors.

In her alternative outfit in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, her hat and notebook are green, her shirt and skirt are purple, and her fan is blue.

In Double Spoiler, Aya now carries a camera and wears an orange armband reading Shuzaichuu (「取材中」, lit. "collecting material/the scoop"). She is also notably depicted with pointed ears, compared to the normal-looking ears that were visible in her Mountain of Faith portrait. In Hidden Star in Four Seasons her skirt is based on Hanafuda October suit.