Sanae Kochiya - Touhou

Sanae Kochiya (東風谷　早苗 Kochiya Sanae) is a human but is also a living god from a distant descendant of the goddess Suwako Moriya. Originally from the Outside World, Sanae migrated to Gensokyo with the shrine and its two resident goddesses, Kanako Yasaka and Suwako Moriya. Her role at the Moriya Shrine is similar to that of a shrine maiden and also to gather faith for the Moriya Shrine that is now on top of Youkai Mountain. Sanae first appeared as the Stage 5 boss in Mountain of Faith then reappeared as the Extra stage midboss of Subterranean Animism. She's been a playable character in multiple games since Undefined Fantastic Object, Touhou Hisoutensoku. She is also a secondary character in the comic Wild and Horned Hermit.

General Information Personality Sanae is confident, energetic and dutiful, sometimes too much so, and tends to get carried away easily or have trouble thinking for herself.[1] She also appears to be something of a geek, making references to popular culture and having knowledge of advanced scientific concepts. As someone who grew up in the Outside World, much of Gensokyo seems strange and novel to her; she finds great fun in "exterminating" youkai and solving incidents. As a result, she is rather knowledgeable about the outside world and modern living, although her attempts to explain scientific concepts usually just confuse the locals. Her knowledge on things like the youkai of Gensokyo, on the other hand, seems a bit lacking for a shrine maiden. She also may have somewhat of a complex about herself as an incident resolver, thinking foes won't take her as seriously as the other experienced youkai exterminators. The simple fact that she is adjusting to life in Gensokyo makes her an extremely rare case.

Abilities Ability to cause miracles Sanae possesses the ability to invoke miracles due to her divine heritage. Many of her spell cards are themed around miracles stemming from various religions or unlikely events. Her powers primarily involve weather manipulation and are often used in rituals, such as prayers for rain. The "miracles" that she can invoke are not related to good or bad fortune – they are merely events that have a very low chance of occurring. Before invoking a miracle, she needs time to prepare it proportional to how unlikely the miracle is. Simple ones can be invoked with a single word, while more complex ones may take days of preparation.

Abilities as a shrine maiden Sanae is a shrine maiden, though of a different type compared to Reimu Hakurei. Similar to Reimu, she can summon gods and borrow their powers. However, she relies more heavily on this ability and can only summon her own patron gods: Kanako Yasaka and Suwako Moriya.

Occupation Sanae's occupation as a Wind Priestess involves serving as a priest who worships the god of wind. She is able to cause miracles, such as bringing wind and rain, through a mysterious technique. However, because she is worshipped and gathers faith herself, she is treated on the same level as gods and is considered a living god. In Mountain of Faith, she tells Reimu Hakurei, "I guess you could call me something like a Shrine Maiden", suggesting that her role may differ slightly. Nevertheless, she is fundamentally treated as a Shrine Maiden, just like Reimu. Additionally, since Sanae is both a "god" and a human, she can continue living as a human even if she loses all her faith.

Possessions Gohei Sanae carries a gohei, also known as a purification rod, with her on incidents. She mainly used it to perform incantations and act as a bludgeoning weapon.

Deified Human of the Wind

Sanae Kochiya

Species: Human Occupation: Wind Priestess Ability: Causing miracles

A human who possesses the knowledge of a secretly inherited art. She has a very straightforward personality, so she has a lot of confidence in her own abilities. Sometimes, perhaps a bit too much confidence.

Wind Priestesses were originally a devotees of the wind god, but as they used their secret abilities to create miracles such as summoning the wind and rain, the people around them began to believe in these humans with mysterious abilities.

In short, over time, people began to mistake the miracles caused by the wind god as being caused by them.

In addition, as keepers of secrets, they began to accrue faith and be treated as gods, even though they were humans. They became living gods.

When she was young, Sanae had mastered the secrets to call upon miracles that had been passed down through an oral tradition only. A young girl that could call upon the power of miracles would certainly collect great amounts of faith --- one would expect.

However, the outside world had changed a great deal. Faith in even gods with many divine virtues had been decreasing rapidly. There were few who would worship even a living god who had attained divinity during their life as a human.

Though she didn't really have much faith, Sanae was able to live as a normal human without any real problems, but this would not do for the god she worshiped, Kanako.

When people lose faith in gods, the gods lose their power. They can't manifest their divine virtues. This is the same as death, for a god.

Kanako came to a decision. There were limits to the amount of faith that could come from humans. From now on, she would have to also look to youkai as a source of her faith.

Sanae was surprised to hear the details of her plan: a world called "Gensokyo" has existed within our nation since time immemorial. It is said that this world still exists, hidden. Gensokyo has collected a number of things that have become lost - or, become fantasy - in the outside world. One could say that even people's faith in gods is in the process of moving to Gensokyo. And so, Kanako decided to move her shrine into Gensokyo. She would say farewell to the world of humans.

Sanae was afraid of leaving the world of humans, but as a person with the power to call on miracles, going to a world of miracles was one of the fun parts.

She did not take the humans of Gensokyo seriously. She thought that if they threatened the only shrine in Gensokyo, the Hakurei Shrine, Gensokyo itself would submit to their every wish. She went to deliver her ominous message to Reimu, and then was in turn defeated.

The humans who lived in Gensokyo were more troublesome than she'd imagined, and in time she learned of the power they held, as well.

Here, she was nothing special. She realized she had gone from being a god incarnate to just a normal human being. All she could do now was to live a normal, peaceful life as a human of Gensokyo.

Character Design

Sanae, as illustrated in Symposium of Post-mysticism Name Her full name is Sanae Kochiya (東風谷　早苗). Sanae (早苗) can mean "rice seedling" or "early seedling", and Kochiya (東風谷) "eastern wind valley". The same "east" (東) appears in Touhou (東方), and the same "wind" (風) in the title of Mountain of Faith (風神録).

Origin of her name Unusual amongst Touhou characters, both are real names used in modern Japan. Presumably Sanae's name is derived from the real world person "Sanae Moriya" (守矢早苗), the 78th head of the Moriya family which claims descent from the god Moreya (洩矢神 Moreyashin, "Moreya" is an archaic pronunciation of "Moriya"). This family were supposed to succeed one of the priests of the Suwa Grand Shrine, Jin Choukan (神長官, "God Director").

Design In her first appearance in Mountain of Faith she wears a blue and white outfit similar to a shrine maiden's, with the blue areas covered in light blue polka dots and stripes. She has long light green hair, and yellow eyes (green in every subsequent game appearance, except in Touhou Hisoutensoku portraits where they're blue). She keeps a blue snake wrapped around her hair on one side. In Mountain of Faith, she wears a blue headband with a frog's head on it;[2] however, in most subsequent appearances after SA she instead wears a hair clip shaped like a frog's head, the exception being her alternate ending appearance in Unconnected Marketeers where she wears a headband with the frog head on it. She carries a gohei with straight paper decorations as opposed to the typical gohei.

In Ten Desires her hair color is slightly paler, and she wears a shorter skirt with maroon-colored boots instead of aquamarine-colored shoes.

Appearances Games Spin-offs Literature Mountain of Faith

Sanae's sprite in MoF When humans on the Outside World began losing their faith in her and Kanako Yasaka, the shrine's actual deity, Kanako decided to move the shrine to Gensokyo where at least youkai might have faith in them. During the events of Mountain of Faith Sanae tried threatening the Hakurei Shrine in order to establish the Moriya Shrine as the dominant one, not realizing how powerful humans like Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame were. In response to the threats Sanae was defeated by the heroine followed shortly after by Kanako and Suwako Moriya's defeat. However, the residents of the Moriya Shrine have since come to an understanding with their new neighbors and live in peace with the other residents of Youkai Mountain.

Subterranean Animism Following the extra scenario as the player heads through the Moriya Shrine to look for the two goddesses, Sanae appears as the midboss of the stage. She believes that the traditional greetings in Gensokyo is by attacking with danmaku because you can't be trapped by common sense. She attacks the heroine with three spell cards, but was defeated. Specifically on Reimu/Suika's scenario, she returns stating that Kanako was creating a kappa industrial revolution by using the old Remains of Blazing Hell. She was unaware of the incident that occurred in the game, making Reimu unhappy.

Undefined Fantastic Object

Sanae's back sprite in UFO, TD, LoLK, UM and UDALG In each scenario of Undefined Fantastic Object, Sanae is ordered with a different task. Depending on this, her secondary bullet will become a snake or a frog.

Main article: Undefined Fantastic Object: Sanae A's Scenario Kanako Yasaka's task is to train her own abilities by hunting Youkai.

Main article: Undefined Fantastic Object: Sanae B's Scenario Suwako Moriya's task is to find the Treasure Ship.

Ten Desires Main article: Ten Desires: Sanae's Scenario Sanae notices the strange spirit at the Moriya Shrine in Ten Desires and knows what they are: divine spirits, born from humans due to powerful fears, desires and feelings. She takes the opportunity to gather the divine spirits, as it is the same as gathering faith from humans. She can't, however, figure out why all these divine spirits have appeared in the first place.

Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom Main article: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom: Sanae's Scenario The Curiosity Mars rover appears in Gensokyo, causing all life around it to become petrified and turn to stone when it gets too close. Left unchecked, Curiosity would eventually purge all life from Gensokyo. Kanako and Suwako send Sanae to investigate it, which eventually leads Sanae to outer space and to the Lunar Kingdom, where she learns that Curiosity was sent to "purify" Gensokyo and make it inhabitable to the Lunarians, due to an external threat the Lunarians are facing. Sanae is forced to save the Lunarians, lest Curiosity continue its destructive path.

Unconnected Marketeers Main article: Unconnected Marketeers: Sanae's Scenario At the request of Kanako, Sanae is sent to investigate the proliferation of Ability Cards on Youkai Mountain.

Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost

Sanae's sprite in UDALG Main article: Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost: Sanae's Scenario Because of the opening of the marketplace, ownership of the ancient land was lost. This has caused greedy animal spirits to attempt to claim ownership of the land.

Sanae is told to investigate the spirits flooding the surface, so she leaves the shrine after defeating Tsukasa Kudamaki, who wanted Sanae to lend the shrine. She then fights Ran Yakumo and Mamizou Futatsuiwa following her orders of attacking every beast youkai she encounters to solve the incident. The tanuki then affirms that the shrine maiden doesn't understand the nature of the incident at all and gives her directions to solve it, which only led her to Hell. There, she fights Yachie Kicchou, who admits that she has an “ally” in the Forest of Sanctuaries. After defeating said ally there (Son Biten), Sanae falls in Biten's trap and ends up fighting Zanmu Nippaku.

At the end, she fails to put an end to the beasts' and Zanmu's plans, but she at least earned a new ally.

Touhou Hisoutensoku Main article: Touhou Hisoutensoku: Sanae's Scenario In Touhou Hisoutensoku, thinking that a gigantic robot appeared in Gensokyo, Sanae is in pursuit of the giant figure, when she stumbles into a giant pit to the nuclear reactor run by Utsuho Reiuji and learns that Suwako Moriya is responsible for creating the "robot" figure, Hisoutensoku.

Double Spoiler In Double Spoiler, Sanae appeared as an Extra stage target, where she uses a few spell cards and had Aya Shameimaru and Hatate Himekaidou take photos of her and her danmaku.

Hopeless Masquerade

Sanae in HM Sanae made a background cameo appearance in Hopeless Masquerade on the Genbu Ravine and Youkai Tanuki Forest stage. She is seen standing next to Suwako Moriya waving her onusa.

Impossible Spell Card After apparently reading the newspaper by the tengu about a mischief-making amanojaku, she becomes one of the many strong youkai and humans to try and stop Seija Kijin. She uses spell cards that are considered impossible to dodge.

100th Black Market In 100th Black Market, Sanae appears as the one of the 4th market bosses. She has two ability cards dedicated to her. A frog hugging an amulet and a snake coiling an amulet.

Wild and Horned Hermit Throughout the manga, Sanae and Reimu have a continuing rivalry for the popularity of their respective shrines, the Moriya Shrine and the Hakurei Shrine, among the residents of the Human Village and the local youkai.

Early on, Sanae requests Reimu's help with her mission of improving the inefficient netherworld reactor powered by Okuu’s nuclear powers, as part of Kanako Yasaka's overall plan to bring clean energy to Gensokyo. Sanae's plan was to start nuclear reactions using cold fusion.[3] She also mentioned how in the Outside World the cold fusion is a prohibited topic that remained in obscurity. For that, she needed Reimu's help to contact the metals god, Kanayamabiko no Mikoto, to obtain a palladium alloy. After obtaining the palladium, Kanako and Sanae made a successful public demonstration of cold fusion, impressing the local residents of the Human Village.

However, Sanae is also cooperative with Reimu, as it is shown in Chapter 23, where she takes care of the Hakurei Shrine while Reimu was busy being a fortune-teller. She also comes to check in on Reimu near the end of the manga when Reimu fell unconscious for an extended period of time.

Forbidden Scrollery Sanae can be seen spreading faith for the Moriya Shrine in the human village during reports of increasing snake attacks. She built branch shrines near the outskirts of the village for people to profess their faith to Kanako.

Later on, she appears at the private flower viewing party held at the Hakurei Shrine. During the party, she calls the Hakurei Shrine a Youkai Shrine which results in her incurring the wrath of Reimu.

Lotus Eaters During the events of Lotus Eaters, Sanae regularly hold rituals in and about the Human Village to gather faith for the Moriya Shrine.

Whispered Oracle of Hakurei Shrine Main article: Whispered Oracle of Hakurei Shrine: Sanae Kochiya Reimu Hakurei writes a fortune slip about Sanae as a way of cleaning up in the aftermath of an incident. She also helps Reimu with other slips.

Relationships Suwako Moriya & Kanako Yasaka Sanae serves as the shrine maiden of Kanako Yasaka and Suwako Moriya, and moved with them to Gensokyo. Sanae is also Suwako's distant descendant. During the events of Mountain of Faith, Kanako sends Sanae out to collect faith. Much like Yukari Yakumo's use of Ran and Chen, Sanae can summon Kanako and Suwako in her spell and skill cards in Touhou Hisoutensoku.

Reimu Hakurei Sanae has a friendly rivalry with Reimu Hakurei. While she has no qualms about antagonizing Reimu when competing for gathering faith and visitors, she also encourages Reimu on her success at the Hakurei Shrine.[4] Sanae visits the Hakurei Shrine on numerous occasions, both in the Prologue of Undefined Fantastic Object and in Wild and Horned Hermit; she is even tasked with minding the shrine while Reimu is training with Kasen Ibaraki.[5] On one occasion, the two collaborated to make a profit by extorting the Myouren Temple.[6]

Marisa Kirisame Sanae is friends with Marisa and frequently sees her when visiting the Hakurei Shrine.

Minor Relationships Kasen Ibaraki Sanae claims that she knew about Kasen before as they both live in the mountain, but they didn't interact until Wild and Horned Hermit chapter 2.

Son Biten Although at first Biten attacks Sanae with the excuse of a rumor in Sanae's Scenario, after their fight they became good friends. [7] Biten affirmed that she wanted to “bridge the gap between the Kiketsu Family and the Moriya Shrine” and Sanae thought that Biten was “pure and innocent”.