Nitori Kawashiro

General Information She first appeared as a stage 3 boss in Mountain of Faith and then became a playable partner with Marisa Kirisame in Subterranean Animism. She was later a Day 6 boss in Impossible Spell Card, and a playable character in Hopeless Masquerade and Urban Legend in Limbo. According to ZUN, there were also plans to make her a playable character in Touhou Hisoutensoku, but she was scrapped due to time constraints.

Personality Nitori is a shy kappa by nature and if she is alone and sees a human, she'll run away, like in Mountain of Faith. She considers herself to be superior to humans and even other youkai and when she's by herself it's easy to see. However, when among her own circle of friends, she is quite cheerful. As a kappa, she is easily persuaded to leave you alone by a cucumber or two. However, she has a greedy side when it comes to running a stand and is quick to come up with plots to maximize profit.

Abilities Manipulation of water Her ability to manipulate water is inherent in the fact that she is a kappa, and has nothing to do with the myriad tools she uses. No one knows the true extent of this power, but she has been seen to use it to shoot water, create fountains, perform theatrical tricks and even summoning colossal tidal waves.

Using tools Akyuu makes a note that kappa, historically, have had an trait called tsuuhai (通背), which means their arms are connected inside their body and they can stretch one arm by retracting the other. However, it is said that they are actually just using tools to make it seem as though their arms stretch.[1] In Wild and Horned Hermit chapter one, Reimu receives a "kappa's arm" that ends up being a mechanical arm. In Hopeless Masquerade, Nitori is also seen using several arm-like machines to attack.

Occupation As she is an engineer she is very interested in products made by the humans of the outside world. She takes such products apart and puts them back together in order to understand them. However, she has trouble creating magical tools of any sort. She is fond of selling her inventions and other things such as Fish as her story mode in Hopeless Masquerade details her attempts at running a stand before getting sucked into the battle. According to Hina Kagiyama, she is also somewhat of a leader figure for the kappa.[2]

Possessions Nitori possesses many small devices and objects and carries them all in her backpack.

Character Design

Nitori, as she appears in Symposium of Post-mysticism. Name Her full name is Nitori Kawashiro (河城 にとり). Kawashiro (河城) means "river (河) castle (城)". Nitori is in hiragana.

Her name might have originated from Ryuunosuke Akutagawa's novel Kappa the second chapter of which begins with the sentence 「そのうちにやっと気がついてみると、僕は仰向けに倒れたまま、大勢の河童にとり囲まれていました。」(Sono uchi ni yatto kigatsuite miru to, boku wa aomuke ni taoreta mama, oozei no kappa ni tori kakomarete imashita., "When at last I came 'round, I found myself lying on my back surrounded by a large number of kappa.") — from the translation by Seiichi Shiojiri.

Her name resembles that of Takane Yamashiro (山城 たかね)

Design Nitori has blue hair tied into twintails and blue eyes in Mountain of Faith. She wears a blue dress with lots of pockets around the hem of the skirt and her upper arm, and a dark aquamarine backpack with a golden key on the strap in front of her. She also wears a green hat with a white wispy symbol on it, blue wellington boots and carries a cattail. As an engineer she carries a lot of tools with her in the pockets. She's like 12 years old in Human age.

Marisa Kirisame Nitori knows Marisa Kirisame. In the story of Subterranean Animism the kappa heard news about nuclear power and Nitori asked Marisa to investigate underground.

Kappa Obviously she is in a friendly relationship with the other kappa. With the other kappa they experiment and invent with new items. She is seen with the other kappa in Wild and Horned Hermit and Forbidden Scrollery. It should be noted that Kappa are not that great at group projects so it's not likely that she'd work with them.

Humans Kappa are friends with humans. Nitori in particular is too shy to be with a human when by herself.