• He/Him/She/Her

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C-Kiri
@C-Kiri

You know, even as the resident Dog Enjoyer, I can't actually tell you very much about Enoko's personality yet because the fan-translated script of 19 doesn't actually give me a lot to work with.

Sounds like a skill issue on my part. I'm gonna fix that. Gimme a minute, I'm composing a list of Dog Fact's.


C-Kiri
@C-Kiri

(For reference, everything I am pulling here is being referenced from thpatch's provided translation and I'm just kind of assuming that one knows what it's doing; if anyone can actually just read Japanese and do me one better, by all means let me know.)

  • Starting with her versus dialogue, she feels pretty classically Touhou Unserious. Zero percent of her generic versus dialogue against all present characters is especially bitter or rude or violent, I feel like; the closest thing you get to Real Violence is her saying she wants to 'make [Reimu] into a chew toy', which honestly doesn't read very literal to me?

  • I'm trying to mainly cover hyperspecific nuance so I'm not explaining her whole major plot point with Marisa, but I do want to specify that she actively says in her versus dialogue to her that 'You're the only one I can count on'. She doesn't even say that to her boss. (gay gay homosexual gay)

  • She's at least a little bit of a shitter, and actually does try pulling the 'hey you seem cool, shake my hand' thing that everyone who sees her design instantly jokes about, specifically at Sanae, presumably because honestly I think that would work on her. She also tries to engage in the national pastime of dunking on Tsukasa Kudamaki, by trying to get her to fall for the teleportation jewel trick-- again, presumably because it would honestly probably work.

  • She's self-aware about the appeal of her tails, actively claiming a victory against Ran is still a defeat 'in number and in fluffiness both', so she knows what's good. Considering she literally says this when she wins, I kind of take that to assume there's a genuine degree of respect she feels towards her? Might be reading too much into that, maybe she just gets really wounded in the pride.

  • Honestly she kind of talks to other animal girls in a way that's not quite how everyone else does, literally comparing them to their animals first and not to the actual form of Youkai they are-- kind of like a fan would? Like she asks if Seiran actually enjoys carrots or not, she calls Aunn a dog and not a komainu, she references the old thing about dogs and monkeys hating each other against Biten (and insists she wants to be friends anyway which I think is nice). And I assume that might be because she's literally just a dog that ate Zanmu's flesh and got Super Lunar-Immortal on accident, so this is her trying to relate to them on a different level than a different, better-adjusted youkai might.

  • Her mirror match dialogue implies she literally got distracted fighting an Actual Mirror-- she's one of only a couple characters with two dialogues for fighting herself, and she assumes it's 'an illusion conjured by her inner weakness', only to find out it's literally a mirror. So yeah this is a character for people like me who enjoy when the girl is also a dog.

  • She can beat Saki in a sparring match and literally request more afterward, which is kind of a lot considering I'm pretty sure Saki is generally implied to be pretty physically strong-- stupidly fast at least, because she's a Leg Horse. I'm not one to powerscale but I feel like that probably means a lot in that regard, honestly.

  • Speaking of, moving into her story mode dialogue, she talks with Saki really casually-- like okay maybe not as casually as Chiyari talks to Yuuma, but like. She flips straight from 'I'm gonna nap' to 'Oh yeah I'm totally ready to go' once Saki appears. It feels to me like she isn't taking this arrangement nearly as seriously as Saki is; reminder, Saki goes Fucking Ballistic in her story mode upon finding out that Yachie beat up her poor lil buppydog. Enoko meanwhile is kinda like 'ehh whatever let's get the last-minute training over with, I gotta get out there and run my day job'

  • Again, she greets Aunn as a dog first, just kind of assuming 'oh well if you're a young youkai and also a dog you probably like fighting to blow off steam right?' Which I find kind of endearing. There's like zero actually violent intent here, this literally reads like she just wanted to wrestle in the park.

  • She offers to fight Marisa to the death in a recreational sense after their second canonical spellcard battle (Marisa's story is chronologically first and how they meet), so between that and the Aunn fight, either she really enjoys fighting which would explain the gravitation towards Saki, or maybe she's just trying to get her money's worth out of her Hourai Elixir type situation before entrusting Marisa with the jewel so she can hopefully get her immortality removed. Probably a little of both.

  • She's a bit stuttery and stammery against Reimu in story mode, which makes me assume the earlier 'chew toy' comment is probably payback for scaring the shit out of her the first time around and not necessarily any kind of actual tangible threat. That feels right to me, personally.

  • Before Hisami, she talks to herself about how it's specifically Saki hyping Enoko up as being 'just like Cerberus, the Guard Dog of Hell', and I mean, this isn't news, this is the selling point of Enoko as a character, but I just wanted to bring it up again because I think it's delightful. Enoko's just chilling and Saki wandered in wanting to be her hype girl in the same way a small child would hoist their puppy up and say it's stronger than Godzilla or whatever.

  • I don't have much to add to it, beyond maybe the notion of 'this bitch is out here miming dull surprise and I love her for it', but just for anyone who isn't aware, just because this is important to me -- there's a moment before Enoko fights Suika as her final boss where Suika reveals that Zanmu has by this point almost certainly discarded Enoko in her own mind as a pawn she has gotten enough use out of, and the exchange is literally:

    • Enoko: "Gasp."
    • Suika: "You just... said the word 'gasp'. That's a first for me."
  • Also it's more Marisa than Enoko but I really really really just could never overstate the fact that in Enoko's ending, Marisa starts tinkering with the teleport-trapped jewel and literally gets sent to Hell an unspecified number of times, with enough frequency that she is described as 'a regular visitor' and 'even Zanmu couldn't help but be amazed'. This girl is for real out here living through every single Greek and Japanese piece of folklore about a mortal who braved hell for a loved one in chronological order for the sake of someone she didn't know two weeks ago. I find this relatable because I, too, would go to such lengths for a puppygirl GF.

  • Moving into other characters' story modes, she seems actively reluctant to fight Nazrin or Seiran since she isn't the target Saki provided her; the fight only starts because those two mistake Enoko's jewel for the one Seiran lost earlier in her own plot. So whatever degree of battle hunger she has, she can actually turn it off and be reasonable. That or she just really underestimates rodents categorically. This might be a microaggression.

  • She can recognize Yachie specifically by the tail (and later Yuuma by the horns), so she doesn't seem so involved in Animal Spirit Realm yakuza politics to actually have cared to learn faces. Also, when beaten, Enoko basically pulls the 'I'm telling mom' card with Saki, so there's definitely not no degree of friendship there? Just, she clearly feels Special about Marisa.

  • Which, just for scale-- when you beat Enoko as Yuuma, she literally says that Saki 'saved her from falling deeper into hell' and that she 'owes Saki her life'. And Marisa is still the only one she would actually trust with the cursed jewel. Also against Yuuma, she does say 'in this world, the strong survive and the weak should just die!' but she kinda says this with, like. a weird, gleeful-seeming confidence? If I can Basically Make Shit Up for a second, I honestly think this sounds like her just parroting stuff she hears all the time down in Animal Hell. Like. She's a super-immortal dog. I feel like she either isn't taking this seriously, or has not put in the time to figure out how to do so emotionally. And honestly I can't blame her.

  • She gets a little White Girl Spicy towards Hisami for her habit of being a bad guide on purpose, telling her to do her job right-- not a lot of violence or anything (not more than usual), but there is a 'Shut it!' in there. Capacity for Meanness, you just gotta literally strand her on the wrong side of hell first.

So that's my best efforts to consolidate all currently existing official Enoko content and what I personally get out of it. Overall, while I still would love to see more opportunity for her to do things that really stand out, I still like what's here a lot-- I like how she's just kinda feral because she literally doesn't want to be human-shaped, she's only got a couple of friendships but she feels really strongly about them, she's not completely Saki meathead fightslut-for-fun-and-profit but she does enjoy combat as a mode of expression, and while she's loyal and does what she's told, she doesn't actually seem to take things ultra-seriously, or possibly even have the capacity to. Also, honestly, surprisingly high frequency of characters she straight up wants to make friends with? Like really stop and consider how much Casual Cattiness gets thrown around by the average Touhou girl. Meanwhile Enoko actively wants to be friends with Marisa, Biten, Sanae (this may only be for the bit admittedly), and Suika, and that's like 4 more 'characters outside her own faction' than usual. I just think that's nice.

That's basically where I'm at here. I Just Think She's Neat. 🥔


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