This is pretty much why I don't think Eirin drank the Hourai elixir too. Eirin is supposed to be super intelligent and should know this day would arrive.
This is pretty much why I don't think Eirin drank the Hourai elixir too. Eirin is supposed to be super intelligent and should know this day would arrive.
It's confirmed that she drank it, and there are more than enough proofs for that. For some unknown reason, people just decide to ignore them.
Also, you don't have to be a genius to know that everything except the Hourai immortals is going to disappear sooner or later. If anything, Eirin is one of the few that could find a way to go somewhere else and start a new life, so it makes sense for her to take the elixir.
_cf said: This is pretty much why I don't think Eirin drank the Hourai elixir too.
Netherworld Team's good ending in Imperishable Night confirms that Eirin did drink the Hourai Elixir herself. This is independent from everyone's Final A where Eirin is visibly revived using the Hoursai Elixir so, no matter which ending route you go for, Eirin is a Hourai immortal.
Color me completely unconvinced. In final A, that you guys mentioned, Eirin only comes back for one more spell after Kaguya explicitly helps with her power. If she was a hourai immortal, she'd simply refresh by herself, as Kaguya does after each last spell or Mokou after each spell (why is Mokou so fragile, anyway?).
Kaguya said: Eirin, I grant you one more chance with my power.
Why the hell would Kaguya need to do that if Eirin was a full blown immortal like her? Also, if Eirin is also a hourai immortal, which we know is some kind of crime for the lunarians, why wasn't she banished with Kaguya in the first place?
Finally, I know IN's ghost team ending too (it helps IN is the easiest main game to finish) and: 1) Eirin mentions her own power when she explains why Yuyuko's little dirty trick didn't work on her. 2) Eirin says that she can't die yet because she has stuff to do. 3) It's only when Eirin says she'll use the "princess power" that Yuyuko freaks out about her "natural enemy".
So, no. Even the ending is actually a good indicator that Eirin is not the same kind of being as Kaguya. Lunarians have indefinite life-spans, and to one as powerful as Eirin (who may also be a literal goddess on the top of being a lunarian), it's probably correct to say that she'll only die when she feels like doing so. But death is clearly a possibility for her, as seen clearly on IN's endings.
Kaguya herself referenced the elixir during Eirin's revival in Final A, with no reason to do so unless it played a part in the said revival.
私の力で作られた薬と永琳の本当の力 (With the medicine made by my power, and Eirin's true strength)
You could argue that this is the princess being metaphorical by calling her power as "medicine (that revives Eirin and lets the duel resume)," continuing the references that Eirin started when the duel begins, and I would find it hard to argue against that. I still would favor the straightforward answer in cases where the characters are not being whimsical; Kaguya comes across as a bit flustered during her monologue.
... which we know is some kind of crime for the lunarians, why wasn't she banished with Kaguya in the first place?
The plot of every entry-level Eientei doujinshi that retells the retelling of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.
Kaguya can't "revive" normal people, she isn't a healer. If Eirin wasn't like her and Mokou, she couldn't have been healed by Kaguya's power. Kaguya herself can regenerate instantly because she manipulates the instantaneous (and is the same thing she did to Eirin), and Mokou was literally made explode and "killed" every time, so she turned back to normal. As someone said on MoTK, what is ironic about Hourai immortals is that if you wound them deeply, they need a certain time to heal, but if you destroy them completely, they go back instantly in perfect state.
FINAL A: When Kaguya revives Eirin, she literally says "with the medicine made with my power (the hourai elixir) and Eirin's true strenght, etc...". NETHERWORLD ENDING: Eirin actually says that she has taken the elixir, not just prepared it. There was a mistranslation which got fixed YEARS later, when half the people were already convinced that "Eirin didn't take the elixir", and noone bothered checking. (this also explain why only among some westerners there's the idea of her not being immortal, while she is treated as immortal in any of the japanese stuff).
Eirin is a lunarian, but they are "long lived" only if they stay away from impurity. After she came on earth, she lost her "pure" status.
Also, there's the ending of CiLR saying:
Eirin could never forget the taste of that sake. The purity that was impossible to obtain on the impure Earth, and the deep flavor that came from its millenium-long slumber.
"It must have been centuries since you left your hometown. I thought you were becoming distraught with homesickness, so I had some sake from the Lunar Capital prepared for you."
Yukari grinned.
That ominous smile left a deep scar in her mind, something she would never be able to forget. To make those who cannot die question the meaning of living. To make them fear the unknown, what they cannot understand.
That was the true intention behind Yukari's Second Lunar Invasion.
Why are we even using spoilers, though? That's pretty old stuff right there.
Kaguya can't "revive" normal people, she isn't a healer. If Eirin wasn't like her and Mokou, she couldn't have been healed by Kaguya's power.
FJH said:
私の力で作られた薬と永琳の本当の力 (With the medicine made by my power, and Eirin's true strength)
Kaguya said:
Eirin, I grant you one more chance with my power.
Figuring a way to use "power over the instantaneous and the eternal" to regenerate somebody else is left as an exercise for the reader.
FINAL A: Why does a hourai immortal needs somebody else to revive them?
GHOST TEAM ENDING: That may as well be it. The translation I saw is absolutely not clear. But in any case, if the translation doesn't straight up say that Eirin drank the hourai, it still doesn't explain why she needs Kaguya's help for fighting some more, or her other answers to Yuyuko: ("I know all substances, so poison doesn't work on me, etc.")
CiLR: Lunarians are long lived on a scale that may scare even Yukari. The entire Ephemeral Moon Vignette Yukari's subplot is how she needs to be a chessmaster to get even with Eirin, probably because she knows she's screwed in any kind of direct dick-measuring contest. So she may be talking about a way to hurt somebody that she can't kill or even hope to see dying from old age. Or Eirin may actually be a hourai immortal and ZUN is just spectacularly unclear about this just on her case, while making it really impossible to miss regarding Kaguya and Mokou.
Eirin is a lunarian, but they are "long lived" only if they stay away from impurity. After she came on earth, she lost her "pure" status.
Which I agree that would be an eventual death sentence, if not by Eirin's canonical power. She can just keep enlarging her lifespan by creating Telomere extending drugs. That's it, if she's also not a goddess, which would make her lifespan depend not on health but on getting enough followers, or whatever works for Touhou.
Regarding spoilers, I only spoil endings discussions.
Final A "Hourai Elixir" was just an act for a cool spell card to surprise mortals. Like Orin's Zombie Fairies. Simple like that.
KAMISHIRASIt's pointless.We already did everything we could.Chanting sutras won't lift the curse of eternal life.In the whole cosmos, there is nothing that could kill us.Before we knew it, it was only the three of us left in this world...