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Main Profile
Zanmu Nippaku (日白 残無 Nippaku Zanmu) is a character who debuts in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost.
General Information
Zanmu Nippaku was formerly a human monk during the Sengoku Jidai period. Zanmu discarded her humanity by absorbing beast-youkai spirits. Sensing her imminent fall to Hell, Zanmu ventured there prematurely. There she transformed into an oni and ruled Hell using her intelligence and charisma. She proposed the relocation of Hell from Former Hell, creating a great amount of resentment from those that stayed behind. Currently she resides in Hell. She is said to command great admiration and respect from the dwellers of Hell.
During the events of Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost, she uses her ability and influence to manipulate the other protagonists to achieve her end goal.
Personality
Zanmu is described as the perfect oni according to Suika. She has both the strength and intelligence that an oni should be portraying. That said she is also seen to have a sense of grace, seeking a (relatively) peaceful resolution to the beast wars and to protect Gensokyo from destruction. In this sense, she shares much in common with Reimu, feeling a sense of communality.
Zanmu is not easily upset. She frequently forgives her bumbling assistant, Hisami. Although, it might be to not encourage Hisami's masochism.
According to Saki, Zanmu is a popular figure in Hell. So much so that Zanmu was able to sway the oni to calm down and let her handle the beast spirits situation.
Abilities
- Capable of manipulating nothingness
Zanmu has the ability to manipulate nothingness. This causes the victim to lose their desires and motivations. It can be subtle, such as distracting the victim, or outright causing them to lose their will to fight or will to continue investigating. In Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost, she uses her ability to distract Marisa and Sanae from the true cause of the incident. Then, she uses her ability to cause the beast spirits leaders to lose their will to fight. Finally, she uses her ability to convince Reimu to stop her investigation.
While Zanmu is able to manipulate nothingness of her victims, some appear to be less affected than others. Reimu's instincts continued to point to Zanmu as the true culprit and Reimu was not able to be manipulated to accept her plans for "resolving the incident". Similarly, she was unable to stop Mamizou from continuing her investigating into the incident. Also, due to Hisami's unpredictable masochism tendencies, Zanmu was not able to control Hisami the way she wanted.