Nazrin / Nyn

About

Nazrin is a mouse youkai character from the Touhou Project media franchise. Nyn is a character in the Cookie☆ fandom based on Touhou Project. Nyn is based on Nazrin, and takes its name from the voice actor for this version of the character. In early 2020s, Nyn achieved virality on social media as sh inspired various fan-made content, including animations, fan art and stickers.

Origin

Nazrin

In Touhou Project media franchise, Nazrin is a mouse youkai (magical being) who has the appearance of a young woman with mousy grey hair, large mouse ears and a tail. The character is the leader of mice and is an expert at finding hidden objects and treasure (information card by @winterUFOmance shown below).^[1]

Nazrin first appeared as the stage 1 boss of the 2009 bullet hell video game Undefined Fantastic Object (TOUHOU 12) of the Touhou series (shown below, left). Nazrin is a playable character in the Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost (TOUHOU 19) (shown below, right).

Nyn (NYN姐贵)

Within Touhou Project fandom, Marisa and Alice's Cookie Kiss, also known as Cookie☆, is a Japanese animated series which amassed significant following. The series feature versions of Touhou characters, however, the characters have different storylines and their personalities are exaggerated personalities of their voice actors.

In Cookie☆, Nyn姐贵 (eng. Nyn Sister) is a mouse girl who runs a confectionary shop. The character debuted in episode "Reimu and Marisa's Chocolate★Heart," which premiered on niconico on August 15th, 2015 (YouTube reupload shown below).^[2][3]

Irasshaimase!

Nyn borrows her name from Nyon, the voice actor who voices her in the animated series (information card by @winterUFOmance shown below).

Fan Labor

Both Nazrin and Nyn saw presence in memes, fan art and other Touhou fan-made content over the years.

On June 13th and 16th, niconico^[4][5] users シャンディガフ and tensei posted two drawings of Nyn, with the second drawing being a full-body recreation of Nyn welcoming customers into her shop (shown below, left and right).

On Pixiv,^[6][7] over 26,900 illustrations of Nazrin and over 1,100 illustrations of Nyn had been submitted as of March 27th, 2024 (examples shown below).

In the early 2020, Nyn achieved popularity as a character of various memes and silly videos. Memes featuring the character have been used in various mouse-related meme trends such as Cheesed to Meet You and It's on the Mouse (examples shown below).

Online, Nyn is associated with the phrase "irasshaimase!" (eng. "welcome") which she says in the original animations when greeting her customers.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References