Tsubakura Enraku

"Stop moving your mouth and start showing me what you mean through action!"

- Tsubakura in Earthen Miraculous Sword

Tsubakura Enraku (燕楽玄鳥 Enraku Tsubakura) is a young scientist revered as a prodigy. She's known as a highly capable, experienced, and studious scientist, usually fond of researching and creating new weapons and spell cards. She is one of the main protagonists of the Len'en Project and is a playable character in all games.

General Information
Currently living at the Senri Shrine in Mugenri, Tsubakura is a young scientist who is so talented, she even has her own research team and her own research lab, in which she spends day and night researching. Although she's called "the greatest genius in history" by a small fraction of people, she obstinately denies this title. In the past, she had made a great number of discoveries, and according to game files, Tsubakura has very strong connections to Mugenri.

Personality
Tsubakura is very straightforward and aloof with everyone. She can be condescending, as if trying to make fool of others, and often has difficulty expressing sympathy. Tsubakura is also a habitual trickster, from putting strange herbs in drinks to trolling Yabusame Houren. Her personality has lots of contradictions, and people think her words and actions have no integrity. To put it simply, she's not understood well.

She is also very knowledgeable and she always gives incoherent replies. Because of her incredibly high intelligence, she can come across as conceited, impatient and condescending at times to those not sharp enough to follow her explanations immediately. She is good friends with Yabusame somehow, much to her disbelief.

Abilities
Tsubakura specialises in technologic weapons. She controls nanomachine-like objects that resemble ink, and uses them as weapons. She also performs her experiments on herself, such as remodelling her body structure so that she can't feel the cold. Using her scientific knowledge and aptitude for technology, she has created various spell cards and weapons.
 * Using technology

It's stated that Tsubakura can control ink and uses it as a weapon (such as ink laser-rays or ink blades), but correctly speaking, it's not ink but actually nanomachines, a kind of microbe.
 * Manipulating ink

Despite her condescending attitude, she's quick to act if she hears anything interesting.
 * Looking forward to having fun

Origin
Her character may be an homage to Marisa Kirisame, the magician from Touhou. Both dress in monochrome clothes, they attack with magicannons, have complicated relationships with most of the cast and they are known for their trickster personalities.

Name
Tsubakura, her given name, is the Japanese word for swallow, the type of bird. The kanji in her name spell out a different word for swallow, and were probably chosen because they literally mean "mysterious bird". Enraku, her last name, means "partying", and it also uses a kanji for swallow.

Design
Tsubakura has short black hair and black eyes. She wears a big oversized black top hat, a black and white vest, green shorts, geta shoes and a pair of white detached sleeves which expose her armpits. Because of the color scheme she is occasionally called the "Loafing Monochrome" and has similarities to Tsurubami Senri.

Tsubakura's Appearances
Tsubakura and her friend Yabusame Houren are swept away into the land of Mugenri. She searches for a way to escape and finds out that all her allies and acquaintances are trapped in this land as well and that someone has been impersonating her during most of the game. Because of this impersonator, you don't actually play as Tsubakura during the main scenario of the game, but instead Tsurubami Senri. The real Tsubakura is playable in the Extra stage. There are various clues dropped around the game which imply Tsurubami's true identity during the main events. One example is her talismans against Yabusame, which foreshadow's Tsurubami, since Tsubakura uses technology.
 * Evanescent Existence

Since her impostor and Yabusame have defeated everyone, she crosses into Mugenri with ease. She enters the sun that casts a shadow, which is a portal to the Senri Shrine. Tsubakura barges into the shrine and finds the true mastermind, Tsurubami Senri, a priest who has been impersonating Tsubakura in order to test their powers. She wants a strong person to replace her, and a curious Tsubakura defeats her and agrees into cooperating with her. When Yabusame comes, Tsubakura encourages Tsurubami into attacking her, much to the priest's surprise. The priest was considering for Tsubakura to be her replacement, but after witnessing Yabusame's potential, she hands both of them her job as a youkai exterminator. After that, Yabusame and Tsubakura settle in Mugenri.


 * Earthen Miraculous Sword

Shortly after settling in Mugenri, the two girls live a carefree life at the shrine. The time of peace ended in the autumn, one day, mysterious thick clouds covered the land. Upset, the familiar of the shrine, Jinbei, forces one of them to go. Yabusame and Tsubakura can't acutally decide who should go, so they decide on a game of rock-paper-scissors and they both head out. Annoyed upon losing to Yabusame, she decides to finish the mission quickly, where she deals with a few youkai, angering them with her harsh words and condescension attitude. Tsubakura then finds herself in a ritual chamber, where the orochi Adagumo no Yaorochi is. She was gathering the spiritual energy of the weather to restore a replica of the Tasouken sword, but Tsubakura stops her before she completes it. However, the sword is completed anyway and attacks Tsubakura on its own.

Luckily, the clay vessel was too much for the Tasouken and it stopped attacking. After everything was cleared, Sukune Katano reveals that the clay replica is actually a sword-shaped bottle opener, much to Yaorochi's chagrin.


 * Reactivate Majestical Imperial

Yabusame and Tsubakura are bothered by the abnormal long winter in Mugenri, so they go investigate. After dealing with a few youkai in search for answers, they arrive to the Frost Cavern, where they bump into Yaorochi and Sukune, who tell the humans to go home as they are more interested in the mastermind's identity rather than the long winter. Yabusame and Tsubakura ask them to resolve the incident together, but the youkais refuse. Offended, they defeat them and continue their way. They bump into a strange road, where Taira no Fumikado is, who was trying to collect spirits for her resurrection ceremony. After defeating her, they find out that all the spirits are attracted to a certain location. Finally, they end up in the Withered Grove, where they find the chimera soul Shion, who is the avatar of the soul-eater flower Harujion and was absorbing spirits causing a long winter. Shion decides to absorb the souls they had been collecting through their adventure and they defeat her.

In the end, Yabusame and Tsubakura return to the Senri Shrine, bringing Shion with them. Shion indicated that she was attracted by the essence of the shrine and is particularly interested in Tsubakura.

While the two are flying through the Frosted Cavern, they bumped into Kuroji Shitodo and Adagumo no Saragimaru, much to Kuroji's chagrin, who hates Tsubakura with passion. Tsubakura asks them if they are going to resolve the incident, but Kuroji and Saragimaru refuse to reply. Given Kuroji's unlikeable and arbitrary personality, the humans are surprised that the scholar and the young orochi have teamed up. Upon watching the harsh treatment Saragimaru receives, Tsubakura concludes that she was forced to come and makes fun of Kuroji's inability to get along with anyone. An offended Kuroji and a confused Saragimaru fight against them. In the end, Kuroji and Saragimaru defeat them and continue on their way.

As shown on a screenshot, Tsubakura is a playable character in the upcoming game Brilliant Pagoda or Haze Castle.
 * Brilliant Pagoda or Haze Castle

Relationships
Tsubakura has been friends with Yabusame for a long time, but Yabusame being gullible and slow, Tsubakura tends to pick on her a lot. She is often annoyed or unfazed at Yabusame's airhead personality.
 * Yabusame Houren

Kuroji Shitodo and Tsubakura seem to hate each other, because of their arbitrary ways of thinking. Kuroji is secretly jealous of her talent.
 * Kuroji Shitodo

Jinbei is a familiar of the Senri Shrine while Tsurubami Senri is the priest of the shrine. Tsubakura seems to respect Jinbei a lot and calls her "Sensei", but she is also prone to Tsubakura's pranks. Despite Tsubakura's anger towards Tsurubami for impersonating her, she volunteered to replace Tsurubami as the current youkai exterminator, along with Yabusame.
 * Jinbei & Tsurubami Senri

Additional Information

 * Despite the fact that Tsurubami was impersonating Tsubakura during Evanescent Existence, there are clues dropped around the game, which imply that she is not the real Tsubakura.
 * At one point in Yabusame's scenario, when she fights against "Tsubakura", she uses talismans. This is foreshadowing, since Tsubakura uses technology.
 * Tsurubami as Tsubakura has curly hair and is seen smiling. But on the Extra Stage, when the real Tsubakura appears, she has straight hair and she is seen frowning. The real Tsubakura does not appear until the Extra Stage.
 * Tsubakura's face is shown on most of the game icons on the .exe files.
 * Her surname, Enraku includes the kanji of the Len'en series. (Houren-Enraku --> Ren-En --> Len'en)