What was the significance of the recurring chipped ear?
Why did Reimu's hair turn white?
Good questions. (Who's Sensei here?)
I was wondering about those too, and kind of hoped that they'd be explained in the afterword or something (next page). Now that I had the time to translate it, it kind of did explain... in the sense of Zounose going "I think the story ended up kind of confusing".
No idea about the hair, to be entirely honest. The Moriya gods haunting her?
Based on the timing of the ear showing up (with Akyuu, Aya and Reimu), I could hazard a guess that it's a sign you've been targeted. Or maybe Oblivion acts like some overly specific Stand and needs you to have a cut on your ear before it can affect you (probably not). Who knows. Zounose forgot to explain.
I was wondering about those too, and kind of hoped that they'd be explained in the afterword or something (next page). Now that I had the time to translate it, it kind of did explain... in the sense of Zounose going "I think the story ended up kind of confusing".
No idea about the hair, to be entirely honest. The Moriya gods haunting her?
Based on the timing of the ear showing up (with Akyuu, Aya and Reimu), I could hazard a guess that it's a sign you've been targeted. Or maybe Oblivion acts like some overly specific Stand and needs you to have a cut on your ear before it can affect you (probably not). Who knows. Zounose forgot to explain.
It's an ear piercing manifesting itself. Like the hair turning green, all the changes happening to the individuals were signs that they were channelling Moriya-Sama and disappearing. And all the staked rabbits, chopped off deer heads, onbashira, etc, were classic Suwa rituals. Presumably all of those got mixed up in the urban horror story that made up Moriya-Sama, who basically takes the role of the ghost who disappears people who think about her, then got sent to Gensokyo.
It's an ear piercing manifesting itself. Like the hair turning green, all the changes happening to the individuals were signs that they were channelling Moriya-Sama and disappearing. And all the staked rabbits, chopped off deer heads, onbashira, etc, were classic Suwa rituals. Presumably all of those got mixed up in the urban horror story that made up Moriya-Sama, who basically takes the role of the ghost who disappears people who think about her, then got sent to Gensokyo.
Where'd you get the idea of the ear piercing? My mind also went to the idea of the hair turning green, but Reimu just said her hair was "losing color" and her hair is in fact colored in a totally different way than Sanae's, so I assumed that they'd be more explicit if it was actually... turning green of all things, which would probably be worthy of mention.
Also, though she could obviously be wrong, Zounose went out of his way to make Sumireko say that Moriya-sama was forgotten without even becoming an urban legend. The way I read it, she only became an urban legend/horror story here at the end of the book. As a way to keep existing, probably?
EDIT: That being said, I think yours is a decent theory to tie up these things that'd otherwise be loose ends, especially as Zounose even admitted he didn't really explain everything.
Where'd you get the idea of the ear piercing? My mind also went to the idea of the hair turning green, but Reimu just said her hair was "losing color" and her hair is in fact colored in a totally different way than Sanae's, so I assumed that they'd be more explicit if it was actually... turning green of all things, which would probably be worthy of mention.
EDIT: That being said, I think yours is a decent theory to tie up these things that'd otherwise be loose ends, especially as Zounose even admitted he didn't really explain everything.
The ear piercing thing was a kneejerk assumption looking back, but I don't think it's ridiculously unfair given how common those are, especially among schoolgirls Sanae's age. And the cut on that part of the ear is a really common piercing spot. The turning green part is because she's turning into Moriya-Sama, I.E Sanae. Maybe Zounose wanted to hide the stinger midway by being vague with language, but I thought by the end it was pretty clear those were all signs that Reimu was slowly turning into her.
Also, though she could obviously be wrong, Zounose went out of his way to make Sumireko say that Moriya-sama was forgotten without even becoming an urban legend. The way I read it, she only became an urban legend/horror story here at the end of the book. As a way to keep existing, probably?
You're right, it seems she was just a topic among occult enthusiasts, then it was forgotten. Maybe it was enough to manifest the way she did?
It's another of those things left ambiguous, but given that Kanako - who would certainly know about such things - calls her "an apparition born from the traces we left behind in the present world" and "an indistinct god born from people's rumors", for the sake of discussion, I'm inclined to take her literally and assume that Chibi-Sanae is neither a youkai nor an urban legend (like those shown in ULiL) but some sort of hybrid god.
"Traces" could just mean those rumors, but also literal scraps of... godly essence or whatever. So the small amount of rumors didn't make her manifest as an urban legend, but it was enough to pull together those "traces" of Kanako and Suwako to create this monster that kept growing for 10 years until finally appearing in Gensokyo. That'd also partially explain why Chibi-Sanae was so powerful, since Gensokyo would probably be getting destroyed every other day if merely leaving behind the outside world was enough to create something like her.
I mean, this is just what I'd call an educated asspull. Probably not to be taken very seriously.
I thought about it and I want to write an explanation, or at least, what I got from it. A bit late I know, but I hope this will help whoever read this.
First, to understand, we have to go back to the departure of the Moriya Shrine to the Outside World. Prior to that, you had Kanako and Suwako who were fading a away due to being forgotten and running out of fate. For a God, this means death, and the fear of being forgotten must be the same thing as the fear to die for a human. As such, this motivated their decision to move to Gensokyo. And they took the shrine with them. Now, an entire building disappearing don't go unnoticed, as well as the case of Sanae who went missing. This brought a lot of people around the place, mostly occultists like Sumireko. Those people imagined together a reason for the disappearing, an urban Legend took place, and with it, a god was born based on the previous common memory of Suwako, Kanako, and Sanae: A god of forgetting, powered by their previous fear, and by the belief/faith of people.
Now comes the moment when that urbal legend started to lose interest. And people started to forget it. This had two effects: first, forgotten things drift away into Gensokyo. Second, and that's the dark part, this created something around that God, based on its very being and reason to exist (or rather, to NOT exist): Being forgotten. To be simple, let's call that the "oblivion effect".
After being forgotten a second time, this god, nick named "Moriya-sama" thanks to the shrine name in the outside world, drifted away into Gensokyo, and embodied itself into the closest thing to its existence: the girl who was forgotten, Sanae. Suwako and Kanako could not fight it, as it was not only a part of themselves, but also their own fears incarnated. Now, a God is bound to its nature, and the god of forgetfulness can only cause one thing around it.
And that bring us into the present when the story happens.
Now, I'll explain how that "oblivion effect" work.
About the "Oblivion effect": It looks similar to Keine's power, but it's different. Keine's power is "removal of history", here, it's not history that is removed, but the memory of the target from everyone and everything attached to it. The oblivion effect is applied on one thing: It can be a concept, a person, an object. At first, it was Kanako and Suwako: they were dying. Then, it became the Moriya Shrine after they left. When the god was brought into Gensokyo: It was applied on Sanae as it moved in her. How it works: Once the target is set, it will start to be wiped out the memory of everyone and its physical form partially destroyed. Sanae was destroyed and all that was left of Kanako was her Shimenawa, while what was left of Sanae was her presence (who became the body of the God). The shrine, direcly linked to Moriya, was turned into a ruin. From then, people will forget that the target ever existed, this is why everyone forgot Kanako, Suwako, and the Moryia Shrine, all linked to Sanae. But some couldn't: It was the case for Akyuu, who is meant to remember everything. It appers from then that the more they will try to remember it, the more dangerous it becomes: As they are recalling their memory by force, they are also linking themselves to the target victim of the oblivion effect. The moment they remember them, they are by repercussion hit by that effect. That's why when Akyuu remembered the name exactly, she vanished. And by reprecussion, everything linked to her (her mansion) was erased, including her own memory. When Reimu tried to remember her, her headache intensified, that headache probably comes from the feeling that something is not right and the brain struggle to put back its memory in place, regarding that the current events are not logic with the history (the shrine being empty, people missing yet no memory of them...). Thing is, probably everyone suffer from the same feeling, as it is shwon in the village: They are all, some near, and other far, touched by the effect or had relative (being or things) hit by it. Thus, the effect spreads, and keep deleting people and things as they try to get back their memories. That's why they never stopped enshrining animals: It was the fear of Kanako and Suwako (or their vestige presence) being forced onto them. The fear of being forgotten, it became their own fear. As for Nemuno and Aya, they were, so to say, in the eye of the cyclone: being in the remnant of the shrine was the most dangerous place. The name of Sanae was not crossed, it was like her face: Aya just kept forgetting it as soon as she read it. When they remembered, they got hit by the effect. Even tho, it tends to have been slow for Nemuno, hitting her gradually till she forgot her own name before vanishing, maybe because the effect was not that strong yet as it had it few things. But it was instant for Aya and Akyuu. And now, how Reimu countered it: She recalled Sanae, Suwako and Kanako through something that was not yet deleted by apologizing: herself. The link she made instead of trying to recall them directly allowed them to exist again, she channeled them. If she tried to remember Sanae directly, she would've disappeared too. As for Marisa, Kasen, and probably some others: They simply noticed that something was wrong before the others, but failed to understand its nature before it was too late and they got hit by the oblivion effect. You can see Reimu's headache getting stronger when she tried to remember them. Hina seems to have resisted to it just in time to give the vestige of Kanako to Reimu, before getting hit too. So she probably understood what was going on but restrained herself to remember before the very last moment. Scary thing: Reimu was already forgetting her before they met.