Reimu Hakurei
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...soku/Reimu.png
Reimu is the protagonist, a Shinto priestess of sorts. She's got an even mix of everything, plus a few barrier and teleport moves. Should not actually be confused with a vanilla character in any way, as all the game's characters are weird and distinct.
Theme:
Maiden's Capriccio
Marisa Kirisame
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...oku/Marisa.png
Marisa is a witch, the other protagonist, a thief, and the closest thing the setting has to a normal person. She does not believe in subtlety, so expect lots of stars, lasers, explosions and ramming people while on a broomstick. Fairly aggressive.
Theme (in Hisoutensoku):
Casket of Stars
Sakuya Izayoi
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...oku/Sakuya.png
Sakuya is a maid for Remilia Scarlet, a vampire shown later on. She can stop time, throw vast numbers of knives, and no, I don't know why she still works for anyone. Sakuya is an aggressive character specializing in covering the field with bullets over outright damage, and draws cards very quickly.
Theme:
Luna Dial,
Flowering Night.
Remilia Scarlet
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...ku/Remilia.png
A five-century old vampire, who has no intention of looking the part. Remilia has some nice ranged attacks, but is best at melee, especially at closing in/getting past bullets. Once there, she can maul pretty much anyone, and is fairly good in the air too. If you prefer a slightly slower game, she also has a variety of health drain options. Remilia also teleports instead of dashing.
Theme:
Septette for the Dead Princess,
remix thereof.
Patchouli Knowledge
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Patchouli.png
Patchouli is Remilia's friend and librarian, who has no business being in a fighting game, as she's asthmatic/near-sighted/anemic. She does, however, have the best ranged attacks in the game, and some rather good spell cards. Her melee is good for its purpose - it might not deal much damage (or maybe it does, that seems to be a matter of opinion), but it certainly will get them out of your face very quickly. Patchouli is also quite slow.
Theme:
Locked Girl
Hong Meiling
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...ku/Meiling.png
Rounding out Team Vampire, we have the gate guard to Remilia's mansion, Meiling. She's technically a melee character, since she has very poor projectiles, but unless you have a good grasp of combos, you can expect to get out-meleed by a good few characters. She does, however, become quite powerful in the right hands.
Theme:
Chinese Tea (the one that got remixed for Hisoutensoku, at any rate).
Alice Margatroid
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...soku/Alice.png
Alice is a hermit magician, specializing in dolls. If you've played Continuum Shift, I'm told she's similar to Mu-12. To everyone else, she throws a fair few dolls around, using them to attack from multiple angles at once while still moving around herself. Dolls can also be set into position, then activated to attack anyone near them, acting as a trap of sorts. She isn't weak by any stretch of imagination, but she's certainly difficult to get used to. Additionally, her close range melee is terrible, though it gets better if you back off a bit.
Theme:
Doll Judgment,
Dollmaker of Bucuresti.
Shameimaru Aya
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...ensoku/Aya.png
Tabloid writer, tengu, and general nuisance, Aya is the fastest character in the game. She has good reversals, strong melee, excellent air mobility, and can keep up pressure... yes, there's a catch. Aya's bullets are both easily canceled by other bullets, and follow incredibly strange trajectories in most cases, so they're of little use outside of combos. She also has an instant air dash, making her rather good at evasion.
Theme:
Wind God Girl
Yukari Yakumo
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...oku/Yukari.png
Yukari is...
There's no real good way to put it, Yukari is the series's benign (if vaguely troll-ish), lazy eldritch horror. She has good anti-air, some very fun moves, good chip damage (read: damage that gets through even when blocked), and generally has a fairly good pressuring offense. There are also some "wait, what?" moves in there, like, say,
summoning a train. Oh, and she can teleport from one edge of the screen to the other.
Theme:
Necrofantasia,
Evening Star.
Onozuka Komachi
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...ku/Komachi.png
Yes, this game's power level is ridiculous enough that you can actually play Death herself. Well, a reaper, anyway, as well as the Charon-equivalent. Komachi can play one of two ways: Summon lots of wisps to clog up the screen, then detonate them, maybe with a bit of health drain for a control-based match, or just mauling your opponent with powerful melee moves, possibly forcing them to move into your wisps. The downside is that Komachi is rather slow.
Theme:
Riverside View
Moriya Suwako
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...oku/Suwako.png
A goddess of the mountains, rivers, curses, and frogs. No, she is not sane, the hat should tell you that much.
Suwako is the resident incomprehensible character, incredibly confusing to both player and opponent. Her crouch makes her taller, she flaps instead of flying, some moves can only be used in the air/underground/while crouching, she dashes through the ground rather than over it, and so on. Get past that, and she has some very good skills/spellcards, with a particularly nice projectile selection. Sadly, her movement and flight make her rather vulnerable.
Theme:
Native Faith
Hinanai Tenshi
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...oku/Tenshi.png
Celestial, but not actually a nice person. Generally uses a sword, rocks, earthquakes and red lasers. She has some good projectiles, decent stun on a few of those, and a good deal of utility cards. That said, her melee and some projectiles are a bit tricky, and take some getting used to. Take the Wiki's word for this, since I have no idea about Tenshi.
Theme:
Catastrophe in Bhava-Agra
Iku Nagae
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...ensoku/Iku.png
Tenshi's babysitter, of sorts. Iku is the slowest character in the game, and in spite of some nice, varied movesets, suffers from a good few defensive flaws, as well as slow flight, easily destroyed bullets, and so on. She is, on the flipside, a powerhouse and capable of fighting in any weather, but when all's said and done, she's a character of extremes. The trick is in building a deck that makes up for her weaknesses.
Also, she fires lightning and can turn her sleeve into a giant drill.
Theme:
Crimson in the Black Sea.
Reisen Udongein Inaba
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...oku/Reisen.png
No, seriously, just call her Reisen. For your sanity's sake.
Reisen has a good few lasers, bullets and other such projectiles, but really, that's not the point. She's a character of utility and mindgames. Ever wanted to disappear, clone yourself briefly three times, make decoys, briefly phase out of existence to dash through an opponent, poison your opponent, or destroy cards in their hand?
Reisen can do that. All of it. She also has a nice powerup card, but requires fancy combos to deal big damage, relies fairly heavily on skillcards, runs slowly, has rather linear bullets, and has slightly short melee range. Still a fun character.
Theme:
Invisible Full Moon
Kochiya Sanae
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...soku/Sanae.png
A priestess to both Suwako and another goddess, who only appears in Sanae's moves, as well as being a goddess herself. Sanae is an interesting character, capable of moving projectiles around by means of wind (BlazBlue players, think Rachel but better), as well as summoning her two goddesses. She can set traps and shields, fire powerful projectiles, and fly around almost as well as Aya. The catch is that she has, bar none, the worst melee in the game. If you want to win, you'll have to be patient and wait for your opponent to make mistakes.
Theme:
Faith is for the Transient People.
Yuyuko Saigyouji
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...oku/Yuyuko.png
Yuyuko is a ghost. The queen of the Netherworld, in fact. She has powerful, hard-hitting moves, both at range and close up. However, she's a little on the slow side, and lacks any defensive moves, as well as having some rather awful air attacks. That said, she's still one of the game's most powerful characters.
Theme:
Border of Life (do yourself a favour and listen to the
original version).
Youmu Konpaku
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...soku/Youmu.png
Youmu is Yuyuko's gardener. That's why she carries two huge swords, you see. For gardening. She's also a half-ghost, don't ask me how that works.
She has very, very little in the way of projectiles, but can control a semi-independent wisp (her ghost half). She's primarily a melee character, with incredible speed and a small hitbox, along with very high damage. She also has a move that reflects projectiles quite handily, but suffers for her lack of good projectiles, and needing to approach the opponent to get anything done. She also has terrible flight.
Theme:
Till When (and
original)
Cirno
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...soku/Cirno.png
An ice fairy with delusions of grandeur (and intelligence). Cirno has a tiny hitbox, and can float. She's mobile, evasive, and well-suited for combos, as well as setting up attacks against knocked down characters, ensuring that they get hit when waking up. The catch is that her melee is either fast with pitiful range, or long-ranged with a fair bit of charging time. She's not much good at dealing large damage, has impossibly fragile bullets, and her projectiles, for better or worse, have rather strange trajectories (generally good, unlike Aya).
Theme:
Original and
remix.
Suika Ibuki
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...soku/Suika.png
Suika is an oni. Specifically, one which has, as you can see here, not been sober in the past few centuries. She's quite fast, hits incredibly hard in melee or at range, and has very fast/dense bullets. She's agile in flight, and can dash backwards just as well as forward. She also has some rather good spell cards. The catch is that she can only deal good damage at certain ranges, and her moves tend to leave her open for quite a while, should you miss.
Theme:
Broken Moon,
Onigashima in Fairyland.
Ursuho Reiuji
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...oku/Utsuho.png
Utsuho is a crow youkai (read: monster) who gained power over nuclear fusion after eating a sun god. Yes, that actually happened.
Utsuho has fairly poor air and ground movement. The good news? Ridiculously powerful/near-unbreakable projectiles, hits like a freight train in melee, and thanks to her ranged attacks, can basically carry the battle on her own terms. The catch is that, once again, she's slow, a bit unwieldy, and you need to know when to go on the defensive. To make up for this, she has some truly ridiculous spell cards to her name. Utsuho is probably the closest the game has to a slow powerhouse character.
Theme:
Nuclear Fusion.
Giant Catfish
http://images.wikia.com/touhou/image...catfish_05.PNG
He's not playable, sorry.