#bunbunmaru newspaper

[trustworthyreporter]

Issue 23

Special thanks to: @multimuseticles for hosting and running this swimsuit thing.

Blogs mentioned in the articles:

Flandre Defeats Yuuma:

@alchemistdetective (Flandre)

@gensokyogarden (Yuuma)

Kagome's Fairy Repellent @thehoefam

//I may or may not end up doing a follow up proper issue to this. Will depend on how much time I have this week. I'd certainly like to reawaken this blog. Feel kind of bad about this one being a rush job, the image alignments aren't perfect, and I didn't have time to properly transparency the pictures to get that newsprint effect. But I didn't want to let perfection be the enemy of completion, so went with what I could do.

[solrin]

Status cards Bunbunmaru/Kakashi Spirit News

from Touhou: Lost Branch of Legend

[occasionaltouhou]

the bunbunmaru isn't going anymore (should've put that in your terms and conditions, aya!) but at least there's always the Weekly Cat News

[thedrag0nking]

BUNBUNMARU NEWSPAPER!

SECOND DOOMSDAY?!

THE END?!

When things couldn't get worse in the war, all of gensokyo are all now in a state of emergency as the monsters that destroyed all of the outside world and reek havoc into the carnival massacre incident are now spreading into gensokyo like a disease! All gensokyos inhabitants must evacuate into Mugenri those who are left in gensokyo must all evacuate into enclave zones made by the maquis corporation and new moon! From one disaster to another billions of villagers and many of the residents were all massacred by these monsters from the outside world! Some feared that the dragon god has set upon these horrors to punish gensokyo for the usage of technology. Others speculate these creatures are failed experiments of the lunarians as a desperate failsafe!

Nobody knows what they are or why they came here, what we do know is this is could be the second end of the world scenario since the lunar insanity crisis if not even the maquis corporation can defeat them where is Koishi or Koaru when we need them?!

[tennco]

WRONG. THE GENSOKYO DOME IS REAL. DON'T BELIEVE THEIR LIES.

(this post was fact checked by true Domeheads)

(sponsored by Bunbunmaru Newspaper)

[freshfreshsalad]

Bunbunmaru Newspaper article: "Huge Reisen today" (That's the entire article)

[kusochek-cat]

If we're allowed to multi-request... The Three Fairies of Light hatching a scheme

Finally finished! I hope I understood you

They changed Bunbunmaru newspaper

[neoaya]

BUNBUNMARU NEWS ACTUALLY BEING READ

AND BY REMILIA SCARLET NO LESS

You can no longer joke about Aya's newspaper being worthless rags that no one cares to read I win

[eleemosynecdoche]

Iizunamaru Megumu contemplates her desk. The open expanse of it. Neatly sorted. In and out trays thoroughly browbeaten. Two subordinates sit on the other side. They look at her without looking at her. She whistles tunelessly. "What the fuck is a Gundam?" she asks.

The one on the left says, "I think it's an Outside thing."

"An Outside human thing," the one on the right adds.

"That goes without saying," the one on the left says. "How many tengu do you think are left out there? How many kappa?"

"What would you know? You only go out on those trashy hunting expeditions," the one on the right says.

"If you two even think about touching each other, let alone sucking face," Megumu cuts in, "You will both go with me to karaoke in the morning, and you will both sing until you puke." She looks them in the eyes, first left, then right. "Now. Who would know things about the outside?"

They remain silent. Hands folded. Sneaking glances at each other. Megumu grinds her teeth. "Shameimaru. She's useless. Bottom of the barrel. Surely she knows something about outsider things." They nod, cautiously.

"Well, go get her!" Iizunamaru's voice rises only a hair in volume. The two stare at her, and she realizes the question that must be bubbling up in their mind. "You won't need a wolf, just go tell her to come see me. She's docile. Compliant. Towards me."

They run off, indecently fast. Her other direct reports are quietly pretending to work, but keep glancing at her. She ignores them, takes an obsolete memo and a pair of scissors from a drawer. Snip. Snip.

By the time Shameimaru Aya arrives, flanked by the tengu twosome, Megumu has produced a little flurry of makeshift monochrome confetti, and something that looks vaguely like a lace doily. Megumu beckons for Shameimaru to take a seat.

She wastes no time. "Gundam. What is it?"

Shameimaru stares at her like she was an otter in disguise. "How should I know?"

"You sell your newspaper to the humans," Megumu says. "You sell it to that halfyoukai who collects things from the Outside. Haven't you learned from them?" She sighs. "Didn't you try to get close to the Moriya shrine maiden, too? She's an outsider as well."

"That doesn't mean I ask them about every single detail of outside life! They say "Gundam", they say "Royal Host", they say "gachapon", the, uh, 'esper' who dreams her way in talks about "gacha" without the "pon"... do I ask for more details? Only if it's relevant to the article!" Shameimaru's chest is puffed up in a kind of pride.

Megumu looks at her. It's precisely the right thing to say, but she's read Bunbunmaru for years. She's seen Aya interviewing. She looks heavenward. She looks to Hell. No answers manifest through the ceiling, no guidance rises from the floor. "Who might know about Gundam?"

Shameimaru shrugs. "Himekaidou might. She looks like a younger woman to humans, outsider girls or the Moriya shrine maiden might have shared more freely with her." She smiles beatifically.

Megumu considers what she's heard about Himekaidou Hatate and Shameimaru Aya and their relationship. "Get Himekaidou," she tells her underlings. "You stay here," she tells Shameimaru, who's beginning to edge towards the door with them.

"I wasn't going anywhere," Aya says, taking a seat and adjusting her tokin primly.

Himekaidou arrives soon after, looking disagreeably pouty and youthful and vibrant to Megumu's eyes. She snaps, before Himekaidou can offer pleasantries. "Gundam. Explain it."

Hatate squawks. Caws. Finally gets out, "It's a human anime thing, I only know about it because the Moriya shrine maiden asked if I was a 'Newtype' when she read the Kakashi Spirit News for the first time, and then she explained Newtypes for several hours to me... funnels were involved."

Megumu is taking notes. "So it's a human anime. That would explain the DVDs. But she said-"

"Who said?" Aya asks, cheerfully. "Why not get the details from her?"

"Nobody said. Nothing was asked. Do not share your thoughts on this subject with me any further," Megumu snaps. Aya continues to smile, but Megumu continues, "She said something about... models. What would those be?"

Hatate shrugs. "I have no idea."

"You know who might know, though?" Aya says, casually.

Every pair of eyes locks onto her.

"Inubashiri. The chief watchdog. She's a shogi fanatic, she edits the shogi problems column in Bunbunmaru." Aya yawns politely. "Not that I ever read it. But she's into nerd shit."

"Neither of you go anywhere," Megumu orders, picking up the phone and dialing the extension for the daitengu in charge of the wolves.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Aya says.

"Misery loves company, huh?" Hatate mutters under her breath.

A few calls, a few minutes, a dismissal of her two immediate subordinates, whose smiles are moving from "forced" to "nonexistent", (they run off indecently fast, and Megumu thinks to herself that it's depressing how sex-crazed the crows are these days) and Inubashiri Momiji is standing in front of the desk, Hatate having graciously moved against the opposite wall from Aya.

"Gundam? Models? Could you write that first one out, please?" Inubashiri looked tired at first, but she's brightening up rapidly.

"No," Megumu says.

"Well," Momiji says, "About, ohhh, thirty years ago, blink of an eye really, we started seeing these things in the usual spots for Outside objects to come through. Cardboard boxes with lots of plastic pieces inside-"

She has to stop and explain what plastic is to Megumu. She then picks it up. "Now, we've been seeing things ike it since around the time the weird shogi-"

"The horny shogi?" Aya asks. "Do the tiles have naked ladies on them?"

"-the weird shogi in the cardboard boxes started coming through. But these were different. You didn't need to glue them together, they just snapped in place, and you could pose them like a ball-joint doll, and I actually submitted four separate proposals to Manufacturing on how we could learn from the engineering." She pauses for breath. "With drawings," she adds.

"But what are these... models... of?" Megumu is hanging onto every word. She can feel the smirks on Himekaidou and Shameimaru's faces. No matter. She's close. She can feel it. She can see those ears twitching, feel her hands around that tail again.

Inubashiri shrugs. "Some kinda idol. They come with weird weapons, maybe they're new dharma protectors the humans made up."

Megumu stands up. "You three," she says, "Are now members of the Gundam Knowledge and Acquisition Committee. Your first project- there is a subordinate component of this Gundam thing called 'Gundam XX'. We must develop our knowledge of Gundam XX, and acquire a..." she struggles with the unfamiliar words.

"Take your time," Inubashiri says, still somehow smiling.

"A complete boxset," Megumu gets out. "This will only be the first project. There will be others as we develop our knowledge of Gundam and eventually deploy tengu mastery over it as well. You will work on this project in addition to your normal responsibilities. Inubashiri, I will secure your temporary seconding to my unit for this project, so don't think your daitengu will protect you."

Now all three look properly stricken. "Meeting dismissed," Megumu says, triumphantly. "Let's set up a progress report for a week from today, shall we?"

The three of them get up and leave, Megumu holding back a smile at the way their wings and tail droop. Then one of them says, stage-whispering, "If you think what's on TV sucks, you have the power to change that," and they're gone, even as her face turns purple.

"I hate Gundam," Megumu says. "Hate it."

[kozachenko]

Ok finally finished Lotus Eaters today (it surprisingly didn't take me that long to finish) and I wanted to express some of my thoughts on it, so spoilers for the manga below (More specifically chapters 36, 37, and 38).

The art was really good and the page composition and layout from the panels was really interesting. The character writing is also really good, with each of the characters featured actually feeling like they have their own distinct voices. I feel like this aspect of character writing can go under appreciated at times, it's the type of thing that you only notice when it's gone or not there at all.

The more episodic nature of the manga also works well for it, however, one thing that annoyed me a little bit was when we would get the setup for a cool fight between two characters and then it is immediately cut short before it happens. For example, Reimu's confrontation with Yuugi in Chapter 36. The build up to it is perfect, and then is immediately cut short by Miyoi coming out and telling them both to stop. It was kind of a let down for me, and while I understand that it had to be like that for the sake of story, it was a little disappointing.

The individual stories of the arcs in the manga ranged from "ok" to "Great" for me, as some arcs were really well written and had a lot of great character moments in there. My personal favourite arc in the manga had to be the Red Snow arc, where we get a glimpse into the true nature of Tengu society and Megumu as a character. While Aya does exacerbate the truth in her articles, she still cares about her readers and wants to unveil the truth. This trait of hers is shown best during the Red Snow arc, where she writes in her newspaper that while the red snow is a weird occurrence, it still can be a natural phenomenon. While yes, she does dramatize some things, it's all mainly to get the reader hooked, with the actual article contents, she genuinely seems like she wants to bring truth to the human village while also not wanting to cause a panic. She could have easily said, "THERE'S BLOOD IN THE SNOW AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" but she didn't. Then, after some undercover investigations during the commemorative market at the Hakurei Shrine, Aya decides to actually find out if the tengu were involved in the red snow phenomenon. This is when she overhears Megumu talking to Chimata about how she isn't concerned over whether or not someone discovers her. If the knowledge that the red snow was a natural occurence helped to relieve a bit of the villager's anxieties, the commemorative market at the Hakurei shrine helped to completley get rid of them, to the point where if someone revealed that this was all the work of the Tengu, it would do more harm than good, as Megumu states in these panels:

I also love the idea that Megumu probably knows Aya is listening to their conversation and is saying all of this to discourage her from telling the human villagers a truth.

I think my favourite part in all of this is how the chapter ends. Aya doesn't even show up to say her two cents at Geidontei. Instead, we just have Miyoi reading out the Bunbunmaru newspaper to a customer and unknowingly proving Megumu's point. The people of Gensokyo do have peace of mind, but they're still being lied to. I really love how we don't see Aya on the last two pages of the chapter, because if anything, the newspaper is representative of Aya in this scene. Heck, even the writing style of Aya's newspaper is a lot less enthusiastic and excited than usual. All we needed of Aya's reaction was the defeated slump to the ground and her notebook's pages flapping empty in the wind.

I think what also helps this shot is how imposing Megumu's laughter is. The next time we do see Aya in this manga (chapters 43-44), she's very clearly been mentally effected by this, which is perfect.

Overall, I feel like Lotus Eaters excels when it comes to short stories that show the little intricacies of what life is like in Gensokyo and expanding on the character's it involves. I do wish that we could see some of the other parts of Gensokyo's world through the mangas, and I wish that more of the newer characters could have shown up and been involved more in the manga, though I feel like we are getting that with some characters from Unconnected Marketeers, so hey, we might get to see Touhou 17 and 19 characters soon (although I do think we should get a manga that takes place in Hell, please give us that political drama in Hell Zun, there's so much potential for that). As someone who doesn't usually enjoy slice of life stuff, I think this manga does it really well.

Also, I wanted to read Lotus Eaters because I wanted to see Zun's strengths in his writing before I read Cheating Detective Satori which I heard is.... pretty bad. From an outsider perspective, the manga's writing is like a word problem with multiple parts that someone mess ed up in part a, and then by part e you have a house that's 0.399999 m wide and someone who's height is -0.16789789 cm. Don't know how many people would understand that analogy but I have no other way of explaining my thoughts on it before I read it.

So after this, should I start on CDS and then compare that and Lotus Eaters since they're the two most recent Touhou mangas? Or is there anything else I should read to get a better sense of Zun's strengths and weaknesses in writing and then tackle CDS? Also is it Cheating Detective Satori or Foul Detective Satori, I've heard it referred to with both names so are the two interchangeable or is this a weird mandela effect type of thing?

So yeah, I would recommend reading Lotus Eaters if you haven't already, iz gud

Now enjoy this goofy lookin Mamizou because she (and Aya for that matter) have instantly moved up to some of my top 10 favourite Touhou characters and Mamizou's expressions in this manga are an absolute gold mine.

[vividmaru]

Aya read over a selection of bootleg Bunbunmaru Newspaper issues that were printed years ago.

"... Words... aren't coming out."

[gensokyogarden]

Alright I'm going to ramble like a madman for a second. This deals with Touhou 19 but it's not any actual spoilers so I'm not going to put this beneath a readmore.

Okay so the character of Chiyari is a Tenkajin youkai ... well supposedly. Unlike every other Youkai in Touhou I can't find anything on what a Tenkajin is in any of my books nor in places like youkai.com. In fact the only results for Tenkajin I can find are literally her wiki entry. Also her profile mentions that legend has it her true form is a Mujina (badger) so maybe that's actually what she is and she just made up the Tenkajin thing. Alternatively, maybe Tenkajins are real but there's just presently no existing English resources on them. I dunno. But that's not really what this is about.

What this is about is that Chiyari repeatedly gets mistaken for a Chupacabra. Another blood sucking monster. Chiyari quite vehemently denies it through the different story modes but everyone identifies her as one. Including the quite worldly Mamizou, who is a quite recent arrival in Gensokyo from the outside world and generally seems to know a lot about youkai ongoings. Yet Mamizou looks at Chiyari and goes "oh hey a Chupacabra."

This seems to imply that a Chupacabra type youkai (youkai gets applied to things like Dullahan so I assume in Touhou all monsters are youkai regardless of culture) would be a monster girl. After all, they all see a monster girl and go "This is a Chupacabra" it only stands to reason then that a Chupacabra is a monster girl, right? So we can say from this that Chupacabra, like most Touhou monsters, are moster girls or have a monster girl form.

...

...

But wait. There's something weird about that isn't there?

BECAUSE THIS EXISTS.

TUPAI

In the Forbidden Scrollery Manga we learn that Remilia Scarlet owns the above Chupacabra as her pet. She's had it for a while now and thinks it's adorable. This is her beloved pet. Her beloved pet Chupacabra.

But if Chiyari could be mistaken for a Chupacabra then that means that Chupacabra are monster girls. Which means THIS IS A PERSON!

"But this looks nothing like a monster girl" I hear you say.

Ah but we outright see Toutetsu Yuuma transform from a cute monster girl to an actual monstrous Taotie in Touhou 17.5. So it stands to reason youkai, or at least some of them, can go from monster girl to monster. Which means Tupai appearing in a monstrous form in Forbidden Scrollery does not prevent them from being a monster girl (or guy, I believe these use male pronouns for Tupai in the manga).

Could Tupai be some weird infiltrator just playing the role of a pet? Join us next time at the Bunbunmaru newspaper as we work to uncover the truth.

[anueutsuhos-touhou-profiles]

Kosuzu Motoori:

Kosuzu Motoori is the girl who runs Suzunan, a bookstore on the outskirts of the Human Village. It contains all kinds of books in every language, all abandoned by the outside world or brought in by humans unfortunate enough to be gapped in.

More interestingly, it contains far too many Youma books: books written by youkai and/or contain youkai sealed within. Cursed tomes, basically. These books can't be read by normal humans, but Kosuzu is special. She has the superpower (how she got it is unknown) to read anything in any language. She doesn't actually know every language, however, so she can't write in them.

Unfortunately, many youkai, most notably Mamizou Futatsuiwa, have taken an interest in Kosuzu because of this. Thankfully, so have Reimu and Marisa, who intend to keep an eye on her for as long as they need to in order to prevent her from misusing the Youma books or allowing them to fall into the wrong hands.

Kosuzu Motoori is the main character of the manga Forbidden Scrollery, which lasted from 2012 to 2017. Even though this girl only appears in the manga, ZUN still composed a theme song for her, called The Bibliophile with the Deciphering Eye: https://youtu.be/i0Wt3lN7-mk

Kosuzu is a naive and curious girl, who charges headfirst into danger. Yet she's also easily scared and can't handle the danger of youkai. She's very interested in the youma books she has, to the extent of completely losing interest in her normal books. She starts the series as ignorant of the true nature of Gensokyo as any human, but slowly finds out, through the youkai who visit her, the true level of interdependence between humans and youkai in Gensokyo. Humans should be scared of youkai since youkai do eat people, but youkai need that fear to continue existing, and thus have actually saved the Human Village from natural disasters and plagues.

Kosuzu's age is unknown, but she's only slightly younger than Hieda no Akyuu, who is 27, so early-mid 20s is the best bet. She lives with her parents, but we never see them onscreen.

Among the youma books in Kosuzu's possession, she has a book containing the smoke and fire youkai Enera, a book which sealed a demonic serpent, a set of cursed love letters, and, most importantly: the  Night Parade of 100 Demons Picture Scroll. This is a scroll containing a massive number of tsukumogami of all shapes and sizes, as well as a demon resembling a giant black cattle skeleton. Youkai night parades are a common concept in Japanese folklore, by the way. This is very important later. Since youkai started taking an interest in her, Aya Shameimaru the tengu convinced her to start selling her Bunbunmaru newspaper.

Oh and she has the Japanese edition of the Necronomicon.

Unlike Kasen, who cynically views Reimu as first and foremost a lazy good-for-nothing to the point of forgetting all the good she does for Gensokyo, Kosuzu views Reimu idealistically as a brave savior of Gensokyo's humans from the evil youkai. This goes to the extent that part of the reason she acts so careless with her youma books is that she expects Reimu or Marisa to solve the problem easily should it arise. She learns later on that the truth is far more complicated, but she ends the manga admiring Reimu as ever.

Her relationship with Mamizou is an interesting one. While Mamizou initially just wanted to get the Night Parade Picture Scroll out of her, and to manipulate her into distributing pro-tanuki propaganda through her bookstore, Mamizou's mature attitude and general confidence caused Kosuzu to admire her, saying she'd like to be just like Mamizou when she grew older. When Kosuzu finally found out she was a tanuki the whole time, she was mentally shattered. She started becoming paranoid about just how deep youkai influence in Gensokyo went. This, combined with what she knew about youkai preventing natural disasters, led her to begin wondering if youkai were bad or good.

She asked Akyuu, Reimu, and Marisa, and they all gave very bad answers that basically amounted to "youkai aren't bad, but you need to lie to yourself and say they are".

Eventually, she found out about how many youkai interacted with Reimu and Marisa on a regular basis, and started panicking. She didn't know what to do or who to trust.

At this point, Yukari Yakumo appeared to her, and appeared to offer a solution. This resulted, however, in Kosuzu becoming possessed by the Night Parade Picture Scroll and going on a rampage, attacking Marisa.

Reimu and Mamizou reluctantly joined forces to defeat Kosuzu as she was. Reimu figured out Yukari was behind it and went to go face her, while Mamizou took on Kosuzu. Mamizou did take care to spare Kosuzu's life, but only because Reimu demanded she do so. She used her tanuki armies to deal with the little tsukumogami, and separate Kosuzu from the scroll, leaving only the cattle skeleton demon to deal with.

Mamizou remembered that the Night Parade Picture Scroll specifically depicted a large gang of youkai partying all night long, and so stopped the monster of the scroll by turning into the sun! Of course, she did take the Night Parade scroll for her own ends. She's not really a good person, after all.

Eventually, Kosuzu and her friend Akyuu were invited to a big party at the Hakurei Shrine, where Mamizou, Aya, and a whole bunch of other past Touhou characters were. Reimu and Marisa decided to stop lying to her and invite her into the "inner circle" of people who know how Gensokyo really works.

Reimu herself had to be reminded of it from Yukari, who lectured her without struggle when Reimu faced her. Reimu's job is not to commit youkai genocide. It turns out Yukari's solution for Kosuzu's conflict was to turn Kosuzu into a youkai, cause her to cause an incident, Reimu was supposed to defeat her in non-lethal spellcard duel, and then they'd hang out at the shrine together like so many other youkai Reimu faced off against in the past. While it didn't quite work as Yukari expected, since Kosuzu was freed from the possession, it still worked out in the end.

Now Kosuzu lends books to both humans and youkai, though she personally evaluates people to see if they deserve youma books. She also dreams of one day being able to fight in spellcards against or with Reimu some day.

Kosuzu is loosely based on the real life Edo period scholar Norinaga Motoori. The book store Suzunan is based on Suzunoya, his personal study room.

Oh, and Kosuzu's name means "little bell". Ko being "little". You can see the bells in her hair. They jingle whenever she walks and it's adorable.

[sannyo-appreciation-posts]

alternate bunbunmaru newspaper for easier english writing? (Is having a fantasy Japanese newspaper title in the upper right valid or is this silly?)

edit 1

edit 2

[imperishable-prayers]

“Skreee!! Chirrby heard about shipping?! Chirrby is cupid’s thinker!!” What does that mean

“Chirrby has every Bunbunmaru Newspaper article thus far! Makes most suitable to be shipped with Miss Aya!”

[livelyshrine]

"Shock, horror strikes as tales of a previously unknown nautical Youkai have all of Gensokyo in its' briny grasp! One Minamitsu Murasa told tales of what was described as a particularly foul beast, known as a 'Dolphin'. Such a creature has yet to be discovered in Gensokyo, but it appears to be a particularly dangerous foe. Readers are cautioned to be wary should they be planning any fishing trips, or plan to visit your local bathhouses. This reporter will be keeping an ear to the wind for any developments or sightings of this creature. Thank you for reading this issue of Bunbunmaru Newspaper.

The diligent and righteous Shameimaru Aya is ever at your service."