#foul detective satori spoilers

[spear-gsun]

do you think with this new chapter of fds mizuichi x yuugi will become a thing you're the mizuichi expert so you would know

(SPOILERS FOR THE NEWEST FDS CHAPTER BELOW)

Probably will get at least a few pieces of fanart? I think i could get on board with it myself IF we see more of them together and i like where their relationship goes I just really like them as a pair so far im a huge fan of their interactions this chapter, dont really think it has to be romantic and tbh im not really invested in that part of 99% of ships i like. Maybe i should just start calling them pairings And now i will take this opportunity to talk about Mizuchi and Yuugi in this chapter

This is the first time Mizuchi has had highlights in her eyes like this, not counting her possessing other characters or the ref sheet

Mizuchi cracking a genuine smiling here is just the best thing to me. god.

She finally found someone who could get her to open up and share her past with properly, and theyre actually ON HER SIDE I dont think Mizuchi's had anyone she could truly consider a friend or even ally in a really, really long time. And i think thats awesome Of course we have no idea where this will go, if their partnership will last or if one side is gonna betray the other or something, but so far i think its really nice

[rcimu]

[ okay but what if i dont believe that's actually reimu. what of it ]

[slightly-gay-pogohammer]

yea thats not reimu

[anueutsuho]

UTSUHO REIUJI FUCKIN EPIC CONFIRMED

Seriously, you don't know how happy I am that Utsuho aligns so perfectly with all my headcanons. Utsuho is hyperviolent yet loves and wishes to protect her family. She's goofy but not innocent, she wants to be taken seriously as a threat (and I do).

Now all that's left is for her to whoop Mizuchi's butt and steal Reimu's thunder even though that's probably not gonna be what happens

[deadseptette]

satori for touhou6exe on twitter!

[crimsonbits]

She is so pathetic cringefail girlfailure blorbette or whatever. Blow her up now. I understand why some people might not find Mizuchi interesting but that literally couldn't be me. She's so bulliable (extremely important fictional character trait) but also I am so so so intrigued as to what her past is, and her general implied connection to Reimu / the Hakurei Shrine / Shrine Maiden Theory. She has risen to the top of my favorites list almost instantaneously. Probably because the idea of Reimu, one of my absolute favorite characters of all time, having to reflect on her own flaws and hypocrisy for the first time in her life through a character who serves as a warning and a dark mirror of sorts, has latched on to my brain like a parasitic worm. I doubt canon will actually go there because we must never undo the status quo or whatever, but I can dream alright.

[multi006]

mizuchi slurped on too much magic juice she's strong as hell now

[sannyo-appreciation-posts]

Sannyo only paid attention to one thing in Foul Detective Satori 33. (Spoiler free)

They are adorable little creatures

[secretlykoishi]

A rant about Foul Detective Satori/Cheating Detective Satori

Sorry, this will be long, but I have a lot of thoughts I need to get out. Spoilers abound.

I really tried to like this series. I defended it for awhile, and I thought it couldn't be as bad as SSiB, my previous least favorite Touhou official manga. As one might expect from my name and pfp, I am very attached to the Komeiji siblings. I also really love mysteries, especially if they're murder mystery themed like this one. But I found myself enjoying it less and less as it went on, and Chapter 29 finally killed the series for me. I'm so disappointed by how Satori is treated in the series named after her. You would think that being the titular character might make her at least A main character, but she's not even a secondary character. She's practically a glorified extra, which sucks because her ability that previous caused her to be hated by everyone in-universe could have been used to show her becoming loved for the exact same reason. Even worse is that the series is now fighting for who actually can be a main character between like five different people, and none of them are the titular character. Yeah, it was great seeing Flandre again, but why is she still playing such a large role in this when it's moved so far past the Scarlet Devil Mansion?

And as much as I love Reimu and Marisa, I can't deny that they are quite possible the WORST characters to lead a mystery story. They have no interest in figuring out the why, the how, the who, any of the things that make a mystery compelling. They just want to end the incident and be done with it. That works fine for games where it's not trying to build up a mysterious and tense atmosphere, but for something that's meant to be a mystery story, I can't help but wonder why they're so involved. Especially since this manga is probably the worst offender of a trend I've noticed recently of Reimu canonically losing at pretty much everything.

Characterization also started out pretty strong. We saw Reimu and Marisa being concerned about those around them instead of just themselves. Flandre was given interesting character shading that made her seem less violently unhinged and more of a standoffish devil-may-care kind of anti-hero. Orin was in the story at all (seriously, how long has she been tied to that damn tree!), and Satori was an active and key player at first. Now, Reimu and Marisa are in this pretty much just for themselves (which circles back to my previous point), Flandre has fully reverted into pure fanon characterization, actively UNDOING development she had (and don't worry, undone progress is going to be commented on more). And Satori is a glorified extra, which is insulting not only because the series is called Foul/Cheating Detective Satori, and not only because she's the only character who seemingly IS interested in the who, the what, the why, the how, and so on. And, she's the only one with a decent chance of solving things. It would be so much more interesting to see this from her perspective.

While it's not really here as much anymore, when the artist switched, I noticed a lot of very out-of-place comedy for a story that seems like it's trying to present itself seriously. I know comedy is nothing new to Touhou, but the story had established itself as a far more dramatic and serious story with the first artist, and I don't think it's unreasonable to want the same tone to carry throughout an entire story so it can be consistent.

Of course, what hasn't stopped is the awful pacing. This story has such a huge issue with padding that it genuinely makes me sad. It's gotten to the point of actively undoing progress, possibly best demonstrated in the most recent chapter (chapter 29 at the time of writing). The story drags itself out for so long that any time progress is made, you'd better not expect it to stay, because it WILL change anything before that progress means anything, and then we're back to square one. Like, for example, how we finally figured out who was possessed (Kyouko) only for the pacing to drag on so long for no good reason that it changed before that information could mean anything. Even more insulting, the person now possessed is the titular character, who by all accounts, should have been the story's heroine.

I also can't get into The Jailbreak King at all. I mentioned before that Silent Sinner in Blue was my previous least favorite official Touhou manga. There are two reasons for that, both present here. One is the aforementioned pacing and padding, and the other is the ridiculously OP antagonists. Yorihime made me enraged with how ridiculously flawless she was, as she was completely untouchable. The new villain Mizuchi is that but worse. She is pretty much entirely invulnerable and always 10 steps ahead of everyone. This could make for a good mystery premise if we got to slowly chip away at that lead, but again, the pacing and padding makes that impossible. Not to mention all the lore it messes up (like the most powerful youkai in the setting being incredibly easy to possess), or the fact that it makes no sense why Mizuchi can get away with possessing one of the sages and no one is particularly bothered by it.

I can't even be mad about the premise. It is such a cool premise. Like I said, a character who is hated in-universe by everyone for her ability to read minds because people are creeped out about it is now the only one with a chance to resolve a mystery that threatens pretty much everyone. It's a chance for redemption for her. It's her chance to prove that her ability isn't a bad thing to people that aren't herself. And if anything, is also a way to potentially prove that to her sister, who closed her third eye and shut off her emotions because of the hatred that she received from the people who hated them. Satori was literally the only one capable of figuring this out and solving this mystery in a timely manner that kept people safe. But between being demoted to extra and the pacing and padding being so awful, that I can't really see happening anymore. And now that she's become a victim in her own story, I don't think it's realistically possible for that opportunity to come again at this point. It took what could have been a really good premise, a really good mystery with a really good redemption for a character in universe was hated by everyone, potentially giving her the chance to finally be loved by people for the very reason that they hated her, and it fucking threw it in a garbage can and set that garbage can on fire.

So, yeah, all in all? I'm super disappointed by this series.

[gensokyogarden]

Okay so since Foul Detective Satori is on my mind it's time for me to answer a question relevant to one of the folks here. Who is Mizuchi Miyadeguchi? Now, of course, someday FDS may give her a backstory rendering all of this moot but as of yet we don't know that. Which means I've gotta find my own answers.

Now beneath the cut I will be discussing aspects of the plot, though mostly in a brief way, so expect spoilers.

Now the first question with Mizuchi is this. Mizuchi's title is given as the Jailbreak King. Has she always been that, which would imply she was some form of master criminal in life, or is that specifically because she was able to escape all the security of the underground and afterlife. My own personal take is that it's due to the second.

So then. With her not being the ghost of some mastermind criminal, I'm just going to throw out some facts from the story about Mizuchi and see if that paints a picture.

Mizuchi is a vengeful spirit which implies that she died in severe agony and/or had a powerful hatred when she died.

She seems to hate Youkai. Explicitly stating that inside all Youkai are the same. She even goes as far as to lump Mokou, a character who is explicitly human just with immortality from the Hourai Elixir, in as being a Youkai. All of her actions within the story are specifically caused by her hatred of Youkai and more specifically the peace for Youkai that's come to exist in Gensokyo.

Her response to discovering that youkai such as kappa, tengu, whale-house-servants, Tanuki, and Kitsune are able to interact peacefully among humans by blending in causes her to exclaim that Humans lost to Youkai? Notably it's a question. As if she's shocked or doesn't want to believe it.

Also despite this hatred towards youkai, her anger is chiefly directed at the Hakurei Shrine and specifically at Reimu. Mizuchi clearly hates Reimu YET Reimu has absolutely 0 idea who Mizuchi is or why she hates her.

Mizuchi wants credit for everything she does. When she sees that the BBN has been reporting on Reimu choosing to lockdown the shrine and not come out she gets furious that Aya didn't include that her reason is because she's afraid of Mizuchi. But here's the funny thing. She concludes, once she sees she's not being reported on, that she'll need to spread more chaos and fear to the surface.

She comes to this conclusion smack dab in the middle of the human village. The totally defenseless against her human village. But ... she doesn't do anything to them. Except outside of Mokou (who Mizuchi explicitly states she considers to be a youkai) and Marisa (who has tried to interfere several times and who Mizuchi made clear she was fighting to make a point) Mizuchi never actually harms a human being in Foul Detective Satori.

She only harms youkai without giving any threat to Gensokyo's human population. Hmmmmmm. It's almost like she wants to specifically target Youkai for something. Maybe like. Some kind of word that starts with an e. Oh well, can't think of it, lul.

She collects cursed/haunted objects and carries them with her. Incorporating them into her outfit and also, seemingly based on her battle with Mokou, developing a fighting style based on using these different relics.

Oh yeah and the Kanji for her given name translate to Pure Soul while her surname has the kanji for a shinto shrine in it.

Now also. While I'm talking about her. I have some art here by the artist Spearsgun that demonstrates one other little detail I find interesting.

While not exactly the same, particularly they wear different hair ornaments, Mizuchi and Reimu wear their hair in similar styles. Something that, I at least would imagine, is the traditional hairstyle of the Hakurei Maiden.

Okay so I think that's enough beating around the bush I have made it very clear what I am getting at.

Mizuchi is a Youkai Exterminator. That is to say, my version of Mizuchi at least, is 100% one of the prior Hakurei Maidens. Now my understand is that traditionally shrine maidens/mikos are chosen from children who show particular signs rather than being biologically related (in fact I'm pretty sure they aren't really supposed to have sex) so Mizuchi probably isn't one of Reimu's biological ancestors.

But she IS a predecessor of Reimu. One who has Totally different views on human-youkai relationships and one who, given she is a vengeful spirit, probably died in a horrific and violent way against one of the Youkai of Gensokyo's past (totally ex Rumia we all know it). One who thinks Reimu is a failure of an exterminator and who has let Gensokyo fall apart.

^^ Which funnily might make her a good ally to Kay's take on the Hakurei God. Particularly since she is literally one of her old mikos.

[michiarts]

Spoiler girl, now in ZUN style! We don’t know her canon colors, so it was a nice excuse to have some fun with that. In fact, just to make things even more fun, i can hear some suggestions. 

[asktheimperishabletrio]

Mokou doodles (Spoiler from Foul Detective Satori/ Cheating Detective Satori)

[rcimu]

[ BABYGIRL ALERT ]

[erifaults]

[Touhou Foul Detective Satori spoiler]

Mizuchi Miyadeguchi - Jailbreak King

[anueutsuho]

I can't stress this enough:

YUKARI GAPPED THE ENTIRE MYOUREN TEMPLE INTO OLD HELL WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING

YUKARI IS NOT A FRAUD

[superbloblevel]

Foul Detective Satori spoilers, but hey, Kaguya X Mokou is now somewhat canon.