#this is their right. being a touhou fan teaches you so much.

[uncheckedtomfoolery]

Raiko for the touhouasks?

I’m not totally sure I have a lot to share here. Having said that… 

A lot of things about Raiko that are obvious at the surface level, I agree with. Even I can stop being a contrarian sometimes! The whole casual and somewhat reckless pseudo-rockstar persona, basking in adoration readily supplied by her fans (and basically all tsukumogami as far as I can tell), that sort of thing? Yeah, that’s about right. It’s not that she lacks depth, but she’s a pretty heart-on-her-sleeve type, so I think a lot of who she is just kind of shows naturally. Part of me kind of wants to defer to others who are more closely in tune with the character in any case, as I’m no sort of expert. 

So instead, I’m going to take a detour into what I can hopefully add to the mix.

For one, I think Raiko represents a particular point in tsukumogami attitudes, and she’s growing it into a movement. In folklore, you get two kinds of tsukumogami, more or less: Angry or sad, usually the former. Either they’re angry, bitter and vengeful over their abandonment or (more common in Touhou possibly, but much rarer in folklore) they just get depressed and their first thought is ‘oh no, what did I do wrong?’ They try very hard to be useful again.

Raiko represents a point in between. She’s not big on revenge or whatever. She does, however, believe that they don’t owe anything to anyone, and that the freedom she has is one that’s owed to all tsukumogami. I think that’s probably going to have some interesting but mutually frustrating clashes with the ones that don’t actually want this, eventually (Kogasa, for instance, probably). She’s very much the spearhead of a new school of thought in Gensokyo, though, and I think that’s easily lost.

I also don’t completely buy the position she puts herself in with regards to other tsukumogami. I mean, counting in real-time from DDC’s release (a sketchy method, admittedly), she’s… four and a half years old? I’ve seen her painted as either a sort of older sister figure to everyone around her or as somehow the token world-wise tsukumogami, and I’m not actually sure I buy that. I think she does, and probably everyone around her, but it’s strictly an image. 

As a side note, I like to think her musical skill is completely non-transferrable. She knows how to make music with a drum set or a taiko because she is one. She can’t play other instruments (unsurprising), I’ve not decided if she can sing or not, and she certainly can’t teach you anything, in much the same way that you can’t easily teach someone to blink. It just happens, you know?

Anyway, there you have it. My disjointed rambly thoughts on Raiko, which is to say, “you already know the drill, but here’s some extra”.

[clarste]

Hey, what are your top three favorite and least favorite characters in Touhou? I find your taste in interpretations quite interesting, so I'm sure your choices of characters would be as well.

I think I’ve already given my top 5 in a previous Ask, but since it changes day to day I don’t mind answering it again. I’ll put it behind a Read More tag for space reasons.

#1 Sagume

Something about her just resonated with me from right after LoLK was released. While of course she was perfectly willing to glass Gensokyo, she clearly didn’t want to, which I think counts for something. She’s a smart lady being forced to make tough decisions, but despite all that, she was willing to gamble everything on people she’d never met. Although I’d imagine no small part of that was due to it being Eirin’s plan. She’s a strategist who sees the big picture, but isn’t so aloof as to overlook the personal.

Her power is also interesting. It’s a double edged sword that lets her do almost anything (maybe) but only if she’s incredibly careful about her speech at all times. Although it seems to be more versatile than simply reversing what she says: her power was also instrumental in making it so urban legends come true in Gensokyo. To put it at its most broad, she has the power to manipulate words and the truth. I’ve never been the hugest fan of power level arguments, but it does give her a lot of interesting flexibility in a way similar to older characters like Yukari.

She also uses little magical drones to fight, which I think would be cool to see in AoCF. Please be playable in AoCF. The Occult Balls are still around, so we know you’re still important. What did you talk about with Eirin?!

#2 Seiga

Okay, so maybe I just like villains. Anyway, if other characters interest me, she’s the one I fell in love with, for better or worse. It’s not a rational thing, I just find myself drawn to her. I’d imagine this is less interesting for the readers though.

Not that she’d ever love anyone back. I don’t think she’s capable of that. She’s not necessarily cruel (although she often is), she just can’t comprehend holding herself back on account of others. She has no goals other than her own happiness, and there’s nothing she’d be unwilling to do if she thought it would be fun. As long as someone interests her she’d be honestly excited to follow them or teach them or whatever, but the moment she gets bored she’d drop them without a second thought. In that sense, despite being Evil by, well, any definition of the word, she’s a fairly honest person who always says what she means.

What’s interesting though is that her Sin, as far as the afterlife is concerned, is just living too long without approval. Which I think says a lot about their priorities. It’s almost enough to make you wonder if she’s right to give the divine authorities the finger, even if she could stand to have some empathy for others.

Also she’s a necromancer which is always a cool thing to have in your setting.

#3 Kasen

Kasen’s cool. Yup. I’ve already written extensively about Kasen, but suffice it to say she’s a person struggling to do what right. She wants to be a good person, but it’s really not that easy when you’re not even sure what’s good. She’s smart enough not to take anyone else’s words as gospel, but even after stewing over it for centuries, the path forward isn’t at all clear. But what is clear to her is that she needs to do something: keeping the current status quo simply isn’t good enough. And if necessary she’s willing to tear it all down to fix it. I can easily see her becoming a “villain” at some point.

Which is especially interesting after the reveal that she’s one of the sages who made Gensokyo. And especially especially after Okina was revealed. It seems the sages aren’t exactly in contact with each other, and can have very different reasons for having helped make Gensokyo. I look forward to Kasen and Okina meeting.

Least Favorites

#1 Tenshi

To be fair, Tenshi’s at least fun to hate. Unlike the other villains I love, she doesn’t seem to have much of a developed worldview, and is mostly just a bored brat. She annoys me.

#2 Rumia

Rumia is the most generic of all youkai. I’ve always felt that the stage 1 bosses serve mostly to set the tone for the rest of the game. Minoriko is a generic god, Yamame is a generic Underworld youkai, Wakasagihime is a generic grassroots youkai, etc. I can understand why that needs to happen, but it’s usually not especially interesting to me. Anyway, Rumia was the first Windows boss and is therefore the most generic of the generic. She is the face of the faceless feral youkai, the sort that the villagers fear most. And she is super dumb and boring, and not dumb in a funny way either.

#3 Wriggle

This was probably the toughest decision on both of these lists. And I was almost tempted to cut her some slack since the reasoning is essentially the same as it was for Rumia. But Wriggle does nothing for me. She’s the kind of filler youkai ZUN throws in when he’s out of ideas. For the first half of the Windows games these were generally animal youkai, since it’s pretty easy to just say “She’s a firefly… and a youkai!” but these days they’re more likely to be Tsukumogami. Kogasa and the Tsukumo sisters and all that.

Not that filler youkai have to be boring. Kogasa’s certainly made herself stand out, and even other animal youkai like Mystia have gotten a decent amount of development. But Wriggle is just there, imo.

Sorry xxx#1WriggleFan420xxx. I know how much you love her, and I applaud you for it, but I personally can’t.

[translationandbetrayals]

A Comprehensive Guide about Touhou Project! Part 3 - Touhou The Anime!?

Welcome to the third and probably the last part of this guide. If you’re not familiar with the Touhou series, then  you are in the right place! This is a beginner friendly guide to introduce you to the topic so you can have an idea of this huge universe and his fandom. So I recommend you to read the first and second part of this guide before (or even after) you read this one. Here are the links for your convenience. 

Part 1 What is Touhou?

Part 2 Touhou related content!

Go on and check them out! I will wait until you’re ready.

...

If you already read the others part of this guide, let's continue. 

So last time we talked about all the other media that Touhou have. But today we are going to talk about something more interesting to most people over here. We’re going to talk the animes about Touhou. 

Anime?

Yeah, anime

Anime like… For real? 

Yes and no. Yes, They ARE a 10 to 25 minute anime (and some 40+ minutes films). But there is no official or licensed anime of the franchise. All of them are just fan created anime, and are commercialized in the doujins events like Comiket and Reitaisai (that one we talked in the second part of the guide). There are a couple of them and they cannot have more variety. But today we’re going to talk about some of them, with a little review and some of my personal opinion of course. And don’t be fooled by the fact that they are fan animations you can be surprised by the quality of them. So get let's started!

Musou Kakyou: A Summer Day's Dream. By MAIKAZE 

Also known as Touhou Anime Project but was changed because ZUN (the creator of the series) expressed concern about being mistaken for an official product.

This is a slow paced fan anime about the characters of Touhou in his daily life when suddenly things all over the village start to be stolen, so the protagonist need to find out the culprit. It’s funny and silly, there are some good fights scenes in it too. It was released in Comiket 75 (2008) and has 4 episodes to this day. The first in 2008, the second one from 2012, the 2.5 episode from 2014 and the third episode is from 2016… Yeah… As you can see there are like 1 episode every 4 years… So I think the Fourth and final episode will be ready the next year! (2020) So if you’re suffering because you have to wait 1 week to watch your favorite anime of this season… Those time think in the people like myself, the one who has been waiting 4 years for a episode for like… 10 years! Hahaha (Please help me).

Anyways, this is a pretty good anime and a very short one, so 100% recommend if you want to watch something light to relax. Another important thing to mention is the participation of professionals voice actors in the episodes.

Fantasy Kaleidoscope ~The Memories of Phantasm~. By Manpuku Jinja.

Here we have a serious one. Fantasy Kaleidoscope is a 16 minute-duration fan anime. It started in 2011 (From the Comiket 80). It have 13 episodes and the series is still ongoing! The circle follow a schedule of 1 or 2 episodes per year, being released in the Comikets events most of the time.

It is high recognize by the high quality of his animation which is just sick as hell! And It’s follow the story of the originals games too! Being every episode an adaptation of a installment of the series. So it's a great way for the introduction of the story of the game! 

But there is something else about this anime, I mean nothing is perfect right?

Did you notice it?

The project is highly recognized because they have no voice actors working for this project, basically all the budget goes to the animation (and the subtitles to know what the characters are saying haha). BUT I’m not saying that is an anime without audio, the reality cannot be further from this! 

Every episode has a unique soundtrack that are in reality an arrangement versions of the soundtrack of the game that it been adapted and/or the musical theme of the characters that appears. And, every episode has sound effects for the movement, expressions and the fight scenes. This mean that literally the only thing it is missing in the episode is the voices of the characters.

The Promotional Artwork is gorgeous too!

Then you’re thinking, so anyone can put the voice in it, like a fan dub, and should work fine?

The answer is YES. And there are a couple of pretty good japanese fan dubbing for this anime. I think the creators has this in mind when they were making the first episode. “Make an animation in order to be fandubbed”. So in the end we have characters with the animations and the timing as if they were speaking but with subtitle in japanese to understand what are they saying.

It interesting to me how this anime reflects the “Touhou way” of doing things.We can even call it: “The Touhou way of doing an anime.” Haha. 

Here is the first episode from the official YouTube Channel of Manpuku Jinja (They upload the older episodes when they release a new one)

Link to YouTube! (No voice, but with english subs!)

And here is the Japanese Dub version (It’s not hard to find the others episodes in Youtube with pretty good dub as well)

Link to YouTube! (With voice and subs!)

No review for this one, sorry.

This is a 30 min-duration fan anime by the Chinese circle Kyoto Fantasy Troupe called The Sealed Esoteric History, but I haven’t seen much of it. But It’s looks nice. Haha.

Well, that all from my part. It’s the last part of the guide in which I'm writer. So I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! If someone want to continue or expand this guide, you’re welcome! it’s always a good thing to teach new people about this series so just keep it up!

And for the tradition:

Yeah… He uses a lot of trumpets in his music…

Yeah, I guess this is a good image to close this guide. Have a good one!

Thanks for reading!

Enrique Valdés F.