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Reply to TheOVJM’s decline of Touhou video


CountVonNumenor

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I have been looking for a while to writ this thread. On the 7th of April, I have started a thread called “Most controversial bits and takes of the Touhou fanon”. And one of the things I have attached to the opening post was the link to a video from a youtuber called TheOVJN titled “Is Touhou in a Decline? I think so :(”. And since that video caught most of the attention in the thread (more than anything else I have written there), yet did not watch the video itself, I decided to give it a go today. I was ready to write a thread asking anyone to create a response to that video on my idea of “how wrong he is by saying such a thing”, but after watching, I came to realize he got some good points. I may not agree with everything he said, but quite a few of the points seem valid. That way, I have decided to split this article into multiple sections, each of them going through the main points OVJN covered.

Edit: I forgot to link the video itself 

 

 

Intro – the experience of a veteran in the community

As OVJN stated at the beginning of the video, he has been in the Touhou community for 8 years by the point he made the video. He also considered that despite the fact anyone is free to disagree, his opinion might have some weight as he has been around for so long. Another interesting point he has gone into is the idea of criticizing ZUN. Apparently, he really got a cult following (not that by this point Touhou can already be declared a religion at what cult following it got), and that anyone who is criticizing the decisions of ZUN is frown upon.

In my experience, despite the fact my opinion is basically invalid (I have only been around in the community for like 1 and a half years), I have yet to meet that part of the fandom. I do not think it is impossible – it happened multiple times and experienced it with other fandoms in the past (especially with Star Wars), nor have I seen people getting persecuted if they have a negative view on some of ZUN’s more recent products. However, arrogance is never the answer when it comes to trying to bring a different point, especially if your take is going to be something rather controversial. Otherwise you are just creating the “higher than thou” feeling. Also, just because something is no longer like you used to like it that does not mean it is automatically bad. It sometimes feels like nostalgia tends to blind us. However, maybe there is some logic in the madness, and some fair points too. But now into the actual content.

 

Touhou 6-8 - based and nostalgia-pilled

As OVJN puts it, these three games seem to be the ones to be the most coherent. They go through the idea of soft world building, still maintaining an air of mystery and properly using the themes and mythology of Japan. In a way, it makes sense, especially when we know Imperishable Night was supposed to be the end game basically, and Touhou would be over afterwards. And from here, the main things – there was a clear vision of what ZUN wanted to do with this trilogy.

To be fair, they are also probably the most memorable games of the series. There is something special about them, about the characters, about the music, about the story… I might also be biased since Perfect Cherry Blossom was the first (and only) Touhou game I had the chance to play. Even if I did not manage to beat that game yet, it still feels like a wonderful experience. Just booting up the game and listening to the opening theme gives me the feeling I am coming back to a game of my childhood, despite the fact I only discovered it like a year ago. In short, I can very much agree with the points made in this section, and do not really have anything else relevant to add.

 

Touhou 9 & early spin-offs

This has not been a very long section in the video. PoFV and Immaterial and Missing Power are very much seen as experimental, with ZUN trying to come up with new ideas and testing things. It seems like a reasonable decision, especially when you have decided to come back after declaring the previous 3 games were supposed to be the last. To me, it is still not fully clear how and why ZUN came back. Was it because he saw the games were more successful than he could ever hope? Was it fan pressure to continue the series?

 

MoF + SA + UFO + supporting literature era

This one is very much defined as the era when soft world-building turned into hard world-building. As we entered what is usually deemed as “Modern 1 era” that followed the soft reboot in Touhou 10, the story started to become more connected. We now have 3 main games that basically have one to be caused as a result of the previous, and the birth of the “Moriya Shrine conspiracy”. We also started to get the supporting literature, with stuff like Gensokyo encyclopedias and manga series set in the land of Touhou. However, as I have not played any of these games yet, I really do not know for certain what to say further on the matter.

This is an interesting change, as now things seemed to have become more connected with each other and other changes. Which leads into the next section.

 

Evolution of ZUN art

Long ago I have written about my oddities with his style. For anyone unaware, this is what my original text stated back then:

Spoiler

Ever since I joined the fandom, one of the things that caught my attention is the unique artstyle adopted by ZUN for his characters. Thinking of that, I have recently decided to start using more his original art as point of reference whenever I want to draw any of the Touhou girls.
 

Ø  DISCLAIMER: I absolutely do not hate the original ZUN style. I think it is very unique, and it has evolved and improved quite a lot over the years. Plus, it is quite to be appreciated that he can also drawing, given that the main games are basically done by a one-man army.
 

However, I have also noticed a bit of a problem, which might be one in general with Touhou art. Everything looks so ambiguous, while I also do know that ZUN has his kind of "no fanservice" policy. Which, as I was talking about in the past, has led to people judging us, the Touhou fans, as pedophiles or "loli lovers" in the most extreme of cases, while people generally wondering why our characters look so much like children, even when we come with the arguments like "she is (supposed to be) x hundreds/thousands of years old". In a way, I was concerned that Touhou might have also given birth to the "thousand year old loli trope", which just made things worse. It is interesting how fans tried to "fix" his art (be it by drawing safe things or not), even if the fan art going at times more towards the fan-service area. We even have a meme about how fanart is much better than the original art - it is good, but the original needs credit too, since the fan-art would not exist had there not been an original to start from

 

I know that drawing the characters as more mature or outright adults is also an option in your own style, while also implementing some of the design choices ZUN came up with, one that I actually like a lot and try to use more. Only problem I have noticed until now is that reactions from those you will show then the images tend to be mixed, from people appreciating them to making the whole upper-mentioned statement about Touhou fans even more than before, saying that we are so desperate to legitimize our liking for a child-looking-like character by making them look closer to their supposed ages.

 

In a way, up to this point I have ended up picking characters for drawing that are either canonically adults by this points (ex Akyuu who is known to be born in 1994) or someone who could work well in a more adult and mature form (ex Eiki Shiki and Iku Nagae). However, I am wondering how I will do with other characters, even if some like Yuuka, Junko and Hecatia will actually work rather well with that vision set in mind.

Anyway, back to the point. Besides the "no fanservice" rule, why do the ZUN characters look the way they do? I find it interesting how much of a difference there is between the main games and spin-offs art, and how much of a contrast there is between his original style and the closer to anime vibe given by, for example, the fighter games.

 

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Now, for comparison, OVJN has decided to go by another route when talking about the art evolution. As seen in the image, he split it in between multiple eras: PC-98, Seihou and other pre-EoSD works (from what I can see, he counted “Portrait of Exotic Girls” and Dolls in Pseudo Paradise), EoSD, early Windows era, early modern era and everything from UFO onwards. However, I would personally add a new era, starting with Unconnected Marketters as the style is rather different from anything that came previously. I would have written a whole text in regards to this, but a comment found in the video tells quite well what I was thinking of + a few more things:

Spoiler

The art: I am really a fan of both art styles, but I much prefer the new one; sure the coloring in the old style was much better, and the color palette was much softer or darker depending on the game/character, I think that was really charming but there’s were it ends charm.

The lighting in the old art style was terrible, ZUN often used white to symbolize/give the effect of light, and if you are and artist you know that's not how lighting works. As an example Lyrica in PCB; the lighting her hair is kind of weird to the point that the community doesn't really know if her hair color is white\silver or brown, and since she hasn't showed up in color since AoFC there’s no way to know. Other examples are: Reimu (EOSD and TMoF) Meiling (EOSD) Yuyuko (PCB, the art is cute but the lighting in the hair makes no sense) Sanae (TMoF) Aya (TMoF). ZUN got better in hair lighting In SA onwards. ZUN also colored very pale skin and you can really see that in TMoF and SA, you can say that sits well for some of the youkai, but for humans in my opinion it's better the new skin coloring that ZUN uses. At the end this is really just personal preference, even though the old coloring for the clothes was more unique and detailed I like it a lot more than the new saturated colors.

 

Indeed, newer illustrations might be missing some of the elements that made the old style so memorable, but I also like the new style. There’s something making it look more appealing. But I will give an example. Personally, one of my favorite ZUN illustrations, and my favorite version of Reimu, has to be the one from UFO. As for Marisa, I would probably go with LoLK or UM.

Th12Reimu.png

Th15Marisa.png

Th18Marisa.png

 

 

Music

The argument here is that apparently the music has become worse, with just a few songs that are still good (the example brought was Pure Furies – Whereabouts of the Heart). And mainly, he seems to be blaming it on the introduction of two instruments ZUN became fond of: the electric guitar and that little electric piano thing (from the video, I really could not understand how it is called).

Now, to my own take. If we are to go through the evolution of Touhou, probably the most memorable songs have to be those from the classic Windows era. But if you want to know more about basically every song I still know from the series, I have an entire comment dedicated to the topic (https://moriyashrine.org/forums/topic/1072-top-10-original-touhou-tracks/?do=findComment&comment=7826). A short version would be that early Windows is the most memorable one, Modern 1 makes me think more commonly of the boss themes and forget the stage themes with some exceptions, and Modern 2 era continues on that trend. UM is a bit of an exception, but that one has to be caused more by the fact that the game is just 1 year old, and therefore still fresh in my mind.  

 

 

LoLK as the peak of Touhou story-telling

This is the part in which OVJN said how much he likes the game. And for him, he said the best part for it was the lore surrounding the characters and events, and not necessarily the gameplay. Again, as I have not played LoLK myself, I do cannot really explain any further, However, if I ended up with two characters from that game coming to my top 10 (Junko and Hecatia), it means something was done right.


 

Violet Detector

The video seems to have been built on the narrative of Touhou reaching some sort of peak at TH15, and from there on starting to go downwards. Initially with just small steps and redeemable hiccups, but then getting into serious issues. I have never played Violet Detector, and I do not really think I ever will. My experience with that game, even if not direct, comes from watching AspreyFM play it. The game seemed very painful to get through, some of the mechanics were odd, and some of the boss combinations downright weird. OVJN also mentioned the fact music was pretty much recycled from previous sources. Besides, one more problem might be raised by the very character of Sumireko, who is not interesting yet ZUN pushed her so much at the time (though this might be more or less of a complaint coming from Asprey). As a whole, this game still has a very cool main theme. Too bad it is a pain to play…


 

15.5

To me, it was a surprise to learn a bit about the development and early days of that game (this will become a bit of a pattern in the following sections of the essay). I did not know the game had so many troubles at launch, and the fact it still did not get everything solved especially with the multiplayer. And according to the video creator, Twilight Frontier is not at their first time doing things not too well. Apparently, SWR (or was it Hisoutensoku?) was supposed to have more characters (Rumia included), but which were cut due to lack of time. This is not really something new, as I first heard of it when Asprey made his video on Touhou cut content. AoCF looks like an interesting game, with nice character designs. About the gameplay, that might be a different thing. But hey, at least the game got a Nintendo Switch release, I guess (and with some new content)…


 

Touhou 16

To me, Touhou 16 comes in a bit of a blurred area. It has quite little to remember from it – not so much about the characters, too little of the music, and I am still not fully sure what the story was about. When talking about it with one of my best friends who’s also into Touhou, he said he has no idea what’s going on in this game (to be fair, the entire era starting from 12 to 16 is a giant blur, from which, with the exception of 15, does not remember too much now can he associate it with anything iconic). OVJN talked about this game as a second (or third) hiccup for Touhou, which spawned a new problem only becoming worse with every upcoming game: it started adding characters, lore and location that had no establishment beforehand, and which would not get too much attention afterwards. From the entire HSiFS cast, only Okina got some real development, which happened mostly AFTER the game, through her inclusion in the manga. As for the rest of the cast, yeah… they were much did not get so much going for them afterwards. Bu things cannot get worse from here, right? There is still room for redemption.


 

Touhou 17

According to OVJN, this is where the bad in official Touhou material starts. He emphasized quite a bit how bad he feels the game is, and how disappointed he felt about it. His reasons are interesting, but I think the greatest of them would be basically disconnection from other official works and lost hype. According to him, Hecatia mentioned in one of the comics that big changes were coming in Hell. However, when we actually got to see Hell in WBaWC, it was less than disappointing. Especially since what we got was not Hell, but a new realm – the Animal Realm, a place that is confusing and was never established before. Another trend started in 17 was the introduction of characters to the games mostly/just for the sake of “do you remember that? Well, it is here now”, case study being Saki – only thing going for her being that she was the magic horse of Shoutoku Taishi (aka Miko).

I never really took these things into consideration. I guess I’ve just been extremely ignorant in terms of content, especially as I never read the official manga, and therefore could not connect anything. Plus, I think one of the biggest problems nowadays is related to the very thing – HYPE. We all get hyped for something, end up creating unrealistic expectations for it, and when it that thing comes out, we end up being disappointed it did not come to our expectations. Despite the fact the first half of Touhou 17 is very much forgettable to me (sorry Eika, Urumi, Kutaka and Yachie – I can literally remember you just because of fr00sk and Touhou 17 in a nutshell), from Stage 5 it becomes more interesting. And coming back to fr00sk, she gave us quite a funny conclusion about the game - "that moment when you expected to finght the furries, but you become one of them" (in reference to the animal spirit gimmick). I like Mayumi and her theme, and so I do too about Keiki. But I guess this is all I can remember from that game. Maybe OVJN is right about the games in recent times?


 

17.7 – development hell and unsatisfactory results

If we thought Willy Beast and Weakest Creature was bad, Gouyoku Ibun is very much a mess following development hell. In this section of the video, the accent was put on how difficult that game was to develop, and all the excuses that came for delaying it over 2 years. And what was the result? A game that was still quite a mess. But if you want to read more about that game and a point of view of someone who played it, buskerdog has a very good and detailed review (https://moriyashrine.org/forums/topic/1007-is-touhou-gouyoku-ibun-hot-garbage-kinda-clickbait/).

Again, the problems of 15.5 and 17 continue. But from my own exposure to that game, all I can say is that what caught my attention was Yuuma and her music theme(s).  

 

 

Touhou 18 – Cards & the Misumaru problem

A much summarized version of this would be that the principles themselves were interesting. However, their implementation was not too good. I do not know what to say about the cards besides being references thrown from everywhere and, according to OVJN, random bits of comedy that just do not work, so I will move to the Misumaru problem. The problem about her was that a Stage 4 character is given all of a sudden so much importance, which does come basically through another “do you remember that? Well, it is here now”. This time, through the fact Misumaru was apparently the one who created Reimu’s Ying-Yang orbs. The complaint about this is that a good chunk of the mystery gets removed, and in a not so satisfactory way, and it feels like a poorly executed attempt at fanservice. Which is odd, especially since the game made a lot of other references, some of them like the throwback to Neo-traditionalism in Japan being quite neat. Hey, at least he said the game is a bit of a step-up in terms of music, and it overall looks pretty.

 

 

Official literature – ending for Wild and Horned Hermit and CDS

Apparently, he did talk about WaHH in another video, so not too much emphasis was put here. However, he did point out that the final chapter felt so out of place, and it only created a lot of plot holes. However, as I recently started to take a look at the new issues of Cheating Detective Satori (I still prefer this title), he did point out a new set of problems and things that do not make sense/were misused. From the overall attitude of Satori in this manga, to the weird structure of what was supposed to be a detective story, the predictability of the plot, the reveal of who’s the culprit and wasted potential to finally have Alice do something in the story after like 15 years? Overall, the issue seems to be connected to ZUN trying to shove in as many new characters as possible instead of giving spotlight to some of his older ones. By now, the Touhou cast is at like 150+ characters, so it becomes harder to give some screen time to all of them. I am not sure if he in that camp, but I guess he also took some Copium when the vengeful spirit was revealed not to be Mima (as many fans would have liked), but a completely new character.

Spoiler

Mizuchi_FDS.png

Well, at least the Jailbreak King looks cute, not gonna lie

Also we should not forget one thing, at least the way OVJN and a good chunk of the fans have put it. Now, thanks to CDS, Reisen Udongein Inaba is a sadist, who remembers with great pleasure about getting punished back in the days on the Lunar Capital. I am not sure if that line of dialogue was out of context, misinterpreted or genuine, but I know it created quite a bit of debate when it originally came out. (the way OVJN put it was the following: "Who thought this was a good idea? What purpose does this serve other than being a cheap fanservice joke that's just going to get turned into hentai?!"). It's not like Reisen already became a doujin favorite especially after the infamous "I'm just a useless little bunny, only good for my sex appeal" from the Drunkards in Eintei and the fact she is seen as "newbie bait".

 

 

Touhou 15.5, 17.5 and 18 are pretty much dead – Steam stats say

At this point in the video, OVJN decided to take a look into the Steam stats of each of these games, especially in terms of how many users are playing them at any moment. And the results are rather disappointing, as none of these games got over 30 players at a single point at best. Which for him, just comes as a proof these games are pretty much dead, mere months after release. Let’s be fair now. A good part of the players might just be pirating them from places like Moriya. In other cases (aka most of the fandom), they did not even touch a Touhou game in their life, let alone go into a spin-off. So I am not sure how relevant this section has been.

 

 

ZUN CD 9.5 & marketing

I will be honest. My knowledge about Rainbow-Colored Septentrion is quite little. All I know about it is that ZUN released a new CD with 3 songs at Comiket 99 (December 2021). One of the songs was a promotion for a small village, and the other two were just arrangements of existing songs. I did not know this situation happened again back in 2011 with Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey (basically a tribute to the tragic events that struck Japan in that year), yet this time it was seen as a poor move. According to the video, ZUN’s decision to sell us an advertisement is in poor taste, especially when the money obtained did not at least go to that small community he made the song for. I have not personally listened to the CD yet, but I know the cover art for it had meme potential (also saw a few fun edits of it, as the hand pose done by Renko seemed perfect for adding a cigar).

 

 

Touhou Lost Word & overall gacha

This one seemed to OVJN to be the ultimate sin ZUN did. Not so much on his side as trothing about the creators of gacha games. From the overall mechanics of such a game to the “marry the 2hus” mechanic (Fantasy Rebirth). He saw the latter as absolutely disgusting, especially since some of the girls look very much not even being 10 based on their portraits.  He also implied that if you go by the excuse “but those are just extra outfits you do not have to go for”, you are just a neckbeard (and possibly a coomer too). And all of this packed with an avaerage fanfiction level story. I have an entire thread dedicated to Lost Word (https://moriyashrine.org/forums/topic/970-do-touhou-and-gacha-work-together-march-2022-touhou-lost-word-danmaku-kagura/), but there is something I have not mentioned in the thread itself. (interesting there is no mention of Danmaku Kagura in this video, especially since both Lost Word and DanKagu are games that received license from ZUN for simply existing, which led to a lot of confusion and people believing Lost Word is actually a canon game)

While the Fantasy Rebirth mechanic in itself can be deemed questionable, I think some of the outfit choices are just as questionable. Alright, on one side you have the outfits that outright look like wedding dresses. On another, you have those outfits that just look like something traditional or flower throwing girls as in the case of the fairies. And on another…there’s the military uniforms. My question in the latter case comes especially in the case of Ringo and Seiran. Both of them have military uniforms inspired by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy of WW2, which in itself is a big no-no especially in the Western world, given the poor reputation of the IJA during the war and all the nasty stuff they did (and even more problematic when even today, the country still denies a decent chunk of the things they did, some that go way beyond anything the goriest or most sadistic horror film could imagine).

image.thumb.png.7eadfb5776e47a1cc6ee7577807a691f.png

This image is old (end of October 2021 on the Japan server). Quite a bit has been added since.

 

Alright, looking on the clock, this whole thing took me around 5-6 hours and a cup of tea to write. I was not expecting it to be this long, but I hope it covered well some of the more important points exposed in the video. His overall tone seems to be a negative one, that does not seem to find any redemption in the near future for any new ZUN product if he keeps the same trajectory as of now. Personally, I would like to believe things could get an improvement in the future. But it's been 20 years already just from the Windows era (a quarter of a century if you add PC-98 too), and ZUN can create material for so long. At one point, perhaps Touhou will get its end of the story. Maybe we are already starting to see that ZUN is losing passion in the project, and only the fans keep him into doing the games. Personally, I am curious what will happen in the nex years, perhaps a decade from now. 

I would definitely love to see TheOVJN giving his own take in a 1 hour video about the Touhou community in itself. Because without the fandom, I do not think this series would have survived for so long. And with the developments in recent times, I would defitely like to see his take on it. 

Edited by CountVonNumenor
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I don't have much to add here since I have not watched the video but I do have to agree that bar none pure furies is the absolute peak of the touhou music. It works so well as a song that sounds so simplistic compared to some of the other well known songs like UN Owen was her but it being simple makes it so memorable since Junko is all about purity and the best way to translate this is through a song that acts as more a base to be built upon than a full song altogether.

 

Also if it's true about sadist reisen that's terrible, I prefer the idea that reisen is a somewhat PTSD bunny who willingly takes the possible abuse from the rest of the crew because not only is she used to it but she knows it's not malicious so rolls with it.

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Regrettably I don't have the time to watch an entire hour-long video, but I still find the questions posed interesting so I'll try and go off of the points given in the original post.

Official Games

Now I'll say that I haven't actually played any mainline shmup game after UFO, but from what I've seen I will concur that the patterns from 16 and onward just seem a bit more lackluster. There's no particularly iconic battle gimmick or spell card that I can recall from most of the recent games, but to an extent this is to be expected. You're bound to lose out on some creativity after having created hundreds and hundreds of unique bullet patterns, and it's honestly a miracle that there are so many distinct ones in the first place. This doesn't mean the game design is immune to criticism however and I do think ZUN should step back for a bit and maybe take a bit of a break from the mainline games in order to get his ideas in order.

Regarding the story... eh. I'll be one to say that outside of some instances of interesting world building and a serviceable moment-to-moment plot in the context of the individual games, there's really not that much to get excited for with Touhou's story. This will lead into a later point.

Regarding AoCF, even not taking into account the netplay issues, it's just not a very good game at all. None of the flying fighters are, really. Hisoutensoku had essentially presented the perfect formula so all they needed to do was polish it up a bit and they'd have a game on their hands with the quality comparable to (and potentially exceeding that of) something made by fighting game monoliths like Arc System Works or French Bread, with a gameplay style distinct enough to still be called a Touhou game in essence. But then they decide to get rid of motions, reduce the number of command normals, reduce mobility options, dumb down customization etc. etc. I've effectively given up hope of another good Touhou fighter coming out, so on that point I'd certainly have to agree that there's a visible decline.

Music

I wouldn't say that the music in general has fallen off that much, however I will agree that stage themes are just less memorable nowadays. Maybe it's just because of a lack of remixes (though this is true for pretty much every game after IN) but I don't like how I cannot recall even a single stage theme from the last 3-4 mainline games. I think ZUN might just be focusing too much on trying to introduce a new hit boss character that people are gonna like that he dedicates less time towards setting the atmosphere in the stages themselves. I don't expect him to casually drop another "Alice in Wonderland", "Inevitably Forbidden Game", "Fires of Hokkai" or "Lullaby of Deserted Hell" but something with more substance would be nice.

Print Works

I will never understand people who set high expectations for the official literature. Do they read some doujin work and just expect it to be on that level? In any case, in accordance with what I wrote a moment ago, I can say I'm of the opinion that ZUN just isn't a very good writer. This is fine, you can't be a master of all trades, but I was under the impression that most people knew this; He can somewhat competently construct the short episodic stories that occur within the games, but it's evident that that's far different from crafting a more complex narrative (especially over such long periods of time) which involves an entirely different skill set. Are people just upset that the story canonically has stupid things happen in it thanks to the print works? I do have my fair share of complaints with them as well (mainly how ZUN's method of putting focus on other characters is making Reimu an incompetent bumbling idiot throughout half the story) but mediocre storytelling has been a staple of the print works since even the early ones like SSiB, so there's no real "decline" here. Either turn your brain off and have a little fun with it or probably don't read it. For instance, I haven't read the fairy mangas because they sound conceptually kind of boring to me, and I still don't believe I've missed out on too much all things considered. The same goes for the rest of the literature, most of it probably won't have too much bearing on what happens in the games (even if it does just read a summary on the wiki lmao).

 

(The fandom overall, however, is doing fine I'd say, just stay away from annoying crowds haha)

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19 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

early Windows is the most memorable one, Modern 1 makes me think more commonly of the boss themes and forget the stage themes with some exceptions, and Modern 2 era continues on that trend. UM is a bit of an exception, but that one has to be caused more by the fact that the game is just 1 year old, and therefore still fresh in my mind.

7 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

Maybe it's just because of a lack of remixes (though this is true for pretty much every game after IN) but I don't like how I cannot recall even a single stage theme from the last 3-4 mainline games.

I suspect the issue is exposure, with the added aspect of personal preference. From just the most recent three main titles, some of the best tracks (assume subjectivity) were stage themes; HSiFS had Illusionary White Traveler, WBaWC had Unlocated Hell, and UM had The Perpetual Snow of Komakusa Blossoms. TD (commonly attributed to Modern Era 1, but I tend to associate it with Modern Era 2) is full of great stage themes, including The Hall of Dreams' Great Mausoleum, Welcome to the Youkai Temple, Let's Live in a Lovely Cemetery, and of course Desire Drive. Since entering the fandom, each new entry has taken me about a year to get into the soundtrack, but so far I've always been able to appreciate the music without too much hesitation regarding its preceding comparatives.

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I've already given my take on this whole debacle in that other thread where the video was mentioned before, but reading this has made me think that maybe it's about time I really took that whole "Touhou game analysis" idea I had seriously... unfortunately, I still don't think I would have the time or motivation to do that. But perhaps I should start thinking about it as more than just an 'interesting idea that I'll never bother with'. Perhaps people would not only find it interesting, but also helpful, to have someone offer a comparison of games' quality at more than just a surface level look.

Regarding the WaHH manga, gonna be real with you I can barely remember a thing that happened in WaHH, I didn't really like that manga as a whole lol.

10 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

Regarding AoCF, even not taking into account the netplay issues, it's just not a very good game at all. None of the flying fighters are, really.

Don't most people consider AoCF to be the best of the flying fighters? I agree that the flying fighters aren't on the level of their predecessors but in terms of both singleplayer and multiplayer content, AoCF is the most polished and least gimmicky "floater" which people generally like it for. In fact, the game is completely devoid of gimmicks since this game's unique mechanic actually works as an expansion of the game's systems rather than a system that conflicts or overbears on the core gameplay, making AoCF the most straightforward, plain-and-fair fighting game since IaMP, something even Hisoutensoku can't claim to be. Sure, if you wanted you could still argue that character switching is a gimmick, but it's nothing close to the level of SWR/Soku's weather and card decks, HM's loadouts, and ULiL's... however you describe what happens in that game.

2 hours ago, Ken Hisuag said:

TD (commonly attributed to Modern Era 1, but I tend to associate it with Modern Era 2) is full of great stage themes, including The Hall of Dreams' Great Mausoleum, Welcome to the Youkai Temple, Let's Live in a Lovely Cemetery, and of course Desire Drive.

Ken talking about how much he likes Ten Desires music was not a take I was expecting to read today.

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So... time for me to get again at writing a long reply to everything discussed today:

 

11 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

Now I'll say that I haven't actually played any mainline shmup game after UFO, but from what I've seen I will concur that the patterns from 16 and onward just seem a bit more lackluster. There's no particularly iconic battle gimmick or spell card that I can recall from most of the recent games, but to an extent this is to be expected. You're bound to lose out on some creativity after having created hundreds and hundreds of unique bullet patterns, and it's honestly a miracle that there are so many distinct ones in the first place. This doesn't mean the game design is immune to criticism however and I do think ZUN should step back for a bit and maybe take a bit of a break from the mainline games in order to get his ideas in order.

Yeah, that is absolutely fair. By now, ZUN must have created a lot of patterns just like you said, at some point repetition would appear. There are just so many combinations you could do. Otherwise, as my experience with the games is low, I would not get myself to comment much more on the matter (I do not deserve, nor can I say more than "it looks nice/it looks impossible to dodge/puts me to confusion"). But otherwise, I agree with your point. Maybe a break would be useful. 

 

11 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

Regarding AoCF, even not taking into account the netplay issues, it's just not a very good game at all. None of the flying fighters are, really. Hisoutensoku had essentially presented the perfect formula so all they needed to do was polish it up a bit and they'd have a game on their hands with the quality comparable to (and potentially exceeding that of) something made by fighting game monoliths like Arc System Works or French Bread, with a gameplay style distinct enough to still be called a Touhou game in essence. But then they decide to get rid of motions, reduce the number of command normals, reduce mobility options, dumb down customization etc. etc. I've effectively given up hope of another good Touhou fighter coming out, so on that point I'd certainly have to agree that there's a visible decline.

Weird, because just like buskerdog pointed out, I knew about AoCF to be well received among the newer fighter games. Maybe not at the level of the original "ground fighters", but still decent. 

 

11 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

I wouldn't say that the music in general has fallen off that much, however I will agree that stage themes are just less memorable nowadays. Maybe it's just because of a lack of remixes (though this is true for pretty much every game after IN) but I don't like how I cannot recall even a single stage theme from the last 3-4 mainline games. I think ZUN might just be focusing too much on trying to introduce a new hit boss character that people are gonna like that he dedicates less time towards setting the atmosphere in the stages themselves. I don't expect him to casually drop another "Alice in Wonderland", "Inevitably Forbidden Game", "Fires of Hokkai" or "Lullaby of Deserted Hell" but something with more substance would be nice.

Yeah, in a way it is quite scary how fan arrangements rarely use any of the stage themes past IN. I know a few exceptions until now, but they are indeed few at least to my knowledge. And the newer the game, the less chances to find an arrangement. Touhou music creators, the ZUN soundtrack does not stop at IN. When you mentioned Lullaby of Deserted Hell, you brought me old memories of being confused that was not the boss theme ( legit thought for quite a while that was Orin's theme until listening to Corpse Voyage). As for the newer games, I really cannot remember that much in terms of stage themes, but a few are still in my mind despite not knowing their names at times: the stage 6 theme in LoLK which is a calm version of Pure Furies, the stage theme for Hecatia (though I still confuse it with the actual boss fight theme), and Beast Metropolis from Touhou 17 (I reall like that one). 

 

12 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

mediocre storytelling has been a staple of the print works since even the early ones like SSiB, so there's no real "decline" here.

Honestly, there are like 3-4 things I can remember from SSiB:

  • the SDM crew + Reimu & Marisa go to the moon in a rocket (how did they get past the Hakurei Barrier, I have no idea)
  • they get their butts handed there by the Watatsuki sisters (which ever since have never been seen in canon due to the fan outrage)
  • swimsuits are now canon in Gensokyo (at least for Reimu, Marisa and Remilia - I have talked about that in the fashion thread long ago)
  • Remilia is throwing a huge party at the SDM (was that before or after the whole Moon expedition?)

 

12 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

The same goes for the rest of the literature, most of it probably won't have too much bearing on what happens in the games (even if it does just read a summary on the wiki lmao).

Personally, I like Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red and the two Gensokyo Encyclopedia books. The former was a fun read, and the latter helped me learn a little more about the characters (despite most of the info already being on the wiki; it just feels different to read it firsthand from the source). 

 

3 hours ago, Ken Hisuag said:

TD (commonly attributed to Modern Era 1, but I tend to associate it with Modern Era 2) is full of great stage themes, including The Hall of Dreams' Great Mausoleum, Welcome to the Youkai Temple, Let's Live in a Lovely Cemetery, and of course Desire Drive.

I am sorry, but whenever someone brings up Desire Drive (good song btw) and fan arrangements, I can no long not think about Necromantic. Damn it Stack and your catchy songs & vocals!

 

3 hours ago, Darksymphony777 said:

Someone on Twitter said that fumos are pedo bait because of how they are designed

Trust me, I have heard and seen worse things about Fumo coming from Twitter.

Spoiler

Some "artists" got to drawing Fumo hentai. Let that sink in. I am feeling very tempted to write an article in criticism to the horny-ness of Touhou fans, but I end up calming down and realizing this is just something you cannot control. It is not like our series is also known for that kind of things, and we are among the most popular topics for R18 content online and in doujin works - a simple, daily walk on Danbooru and Gelbooru could prove that in no more than a minute.

 

1 hour ago, buskerdog said:

I've already given my take on this whole debacle in that other thread where the video

First of all, I would like to that you for the original contribution back in the day. For that reason, just to diversify this thread a little bit, I will bring here some of the answers from others who have watched the video. Back then, I did not originally watch it, so I let you do all the work. Now though, as I got into it too, I decided to write an elaborate text, and so called you in here to continue that conversation in a dedicated thread. This might be useful especially for the newer people, maybe those who did not find the original thread at the time or joined the talk when it was active. Therefore, I am sorry if anyone will get annoyed by the following pings:

 

First, the original reply of buskerdog:

Spoiler

I mean there's a lot to digest here, but what I was actually drawn to in your post was the video you linked, which you say you have not watched yet.

I decided to watch it (although I did skip some parts regarding print works I haven't yet read) and it is a very well made video which I think makes a fair analysis and criticism of the franchise. Although I have not been a fan for as long as he has, since we made a similar journey of playing the games through in order, I found myself relating a lot to his opinions on the earlier games. Regarding the rest of the video, I don't agree with all of his points, but I don't think any of his takes are invalid either, and I think that my eyes have been opened to some perspectives I had not previously considered.

I don't think I'm able to make a concise "response" to his video as a whole, but I would like to cherry pick some points that were made and give my own viewpoints on (I'm probably mostly going to pick points that I disagree with, for the sake of providing my own opinion. But I do think there were several valid observations and critiques made as well).


Points are in no particular order because I can't remember what order they appeared in the video.

"ZUN's new artsyle is worse than the old one"
Disagree. I too see the charm in the older artwork myself, but I don't think it could have stayed like that forever. I do take one issue with the newer artstyle, which is that a lot of characters suffer from "same face" syndrome, but other than that I think the new art looks very clean and I like it.

"The new music is worse"
Hard disagree. Two particular instruments he actually picked on for not liking, I'm a big fan of. Music will always be a very subjective thing, and clearly stylistic changes have occurred which can make you prefer one era of music to another, but I think it is straight up wrong to say that the new music is "worse" than the originals. We're just very nostalgic about the classics. My rule of thumb is that if the title screen music still slaps, then ZUN hasn't lost it. And the title screen music still slaps.

"Touhou 16, 17 and 18 are bad because of the story"
I understand parts of this but am not completely in agreement. I think this is more a case of "unlived potential" than straight up being bad. The thing is, Touhou 16, 17, and 18 have all brought in completely new casts of characters, and then done very little with them after that (with the exception of Okina). These games all have very self-contained stories that don't spill out into other games, unlike the classic era which had a lot of crossover, or the first modern era where each game's events directly triggered the next.
Here's the thing... Touhou 14 is also just like this. And he said he liked that one. So I don't really see how this argument holds water. He did mention that this also had something to do with how the stories intertwine with the print works, which I can't comment on since I have only read some of them. But from the perspective of the games, this really doesn't feel like anything new. In fact, a lot of the fleshing out of the previous cast is done through Tasofro's fighting games, and they've only made one game since Touhou 16 - which is actually something I want to create a thread about soon (and this video has spurred me on in wanting to make that thread). So in my opinion while the past few games have felt less connected to each other than previous instalments, I don't think they were bad on their own. And on the topic of Touhou 18 having plot holes, ZUN did say that it was meant to be a "lighter" experience with less seriousness.

"Saki and Misumaru are fanservice characters to make up for the degrading story"
This is something I hadn't considered until it was brought up this video, and it does make me reconsider. But the way I see it, these characters (mainly Misumaru) are here to serve up lore tidbits for long-time fans to add some more connection to previous entries, while still being able to keep the game as a whole its own unique entity, that newcomers can still understand without needing all the background knowledge. Maybe you can argue that what I'm describing is fanservice. But I like Misumaru, and we still haven't seen what's to come of Touhou's story post-Unconnected Marketeers. I hope she is developed more in future as we could see some very interesting progression of the plot. That being said, if she's just a one-off character who never gets brought up again... yeah, that would be disappointing. But seeing as she is a huge deal, I don't think that will happen, after all Okina got further development after her initial appearance. As for Saki?... to be honest, I don't really see how she counts as a "fanservice" character. Yeah, she's Miko's horse. So what? That's not a mind blowing revelation.


 

But I think that speculating about the future of the series is difficult territory to be stepping on. I'd rather just take it as it comes. My parting message on this post is that times change, and not all eras of Touhou will be same. My favourite era is the classic era (6-9). The existence of newer games doesn't make me enjoy that era any less, and even if things feel different in newer eras, I am still able to enjoy them for their strengths.

Now with all that being said... I have a topic on Goyouku Ibun to make...

Without having watched it back then, I could not agree on some of the points you guys made. And so went with what I was aware of at the time. That way, I ended up with some replies that were missing quite a bit of content and context. 


This was one of my replies on the issue:

Spoiler
  • ZUN's character design (in)volution - I personally really love the newer approach. I know the old art had its charm, but oh god, do we need to remember the EoSD Sakuya? Another funny one that I saw is related to hair lighting. Due to that, even now fan artists are completely confused whether Lyrica has brown, grey or silver color hair. I just feel there has been an improvement in recent years, with TH18 overall being a result in terms of overall how much like a human the character looks like. Also, it would sure be an interesting thing to see someone else doing the art for the main games for once. Fairy Wars is a very interesting example, and I agree with it. Besides, I do not think mods that replace ZUN's portraits with those made by Dairi for example exist, since there is just TOO MUCH good fanart. 
  • I am not very sure what to say about the music in the past few games. Even if TH16 is partially forgettable for me, I still cannot forget the Mai and Satono fight theme, or the opening screen score. From TH17, I really like Beast Metropolis, Joutojin of Ceramics and Idolatrize World. And from UM, even if it is still under the effect of "new game bias", I have remained with Fortune Kitten, Smoking Dragon, Starry Mountain of Tenma, Where is That Bustling Marketplace Now (wow, a bit of a mouthful to be fair) and The Princess Who Slays Dragon Kings. Also a bit of potential bias since Akatsuki Records turned all the songs I have mentioned into some awesome arrangements (I really feel like the album Coooonsultant! made justice to the TH18 soundtrack)
  • I can see why Misumaru would be seen as fanservice, but to be honest, I never really cared too much about her. As for Saki, she is probably one of the Extra Stage bosses I care the least about, so I am not too bothered about anything at all.
  • I did notice there was some connection in the previous games indeed. From what I know, 6-7-8 were connected as the first two were to establish the characters, then Imperishable Night was supposed to be the grand finale to through them together in order to solve the big incident. Then 10-11-12-13 were somehow connected, as the appearance of the Moriya Shrine was the catalyst that put things in motion for the next few games. Afterwards, I guess the games start to connect more with the other materials instead of the other games that came before? There's still like a huge gap in my knowledge, so I cannot really think any further. 
  • About Lost Word, I have an entire thread dedicated to it and the way I have felt about the game in the past months. I can mostly agree with all you have said, even if I may add some more. There are a few things I have mentioned in the thread to be not bad, but one thing I forgot is that the game was useful for various doujins to promote their own music. Also the story cards have fan art made by various artists, who this was just get more to be seen. As for auto-replay, I just like put a specific number of battles, park my phone in another corner of the room, and just focus on whatever else more important I have to do at the moment. Finally, even if I broke my promise and go the newest SFES Toyohime, my idea is to just wait for when characters from my Top 10 favorites are coming into global. That way, I am just hoarding resources, and get exactly what I am looking for. As for now, I am still waiting for Eiki, Raiko, Mayumi and Tenkyuu (UM cast into LW when?). I am not sure what else to add in this paragraph, since I have everything there, Feel free to comment in that thread too if you find anything interesting though.
  • In my early days of exploring YouTube once it started recommending me Touhou videos, I have watched a lot of stuff aimlessly. It was either due to titles being in Japanese and me having no idea what that actually is until clicking, or was one of these old videos ported from NicoNico Douga by people like reddevils500. If we are in the IOSYS area, do we also need to remember Border of Ecstasy exists? I think it is just as bad. Enough said.

 

Then, there was an interesting reply from @SoundOfRayne (I really have not seen you in quite a while):

Spoiler

I took the time to watch that entire video, and boy howdy did it sure give me some thoughts.

Firstly @CountVonNumenor don't be sorry about being critical. If there's one takeaway I agreed with wholeheartedly from TheOVJM's video, it's that the Touhou fandom treats ZUN like a god among men who can do no wrong, and that's a big, BIG problem. Wanting to see something you love do better doesn't mean you hate it. As far as I'm concerned, being willing to look at something critically is the highest form of affection you can give something, because you genuinely want to see it in its best form.

That being said, I'm a new-ish fan too, so my scope isn't anywhere near as large as older fans of the series. But I do have my own thoughts on issues that I've seen, both fanon and canon.

  • Unlike TheOVJM, I'm not really that interested in the lore behind Touhou. I like the characters and the music and (occasionally) the feel of the games. Even so, he brings up a good point about how ZUN's approach to worldbuilding has changed over time, and it connects to a longstanding opinion I've had about the series. "Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle," he puts it. ZUN seems very interested in constantly adding more "new" to every entry he makes into the series, instead of elaborating on things that were already there. For TheOVJM, this was a problem with Touhou's storytelling. The events of previous games were interconnected with the games that succeeded them, (almost like it was a series or something. Wow!) whereas newer games are mostly self-contained, with only minor teases to a deeper lore to tide fans over. For me and my interests, this is a problem with characters. In the discussion over character designs, I was pretty hard on WBaWC and especially UM for having some bad characters. UM was rife with double-dipping into previous character designs, and I can't think of a strong reason to do that over replacing them with older characters other than "we need more N E W." How interesting would it have been to see already established characters responding to new incidents. Yeah, the result is the same- we still have to duke it out with them- but at least then we'd get a little more insight on some fan favorite characters instead of a new one that'll inevitably be overshadowed by those fan favorites.

 

  • This might run counterintuitive to what I just wrote, but I also have an issue with the protagonists of the series, just in the opposite direction. I understand Reimu and Marisa being present in pretty much every game, but can we please see some diversity with the other playable characters? I'm tired of seeing Youmu and Sakuya and Sanae. I love them dearly (and accept Sanae's existence), I do, but can't we get someone to take their place when it could impact the story? TheOVJM brought up a good point: wouldn't Kasen have some concerns when the events of WBaWC took place, given her connection to animals? Forget just letting her be a part of the story; she ought be a playable character for it.

 

  • I'll just say it: I know ZUN's artwork in the past had some kind of charm to it. I wasn't good, but I could understand the appeal people saw in it. But Great Fairy Wars exists, and there's no good reason for ZUN to continue doing his own art for the games. If there's one thing the fandom has done consistently well, it's character art, and with the way art is used in the games, I can't imagine it being a hefty investment to outsource the portraits to another artist. It's not like good artists are in short supply, or wouldn't be happy to do it.

 

  • I have a LOT of problems with Lost Word, and the gacha system in general. The "marriage" system in the global release only applied to the main characters (who I would like to remind everyone, are not legal) and several of the more adult-appearing youkai by the time I dropped the game, so I was willing to begrudgingly swallow it. The gameplay was shallow and grindy and heavily emphasized the autoplay feature, but I didn't play it for very often per day, so I let it slide. Power creep was everywhere, and I constantly felt tempted to sink into those draws to get the new powerful friends, but I was steadfast in not spending money on it, so I didn't think it was that big a deal. Then we got more and more alternate versions of preexisting characters, like Marisa with a gun, Youmu but black, Sakuya but... different, I guess. She doesn't really look any different, but she's got some new moves. I knew this would mean it'd take longer to get releases of new characters, and damnit, I really wanted a Shinmyoumaru for my team, but it's never gonna happen. AND THEN, OH BOY. We got Loli Junko, and this game was dead to me. All those problems I had overlooked before came crashing down in one fell swoop, and I'll never see Lost Word in a positive light again.

Well, at least Shinmyoumaru is finally here in LW, and came together with Seija in a banner. I do not know though whether she is a general pool or FES unit. Also, if you thought Marisa with a gun, Youmu but black and Sakuya but...different were bad, get ready for new rank of rarity (Epic Fes, which requires yet a new kind kind of paper doll) Blue Reimu, SFES Blonde Reisen and yet undetermined rank Red Sanae (not kidding with this one). Oh, also Loli Yukari might become an Epic Fes if things go like this, whenever she will be announced. 

96wxcpcf59w81.jpg?width=738&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a42f7ac3a235dcea6b4542754622e9a66b0da38

Red Sanae
BOTTOM TEXT

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And this is an unofficial tier list of JP which by now it is outdated (took the screenshot at the end of April). Ok, below you have an updated version, as of 24th May 2022

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And the final one I would like to quote, this time from @Tenkko (I really miss seeing you around, Tenkko)

Spoiler

hoo boy i watched the video. wow. ok, i had to take notes. it actually talks something i've been feeling for a while too, which i always dismissed as just "i've been here too long, of course it doesn't shimmer as much for me anymore". and there's some truth to that but i've seen a lot of newer fans that also gravitate more towards the older games, so i knew there was something.

 

  • the change of gears since MoF is very real and, i've always been conflicted over that. on one hand i love that it allowed the world of Gensokyo to grow so much, and we started getting a lot of interconnected plots and/or references to previous events. on the other hand... yeah, man i just really miss that feel of "mystery" that touhou had, being given not-so-clear details and having to fill in the blanks on your own. but i feel that was bound to disappear anyways as more games shows up, and more is introduced.
  • i'm also a big fan of ZUN's more traditional art, particularly from PCB, and there's also some independent pieces he's made which i also think are very nice. that said... yeah that wasn't gonna last. i do like the new cleaner art, specially since WBaWC where it seems that he fully got it down, but it does look a bit... idk, plastic? also the same face issue buskerdog mentioned which does bother me from time to time. but yknow overall, not a big deal.
  • music is a loaded question. honestly the main thing i didn't like about the newer music is the WBaWC drums, you know the ones, but ZUN seems to be moving away from that. UM's overall soundtrack didn't vibe with me too much, but in a way i enjoyed the more experimental sound too.

onto the relevant stuff

  • HSiFS. i do agree that's where the split happened. that was the first game i wasn't super into on release, even if it grew on me a bit later on. the reason why i think it kinda failed is because it tried to do two things: introduce new characters to previously established dynamics, and introduce okina as the third sage. the first one was doomed from the start because i feel there's not enough room to properly do that in games like these, plus messing with very well established groups is... delicate. not to mention it favored that over establishing new groups like the other games do, so now you have 3 characters who are supposed to be somewhere but instead just, exist to most people. second is okina, which was handled kinda sloppily, but she was given more room to develop later on and now she's basically the only relevant takeaway from the game. truly the hidden star in four seasons.
  • WBaWC is. weird. i don't feel either way towards that game, other than it's a good starting point gameplay wise. i think it does some cool things story-wise, even if it wasn't what was expected.
  • tasofro interlude. what's said about AoCF is true, but tasofro has a bit of history with development issues. soku is mentioned in the video, i think it might've happened with SWR too? idk don't quote me on that. there were definitely issues with HM. the development hell and release of Gouyoku Ibun was... something else though, even if im all for delaying games if it means getting a better product in the end.
  • Unconnected Marketeers. i remember thinking "this is the most fun i've had with a touhou game for a while", and i still hold that. i don't have any major problems with that game really, other than aside from gameplay it's kinda... eh. misumaru struck me as odd since day 1, the "here's an important piece of lore on this stage 4 boss that's irrelevant to the rest of the game". even if it's addressed and she's given more time in the future, that introduction was kinda. not good.
  • LostWord. i got nothing else to add, dude nails it. i've heard that the writing is sometimes good and that's it. also i can see how the branding can be a bit misleading, making people believe it's canon.

whew, think that's all. i still get excited for new stuff and will continue to do so, even if i tend to hang around fanworks more nowadays. i didn't mention the print works because i can't say much about that, but i do agree with the bit about CDS.

also yeah the "ZUN can do nothing wrong" is a terrible mentality.

 

Last but not least, @sodaodaoda also brought in some very interesting ideas back then:

Spoiler

I watched that video yesterday, and I agree with many points there.

I know this is straying away from the main topic of this thread, but I just want to talk about those things from the video (I will add some fanon stuff as well).
I really miss the old atmosphere of the games. The reason why I fell in love with Touhou in the first place is because of its atmosphere. My first ever Touhou game was PCB, and when I played that game, I felt weirdly nostalgic, and I loved that feeling. It felt like playing a game that I would've played as a small kid.
Everything from the music, to the art and even the backgrounds just had some sense of mystery to them, and I love that.
Same goes for EoSD and IN, when I played those 2 games as well I felt the same as with PCB. I love everything about them, even now, the classic Win era of Touhou games is my favorite, with PC-98 being the second era.
Nowadays, I don't have any of those feelings when playing the newer games (I'm mainly talking about from TD onwards, but sometimes, MoF - UFO count too). Like, I like the new games, I find them fun, but it's just not the same as before.
I think that the art contributes to that, while it did get much better (Props to ZUN!), it really lost the handdrawn charm that it had. The older games had a much softer feel to them because of the art, and a cozier/warmer feel too. I often look at Seihou - Touhou 9 styled art to satisfy my "hunger" for that old style.
The music, however, stayed the same to me. No matter what, I still love the music. I find that it gives me the same cozy nostalgic feeling that the older games did (Although, I'd still say that the older games did it better). From 13 - 18 era I'd say that Eternal Transient Reign is the best in that regard.

Alrighty! Enough about me venting on how I miss the old Touhou, time for fanon stuff.

Touhou LostWord. Oh boy. I have many mixed feelings about this game.
But, to be honest, I don't really hate it... I think it's meh, probably because I play kinda casually, but I still hate the shit out of the gacha elements.
I feel like TLW can sometimes be rewarding with the fact that you can get up to like 15 seal cubes a day, I myself like to get only the characters I want, so I don't spend as much resources.
However, I do not like the power creep, at all. While I do have some retro units (EoSD Reimu and Marisa, IN Reisen, I use Rei and Mari more tho) and some other SFES units, I think it's a pretty damn shitty thing to do. As far as I know, Meiling is the ONLY unit to get a buff in global, and she's an S tier now. Other characters? Nope! Byakuren is literally an E tier, and isn't she one of the more stronger characters? She's a stage 6 boss after all.
Also, the game itself can be a bit grindy sometimes, and a bit boring, but I honestly think that the combat isn't really that godawful, I like it a bit. It's just that sometimes it feels so damn boring to do stages, but thankfully there's an autoplay mode.
And the Rings of Fate... I was honestly surprised when I first saw them. I didn't play TLW for several months and coming back to see that you can marry the characters is just, eugh.
So yeah... I find TLW pretty meh.
+ Good art, okay music, I don't like how it's mixed a lot, but there are some classic tunes there.
+ Honestly the story itself is okay imo, it's pretty interesting.
+ I'd say that TLW can get generous with its resources sometimes.
- The gameplay can get really boring after some time.
- The pull rates for units are attrocious.
- The events aren't anything special.
- Power creep, like I said, I love the retro line, but they should've been costumes.
- Rings of Fate.......


In short, I miss the diversity of people around March-April who were so often answering in various threads going on at the time. Now, I am feeling quite thankful to have 2-3 who constantly reply, which at least is better than nobody. I just wish to find more people I can talk to about something I really like, a topic which I really cannot discuss with most of the people I know in real, day-by-day life.

 

2 hours ago, buskerdog said:

reading this has made me think that maybe it's about time I really took that whole "Touhou game analysis" idea I had seriously... unfortunately, I still don't think I would have the time or motivation to do that. But perhaps I should start thinking about it as more than just an 'interesting idea that I'll never bother with'. Perhaps people would not only find it interesting, but also helpful, to have someone offer a comparison of games' quality at more than just a surface level look.

Personally, I have quite a weakness for writing overly complicated analysis of trivial subjects. For me, I feel it is just a fun way to make a thought experiment, and just think more about that topic. I would definitely recomment it to anyone curious, and you are abolsutely welcome to try so be it here or in a different thread. 

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17 hours ago, buskerdog said:

Don't most people consider AoCF to be the best of the flying fighters? I agree that the flying fighters aren't on the level of their predecessors but in terms of both singleplayer and multiplayer content, AoCF is the most polished and least gimmicky "floater" which people generally like it for. In fact, the game is completely devoid of gimmicks since this game's unique mechanic actually works as an expansion of the game's systems rather than a system that conflicts or overbears on the core gameplay, making AoCF the most straightforward, plain-and-fair fighting game since IaMP, something even Hisoutensoku can't claim to be. Sure, if you wanted you could still argue that character switching is a gimmick, but it's nothing close to the level of SWR/Soku's weather and card decks, HM's loadouts, and ULiL's... however you describe what happens in that game.

It's definitely a lot less egregious than HM and ULiL, and while I'm indifferent to the weather (maybe just because I play high damage characters so I can set up a 90 second typhoon and make the enemy miserable haha), if I had to compare Soku's "here's an intuitive yet intricate movement system" and "choose between previewing your super or added mechanical complexity to your combo" to AoCF's "you can jump downwards" and "basically just a one-button super" I can't really see myself preferring the latter. Maybe I'm just biased against tag fighters, who knows.

20 hours ago, Ken Hisuag said:

I suspect the issue is exposure, with the added aspect of personal preference. From just the most recent three main titles, some of the best tracks (assume subjectivity) were stage themes; HSiFS had Illusionary White Traveler, WBaWC had Unlocated Hell, and UM had The Perpetual Snow of Komakusa Blossoms. TD (commonly attributed to Modern Era 1, but I tend to associate it with Modern Era 2) is full of great stage themes, including The Hall of Dreams' Great Mausoleum, Welcome to the Youkai Temple, Let's Live in a Lovely Cemetery, and of course Desire Drive. Since entering the fandom, each new entry has taken me about a year to get into the soundtrack, but so far I've always been able to appreciate the music without too much hesitation regarding its preceding comparatives.

Oh yea Ten Desires absolutely hit it out of the park (hell Desire Drive is good enough to be associated more with Seiga than her actual theme). Also while I'm personally not too big on HSiFS and UM stage 3 (not bad songs, but they don't really hook me in), I have definitely been sleeping on Unlocated Hell, thank you for bringing it to my attention.

15 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Honestly, there are like 3-4 things I can remember from SSiB:

  • the SDM crew + Reimu & Marisa go to the moon in a rocket (how did they get past the Hakurei Barrier, I have no idea)
  • they get their butts handed there by the Watatsuki sisters (which ever since have never been seen in canon due to the fan outrage)
  • swimsuits are now canon in Gensokyo (at least for Reimu, Marisa and Remilia - I have talked about that in the fashion thread long ago)
  • Remilia is throwing a huge party at the SDM (was that before or after the whole Moon expedition?)

This is pretty much the entire story; the only thing you missed is Yuyuko and Youmu sneaking onto the moon with Yukari serving as a diversion to steal some sake, nothing else of note happens. (also during a full moon, Yukari can open a gap inside a body of water that's reflecting the moon in order to open a pathway, how this works or why the restriction is so arbitrary is never explained iirc)

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19 hours ago, buskerdog said:

Ken talking about how much he likes Ten Desires music was not a take I was expecting to read today.

Ironically, I'm not a big fan of TD's boss themes; the only track I especially appreciated of that classification was Futatsuiwa from Sado. To be fair, I appreciated Akiyama's arrangement of Omiwa Legend in HM, and I suspect it's more the arrangement style than the instrumentation. A similar issue presents itself in the first three boss themes from DDC, though with those I think ZUN was still figuring out how to balance out his guitar VST against other tracks. Bamboo Forest of the Lost is another underrated stage theme that I believe suffers from its arrangement style.

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7 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

This is pretty much the entire story; the only thing you missed is Yuyuko and Youmu sneaking onto the moon with Yukari serving as a diversion to steal some sake, nothing else of note happens. (also during a full moon, Yukari can open a gap inside a body of water that's reflecting the moon in order to open a pathway, how this works or why the restriction is so arbitrary is never explained iirc)

Oh yeah, I did hear about the way Yukari made a portal to the Moon. Rather convenient, isn't it? Reminds me of the portal to the Moon from Portal 2 (not that I think of it, I have seen quite a bit of Chell/Yukari cross-over fan art some time ago, as both have a similar gimmick of portal travelling). 

 

7 hours ago, ACE_DEUCE said:

Oh yea Ten Desires absolutely hit it out of the park (hell Desire Drive is good enough to be associated more with Seiga than her actual theme).

Honestly, I think I still do that more often than I would want. It is just a good song though. To be honest, I also like Rigid Paradise for some reason (there's something I really like about it).
 

Anyway, waiting for more replies, especially on the other parts of the video or stuff I have pointed out. I have split it into sections especially for making it easier to come up with idea for any of it. That is also why I brought in the old replies on the video, just to have even more material to discuss. 

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15 minutes ago, Macbeth said:

How big is this Touhou Lost Worlds game? I have never played it myself but I keep hearing people talk about it. I generally avoid gachas/mobile games like the plague

Honestly, were do I even start from... I might write an encyclopedia. But I need to get to bed soon, so I will let someone else have the honor of presenting Lost Word, to which I will add further notes in the morning.

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Just saw the ping, been focusing on other things so I've been neglecting checking in here. Heyo. Also I am not immune to mucho texto. Anyways here's my intermission

On 5/22/2022 at 6:02 PM, CountVonNumenor said:

Touhou 15.5, 17.5 and 18 are pretty much dead – Steam stats say

Thinking about that part of the vid, that is an awful way to gauge interest. In fact if you look at the older games they are doing even worse. You can't expect a short single-player game to have a consistently high playerbase. Unless you're an avid fan of shooter games you're gonna play the games a couple times and... that's it for a while. Most people don't even do the "couple times" part. I personally haven't played a Touhou game since like, the beginning of this year. 15.5 would be the exception to this but while it's decent, it really didn't become established the way Soku did, so it suffers from "just play the story mode and move on". "or just read the dialogue on the wiki lol"

Also yeah, coupled with the fact that not everyone plays on Steam.

About the print works I agree with what others have mentioned, that where ZUN really shines is at writing shorter stories for the games. I would extend that to the stories included with the music CDs as well, even if they're disjointed due to the nature of the medium, but that's part of why I like them. When it comes to the mangas the only one I've finished is SSiB, and I'm currently keeping up with CDS. And... eh. There are some things I like about SSiB but if you asked me if I found the story interesting overall the answer is "no". CDS... a little bit? Even though it completely messes up the "mystery" aspect in like, the first two chapters. I guess it wasn't going for that in the first place but it really should've.

Idk right now the only motivation for me to read the mangas is "I wanna know about X piece of trivia". And that's not a good thing. But that's also why I enjoyed the other, more encyclopedia-ish books that just focus on worldbuilding and characters. I'm probably not the only one who shares this view since I rarely see anyone reminiscing about specific events but I do see people repeat things like "did you know Kogasa is a blacksmith?" like a broken record.

Also "ZUN doesn't think too deeply about the stories" "ZUN writes about what he's thinking about at the moment" "ZUN partially uses Touhou to express his views on X" etc etc. Some takes I've seen that make sense to me.

Uh. That's all I got in me at the moment. I wanted to go on a little bit about nostalgia and music n shit but I can't think atm.

 

Edited by Tenkko
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15 hours ago, Tenkko said:

Heyo. Also I am not immune to mucho texto.

Hello Tenkko! Haven't seen you in quite a long while. Feel free to write as much text as you wish. I always like reading long texts, especially if the subject is interesting.

 

15 hours ago, Tenkko said:

Thinking about that part of the vid, that is an awful way to gauge interest. In fact if you look at the older games they are doing even worse. You can't expect a short single-player game to have a consistently high playerbase. Unless you're an avid fan of shooter games you're gonna play the games a couple times and... that's it for a while. Most people don't even do the "couple times" part. I personally haven't played a Touhou game since like, the beginning of this year. 15.5 would be the exception to this but while it's decent, it really didn't become established the way Soku did, so it suffers from "just play the story mode and move on". "or just read the dialogue on the wiki lol"

First of all, could you explain what you meant through the awful way to gauge interest? But I do agree. Unless you are an avid fan, sometimes it might be very hard o come back play these games. I think here is also a "me problem", but last time I tried playing PCB was in like February-March. And since, I still haven't managed to finish that game. As a whole, I might have less than 10 run attempts in over a year at that game, on easiest difficulty, and still cannot overcome Stage 4. And it is not like I also lack the motivation to get back to it too...

 

15 hours ago, Tenkko said:

About the print works I agree with what others have mentioned, that where ZUN really shines is at writing shorter stories for the games.

I never really got to personally read the official manga (I tried getting into Lotus Eaters, but got bored after like 15 pages and never touched it again; I also skimmed through the most recent 2 chapters of CDS, but that's about it). Most of my knowledge of what is going on in the written works comes from the wiki or overall discussions. So I can not compare the writing for games with that for the publications. However, I did see there is a little bit of difference between the two. 

 

15 hours ago, Tenkko said:

I would extend that to the stories included with the music CDs as well, even if they're disjointed due to the nature of the medium, but that's part of why I like them.

From the CD stories, I really like those related to Maribel and Renko. In a way, those helped me quite a bit in liking them more. As for stuff like Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, despite being a bit edgy and just Agatha Christie's novel but in Gensokyo, there is still something interesting about it. Something that makes it feel...different. 

 

15 hours ago, Tenkko said:

Idk right now the only motivation for me to read the mangas is "I wanna know about X piece of trivia". And that's not a good thing. But that's also why I enjoyed the other, more encyclopedia-ish books that just focus on worldbuilding and characters. I'm probably not the only one who shares this view since I rarely see anyone reminiscing about specific events but I do see people repeat things like "did you know Kogasa is a blacksmith?" like a broken record.

Huh, I have never thought about this view on the idea of reading the manga. However, I do agree that the encyclopedia-ish books have been really good (I am still waiting for a new book covering the rest of the cast up to Touhou 18 - it's been 10 years since Symposium of Post-mysticism, ZUN damn it). As for the remembering events vs remembering bits of trivia, I do agree. Sometimes, I guess these are just the more memorable parts of the writing instead of what is actually going on. But if you are going to ask about people recalling events from the manga, more than likely you would get "Reimu killed the Fortune Teller" or "Kasen is trying to hide her totally not Oni side" too repeated like a broken record. At least in other places where I have seen people talk. Legit I cannot remember anything else important going on in there. (also the tons of copium fans have taken since the vengeful spirit in CDS was revealed not to be Mima, but MiMi). But to be honest, it took me quite a while to learn the fact Kogasa is a blacksmith. I actually think that is cool.

 

 

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IMO the print works can be pretty good; when they're slice-of-life comedy style is when they are at their best. It's cool to be able to see Gensokyo and its inhabitants through a more normal lens when there is no incident going on.

I'm reading the three fairies manga series at the moment and while the first of those (Eastern and Little Nature Deity) wasn't that interesting, the second one (Strange and Bright Nature Deity) was a lot better, and I've heard many people say that the three fairies series as a whole is a really good Touhou manga so I'm looking forward to reading the rest of them!

Forbidden Scrollery, while slightly more serious, also has the same sort of slice-of-life feel and I really enjoyed that manga, maybe the fact I could actually physically read them made me enjoy it more but, with the exception of the last volume (unfortunately the ending was a huge anti-climax), I do think its a great Touhou manga (damnit Kosuzu is just too entertaining, the fact I forgot to put print work characters on my last Touhou sorter list was a missed opportunity).

Wild and Horned Hermit, for me personally, flopped because it was a lot of just being boring or being confusing... I don't remember anything particularly funny happening...

As for Silent Sinner in Blue, it was a quite a long time ago I read it but I seem to remember liking it. It was one of the first print works I read, so maybe if I went back to it I could see whether or not I actually think it's that good compared to other Touhou mangas I've now read.

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18 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

First of all, could you explain what you meant through the awful way to gauge interest?

Him saying those games are dead because of the Steam stats when these are short single player games with little replayability for most people. The player number is gonna peak around release and then it's gonna drop all the way. It doesn't really tell much unless you compare all the games and even then it's kinda pointless. But here it is anyways

Spoiler

Numbers are taken from steamcharts, these are the average players for the first three months of each game, last 30 days, and their all-time peak. Take 'em with a grain of salt.

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  • Most of the main games seem to have a similar number of players recently (the differences are too small to mean much)
  • Almost every game suffers a sharp drop after the first month (at least the ones that started with a high number)
  • UM has the highest all-time peak by far, and right now it's one of the most played Touhou games on Steam along with MoF
  • Steam may as well hold a very small fraction of the people that play the games. Which is really funny to think about considering all the fuss in the past months

Again all of this means nothing and I compiled it just to show that.

1 hour ago, buskerdog said:

IMO the print works can be pretty good; when they're slice-of-life comedy style is when they are at their best. It's cool to be able to see Gensokyo and its inhabitants through a more normal lens when there is no incident going on.

Yeah I agree. Maybe what I said is redundant since Touhou is more about the characters than whatever plot it might have but, yknow. Which brings me to the one I forgot to mention: CoLA. It also follows kinda the same slice of life-ish format but from the get-go it had a more interesting premise to me. Not to mention Rinnosuke being an unique specimen. I haven't read the more recent chapters though.

Edited by Tenkko
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7 hours ago, Tenkko said:

Him saying those games are dead because of the Steam stats when these are short single player games with little replayability for most people. The player number is gonna peak around release and then it's gonna drop all the way. It doesn't really tell much unless you compare all the games and even then it's kinda pointless. But here it is anyways

Oh, alright, now I see what you meant through that. Looking at your stats board, it is quite interesting how popular Touhou 18 still is, despite people not really talking about the game. Or at least I do not really see them talking about this game. But in general, it seems like the newer games and characters are less discussed among the fans. Are they less memorable? Did they not get further appearances past their debut game? At least in my case, Touhou 15 is more clear and interesting once reaching Clownpiece (as part of the holy trinity of Clownpiece-Junko-Hecatia), Touhou 16 is very much blur (except for best doggo Aunn, the crazy backdrop dancers - I still confuse them which is which + thank you Stack for helping me remember they exist and Okina). Touhou 17 is not too remarkable until reaching Mayumi (her and Keiki are basically the only things I could say caught my attention/I like), and Touhou 18 is more like still going through the "new game" glasses (there has been a year since UM release recently). 
 

Anyway, time to see how we can keep things in the topic I have started with, i.e debating the things TheOVJN said. 


Oh, one more thing I have seen being discussed among fans when it comes to the manga. Another problem usually brought up is how the supposed main characters of a manga series get overshadowed by another one who is coming everywhere, out of nowhere. And the example I heard most of the time is that of Mamizou. She has appeared in both Forbidden Scrollery and Lotus Eaters so much that by now, the two manga tend to be referred to by readers as stories more about Mamizou instead of the supposed protagonists (Kosuzu in FS and Miyoi in LE). Which is just another source of criticism towards the official publications of recent times - they start focusing on a character, yet in time the focus is lost and that character basically gets a backseat, as apparently happened to Miyoi (she apparently just...exists nowadays IN HER OWN MANGA).

Edited by CountVonNumenor

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  • CountVonNumenor changed the title to Reply to TheOVJM’s decline of Touhou video
On 5/23/2022 at 10:50 PM, buskerdog said:

"Touhou game analysis" idea I had seriously... unfortunately, I still don't think I would have the time or motivation to do that.

I would definitely love to see something like that come to life. And if you need help with it, I am more than eager to help with such a project. 

 

Alright, so to bring new ideas on some of the old ideas: 

On 5/23/2022 at 12:02 AM, CountVonNumenor said:

Evolution of ZUN art

Long ago I have written about my oddities with his style. For anyone unaware, this is what my original text stated back then:

  Reveal hidden contents

Ever since I joined the fandom, one of the things that caught my attention is the unique artstyle adopted by ZUN for his characters. Thinking of that, I have recently decided to start using more his original art as point of reference whenever I want to draw any of the Touhou girls.
 

Ø  DISCLAIMER: I absolutely do not hate the original ZUN style. I think it is very unique, and it has evolved and improved quite a lot over the years. Plus, it is quite to be appreciated that he can also drawing, given that the main games are basically done by a one-man army.
 

However, I have also noticed a bit of a problem, which might be one in general with Touhou art. Everything looks so ambiguous, while I also do know that ZUN has his kind of "no fanservice" policy. Which, as I was talking about in the past, has led to people judging us, the Touhou fans, as pedophiles or "loli lovers" in the most extreme of cases, while people generally wondering why our characters look so much like children, even when we come with the arguments like "she is (supposed to be) x hundreds/thousands of years old". In a way, I was concerned that Touhou might have also given birth to the "thousand year old loli trope", which just made things worse. It is interesting how fans tried to "fix" his art (be it by drawing safe things or not), even if the fan art going at times more towards the fan-service area. We even have a meme about how fanart is much better than the original art - it is good, but the original needs credit too, since the fan-art would not exist had there not been an original to start from

 

I know that drawing the characters as more mature or outright adults is also an option in your own style, while also implementing some of the design choices ZUN came up with, one that I actually like a lot and try to use more. Only problem I have noticed until now is that reactions from those you will show then the images tend to be mixed, from people appreciating them to making the whole upper-mentioned statement about Touhou fans even more than before, saying that we are so desperate to legitimize our liking for a child-looking-like character by making them look closer to their supposed ages.

 

In a way, up to this point I have ended up picking characters for drawing that are either canonically adults by this points (ex Akyuu who is known to be born in 1994) or someone who could work well in a more adult and mature form (ex Eiki Shiki and Iku Nagae). However, I am wondering how I will do with other characters, even if some like Yuuka, Junko and Hecatia will actually work rather well with that vision set in mind.

Anyway, back to the point. Besides the "no fanservice" rule, why do the ZUN characters look the way they do? I find it interesting how much of a difference there is between the main games and spin-offs art, and how much of a contrast there is between his original style and the closer to anime vibe given by, for example, the fighter games.

 

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Now, for comparison, OVJN has decided to go by another route when talking about the art evolution. As seen in the image, he split it in between multiple eras: PC-98, Seihou and other pre-EoSD works (from what I can see, he counted “Portrait of Exotic Girls” and Dolls in Pseudo Paradise), EoSD, early Windows era, early modern era and everything from UFO onwards. However, I would personally add a new era, starting with Unconnected Marketeers as the style is rather different from anything that came previously. I would have written a whole text in regards to this, but a comment found in the video tells quite well what I was thinking of + a few more things:

I have found a few threads online on something like that, out of which this one jumped into my eyes as being the newest. The thread is related to the question why hasn't ZUN decided to hire someone else do the art for him in the games instead of keeping all the work on himself (and due to the so-called "involution" with the past few main games). Initially, I was wondering why it was rated so low, but then I actually saw why - in short the dude could express his dissatisfaction with ZUN art a bit more gracefully to say the least...

 

There is also this discussion about old designs made by ZUN from what TheOVJM called in his chart "Seihou/Pre-EoSD era", only made more interesting by an analysis of the clothes picked and identified in those drawings:

Spoiler

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Next on the list. Had TheOVJM completed his video script a few weeks later than he did, it is very possible his analysis video would have also covered the DMCA event of March 25th 2022. Meanwhile, I want to point out towards another thread going into people trying to get the old games and at least asking about it. Here are two things I want to point out:

the general will of the people to promote as much as possible buying a physical copy of a game only obtainable in Japan, and which would be, depending on where you are, quite possibly expensive (we do not count PC-98 here, but people would tell you even for those games to buy a physical copy of them)
how annoying and toxic people can be sometimes when recommending a starting point for Touhou games - literally everyone saying EoSD is not a good starting point got nuked into negative points, while someone reported the thread under alleged "promotion of piracy"

 

One thing that was only covered from the point of view of Steam sold games was a supposed death for materials and people not getting interested in them anymore. Not really coming to a contrary, but this survey is quite interesting in regards to what made people get into Touhou 

 

And last, but not least, probably one of the biggest flaws in the video, which perhaps has been left aside for a Part 2 - the fans. I feel like they should get a similar analysis to this one over here, as the fandom itself is pretty much just as important in what pretty much kept Touhou alive for 20+ years now. And with the apparent changed in fandom structure and interests in the past couple years at least (let alone 8 years as he claims to be since he joined the fandom). On a related note to the fandom, here is this thing. Not the biggest, most relevant thing, but a interesting post for anyone familiar with the "Fusu-posting" and early "mommy-psoting" era at the beginning of the year.


@Isaac I present to you the spiritual successor of Fusu - this time, the girls no longer ask you out (and then go into bed with you - at least I am not aware of that happening at this new artist), but directly marry you (or at leas the author of the images). Truly "the least horny Touhou fan" joke kind of moment (the art style looks cute though).

Spoiler

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I really like the changing background

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Generally, I am not interested in Kagerou, but I can say she is looking good in this one

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Hey, this Eiki actually does look quite lovely, not gonna lie

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[bunny_cry.jpeg]

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Also hey, finally a Sanae with common-sense-sized boobs

 

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1 hour ago, CountVonNumenor said:

I present to you the spiritual successor of Fusu - this time, the girls no longer ask you out (and then go into bed with you - at least I am not aware of that happening at this new artist), but directly marry you (or at leas the author of the images). Truly "the least horny Touhou fan" joke kind of moment (the art style looks cute though).

Oh hey I know that artist, I'm in a discord with them.

Yes, every drawing from them I know involves talking about marriage, even if it's not 2hu.

No, they don't do it for horny reasons, just want to feel loved (apparently).

I found it a bit strange at first but by now I've seen it so much that I find the recurring trope quite amusing.

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3 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:


@Isaac I present to you the spiritual successor of Fusu - this time, the girls no longer ask you out (and then go into bed with you - at least I am not aware of that happening at this new artist), but directly marry you (or at leas the author of the images). Truly "the least horny Touhou fan" joke kind of moment (the art style looks cute though).

  Reveal hidden contents

nq4b2yloui491.gif

I really like the changing background

09ns5vloui491.png?width=1280&format=png&

Generally, I am not interested in Kagerou, but I can say she is looking good in this one

jyomftloui491.png?width=1280&format=png&

Hey, this Eiki actually does look quite lovely, not gonna lie

slgz4xloui491.png?width=1280&format=png&

[bunny_cry.jpeg]

quwqcehuui491.png?width=1280&format=png&

Also hey, finally a Sanae with common-sense-sized boobs

 

Thanks for sharing this Count, it's good to see you guys again too! I really like this person's artstyle and the animated background looks cool. At least its not leading to 'that' type of content and seems like it's just for fun. I wonder if they'll ever make one for Parsee :)

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2 hours ago, buskerdog said:

Oh hey I know that artist, I'm in a discord with them. Yes, every drawing from them I know involves talking about marriage, even if it's not 2hu. No, they don't do it for horny reasons, just want to feel loved (apparently). I found it a bit strange at first but by now I've seen it so much that I find the recurring trope quite amusing.

Huh, so I guess he just likes keeping things on a more wholesome tone. Nice to see that, especially as originally, in Fusu's art, everyone looked like they were one step from wanting to have sex with you (which very much always happened in "Part 2" of his drawings). Here, it just looks like the characters are genuinely happy for what is happening.

As for the whole style of image (POV the girl wants/loves you), I initially though it was cute and focused more on the drawing itself instead of the text message. The, as people started getting more and more annoyed during the "Fusu-posting" era on r/touhou, I started to think the whole thing is rather cringe, a sad attempt to milk the emotions of thousands of maidenless online internauts. (which only hurts even more when you are alone). But in the end, I have come back to the original way of seeing this, and enjoy at least the drawing itself. I cannot really identify myself with the kind of person enjoying so much this kind of fantasy fulfilment art, but if it makes someone happy, let them be happy. They liberty does not stand against yours, so nobody is affected. But like I said, the drawings look quite cute. Also cool to hear you are sharing a server with him. Any idea what he might be drawing next?

 

1 hour ago, Isaac said:

Thanks for sharing this Count, it's good to see you guys again too! I really like this person's artstyle and the animated background looks cool. At least its not leading to 'that' type of content and seems like it's just for fun. I wonder if they'll ever make one for Parsee :)

Welcome back, Isaac! This series of images left me the impression Adda (addamelech) has drawn his favorite characters, and the question would be where is Parsee situated on his list. But one can always hope. To me, I am happy to see Shiki Eiki drawn in a more serious and dignified way, as I feel that tends to be a rather rare depiction in the fandom (I mean it is rather rare when she is not just small/looks like a child despite being supposed to be the judge of the dead in Gensokyo).

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  • 3 weeks later...

Before I forget, time to share here an interesting discussion seen while rewatching the video. I think I should also leave a comment there for him, just in order to ask for a similar video to this one, but about the fandom itself and how it evolved at least in these 8 years since he has been a fan of the series. I would definitely watch en entire hour of that shit. But since he is one of the Genso Bois (therefore in the same pot as Pearldrop and a creator of shitpost - I think he did go for a while with the X3GE's mommy formula along with the bandwagon), my guess is that he might actually not make such a video even if asked for it. 

Anyway, into the comments. It is mostly one interesting exchange I wanna point out:

Quote

Person: I watch you whole and I disagree from hell and back. I understand what you might coming from but I think it highly toxic and some of it will only bring ZUN back. Should I explain how it was toxic. Cause I can?



TheOVJM: go ahead



Person: Okay. 1. The art/music point will send ZUN backwards. It may be more charming but artists should be allowed to go forward with their art.

2. The stuff with Twilight Frontier is not ZUN fault. Coronavirus still must effects them. You probably know from being a YouTuber. And if ZUN did canned Touhou 17.5 we wouldn't get the Final Boss that was foreshadowed in the previous game.

3. Touhou 18 if people sold their Spellcards it's wouldn't make sense because from what I understand others people can't just use others questions. Like what if a powerless Human got sold a spellcard. Would it work. At this point. It's raise the same amount and questions as the cards.

4. So Rainbow-Colored Septentrion because your being sold an ad. But Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey is fine cause it linked with a tragedy. With no sign that I can find the money being giving to Charity. Should Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey be considered worse.

5. Foul Detective Satori. Whole point is that Satori would be cheating with her mind reading characters so it becomes a chase then a mystery cause a mystery is impossible with a mind reader solving it.

6. ZUN only associated with Lost Word so it's not connected to ZUN or Touhou. And Touhou and Gacha games aren't good cause Touhou is at it core unable to be a Gacha game. Here a video for this. https://youtu.be/4yxsoiOIItE (the video is The Gacha Paradox from Megapig9001)

7. And the Rant feel super unprofessional so and you just put a warning and not cut it out.



TheOVJM: 1: I stated multiple times that my takes on art and music were just that, my opinion and not real criticism. The early parts were me just stating where I stood with Touhou over all.

2: I never said it was Zun's fault, the whole point was directed toward TF. And while Corona might have had an effect of day or two, like I stated in the video, that's as big of an effect as it would have had. And as a youtuber and a game development student I am 100% confident on what I talk about here. At the moment I have no idea what the delays were caused by, but I am sure Corona played only miniscule role in it.

3: True, the characters trading spellcards would be just as big of an asspull as the current system we got. But one benefit it would have is that no new system would need to be invented plus, like I said, Chimata making cards of people she doesn't know doesn't really make any sense. Truth be told what you described on this point applies to the current card system as well, there's really no reason as to why the protag can suddenly summon Okuu's sun or use Remilia's bite.

4: Like I said, RCS was an advert that was sold to the fans. It doesn't matter whether it was promoting a small or large tourism location, it's still unethical to sell ads. And while I hope the funds raised from UFMJ would have been donated to charity (which I can't confirm for or against) it's not even remotely as unethical as disguising an advert as an official addition to your franchise and sell it. You may disagree but that's the hill I'm willing to die upon.

5: Yes, that's the point, that point however doesn't make the bad writing in it any better. Plus the point (Satori's mind reading) isn't even utilized in the story more than couple times, so even that misses the mark.

6: That's basically what I said in the video. It's not official but it's officially licensed and ZUN associates with them regularly. Which is why some people do think it's an official work. And in that case it's on ZUN for not making the distinction clear enough. And yeah, gacha games, Touhou or not, are garbage. I don't know why you needed to bring that up because I agree with you there as I stated in the video.

7: Is the rant at the end unprofessional? Definitely yes. Is it emotion drive? Definitely yes. Am I professional? Definitely not. Cutting that segment would have been disingenuous not only for me but for the viewer as well. I will not censor myself when it comes to as serious topics as predatory monetization and inappropriate representation of child/child-like characters in gaming. Doing so would be turning a blind eye to them which will only make the problem worse.

 

Also @sodaodaoda is this you? Or just someone else with a very similar name?

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2 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Anyway, into the comments. It is mostly one interesting exchange I wanna point out:

 

Also @sodaodaoda is this you? Or just someone else with a very similar name?

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Ayyy, you managed to find me on that video! Good job! xP
Yeah, it's me, even there I complained how much I miss the old Windows era :P
this reminds me of how i found isaac on the LostWord server....

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Number 1 Alice, Meiling and Youmu fan! jaooooooooo

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