The Overview of Themes/Lessons and Stuff in Yakumi Sarai's works (Zounose)

[Reitisen]

Today I will be talking about an artist and mangaka who often produces the more mature related works in the Touhou sphere.

Yakumi Sarai or often called Zounose, makes a lot of works that are in general more grotesque/mature with a dash of comedy spiced in.

I'll be generally moving from the more comedic works to the more heavy handed works as I explain each one's themes.

Oh yeah, spoilers ahead

Red for NSFW Grey for generally SFW,

D for more explanation within

Scarlet Devil Mansion and The Hakurei[y] Grail

Spoiler

SFW work, (if you consider disintegration of Youkai, blood, and "extermination" by Reimu A-Okay!)

Overview:  Real balls to the wall what the hell is happening manga. Basically the SDM head maid Sakuya stole some of the shrine maiden's (nose) blood in order to appease her mistress who wants to drink it. Hijinks ensue due to Reimu wanting to take back her blood and the mansion creating a evil banishing artifact which could destroy Gensokyo.

Theme/Lesson: There is none! Unless you consider messing with the Hakurei Maiden is bad!

Frandog

Spoiler

SFW (Remi gets her entire head disintegrated)

Overview: Flan gets turned into a dog! How? I don't know! Remi tries to find ways of turning Flan back into a "human" vampire with the SDM crew dealing with this fact. Sakuya also questions her own position within the SDM.

Theme/Lesson: Surprisingly there is a revelation with Remi and her view towards her own sister in this manga.

Before the Rainbow - D

Spoiler

SFW (Pretty safe given other works, no blood and violence, pretty comedic also.)

Overview: This story follows a fallen god named Chimata who is troubled by her own downfall as a once powerful god with a powerful domain over the marketplace. Chimata goes through a journey meeting various other gods and finding out what each of them values and how her own position as a god takes place. Eventually she finds her place within Gensokyo with the help of Kanako and Suwako through her powers of the marketplace and her own acceptance of re-becoming of the marketplace god.

Theme/Lesson: This story can heavily relate towards the aspect of finding one's purpose in life again as Chimata was presumably once the most prominent market place god to which somehow lost her following. (Perhaps times changing or whatnot) Her own view towards life was one of despise due to her circumstance which prevented her from truly taking back her own place within Gensokyo. Her view was shattered once she realized there are other gods who have realized her slump and helped her peer through her own de-motivation, allowing her to realize her purpose again as the marketplace god.

MasqueReimu - D

Spoiler

SFW (Mob Youkai gets exterminated )

Overview: This one is mostly focused on Reimu and her position as the Hakurei Shrine maiden. Her job has made her unseen as Reimu, but as the Hakurei Shrine maiden in all aspects from the human village. Yukari, being the crafty Youkai she is, decides to hold a masquerade party at a nearby village location with Reimu participating as another masquerader as a day-off for her. Sanae replaces Reimu for the festival as the "Hakurei Shrine maiden"

Yukkrui Shiteitte ne! Reimu wanders about the festival and bumps into Marisa (thought they don't know who each other due to the masks) and fight over an candy apple. Ultimately Marisa wins the candy apple, but not without an insult from Reimu. Both come out thinking they topped the other.

moving on, a group of familiar Youkai and gods discuss about the deal with the Hakurei Shrine maiden and how most people see her as the shrine maiden and not Reimu herself, ultimately leading up to the reason why Reimu somehow being lazy yet dutiful in her duty as the Hakurei Shrine maiden.

A situation comes up in which a Youkai has taken some children away from the festival, leaving most of the group down to Yukari and Kanako who talk about their own shrine maidens and their dedication to the job leaving them disrupted in two parts.

Reimu already has tracked down the Youkai and starts exterminating it, ultimately finishing it off with Marisa lending the same candy apple stick to deal the final blow.

Theme/Lesson: The theme as stated in the afterword deals with the inseparable nature that Reimu holds with her position as the Shrine Maiden of the Hakurei shrine. Her own powers being whole entirely present even when she isn't equipped with exterminator gear. (Her being able to exterminate the Youkai with a simple skewer and all)

Last Supper - D

Spoiler

NSFW (Cannibalism - if you consider somebody getting eaten by Youkai to be that way, Violence - Fights happen)

Overview: We follow an old Youkai exterminator, somebody who has been within Gensokyo before the spell card implementation from the shrine maiden was a thing and Youkai were more prevalent in attacking and eating people.

 Each and every part of the manga mostly relates to some body part being chopped off from the old Youkai exterminator and it being cooked by the Youkai denizens of Gensokyo. Ultimately he ends up on a cliff edge with most of his body in shambles from the fights of various Youkai. The final and deciding factor was Yukari herself, one of the grand sages who have created Gensokyo and the one who puts the old exterminator down out of his misery out of his request to fight the one who started it all.

Themes/lesson: This one mostly relates to the acceptance of life and death by the Youkai exterminator due to the changing times to Gensokyo, each time he is beaten and dismembered he exposes his thoughts about why he even lives in a time where real extermination has been long forgotten and Youkai went underground in terms of eating humans in a sort of coexistence with the current shrine maiden.

Goodbye Beast - D +

Spoiler

NSFW( Cannibalism and actual dead body on first page :0 ) Shou is cute cat though!

Overview: Rumia finds a dead body and decides to eat it! Sasgua Rumia-san. She gets interrupted by Mamizou who was disguised as  the dead body in the first place to which Rumia tries to eat. One serious moment later, Rumia is eating rice balls and being lectured to by Mamizou and the Monk of the Myouren Temple, Byakuren. Byakuren wants Rumia to not be a lazy-bum of a Youkai, actively hunting and upholding her nature to prevent her from being forgotten by humans and disappear. Rumia doesn't give a crap. (part of her nature?) So they call upon Shou to be Rumia's teacher.

Scene shifts to Rumia's house? Oh wait formerly a human's house before she ate them. Anyways, Shou tries to berate Rumia for not actively doing her part as a Youkai enforcing her own existence and forces Rumia into a hunt.

This ends up being in a failure as Shou fails to show her how to hunt(she trips spectacularly) and Rumia not getting it, has already caught the deer. ~Please wait while the girls cook the deer. Rumia ends up eating most of the deer meat with quite a good few left and urges Shou to take part in the meat through some wise persuasion as Buddhist rules prevent eating meat in general. (Shou notices this, but decides to eat anyways) This activates something within Shou, causing her to reminisce the time where she was an Youkai killing without moderation.

A scent drifts and Shou smells a human, something that originally was something that they were going to hunt. Scrambling to teach Rumia about actively hunting humans, Shou drags Rumia along to ambush this human, though it seems Rumia can see who that human is, but Shou don't care about that.

One beating by the Hakurei Shrine maiden later. . . Reimu is eating and conversing with the beaten up Youkai pair. Talking about some "third rate exterminators" (Yeah real ironic Reimu) and how they have been going and attacking youkai who haven't been causing a ruckus. Reimu being Reimu, tells them to not fight or else she would side with the humans. (her reputation already worsened from having Youkai at her shrine) 

Cut scene to the Myouren Temple. It is dinner time and the Myouren crew is commenting about the current going on with the Temple. Hijiri is not seen, but meditating about something. Flashback to before Rumia and Shou met, Shou and Byakuren are discussing about Shou's original image and how she became an avatar of the Bishamonten (Vaisravana) with Shou talking about training herself by taking on the challenge of training Rumia.

One sleeping scene later with Shou and Rumia, Shou wakes up to confront her own nature within the darkness that was being emitted by Rumia, her own nature dissipates and she seems to see why Rumia acts the way she does as a lazy Youkai born out of formless fear.

Few days later and they have already eaten practically every animal in their area. Starving on the ground, Shou hears some rustling and three humans who look like Youkai Exterminators approach and attack. As expected Rumia takes initiative and tears out a man's throat, Shou sees them try to attack Rumia, but blocks the attack and threatens them to back off, quite un-Youkai like for a Youkai which Shou seems to notice. 

Anyways Rumia has already started to process the human and nudges Shou to partake in eating it. Shou has already seen her kill the human so she abides by her rules. (Though it is assumed because she has an understanding to Rumia)

She returns to the temple understanding a part of her self and a part of Rumia as a part of themselves.

Themes/lesson: Well this one was focused on Shou and her own true self compared to Rumia who was always her true self. Shou partaking on this journey was her way of finding out if she would lead the path of being her true self (The Youkai Tiger) or being the Idol of the Myouren Temple. Her journey lead her to find out that some people can't change and that she herself has already changed in that changed her own nature as the Youkai Tiger to a idol completely separate from her old true self.

Alright that is all I'm going to write today, there are many more, but that's for you all to explore and I already spent way too long on this.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Reitisen