The time has come: CountVonNumenor is talking about Touhou Memories of Phantasm

[CountVonNumenor]

"I was thinking about covering that series at one point. I have not personally watched it, but my best friend did, and told me a little bit what it is about long ago. The series I would have gone into next was rather going to be Memories of Phantasm. I have foreshadowed a summary + review for each episode since back in May when I wrote the multi-thread collection, yet still have to go through it. I have watched the first 7 episodes in the winter break at the end of 2020, yet never went further. Perhaps with the review, I may be able to finish the series and refresh on what I have already watched." - CountVonNumenor, in The time has come: CountVonNumenor is talking about KKHTA... (3rd November 2022)

Merry Christmas everyone!

The time has finally come. Just as I promised, I am no here to write the tread on Touhou Gensou Mangekyou, better known as The Memories of Phantasm or Fantasy Kaleidoscope (both names seem to be used interchangeably on the internet and in YouTube uploads of the series). Take this a my Christmas gift for the community. Since I was finally in the winter break, I have decided to give a watch again to the series. It's been 2 years since my previous attempt at going through the fan-made anime, and it stopped at Episode 7. Back then, I simply could not get forward after seeing all the negativity the series was getting as I was advancing through the episodes (I was watching one of those version you can find on YouTube, so the voice-over was quite far from good at times). 

One of the things that really made me get back to this idea was the recent review of the series made by Megafrog (video will be linked at the end). He nailed down excellently a lot of the main points when it comes to the strong and weak points of MoP. Therefore, my review will be instead a brief breakdown of each episode, followed by the raw, unfiltered opinions on the episode itself accompanied by screenshots and further comments. Unfortunately, I only have the raw thoughts and screenshots registered beginning with Episode 5,therefore I will have to find a different formula for everything before that. I have searched for a streaming platform (I really wanted to find a better voiceover version from that on YouTube, and actually found so on anime streaming websites), then got myself a couple free days to go through all the 17 episodes. I was planning to write this thread since yesterday and only have it published today, on the 25th December, but it seems like it took me longer than planned.

I would like to thank @Isaac, @sodaodaoda and @Gou the frog in accompanying me while watching the episodes. It was extremely fun to discuss with them live as the things were unfolding in front of my eyes. I will probably try that again at some point in the future. 

Without any further ado, let's get into the content you have all come here for, shall we?

Episode 1 - The Spring Snow Incident

This is the beginning of the series. After a brief prologue scene giving us the origin of the never-coming spring incident from Perfect Cherry Blossom, we are introduced to probably one of the most recognizable intros for a fan-made Touhou project, on the music of Yuuhei Satellite (seriously, that song is so memorable). From here, we have a retelling of the events from Touhou 7, as seen in the vision of the show creators (and apparently the fandom itself), and not necessarily that of ZUN and game itself. So this is what I thought about it:

• from the first minutes, we basically establish Marisa as the main character; Reimu can still be considered a protagonist, but most of the focus seems to go towards Marisa
  
• at the Hakurei Shrine, we have a few things established: 1) Reimu is lazy, and as long as she is not bothered, she will not go out to solve the incident and 2) the brief Cirno representation was probably supposed to be the mid-stage boss in Stage 1
  
• Marisa decides to go by herself solve the cause of the prolonged winter
  
• the fight against Letty is basically 2 shots, one of them being Letty falling defeated to the ground (this will be a common occurrence through the series with lesser bosses and budget restrains to animate battles)
  
• Stage 2: pretty much a cat-chase at what I guess is supposed to be Mayohiga?
  
• Stage 3: brief meeting at Alice's house, again made out of a few shots, or batter said snapshots (oh, I forgot to mention, Aya is already around, taking photos of wherever Marisa is going)
  
• Stage 4: we are literally bypassing Lily White and the Prismriver sisters without any bit of interaction
  
• Stage 5: finally at the stairs leading up to Hakugyokurou; the duel against Youmu begins after she insults us in a very generic "ah, a human is too weak to defeat us" kind of speech; we have a brief fight, after which Youmu is curb-stomped by Marisa after the latter used what looks to me like Blazing Star, ramming the half-human-half-phantom into a wall and knocking her out
  
• Stage 6: Ara Ara, we have a smug, big booba Yuyuko; we are finally at the first serious confrontation of the episode; and like any villain of the week, Yuyuko also has her own monologue
  
• meanwhile, Reimu is still chilling at her Shrine; it is only due to a timely arrival of Sakuya (in her PCB outfit, albeit with a skirt that slowly getting shorter with each shot she is in) that Reimu is convinced to go help Marisa (we don't see Sakya afterwards through the plot except for a cameo at the end)
  
• Reimu finally joins the battle at Hakugyokurou; the Yuuhei Satellite song starts again, and it is time for the final showdown; in her arrogance, Yuyuko falls into a trap set by Reimu, and is defeated via Fantasy Seal
  
• end scene: party at the Hakurei Shrine; everyone is happy, we have a friendly banter between Reimu and Marisa, then end credits
  
• ...except for the fact we have a post-credits scene; it seems to be in the brief aftermath of PCB, with Youmu and Yuyuko looking at the youkai cherry tree; we do get a surprise though - at Hakugyokurou, out of nowhere, Sanae shows up, the context and scenery implying that she just as arrived to Gensokyo (it would make sense, given tat just before Youmu arrived, the whole Yakumo family was there - we get there when we get there)
  

Conclusion: this could be longer. I really wish more characters had some proper screen time, but I guess you cannot ask too much from a fan project after all, especially when the final goal is to make some money from your product (and even at that, MoP seems to have failed in some measure)

Episode 2 - The Scarlet Mist Incident (Part 1)

Interestingly enough, this episode has an alternative title in the title sequence: An interview without the Vampire, which is a clear reference to the film Interview with the Vampire from 1994. Anyway, time to make the timeline more confusing. Are you with me? Alright, let's go:

• the episode starts with a large banquet at the Moriya Shrine, in what looks to be the aftermath of Subterranean Animism
  
• after a few minutes of introduction, there comes the intro; we have a new intro from previous episode
  
• everything starts nicely - it is an intro that makes reference to the events of SA; at this point, you may be forgiven if you assumed it would be SA that will be covered in this episode... anyway, we have the formation of the gheizer and HOLY MOTHER OF MONKE, SOMEONE IS ABOUT TO CALL THE FBI - the fanservice scene with everyone naked at the hot springs comes out of nowhere, and can be very questionable; at least there is more about this intro to go
  
• a few more nice battle sequences, mostly Reimu vs Yuugi and a team battle between Reimu & Marisa vs Okuu and Orin at the Blazing Hell, then Reimu and Marisa chilling at another hot spring, this time dressed - good thing for Marisa that she wears bloomers, since we get quite a copious amount of Reimu thighs there
  
• anyway, about the episode itself
  
• oh yeah, those two are here, along with everyone from SA 
  

• poor Nitori, she got blasted Team Rocket style by Kanako for an inappropriate comment
  

• we get more of the Moriya Shrine party, and after some curiosity on the side of Sanae (we will get there when we get there), Marisa takes the role of story-teller and decides to tell us the story of the Scarlet Mist Incident (of course, with some support from Sakuya, to "fill some of the gaps" - again, we get there when we get there...)
  

Storytime with Marisa

• we just start with some chill atmosphere at the Misty Lake; Cirno does her famous "Icicle Fall Easy", Aya shows up, and points Marisa towards the newly arrived wester style mansion (proved to be the Scarlet Devil Mansion later)
  
• Aya points out that she tried getting in numerous times, only to be stopped by the vicious gatekeeper (we are getting some setting for Meiling to be a tough opponent)
  
• Marisa breaks in the mansion, goes downstairs and finds Flandre's room
  
• now for the Flandre encounter: this is 2013, so the psycho child version of her is still up; the show did go for a soft version of that fan interpretation, but also for someone not realizing hor fragile things like humans actually are (more on that and her personality next time)
  
• Flan chases Marisa through the Mansion, and the two end up in the library of Patchouli; Flan is caught in a trap, and Patchy decided to take the fight on her own
  
• here comes the most annoying side-character, miss exposition herself, Koakuma
  
• Patchouli goes on a similar rand to that of Youmu last episode, directs a spell towards Marisa, and we get a cliffhanger ending of the episode
  
• Patchouli starts the Scarlet Mist and spreads it over Gensokyo
  
• cute intermission I forgot to talk about: I really like the waiting screens for each of the arcs (I will post them as we progress through the story)
  

Episode 3 - The Scarlet Mist Incident (Part 2)

• first episode where we are getting a recap of the events, narrated by Marisa; together with the intro sequence (same one as past episode), we are at about 4 minutes into the episode already
  
• the party is till going 
  

• since we have not met yet the Yakumo clan proper in the PCB episode, welcome to Yukari, Ran and Chen; what was the best way to introduce them? HOLY MOTHER OF MONKE x2, another hot springs scene, and kind of a long one (2 minutes of the whole screen time of the episode); the righting itself is... alright, but you just can't focus on it when you have two naked ladies in front of you only conveniently censored by mild steam and water reflections Touhou visual learner moment at its finest
  
• but to quote our friend Megafrog on the issue:
  

• we are back to the Marisa vs Patchouli battle; after a short, mostly off-screen battle (this will become another common occurrence through the series), Patchouli is defeated, and now both Marisa and Flandre are heading towards Remilia
  
• meanwhile, Reimu finally woke up and is heading towards the Scarlet Devil Mansion; Rumia gets her few seconds of screen time in this arc (about 17 seconds), coming in ball of darkness, missing Reimu and bumping into a tree, Meiling, previously established as a fierce gatekeeper, is defeated in on fell "sword vs gun" swoop, and now is time for Reimu to fight the real enemy, Sakuya
  
• hold up a second; this Meiling design was established to be the one not wearing pants; and even more so, some of the shots imply the fact she might not even have any underwear down there; does this mean that when she was laid down defeated, we got a small glimpse at her crotch? given the fact her clothes were torn in that area (more about torn clothes in the following episodes)
  
• the Sakuya fight respects the formula established until now: villain/villain's servant(s) keep a lengthy speech about the fact they cannot be stopped, the two characters start fighting, and Reimu wins; how does Reimu win this time? does she use a clever trick like in the Yuyuko fight? not really - we get her basically faking a death (perhaps a game reference?), spawns behind Sakuya, locks her in place with seals and giver the maid the final blow
  
• Marisa and Flandre finally reach Remilia; we get a bit more backstory about Flandre and how she was locked in her room, with the implication that the lack of contact and interaction with the rest of the SDM crew made her have problems, and then we end up with a fight between the two sisters
  

Episode 4 - The Scarlet Mist Incident (Part 3)

• Remilia and Flandre keep fighting each other, while Reimu and Marisa finally meet
  
• the two sisters reconcile, then decid to fight together against the protagonists
  
• the beginning of an actual battle; again, the Yuuhei Satellite music plays, and we get some scenes pretty much shot-for-shot from the intro used in the PCB episode; the battle is concluded when Reimu dropped a huge Ying-Yang orb on the Scarlet sisters, blowing the Scarlet Devil Mansion (it can't be a Touhou doujin if the SDM doesn't explode...)
  

YING YANG ORB TO THE FACE!

• and now we are back to the part; Flandre appears and starts another fight with Remilia over pudding
  
• end credits, and wait a second, another post-credits scene (after 4 episodes, none of them had the same outro; at least they had the money to create new end sequences for each episode); this time, we have a teaser... for UFO? we have Nitori walking through the woods, only to accidentally witness Shou and Nazrin discovering the place where Byakuren was sealed (and a glimpse of Byakuren as well); a teaser that will most likely lead to nothing in the future
  

Conclusion: boobs, boobs everywhere. Ahem, I mean a fine trilogy; a bit long at some points, some fanservice that could be shortened, and probably what Megafrog is calling "the best worst fight of the show" (Reimu vs Sakuya)

Episode 5 - The Flower Incident (Part 1)

New arc, this time we have shifted focus to PoFV out of all games. Are we going to keep jumping around games like that for the rest of the episodes as well? Anyway, this is the filler/breather arc, but this is also the place from where my thoughts will become shorter and less organized. This is also where I started directly talking to Isaac as I was watching (though I may have actually done it since the EoSD arc, given i still have screenshots from that one as well). Anyway, on with the ideas:

• we have a new intro, with some cute arrangement of Fate of Sixty Years - it is actually quite an adorable intro, and it gives a lot of awesome shots of the characters we are going to meet (...or maybe not) through the arc - PoFV after all had quite a large and diverse cast 
  

I have never seen a happier Medicine than here

• since she was so present in Episode 5, I will call this one the Aya episode
  
• Aya goes to the Hakurei Shrine, asking Reimu to exterminate a youkai just so that she would have anything to write about in her newspaper; naturally, Reimu refuses, and Aya leaves disappointed
  
• Aya then heads to the Garden of the Sun; Cirno is already there, and gets the scare of her life (I am sorry, I mean her strongest senses detected something as very hazardous)
  
• now we meet Yuuka for the first and only time, and man, do I really love this voice-over for her; she really sounds like a woman in this fandub, compared to the fandub available on YouTube
  

(I love this version of her so much...) I will also leave a sample showing what I mean in regards to the voice option for her:



This has been CountVonNumenor, and see you until the end of this year with at least one more thread, then an important one on the New Year Eve. 

See you, space cowboy

 

[buskerdog]

Thank you CVN for this post, I haven't looked at MoP for a pretty long time and this was a really good recap/review of the series! I watched up to the end of Imperishable Night arc, as that's where the series finished at the time, and found the overall experience to be just "alright" in a similar way to what you concluded, which would explain why I never bothered to catch up with the new episodes after that.

I would like to thank @Isaac, @sodaodaoda and @Gou the frog in accompanying me while watching the episodes. It was extremely fun to discuss with them live as the things were unfolding in front of my eyes. I will probably try that again at some point in the future. 

Huh, that sounds really cool! I'm sure you all had interesting things to say about it!

And now, for some additional canon information I can provide to fill in a few holes:

• oh wait, now I think Yukari would make sense to have a role in the events - did she make the night longer or something, so to give time to find out who created the fake Moon and replace it with the real one?
  
• I am still confused if I put it with the game, as I forgot critical information from the game
  

Eirin places a magical seal on the moon so that the Lunarians cannot pursue Kaguya on earth. Since the real moon becomes sealed away, she also creates a replacement fake moon. Unfortunately, this is having adverse effects on Youkai. Eirin's spell takes time to complete however, so the protagonists use magic to extend the duration of the night to find the culprit before the damage becomes irreversible. This is why there's an actual "time" resource in the game that the characters collect for playing well, and without enough of it, the game ends early. In Reimu's route it is of course Yukari manipulating the border of night and day to extend the night time, and since this explanation fits very soundly, along with being part of Reimu's story, it's generally the one fans accept as the "most canon", but all the teams have a method for extending the night. The Forbidden Magic team are using a spell from a grimoire (probably Alice's grimoire, but I'm not actually sure), the Scarlet team are using Sakuya's innate time manipulation powers, and the Netherworld team are... uh... Yuyuko just has powers, I guess? (actually, due to Yuyuko's closeness with Yukari, it could possibly be her again that's manipulating time behind the scenes.)

how does Reimu win this time? does she use a clever trick like in the Yuyuko fight? not really - we get her basically faking a death (perhaps a game reference?), spawns behind Sakuya, locks her in place with seals and giver the maid the final blow

This technique is "Instant Dimensional Rift", a skill card in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku. The special move works like a counter - if Reimu is hit when she activates it, she teleports away to safety and a burst of ofuda appear in her place, assuming that same star-shaped formation you see in the anime before flying towards the attacker.

 

[Isaac]

It's nice to finally see a thread dedicate to Fantasy Kaleidoscope and I'm glad you've caught up with all the episodes now! I haven't seen the show in a while just like Buskerdog, so this recap helps me remember the cool moments and saves me time.

 I would like to thank @Isaac, @sodaodaoda and @Gou the frog in accompanying me while watching the episodes. It was extremely fun to discuss with them live as the things were unfolding in front of my eyes. I will probably try that again at some point in the future. 

Despite my feelings on the show, I'll admit it was really fun to see your live reaction to these episodes and then talking about them after! We should definitely plan more stuff like this in the future. Since Fantasy Kaleidoscope opened the gateway to anime sites for you, Maybe you'll decide to watch other anime shows that we like one day : )

I think now would also be a good time to mention that we created a discord group recently! It's mainly for the people we genuinely trust, but I'd love to see more people from MS to join there. Please feel free to message either one of us about it anytime!

This episode could have worked nicely as a tie-up to the series... if only the did not tease a lot of other stuff, with this episode's post-credits screen teasing yet another arc (most likely Scarlet Weather Rhapsody)





Conclusion: PLEASE, END THIS ALREADY! I don't know if it is from the fact I have watched 2 full arcs in one day, the fact the show has problems or that I have lost enjoyment the further I was going, but I am honestly happy it is over. This arc could have been a very good point to end the show, given it has been running since 2011 and the fact we have been building for over a decade just to get to this final showdown between the Hakurei and Moriya Shrine, but I guess they really want to keep producing it. I am done, at least for a while.

AND THIS IS IT...

• the end of my less-than-24-hours-long marathon on watching Memories of Phantasm (well, 48 hours if also counting the writing of this review)
  
• this was... something
  
• 17 episodes, yet it could have very easily have fit into at most 12 episodes
  
• we had 4 arcs (EoSD, PoFV, IN and MoF), and 2 individual episodes (PCB and Hisoutensoku), unevenly distributed (it became extremely bloated towards the end; it became very tiring to go through both IN and MoF in one go)
  

Episode 17 really felt like the end of the story they were trying to tell and I would've liked to see them wrap up everything here as well. Even with the Tenshi teaser at the end, I can't imagine them working on full arcs like IN and MoF anymore. A special episode for Scarlet Weather Rhapsody would be nice though. Manpukujinja have been producing this show for over 12 years now, so maybe it's the right time to take a break. 

 

[CountVonNumenor]

Eirin places a magical seal on the moon so that the Lunarians cannot pursue Kaguya on earth. Since the real moon becomes sealed away, she also creates a replacement fake moon. Unfortunately, this is having adverse effects on Youkai. Eirin's spell takes time to complete however, so the protagonists use magic to extend the duration of the night to find the culprit before the damage becomes irreversible. This is why there's an actual "time" resource in the game that the characters collect for playing well, and without enough of it, the game ends early. In Reimu's route it is of course Yukari manipulating the border of night and day to extend the night time, and since this explanation fits very soundly, along with being part of Reimu's story, it's generally the one fans accept as the "most canon", but all the teams have a method for extending the night. The Forbidden Magic team are using a spell from a grimoire (probably Alice's grimoire, but I'm not actually sure), the Scarlet team are using Sakuya's innate time manipulation powers, and the Netherworld team are... uh... Yuyuko just has powers, I guess? (actually, due to Yuyuko's closeness with Yukari, it could possibly be her again that's manipulating time behind the scenes.)

First of all, thank you for the reply! Watching the series in one go has been a very interesting experience. As for the lore explanations, it is finally more clear. So thank you again. There are quite a few things I tend to forget, given how vast Touhou can be at times. 

This technique is "Instant Dimensional Rift", a skill card in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku. The special move works like a counter - if Reimu is hit when she activates it, she teleports away to safety and a burst of ofuda appear in her place, assuming that same star-shaped formation you see in the anime before flying towards the attacker.

Again, even more lore explanations . I really did not know about the mechanic from SWR and Hisoutensoku, so that is quite new info for me. 

Episode 17 really felt like the end of the story they were trying to tell and I would've liked to see them wrap up everything here as well. Even with the Tenshi teaser at the end, I can't imagine them working on full arcs like IN and MoF anymore. A special episode for Scarlet Weather Rhapsody would be nice though. Manpukujinja have been producing this show for over 12 years now, so maybe it's the right time to take a break. 

We should not forget that besides Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, we have had both Subterranean Animism and UFO teased for almost a decade now (without any sign those plotlines would actually come to be realized). Especially with SA, where we already had like at least an entire minute of solid battle animation. Again, it is the weird order in which the episodes have been created, as well as possibly a lack of general direction that ended up with us having the teasers for 3 arcs, while the creation team is not even sure what are they going to do next. 

In some cases, it looks as if they already had something planned, but suddenly changed their mind and did something else. Again, case in point with all the footage for SA. I wonder how things will actually develop in the following years, and in what direction will the series go. Until now, we had Touhou 7, 6, 9, 12.3, 8 and 10 (in this order), with some decent gaps in between. As a bonus, perhaps I should work on a timeline based on all the materials from the show as of yet just to see "the journey of Sanae", from her getting dropped into the setting to the resolution of the MoF incident (use the actual order of the games and put the data together), as depicted in the Manpukujinja-verse. 

 

[buskerdog]

Again, even more lore explanations . I really did not know about the mechanic from SWR and Hisoutensoku, so that is quite new info for me. 

I don't blame you for not knowing, it's certainly from the more obscure side of things, being a move in a spinoff that didn't become a mainstay in any way. I remember the first time watching that fight scene, I lit up with glee to see something so niche get represented  :KoishiXD:

 

[SoundOfRayne]

Holy shit @CountVonNumenor, you really like putting us through the wringer on these posts, huh?
Not just satisfied having us go through your episode-by-episode reactions, but MegaFrog's hour-long video AND a compilation of comments too? Absolute sadist.

I'm kidding. I love that any thread you start up is gonna get my brain-gears turning. Though I'm not as happy to say that thanks to MegaFrog's due diligence, there isn't much of anything I can think of to research for this thread. But getting to revisit my time with MoP again leaves me with a lot of questions and thoughts on it, and I feel like sharing them.

Girls are now calculating...

So, trying to put a pin in my feelings for Memories of Phantasm turned out to be really difficult because I don't really have strong feelings for it. My feelings are largely similar to the kind of reception MegaFrog covered in his video: I remember the show pretty fondly, I can recall a good number of moments that I enjoyed, and some I enjoyed a lot, but when I try to think about the kind of impact it left on me, I can't really muster up anything more than "It's the Touhou anime," and end up defaulting to a lot of the criticisms for stuff about it that I didn't like. Which is a shame. No other singular project in the Touhou fandom that I've seen reaches the kind of scale MoP does, and despite it being so full of stuff that I really liked, my feelings about it overall are just lukewarm...

One of the pieces of MegaFrog's video that stuck out to me was his opening argument over authorial intent and the claim that MoP was never made to be an adaptation of Touhou Project. Maybe it was recency bias, the well-formed argument MegaFrog made around this, or that smooth voice of his, but I ended up following along with it throughout the entirety of his video, but when I spent literal hours yesterday trying to write out a response to this thread, I ended up feeling frustrated because despite agreeing with his position at the time, most of my stances and feelings on MoP contradicted it. I decided to sleep on the matter. When I woke up, I realized that there were a few points MegaFrog made that I don't actually agree with; this being one of them.

• MoP adds very little "new" to the stories of the games. Sure, it takes creative liberties with the way characters are portrayed and how the events are structured, but that was going to happen anyways. All adaptations take creative liberties. Claiming that MoP isn't one just highlights how little deviation there is from the events it's recreating, and how reductive the deviations it does take are. People mistaking MoP as a failed adaptation of Touhou's canon isn't the result of fans misunderstanding the project; it's the result of MoP failing to forge it's own unique identity separate from the source material.
  
• Alright, let's talk about the tiddies because ho' boy, there are sure a lot of them in MoP. Look, I watched MegaFrog's entire video. I see the image. The fanservicing was done because the creators wanted it; not necessarily to make the show more marketable. I get it. But on the other hand, what does it matter why the fanservice was put in? When I hear people complain that the fanservice is excessive, they don't care about whether it was an executive decision for money or the passion work of a particularly horny animator; they care that it's detracting from a story that's already cutting out characters and potential content to make a tight run time and negatively impacts their ability to enjoy the show. "Why" is completely irrelevant in this. It's not people are gonna say "Well, I used to hate Chen's ass, but now that I know the artist is into it, I guess it is pretty cool."
  
• And since I guess this has become the "This is the part where SoundOfRayne disagrees with MegaFrog's analysis of MoP's criticisms" part of the post, I may as well comment on the final thing I don't agree with him on: the closing image of the three ways in which MoP is misinterpreted by the creators, its critics, and its fans. Mind, not because of what's actually put on-screen. I do believe that different people have different conclusions on what Memories of Phantasm is trying to be. No, what I disagree with is the implication that MoP's mixed reception comes from a shared responsibility (or lack thereof) from all three parties to properly identify and understand the show. I do not agree with this implication in the slightest. As GensouChronicle put it, "I blame the people in charge of the project." As a creator, it is your responsibility to properly establish what your work is and what it's about. If people are misunderstanding MoP, that's its creators' fault, not theirs.
  

Okay, now that I've covered the Frog in the room, I guess I talk about my specific feelings on Memories of Phantasm now. I do wanna start with positives since, as I said before, MoP does so many things well, and those positives often get overshadowed by its criticisms.

• I don't think this needs much elaboration, but damn, MoP looks so darn pretty. All of the art is crisp and clean, and pretty much any frame of the show could be a valid wallpaper choice. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of good smear-framing to sell that extra bit of oomph to movements, but I'd be stupid not to recognize the talent that went into MoP's visual production. Even as the show carried on and the team downsized, the art for the show continues to look polished and professional.
  
• One of the things that MoP does that most other non-game fanworks don't is portraying actual danmaku battles. Danmaku are such visual clutter; it works well in the context of the games, but for things like doujin manga or animations, it distracts viewers from what the artist wants them to focus on. So, most examples of battles in fanworks tend to be simpler; more direct attacks with basic patterns to give fights a better sense of direction and flow. But MoP opts to animate danmaku in all of their glory, giving us gorgeous scenes of colorful bullet patterns, and they're just as captivating and terrifying as they are in the games. Admittedly, though, this does come with the downside of being less visually impressive once things zoom in and we watch the characters just... not get hit by anything. I'm convinced that Touhou bosses all just have Stormtrooper aim, but also have like 1000 blasters to even it out. Something's bound to hit, right?
  
• This one might be a bit contentious depending on which character you happen to be a fan of, but on the whole, I do like the way most of the characters are written. Cirno is the favorite in my book. She's not too stupid, but she's also clearly not all there. She's arrogant and scrappy, but also gets her moments to be sweet for Daiyousei. MegaFrog was spot on. I never really considered having a favorite episode for the show, but if I had to choose, I would give it to The Mysterious Giant Youkai. I kinda forgot how favorably I remembered that episode until I heard MegaFrog talking about it.
  Also, can we talk about Nitori being an adorkable little butterbean? She just wants to play with her science toys, and Marisa joins in as her hypeman just because it "sounds like it'd be cool." Sure, Nitori getting flirty with her wasn't really my thing, but everything else was so cute and wholesome and I loved it. I wish the actual MoF story wasn't going on and I coulda just gotten an episode of them just playing around, being doofuses.
  Okay, so Meiling got absolutely shafted in the EoSD arc. Everyone agrees on this. But like, Meiling being Flandre's mom in pretty much every other scene they're in is the most precious and wholesome thing ever, and no one talks about it. It's all just "haha, lazy gatekeeper gets her ass handed to her." Meiling fans, just... take the L on that fight, okay? You're still eating pretty good.
  Alright, I know this one is hated by a lot of people, but... I actually really like Eiki in MoP. Not necessarily because I like her flanderized personality (smol, judgemental, obnoxiously self-righteous, talks shit about everyone to their face literally the whole night) but because despite being shown as annoying and non-threatening, she strikes the most visceral fear into the hearts of everyone the moment she's mentioned. I find the idea that listening to her lectures is more terrifying that the literal death-matches these characters have with each other absolutely hilarious, canon be damned.
  Sure, MoP doesn't bat 1000. There are definitely characters who got the short end of the stick when it came to representation. If you're a fan of any character who shows up before stage 4, you just get to eat whole shit. Except Alice. Alice fans get to eat good. ...Fuck you, Alice fans...
  

I would say that the big main issue I take with MoP is, as MegaFrog elaborated on, its lack of identity. MoP does do something very fascinating, though. I would say it's a perfect reflection of the inconsistency within the Touhou fandom. MoP wants to be a high-intensity action show that replicates the spectacle of danmaku battles from the games, but it also wants to be a cute, silly little slice-of-life-y show that focuses on these adorable little beans we call characters, but it also also wants to coat the whole thing in raw sex appeal because the fandom sure does like their yuri-bait and tiddies, huh? It's like it's trying to be everyone's Touhou and, well... In all fairness, it did bring everyone together to collectively say, "Not my Touhou." That's really what it boils down to. It's trying to be for everyone; to encompass as much about Touhou's canon and fandom as possible to give everyone something. And as the old saying goes, if you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one. That's why I think that MoP is so heavily panned compared to its contemporaries. A Summer's Day Dream and Hifuu Club Activity Record knew exactly what they wanted to be; what story they wanted to tell, how they wanted to tell it, and who they wanted to tell it for. So people who watched them can know exactly why they like them, or maybe don't like them. They can judge them fairly because they understand what they're watching. MoP didn't have this. Even though it was incredibly popular, not many people seem to consider themselves fans of it, and I totally get that.

And that's where I find myself with Memories of Phantasm. There are all these moments which captured my heart, but that's all they were; moments. It's like taking a bunch of really tasty ingredients and putting them in a pot to cook, except the pot is rusted and hadn't been cleaned in a while, the heat isn't at the right setting, and oh yeah, you don't know how to cook. Those ingredients- those moments- might be good on their own; maybe even the best. But unless they can be properly tied together, your soup is gonna end up nasty. MoP is so odd to talk about because it's a whole that's somehow less than the sum of its parts. It's easy to punch down to because people from all stages in the Touhou fandom can find the cracks in it pretty easily.


But it's hard to hate. Despite how much flak it gets for the sloppy execution, people still see Memories of Phantasm for what it truly is: A labor of love at an unprecedented level. Seriously, how many other fandoms can get a whole, independently funded, professionally animated series? Touhou fans really are an entirely different breed. I think that's why people give all this conflicting reception to it. It's a genuinely special endeavor for the Touhou fandom, and that kind of passion shouldn't go unappreciated. But, uhh... It was kinda hard watching the end of MegaFrog's video, hearing about just how bad MoP's finances are. It's heartbreaking knowing that this massive passion project, given to one of the most ravenous fanbases around, isn't making back any of its money. Like, this is the same fandom that will shell out hundreds of dollars for a fucking felt plushie based off an ages-old fan manga (Seriously, fuck Fumos), but this is where they draw the line? I'm genuinely shocked. I hope for the sake of the people who really believe in Memories of Phantasm that no one ends up breaking themselves over it.

 

[CountVonNumenor]

Holy shit @CountVonNumenor, you really like putting us through the wringer on these posts, huh?
Not just satisfied having us go through your episode-by-episode reactions, but MegaFrog's hour-long video AND a compilation of comments too? Absolute sadist.

You are welcome . On a serious note, I am glad you have enjoyed the whole project I have put together. It took me about 8 hours to compile all this information, and I wanted to make sure all the effort was worth it.

So, trying to put a pin in my feelings for Memories of Phantasm turned out to be really difficult because I don't really have strong feelings for it. My feelings are largely similar to the kind of reception MegaFrog covered in his video: I remember the show pretty fondly, I can recall a good number of moments that I enjoyed, and some I enjoyed a lot, but when I try to think about the kind of impact it left on me, I can't really muster up anything more than "It's the Touhou anime," and end up defaulting to a lot of the criticisms for stuff about it that I didn't like. Which is a shame. No other singular project in the Touhou fandom that I've seen reaches the kind of scale MoP does, and despite it being so full of stuff that I really liked, my feelings about it overall are just lukewarm...

Honestly, my reaction towards Memories of Phantasm is very similar, even now after rewatching the series and watching Megafrog's review. When I first watched MoP, back in December 2020, I was still new to the Touhou fandom (about 2 months "old"). At the time, I was interested as I was seeing the new series I got into put into motion (despite alright having got the taste of MVs and some short animations), this one being pretty much the biggest fan project I was aware of (interesting enough, even but that early point I was aware of the concept of "what is canon" and "what is fanon"). Yet halfway through (it really was the halfway at the time), I stopped, and left the animation aside for almost 2 years. Now, I still can remember a little more warmly of some episodes (especially from the first seven), then it started getting a little colder the more I got into the never-ending IN arc MoF. To me, it is also "the Touhou anime", even if I still have to watch A Summer Day's Dream and Hifuu Club Activity Record. 

One of the pieces of MegaFrog's video that stuck out to me was his opening argument over authorial intent and the claim that MoP was never made to be an adaptation of Touhou Project. Maybe it was recency bias, the well-formed argument MegaFrog made around this, or that smooth voice of his, but I ended up following along with it throughout the entirety of his video, but when I spent literal hours yesterday trying to write out a response to this thread, I ended up feeling frustrated because despite agreeing with his position at the time, most of my stances and feelings on MoP contradicted it. I decided to sleep on the matter. When I woke up, I realized that there were a few points MegaFrog made that I don't actually agree with; this being one of them.

Honestly, up to the moment Megafrog brought it up, I have never really been aware of what "authorial intent" is, and I am still in a much better shape now either. Now I am honestly very curious about the points you were initially going to bring up, in case they are any different to the ones we have ended up with in your answer. (sorry that I am answering this late, I am honestly in the shape where I really want to solve some unsolved business in regards to threads I wanted to answer to or create). 

MoP adds very little "new" to the stories of the games. Sure, it takes creative liberties with the way characters are portrayed and how the events are structured, but that was going to happen anyways. All adaptations take creative liberties. Claiming that MoP isn't one just highlights how little deviation there is from the events it's recreating, and how reductive the deviations it does take are. People mistaking MoP as a failed adaptation of Touhou's canon isn't the result of fans misunderstanding the project; it's the result of MoP failing to forge it's own unique identity separate from the source material.

I have to agree on this one. In a way, MoP is trying to be its own thing, but at the same time it ends up still retelling the story of the games, even if in a more confusing order, and with included confusions, unconnected plots and gratuitious fanservice. Therefore,  am not sure either what they were looking for. Did they want a faithful recreation of the game events? Did they want to tell a new story/"reinvent the wheel"? Were they actually looking for a middle way? I am still a little confused about the "tells the story of the games from the perspective of fandom" statement to be honest. 

One of the things that MoP does that most other non-game fanworks don't is portraying actual danmaku battles. Danmaku are such visual clutter; it works well in the context of the games, but for things like doujin manga or animations, it distracts viewers from what the artist wants them to focus on. So, most examples of battles in fanworks tend to be simpler; more direct attacks with basic patterns to give fights a better sense of direction and flow. But MoP opts to animate danmaku in all of their glory, giving us gorgeous scenes of colorful bullet patterns, and they're just as captivating and terrifying as they are in the games. Admittedly, though, this does come with the downside of being less visually impressive once things zoom in and we watch the characters just... not get hit by anything. I'm convinced that Touhou bosses all just have Stormtrooper aim, but also have like 1000 blasters to even it out. Something's bound to hit, right?

Another point I honestly agree on. Aside from Memories of Phantasm and the animations of minusT, seeing a danmaku battle on screen is extremely rare, if not absent. Which is probably one of the better points this anime can get. I was going to say that besides "Stormtrooper aim", it might also be the small hitbox of the characters, but I guess you also do have a point in here. 

This one might be a bit contentious depending on which character you happen to be a fan of, but on the whole, I do like the way most of the characters are written. Cirno is the favorite in my book. She's not too stupid, but she's also clearly not all there. She's arrogant and scrappy, but also gets her moments to be sweet for Daiyousei. MegaFrog was spot on. I never really considered having a favorite episode for the show, but if I had to choose, I would give it to The Mysterious Giant Youkai.

Again, I really enjoyed that episode, and I did not really realize it until Megafrog came up with his review. Until then, I only knew The Mysterious Giant Youkai as "that episode everyone and their guts hated on YouTube when I was watching that version of MoP". I can still remember one of comments regarding the final scene with Cirno and Daiyousei, in which the person was saying "JUST KISS ALREADY!", making it as if the scene itself was building up for a yuri moment. 

Also, can we talk about Nitori being an adorkable little butterbean? She just wants to play with her science toys, and Marisa joins in as her hypeman just because it "sounds like it'd be cool." Sure, Nitori getting flirty with her wasn't really my thing, but everything else was so cute and wholesome and I loved it. I wish the actual MoF story wasn't going on and I coulda just gotten an episode of them just playing around, being doofuses.

I loved that moments as well. That is why I wanted to point out the precious smile moment shared by the two waiting for the missile to lift off. 

Okay, so Meiling got absolutely shafted in the EoSD arc. Everyone agrees on this. But like, Meiling being Flandre's mom in pretty much every other scene they're in is the most precious and wholesome thing ever, and no one talks about it. It's all just "haha, lazy gatekeeper gets her ass handed to her." Meiling fans, just... take the L on that fight, okay? You're still eating pretty good.

I guess you got a point. Despite being treated like I joke, I guess it was cute to see Meiling acting as if she were Flan's mom. 

Alright, let's talk about the tiddies because ho' boy, there are sure a lot of them in MoP. Look, I watched MegaFrog's entire video. I see the image. The fanservicing was done because the creators wanted it; not necessarily to make the show more marketable. I get it. But on the other hand, what does it matter why the fanservice was put in? When I hear people complain that the fanservice is excessive, they don't care about whether it was an executive decision for money or the passion work of a particularly horny animator; they care that it's detracting from a story that's already cutting out characters and potential content to make a tight run time and negatively impacts their ability to enjoy the show. "Why" is completely irrelevant in this. It's not people are gonna say "Well, I used to hate Chen's ass, but now that I know the artist is into it, I guess it is pretty cool."

About the artist being into it.... It was funny in Megafrog's video to find out that tweets from the Manpukujija team taking so much about boobs (like that situation of basically "1 in 20 words" of a tweet referring to breasts. I can see the dissonance though with the official materials. Normally, official Touhou materials (with some slight moments of fanservice) are devoid of any lewd content. However, fandom has made sure, and went beyond the call of duty to lewd everything to hell (which "hell"? I am not sure, given how many there are in Gensokyo) and back. And of this show really was supposed to be a reflection of the fandom, I guess they got that aspect right. Again, in my opinion, it just felt a little out of place, and rather distracting from what was normally supposed to be going on that scene. Like how the naked Yakumo clan and Chen's ass were distracting from pretty much the scene that properly introduced these three characters and their motivations, to Kaguya and her backstory being told in the middle of a bathing scene. 

As GensouChronicle put it, "I blame the people in charge of the project." As a creator, it is your responsibility to properly establish what your work is and what it's about. If people are misunderstanding MoP, that's its creators' fault, not theirs.

I think GensouChronicle really got a good point in there. 

I don't think this needs much elaboration, but damn, MoP looks so darn pretty. All of the art is crisp and clean, and pretty much any frame of the show could be a valid wallpaper choice. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of good smear-framing to sell that extra bit of oomph to movements, but I'd be stupid not to recognize the talent that went into MoP's visual production. Even as the show carried on and the team downsized, the art for the show continues to look polished and professional.

At my first watch, I was amazed about the sheer quality coming from what was basically a group of fans doing a small project for their fandom, without the backing of a big studio. Even now, I still hold to that opinion. Besides, MoP has such a recognizable style, that you could recognize it anywhere you go. 

Alright, I know this one is hated by a lot of people, but... I actually really like Eiki in MoP. Not necessarily because I like her flanderized personality (smol, judgemental, obnoxiously self-righteous, talks shit about everyone to their face literally the whole night) but because despite being shown as annoying and non-threatening, she strikes the most visceral fear into the hearts of everyone the moment she's mentioned.

Initially, I was quite repulsed by any of these disrespectful fanon depictions of Eiki. In some measure, I still am, even if I paradoxically believe that Danzai Yamaxanadu really slaps as a song. As for her being able to strike fear, I think that one is quite spot on. Normally, this is what the wiki has to say about Eiki and her canon personality:

"As the Yama who judges people after they die, Eiki is impartial to anyone when lecturing them, whenever they are human or youkai. Since she is very preachy and is never mistaken about anything, this makes her hard to approach. Despite her stern attitude and seriousness at her job, Eiki has a teasing side, smiling even when revealing the shortcomings of the people she's lecturing. She's described as being polite and patient when lecturing."

Meanwhile, this bit comes as a comparison written in her fanon section for PofV:

"A lot of fanworks portray Eiki as a bit of a short-tempered grouch who will sentence people to hell for any arbitrary reason, but this conflicts with her personality in Phantasmagoria of Flower View where she's stern, but patient and is constantly smiling even when having to reveal someone's shortcomings. In fact, she spends a lot of time lecturing people on their shortcomings and sins for the sole purpose of getting them to repent before they have to be judged. In her opinion, "Hell does not exist to punish sinners. Hell exists to ensure that no-one sins."

(I am sorry for being a little biased, but I really am a little biased due to the fact she is one of my favorite characters in the series)

Sure, MoP doesn't bat 1000. There are definitely characters who got the short end of the stick when it came to representation. If you're a fan of any character who shows up before stage 4, you just get to eat whole shit. Except Alice. Alice fans get to eat good. ...Fuck you, Alice fans...

Yeah, the absence of focus on any character below Stage 4 (sans Alice) is quite sad. I wish they distributed better some of the lengthier arcs so that we could actually get some screen-time for these characters instead of just rushing towards the Stage 5 boss most of the time. Instead of bloating the final two stages (and still have pretty much nothing happening on screen), why not distribute the acting a little bit? One of the unique (or maybe not) and strong points of Touhou is the huge and varied cast it has. But I could imagine shows like this one, given the strong impact on fandom, could also negatively help in keeping those early stage characters low in the popularity lists...

I would say that the big main issue I take with MoP is, as MegaFrog elaborated on, its lack of identity. MoP does do something very fascinating, though. I would say it's a perfect reflection of the inconsistency within the Touhou fandom. MoP wants to be a high-intensity action show that replicates the spectacle of danmaku battles from the games, but it also wants to be a cute, silly little slice-of-life-y show that focuses on these adorable little beans we call characters, but it also also wants to coat the whole thing in raw sex appeal because the fandom sure does like their yuri-bait and tiddies, huh? It's like it's trying to be everyone's Touhou and, well... In all fairness, it did bring everyone together to collectively say, "Not my Touhou."

I am sorry to keep the answer short for this one, but I agree that the lack of a clear direction and overall tone set for a series can end up making the series unappealing to everyone. You just can't make everyone happy, it never works in real life (I know it from personal experience). Trying to appeal to absolutely every splinter opinion group of the Touhou fandom can only end up with everyone not feeling satisfied as they did not get enough of what they really wanted to see? I guess that is why we should have more fan-made anime, to satisfy all the needs. Make a show for a specific target public: a series/animation focusing on the 2hus being adorable little beans, an action series focused on danmaku battles (already covered by minusT), a series coated in raw sex appeal to appease the fandom's need for yuri and tiddies. Or maybe not, that might be a bad idea?

And as the old saying goes, if you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one.

Oh, you just perfectly said what I was looking for. Darn... 

It was kinda hard watching the end of MegaFrog's video, hearing about just how bad MoP's finances are. It's heartbreaking knowing that this massive passion project, given to one of the most ravenous fanbases around, isn't making back any of its money. Like, this is the same fandom that will shell out hundreds of dollars for a fucking felt plushie based off an ages-old fan manga (Seriously, fuck Fumos), but this is where they draw the line? I'm genuinely shocked. I hope for the sake of the people who really believe in Memories of Phantasm that no one ends up breaking themselves over it.

Oh, don't worry, I will cover the topic of Fumo (and overall Fumo craze as I witnessed it since autumn 2021) somewhere early next year, in case I do ont get into any complications with college. It was another thing I was planning to write about since spring, but I guess I just ended up not doing it. But indeed, it is quite heath-throbbing to see the situation of Memories of Phantasm. And the situation I have heard of from China (the problems regarding the circle who made Hifuu Activity Club Record, the Chinese Playboy dude who pumped money into the Chinese Touhou community until the moment he lost all due to "2020 just being 2020" and so on), despite still being confused and not really sure what it was all about leaves me a little bit worried as well.

As an end note, I hope you have enjoyed some of the funnier notes I tried to insert into the review, just so it would not be dry. A few jokes here and there, some memes, maybe a light-hearted tone in presenting some of the stuff, the jokes about how the defeated characters' clothes started to resemble a contest who who can become more fanservice-y the longer we advanced through the final couple episodes of the MoF arc (kind of a close competition between Aya, Sanae and Kanako) and a few links here and there (probably one of my favorite inserts was the Komeiji Records song for the moment Okuu was confused about what she had to do - it took her quite a bit to process, to be fair).

 

[CountVonNumenor]

I would like to thank everyone who has contribute to the thread as of yet. This is still open for discussion, so anyone is welcome to join the talk...

 

[CountVonNumenor]

Episode has been announced



Again, it has been presented as the series finale. And in a way, I would feel extremely glad if it just ended here. The series has been going for ove a decade now, it was becoming a bloated mess the more it went on. To me, the series felt quite rushed towards the end. Especially when out of 12 minutes of screen time, almost half, if not half of the video is the intro & outro segments, the episode recap and the teaser for "next time". Which leaves you with a bare 6 minutes aft actual show, in which they both need to rush the story and bloat a lot of time on a single boss if they are a Stage 5 character or higher. Also we shall not speak about Mokou's extra story. That was basically an arc within another arc at how long it was (3 episodes).  

But I will let you take a look at the video itself first, then we can come back and debate it. 

 

[Gri]

Thanks for posting. Here's hoping the finale's decent (my expectation are low for this one)

 

[Gri]

Just watched it.

I didn't understand the subtitles, but it seems like the finale it going to be a bit bloated. Main plot seems to be that Marisa is going to investigate who did this to Reimu (Remillia seemed to only have provoked Marisa for fun, and Reimu is clearly not dead). During the investigation, the SA and UFO cast is going to be there. 

I am afraid the SA and UFO cast won't get much time to shine, and at this point it would be better to just no include them in the plot at all. Including them will rush the plot, which ain't a good thing.

This is based on the fact this is going to last only 1 episode. If it's a whole "arc", the it may be feasible. Like I said though, not expecting much.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget memories-of-phantasm's signature: hot spring fanservice
 

 

[CountVonNumenor]

Just watched it.

I didn't understand the subtitles, but it seems like the finale it going to be a bit bloated. Main plot seems to be that Marisa is going to investigate who did this to Reimu (Remillia seemed to only have provoked Marisa for fun, and Reimu is clearly not dead). During the investigation, the SA and UFO cast is going to be there. 

I am afraid the SA and UFO cast won't get much time to shine, and at this point it would be better to just no include them in the plot at all. Including them will rush the plot, which ain't a good thing.

This is based on the fact this is going to last only 1 episode. If it's a whole "arc", the it may be feasible. Like I said though, not expecting much.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget memories-of-phantasm's signature: hot spring fanservice
 

Alright, so just as I watched the promo video. It is 4 minutes long, has no subtitles (thank you, Manpukujinja), first half is just a nostalgia trip through the previous episodes, and HOLY MOTHER OF ALL TITS! ("I swear, the hot springs scene is essential to the plot"). Looking at the comments for the video on YouTube, all I have seen is written in Japanese. But at a quick Google translation (the mobile phone version of YouTube allows for translating comments), it seems like everyone was praising the video. Meanwhile, if word of mouth is true, when the same trailer was uploaded on the official Twitter page of the group, reactions have been a little more mixed, going from the seemingly rushed idea for the plot, to the unnecessary hot springs scene. 

 

[CountVonNumenor]

An interesting development - not only has Surnist returned to YouTube, but he also blessed us with his own take on a review for Memories of Phantasms:



OH BOY ITS OVER 1 HOUR LONG
Well, this is gonna be an interesting watch for sure, given the video mark points...

 

[CountVonNumenor]

Alright, so just as I watched the promo video. It is 4 minutes long, has no subtitles (thank you, Manpukujinja), first half is just a nostalgia trip through the previous episodes, and HOLY MOTHER OF ALL TITS! ("I swear, the hot springs scene is essential to the plot"). Looking at the comments for the video on YouTube, all I have seen is written in Japanese. But at a quick Google translation (the mobile phone version of YouTube allows for translating comments), it seems like everyone was praising the video. Meanwhile, if word of mouth is true, when the same trailer was uploaded on the official Twitter page of the group, reactions have been a little more mixed, going from the seemingly rushed idea for the plot, to the unnecessary hot springs scene. 

Schaiße, I have completely forgotten about watching and making the review for the final episode... I sure do have enough unfinished business.