I've been meaning to add to this for some time, but I didn't have my thoughts sorted at the time. A lot of what's on my mind would probably be nitpicks, but here goes:
- Inconsistent Info
I think the Human Village has it the worst in this regard. Are Youkai allowed to roam freely as long as they don't cause trouble? PMiSS suggests it's that way, but in a lot of other Print Works it feels like if a Youkai is even believed to be spotted, the entire village would be in uproar and moral panic ensues. Also, they may be Moon Rabbits, but it is stated both Ringo and Seiren have dango stands they run in the village and depicts them without disguises and everything seems just fine (source: Alternate Facts in Eastern Utopia).
- Inconsistent Info Pt.2
Another one I remember is it being stated (I believe in Symposium of Post-mysticism) that beings like Kanako are resistant against possessions from vengeful spirits, however in Cheating Detective Satori, they claim that they are particularly weak against them. Cheating Detective Satori is kind of a dumpster fire in my opinion, like suggesting Mokou is a Youkai from when Mizuchi proclaims in Ch.16 Page 25: "...A Youkai cannot fight a vengeful spirit" then follows up on the next page: "because inside, you're all the same". It feels like the setting and characters are whatever ZUN needs them to be for the story he wants to tell.
Then that leads into my next gripe, the fandom excuses. Setting inconsistencies? "Unreliable narrator, of course." Characters acting strange? "Every Print Work is told through the lens of the focal character, so naturally there'd be differences." If everything is supposed to be unreliable, and there is no clear picture of what Gensokyo or its inhabitants are like, why should I care about literally anything? I know ZUN probably forgot a few things over the years, but when the fandom comes up with some profound and artistic reason for it, it comes off as fairly obnoxious to me.
- The Music isn't as Great as Everyone Says it is
Probably more like a nuclear take, and I'll say Touhou music as a whole is generally good, but I see people make it out that every song is an amazing masterpiece. To me, there are a lot of forgettable filler tracks, but I know that's just due to my taste ("History of the Moon" and "Nostalgic Blood of the East" are the only IN songs I actually care for, as an example). There are amazing remixes of songs, but I don't count those when forming an opinion towards the original composition. Conversely, a lot of songs I like either get no attention, or lackluster remixes (I actually enjoy a lot of PC-98's compositions despite the painful sound quality). Bonus spicy take: I don't care much for Vocal Remixes or the super high-energy styles or metal, I prefer instrumental music like jazz, traditional, or classical styles.
- Fanon
Headcanons are fine and all until they start getting pushed as fact, or just disrespect a character. To this day, the only fangame I've played that treats Meiling as remotely competent and self-respecting is Sengoku Gensokyo. Fanon can be a wonderful tool to expand on a character that get no attention, or piece together a wider narrative from the breadcrumbs left by ZUN, but nope, memes. I don't even hate memes, and I find some kind of funny, but after a while they lose their appeal and end up becoming the entire personality of a character. I know this isn't much of a hot take, but thought I'd add it.
Also some characters get literally nothing worthwhile. One of my favorite characters, Shou, is either reduced to "forgor Pagoda" or just grouped under the umbrella of "Myouren Temple members don't follow their own teachings" despite being the Avatar of Bishamonten, and disrespecting him would likely result in being smote (also the point of Nazrin is to keep tabs on her). It sucks too because she's a case of a Youkai effectively evolving into something more (she was destined to disappear because the fear of what tigers even were dwindled). Thanks Akyuu, the one time fans don't outright discredit everything you say is to support their dumb headcanons (Referring to her entry on Byakuren under "Countermeasures" in SoPM where the suggestion of being more afraid of her Youkai followers being twisted by fanon to mean every member).
- Western Content Sort of Sucks
I'll mention fangames first, and specifically the lack of Western-made ones. There are tons of talented people on this side of the fandom, but I can never seem to find a complete game, or something that's not just a reskin of an existing game, but worse, with Touhou characters plastered over it with terrible writing. This isn't something exclusive to this side of the fandom, but I like to be able to read, and a lot of what I'd want to play isn't translated. I've run across many people who spout "Touhou is the fan content", so I start to expect a bit more out of this fandom compared to others.
- I've mentioned this elsewhere, but the video content I've watched is really lackluster. Kind of hate the format where someone just reads off the Wiki, or gives a shallow rundown of an event/game they had no personal experience or attachment to. Suwawako's "The Touhoucon Failure" was interesting for the first-hand experience compared to something like "The Touhou Cannonball Failure" where it's just random other people's accounts of what happened (granted there were some rare good bits of info). The last one bugs me more as someone who played Cannonball when it was still alive (used a screen translator app which was a pain, but I got to experience the story at least).
- The Pronunciation War
I don't care if it's pronounced "Chiruno", "Churro" , "Chernobyl" or whatever, I see "Cirno" and in my tongue I pronounce it "Sir-no". I see the name "Marisa" (a Western name mind you) and I go "Muh-riss-uh" compared to the fans I hear fake a Japanese accent just to say "Mari-sah" and return to their normal way of speaking. My pronunciation isn't correct, I know, but it irks me when people change accents randomly for one name. Discussions about it often devolve into getting on other people's cases about the right way to say it, which involves lengthy talks about language as a whole, blah blah.
- Miscellaneous
Random thoughts I don't feel like going overly in-depth about:
PC-98 Stage Enemy variety and behavior are more interesting then a majority of Windows. Sure, in Windows they can shoot the pretty patterns, but what happened to enemies that interact with the Stages themselves?
- MoF's Power-based Bombs (Spirit Attacks, whatever) are handled well, and SA made them crap since there is no "reserve" Power that doesn't affect your damage output.
- ZUN, please cut back on using the Elementics DrumKit, everything post-HSiFS feels like it uses it, and static-y drums all the time are kind of painful. A lot of great tracks feel worse off because of it.
- LostWord's combat system is actually pretty interesting with the Barrier system, but it sucks that it's in a gacha game, where every number is cosmically high and nebulous.
- I hate the crazy inconsistent quality of mainline Touhou's gimmick systems. PCB's was simple and easy to understand, and DDC's encourages use of the Point of Collection. Granted, I do like some of the gimmick ideas in the latest games, so I guess this is more of a frustration towards older titles.
- I miss when Point Tiles had more value, like collecting a certain number of them just gave you an Extra Life. On that note, why can these games never decide whether or not to always convert Power Tiles into other Tiles when at Full Power? Also don't like constantly moving down in decimal value in terms of Tile worth (0.1 -> 0.05 -> 0.01).
- The original art style for Cheating Detective Satori was better, because at least there were characters that had alternate outfits. Also not a fan of the wacky over-the-top facial expressions in the current style, some of them look really stupid.
- Moeblob and Grimsokyo are both equally annoying fanon extremes.
Interesting takes, there are some I absolutely agree with and others I really don't (particularly the one about music haha), but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see that in a thread about hot takes. I think the most notable one I want to give my point of view on is the one about pronunciation. I personally care about pronouncing names the right way (partly because I am learning Japanese) and have actively changed the way I pronounce some names since I first found the series if I learn later that I haven't been pronouncing them right, but I don't mind other people pronouncing the same syllables with a different accent that sounds more natural to them. I also understand that although I don't get too irked by changing the way I pronounce a character's name, other people probably get attached to whatever their first impression was. However, I hate it when people pronounce a character's name with the wrong syllables entirely. "Sir-no" is criminal to me...
I see the name "Marisa" (a Western name mind you) and I go "Muh-riss-uh" compared to the fans I hear fake a Japanese accent just to say "Mari-sah" and return to their normal way of speaking.
As I said above I have absolutely no problem with anyone saying Marisa's name like this, but reading this did just make me feel the obligation to point that although it is
intended to sound western, Marisa's name is written with kanji. Not an obscure fact I know, but I feel like I have to say it.
When I first saw this thread I was struggling to think what hot takes I have, since, well, I'd say most of my criticisms aren't hot takes, but now I've realised I absolutely do have a hot take, and I think it's a particularly spicy one too.
I wish Touhou characters were depicted as more Asian. Sure the main material has that anime-inspired look to it, and I'm fine with that, it's probably best for the core franchise. But considering how much fan content Touhou has? I'm tired to see nearly everything look like generic anime, and everything that isn't in anime art style still use white skin for all the characters anyway. It makes sense why these anime-like styles crop up everywhere, seeing as it's what the official material does, but again, considering that it's an Asian series set in Asia with characters who are Asian all about Asian mythology - why do I
never see Touhou characters that look Asian? I think not only would it be an interesting direction to explore and a novel way to see these characters who have looked like whitewashed dolls since forever, I also think that if you wanted to tell a more serious story with the Touhou project setting, it would make that depiction of the universe feel that much more grounded. And even if you didn't want to do that - I still think it would make things feel more
genuine.
