YMMV / Diamond in the Rough (Touhou)

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Some people's reaction to Brolli's death after the events of the second half of the film. There's a lot of differences on this one. According to Spaztique, the audience is supposed to be conflicted on Brolli's death, while others see Spaztique’s reasoning as Insane Troll Logic.
• Angst Aversion: Confirmed several times when word of mouth spread far enough for some people in the Walfas community to stand far from Diamond in the Rough for how brutal its ending is. However, compared to the reactions, it's not as bad as it seems... Though some people have called this on scenes that does not include the ending such as the scenes where Yuuka and Keine get raped by the previous Gappy.
• Ass Pull: Brolli getting forgiven by Eiki merely because he said he was sorry for what he did and wanted another chance, and Komachi claiming "You were different!" when he really wasn't. Brolli didn't do a lot of heroism and spent most of the climax freaking out that he was going to die. Not to mention that because he did as MUCH damage as everyone else, it partially undermines the whole point the story was trying to make.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Brolli, purposefully. Spaztique has even mentioned this in the comments.
    Calamity2007: I don't getit Spaztique, how do you want us to feel about Brolli? Because you have mentioned before that people wanting to see him die is a reaction you're going for. I'm not complaining, I just find it strange that your giving him all these heartwarming moments if that was the reaction your going for.
    Spaztique: Ambivalent. He's not wholly good, nor wholly bad; You're supposed to be torn between whether he should deserve his eventual fate or not. Though, to say any more will spoil the ending...
  • The depiction of Yukari creates a lot of conflict, because when she reveals that her plan to guarantee the Gensokyan paradise is to create a Forever War between humans and youkai, some people declared her to be morally bankrupted, even considering Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: The soundtrack has gotten some very good reviews.
  • At the request of stream regular DeityDiz, here is a playlist of the soundtrack thus far.
  • Foxfactory's arrange of "Wonderful Heaven" is the unnofficial theme to Diamond In The Rough, played at the top of every broadcast and used as the intro for the series.
  • Marisa's kickass intro is set to Xi-On's mashup of Dream Battle and Love Coloured Master Spark.
  • For the suite used during the incident, Hatsunetsumiko's arrange of "The Gensokyo The Gods Loved". Gets a Dark Reprise after Brolli is finally killed.
  • Kicking off the incident is WAVE's "Breeze Temptation," an arrange of "Tengu is Watching."
  • For the final battle, the first half of Tutti Sounds' "The Light Of Faith." The latter half, starting at 2:56, is used for Brolli's last stand.
  • In the middle of the previously listed "Light of Faith," it switches to an orchestral arrange of "Oriental Dark Flight" (specifically, the part at 2:30) when Marisa finally fulfills her promise to Reimu to stop Brolli if he got out of hand.
  • The battle with Tenshi seamlessly transitions between the original "Wonderful Heaven," "Fall of Fall", Spaztique's own arrange of "Wonderful Heaven," and "Candid Friend."
  • If you're ready to have your feels shattered, the epilogue is set to TAMusic's arrange of "Blue Sea of 53 Minutes" and RDSounds' arrange of "Eternal Shrine Maiden," which is slowed down to make it even sadder.
  • For the ending/end credits, milktub's tearjerking Purest Sky And Sea. Then, when the credits fade to the fate of Brolli's beret, it switches to a slowed-down, somber version of Foxfactory's Wonderful Heaven.
• Designated Hero:
  • Even though he's the "hero", Brolli doesn't really do anything heroic at all up until the end of the story. Although even then all he did was give Tenshi exactly what she wanted (his death)... so not really sure that counts as being heroic.. It's pretty obvious that his arrival to Gensokyo and his behavior ends up making things worse for pretty much everyone. Though given just how much crap Brolli is put through and considering what some of the other characters end up doing, Brolli could considered a designated villain as well.
  • If anything, the so-called heroes are Reimu, who spends most of her screen time complaining about Gappy Stus and is powerless to do anything about Yukari; Marisa, who acts just as horrible and selfish as Brolli and outright encourages him to be selfish as well; and Tenshi, who does bad things, is presented by Spaztique as a lone voice of reason and gets away with genocide scot-free... but unlike Brolli, they aren't forced to suffer negative consequences for their questionable actions.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Among Diamondback's beasts, it seems Lepus is the most well received among the fandom. It could be because he get the most screentime, is funny, helps Brolli with women, and is actually the nicest (that being the least Jerkass) of the beasts.

• Genius Bonus:
  • The characters rarely say "no," but rather opt for "not really." This is a Japanese language convention, as it is impolite to directly say no.
  • Mokou mentions her father was humiliated and killed trying to attain one of Kaguya's impossible requests. In The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, only one of the princes was killed trying to get the cowrie born from swallows.
  • When Brolli is moved via Sakuya's time-stop effect, he suffers from formication, one of the side-effects of mild decompression sickness.
  • Six hundred million cubic kilometers, the amount of space Brolli's pockets will contain affect learning the magic of the Codex Puteus, is how large the Pacific Ocean is.
  • All of the tactics Lepus uses are legitimate pick-up artistry tactics, from negging to embedded language to focusing more on figuring out the girl than revealing Brolli's traits to make him seem more "mysterious." In addition, his advice about putting a pillow under the waist is to increase the "angle of attack".
• Harsher in Hindsight: Many of the comments from the early episodes, and many more by the time the series wraps up...
  • The backstory of Hopeless Masquerade has the human village hopeless after a series of disastrous incidents, looking to the religious leaders for protection and the future fate of Gensokyo (though it turns out to really be Hata no Kokoro stealing hope from the village after losing her Mask of Hope). DitR takes place a little while after Ten Desires, and Spaztique has since accepted that Diamond In The Rough takes places directly before Hopeless Masquerade. Whether or not this makes the game into a warm and fuzzy experience knowing Gensokyo is returning back to normal or an uncomfortable tearjerker knowing what they all just went through is up to the player.
    Spaztique: Go ahead, folks. Play Hopeless Masquerade knowing DitR happened beforehand.
    • However, after numerous complaints from people taking the events too seriously, Spaztique DID eventually come out and say that ''Diamond in the Rough'' is not, and will NEVER be canon.
  • There is now a canon Touhou game, Urban Legend in Limbo, that involves a self-centered high school student coming to Gensokyo and nearly destroying it.
• Hype Backlash: It may have been the best thing Walfas had to offer in the early 2010s, and a LOT of the community hyped it up as so—Even TV Tropes is guilty of it! However, fast forward to 2020, most people would tell you it's not as good as others said it was.
• Iron Woobie: Brolli during the incident, at least before crossing the Despair Event Horizon when the horror just doesn't stop.
• It Was His Sled: Even before the completion of the series. GENSOKYO LOCAL BEEF IS PEOPLE! Specifically all the other gappies. And this is used to point out the Fridge Horror of what happens when people try to use Gensokyo as a personal playground.

• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Fans who haven't seen the full movie wish they were in Brolli's place. While many who have seen the full movie and its Downer Ending changed their minds, there are also fans who have seen Diamond In The Rough in its entirety and missed the point completely...
  • In a few fics, writers tried to find workarounds solely based on Diamond In The Rough's plot instead of story mechanics. For example, instead of Yukari gapping in the main character, it's another character, using the excuse, "Yukari didn't gap him in, so he's not a Gappy Stu!" These characters then proceed to woo all of the women in Gensokyo and become the big hero with no meaningful conflict to stop them.
  • Some fans who did understand Diamond In The Rough have adamantly attacked any sort of outsider main character as being a Marty Stu, even though Spaztique has said multiple times that a Gappy is not necessarily a Stu, and a Stu doesn't have to be a Gappy.
  • Most people have believed that this story is how Spaz views Gensokyo. As he detailed on the abridged version of Wrath of the Amanojaku, this is NOT true at all.
• Moment of Awesome: Has its own page.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Arturo, the previous Gappy, takes a supersonic flight over the Moral Event Horizon by murdering children and younger to have sex with Yuuka, then going off to rape Keine. Later revelations have nearly made him hit lightspeed when it's revealed that Yuuka was only bluffing, and only would have sex with him if he refused. When Arturo hears this he rapes her.
  • To some, The Diamondback Beasts cross it after destroying The Scarlet Devil Mansion and voiding Spell Card Rules.
• Narm: It mostly suffers under this, mainly due to being made with a rather limited Virtual Paper Doll engine.
  • Most of the expressions during moments that are meant to be serious look comedic. Take Episode 10 for example, when Brolli kills Kaguya. She looks more surprised than gasping for life. Episode 13 also has the Brolli and the SDM residents look so shocked that it just looks borderline hilarious.
  • Yukari's evil grin whenever she appears to gap somebody away. It's taking up her whole face!
  • Sometimes, when the characters cry, they use the sweatdrop object. It's just plain [Special Effects Failure]] due to how silly it looks.
  • Brolli's scream in Episode 19. While it's meant to be Tear Jerker, it sounds like the poor guy stubbed his toe.
  • The reveal of the source local Gensokyo beef is rather tryhard, too. Yukari's a youkai, what were you expecting? That she's a vegitarian?
  • The narrative relies on Take That, Audience! too much, which can make most of the story sound kind of pretentious.
• Nausea Fuel: The real reason why Yukari gaps children into Gensokyo... local Gensokyo Beef, anyone?
• Nightmare Fuel: Using canon elements as its primary source. Has its own page.
• Older Than They Think: This is in fact not the first work to deconstruct the Gappy Stu archetype like this. There is a less well known part of Touhou canon called Dolls in Pseudo Paradise that not only deconstructed it but also introduced the concept in the first place.

• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The Diamondback Beasts. Originally based on blatant Marty Stu characters, retooled into more likable or compelling characters. ColonelDiamondback has adopted many of their traits for his own videos.
• Rooting for the Empire: It can be interpreted that the audience is not supposed to root for anyone in the story. On one hand, Spaztique wanted viewers to increasingly question who was really good or bad to avoid making the same mistakes in their own stories, but on the other, many have complained Spaztique does exactly what he says the fic was meant to prevent. Given the audience's extremely divisive reactions to Diamond in the Rough, something that Spaztique anticipated in his attempt to make Touhou fans and fanfic writers question themselves and everything they know about canon or fanon, this can serve as an example of what happens when numerous audience reactions are taken to an extreme.
• The Scrappy:
  • Marisa fits in this trope for some viewers. She is the only one that doesn't feel regret for her actions and she's similar to Brolli, also taking advantage of Gensokyo's resources, leading to the Broken Aesop of "you can explore Gensokyo as you wish, if you don't become an existential threat." Although she has a track record of resolving incidents and obeys the limits of Gensokyo, some viewers tend to see her as being Born Lucky. Episode 11 seems to try to rectify this though by her admitting that her actions are a bit selfish and saying that even then, she would sacrifice her life if it meant preserving the balance of Gensokyo. Whether or not viewers accept this remains to be seen. Of course, considering that only Brolli gets dragged off to the chopping block for a so-called "karmic death" even though they have extremely similar character flaws...
  • The Diamondback Beasts were this originally but the final video product has them having a bit of Character Development, especially Lepus...That is until episode 13 where they destroy the Scarlet Devil Mansion, against Brolli's wishes and crush Flandre in the rubble. Which was intentionally meant to throw them back on the Scrappy heap, according to Spaztique.
  • Byakuren, Sanae (by extension also Kanako and Suwako) and Nitori, but especially Nitori. All of them betrayed the heroes, working together with Tenshi and attempting to get rid of thousands of innocents only to kill Brolli even though by that point he is fully aware of the chaos he has caused AND tries to fix it for non-selfish reasons... although the only chaos actually happening is because people want Brolli dead, making everything he does pretty meaningless. Byakuren seems to regret it, while Sanae will live in the knowledge that Tenshi has one-upped her with black mail and basicly killed an innocent if stupid sixteen year old. But Nitori? She gets cheered as a hero by fully using the scapegoat that Brolli has now become, even though she was basically responsible for the destruction of Kappa Valley by willingly giving Brolli everything he asked for without thinking of the consequences, then paints herself awesome for "killing" him. Worse, the only person who knows the truth gets painted as a liar.
  • Oddly enough, Eiki Shiki herself can count as this. As pointed out by one sharp-eyed reviewer on Deviantart, Shiki's job is to call out any and all wrongdoing when she sees it. Shiki certainly has plenty of reasons to tear into Brolli for his many, many sins and character flaws. However, the narrative's intense focus on Brolli, Arturo and the other Gappy Stus means that Shiki doesn't actually call out any of the canon characters for contributing to the Gappy Stu nonsense. Besides, Shinki never got a chance to call out Yukari for being such a horrible person.
• Shocking Moments: According to the Ustream audience, the incident scores extremely high, featuring massive danmaku battles, virtually every alliance in Gensokyo falling apart as things constantly go From Bad to Worse, the entire cast getting picked off one-by-one, and dozens of Awesome Moments and Call Backs.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Inverted with Marisa and Reimu. In a normal Gappy Stu fic, Reimu and Marisa are inseparable, acting as Those Two Guys. In Reel 1, Reimu and Marisa appear together in only one scene (outside of flashbacks) and exchange only eight lines of dialogue. Reel 2 gives them just as little screentime together. Possibly an aversion when you take into account that Reimu and Marisa never appear together in the games until the endings. Some have complained that for a story that’s supposed to focus on a Parody Stu, it makes Marisa and Reimu Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
  • There have been a few calls that the plot is basically a giant downward spiral for a Gappy that leads to the destruction of Gensokyo with nothing to stop it. Though, by the end, Brolli, Reimu, Aya, and Momiji are the last ones trying to save Gensokyo, Tenshi's efforts will prevent further destruction by Jack Diehard and future Gappies, and Vic sets out to stop more people from taking Yukari's offer. Reimu herself lampshades how horrible and pointless ''Diamond In The Rough'' turned out to be, and Spaztique states that this is the precisely the point.
  • There have been a few who have voiced this about the treatment of certain characters in the series by either a Gappy or another character, and the Kick the Dog moments getting more and more malicious. Yuuka is probably the biggest example. Some people by the end have brought up that they wished ''everyone'' should suffer a FateWorseThanDeath for all of them being at least indirectly responsible for Brolli's death and Gensokyo's destruction... which is NOT the message that Spaztique was trying to convey, as stated in his author's notes.
• Unintentional Period Piece: DitR really shows it was made in a time where self-insert fanfiction was reviled, that being around 2013— this is to say nothing of how it used a particular reading of Touhou canon as available at the time. The fact that it was a feature film-length assault on a an actual person’s fanfiction would probably be seen as fairly distasteful by audiences today, regardless of said fanfiction’s actual quality.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Many uStreamers agree that the fight scenes are superb, especially the climatic battle between Brolli and Tenshi.
• The Woobie:
  • Vic, who only appears briefly in the outside world scenes, but it really kicks in when you realize he's a Gappy who escaped Gensokyo, but not after killing his former friend Arturo and then accidentally killing a field full of children in revenge against an innocent youkai. Allegedly.
  • Brolli. Despite all of his selfish actions and his hypocrisy, he eventually realizes that he was doomed from the very beginning of his story, despite all of his attempts to change and be a better person. Most of the people of Gensokyo end up resenting him, he dies and the world moves on without him.
  • After the incident, Gensokyo as a whole: two villages have been virtually destroyed, an innocent boy has been killed (although how innocent he is after what he does in Gensokyo is debatable), the "villains" who got away with it are being celebrated as heroes and can't come clean without causing another (even worse) incident, the real "villain" did it because she was fed up with everyone's mistreatment of the boy, and all of his friends have either a Heroic BSoD, cross the Despair Event Horizon, or have a Fate Worse than Death. The only people that viewers can't feel sorry for are Jack, for representing everything people do hate about Marty Stus, and Yukari, who only gapped Brolli, and all of the other children, for pretty sinister reasons.

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