Touhou

If its any consolation, I first thought of it about a year and a half ago, so its not like it was a 'just missed it!' kinda situation.

Hello there, can, have you seen any worms lately? I do believe I last saw them within your closed form.

Actually, this comic made me think. What would Futo in particular (And other touhous) think of foreign languages? I can't help but think she'd disapprove of even loanwords... if she even -knew- them. Isn't bread 'pan' from French/romance-languages? Was that word even in the Japanese vocabulary in Futo's time? This could make conversations with Remilia incredibly awkward.

"And then I asked her how often she's eaten bread, and she's like '13!' It was great!"
"Bread? What is this strange word you speak?"

Or other concepts like pi (Though I dunno how well known that'd be, even in Gensokyo proper. Not sure about how widespread the concept of it was, and double unsure of how long it bore that name.

Man... that's a detail that's often forgotten. I don't think I've seen anything else pointing that out like anywhere?

Guess I dodged that bullet as a kid. I watched {Akira}*

That claroifies a lot.

I could swear there was at least one who declared such at some point but I might be misremembering, again. Something for Xion to watch for. *

That's about right. I haven't heard of it at all except online, and I talk about it frequently enough that anyone I've met more than a few times has at least heard of it through me. ("So what hobbies you got/games you play?" "Blah blah blah and Touhou." "Touhou? What is that?" "A bullet hell shootemup." That seems to satisfy the generally curious, and people who actually hang out with me on occasion actually see me playing it on my laptop and sometimes even try. One of them actually picked it up and started playing it 'casually'.

Greed, boredom, duty, recognition. That about sums them up, I guess?

RE: gender roles in Gensokyo... I feel like I mentioned it like earlier today, only my perception of day and night is way off right now, so It might have been about a week ago since I've been sleeping poorly these past few days. But the reason spellcards were picked were because

Sayeth Akyuu in Reimu's PMISS entry. If we take this at face value, it means Women either make the decisions, or outnumber the men in a democracy, or are the people who actually interact with or fight youkai while men mostly don't for whatever reason. Well, or that the youkai were making the decision and they just checked with the women while men were out and were like "Eh, 50%'s a fair sample" or something, but that doesn't seem to be the implication.

Also, Just reading this kind planted a seed... wouldn't a story where this topic is being discussed be interesting? And what sorts of other rulesets were considered?

edited 29th Sep '13 10:07:22 PM by Antimatter625

The Eiki jizo thing was also mentioned in that three fairies manga chapter.

In truth, a real-life friend of mine helped me along with getting the games downloaded (and gave tips on which are more difficult than others), but it wasn't the initial reason I got into Touhou. More of the bigger introduction to it.

...That was back in January. I'd been trying to get a grip on the lore best I could without finishing the games (mostly because I was trying to get into other stuff at the same time) up until about a month ago. But every time I find a big fanwork of some kind it's typically from a few years ago.

...In retrospect, I dunno why I didn't just inquire more.

edited 29th Sep '13 10:19:06 PM by TheMike

Fundamentally, Futo has to be a sinophile. I mean, she switched over to their cool new religion despite her family's traditionalist support of Shinto. Keep in mind that she lived in an era where stuff from the continent was new and cool, like ceramics and religion and systems of government and writing. Shoutoku is best remembered for spreading Buddhism, but that wasn't the only thing being imported from China. They hadn't even adopted Kanji yet, they just wrote in Chinese. Let me repeat that: when Futo lived, Japanese writing did not exist. Scholars simply learned Chinese and wrote in Chinese.

So no, she wouldn't have disapproved of loanwords. She would have loved loanwords, to an extent we can't even imagine in the modern era.

Well Zun simply mentioned that he could create a game that include boys, but it wouldn't be a in a touhou game. It seems to be a rule he follows for some reason.

edited 29th Sep '13 10:20:31 PM by asellus111

He also said that anything he makes will be Touhou, since he is Touhou and Touhou is him.

I am the Touhou, the true self!

Hey, it works for him. Didn't he also say that he'd continue making it even if everyone stopped liking it, he enjoys it that much?

I don't know, I know that others have said that about their works.

And such works continue to be loved.

Love thy work, and thy work shall be loved.

edited 29th Sep '13 10:41:37 PM by Horselesshorseman

The dudes who made Super Meat Boy basically said the same thing in Indie Game: The Movie, if memory serves.

As an aspiring game developer going to a college (kind of) for game development, it's an inspiring ideal.

Well, the simple solution is to make something that you want to play. Something that makes the world a marginally better place to exist in, that you were annoyed didn't exist until you made it. If you're not making a game like that, what exactly is the point?

That's pretty much the exact goal I have in mind. To bring together the best aspects of the games and such I love and try to leave behind as many of the not-so-great ones as I can.

Make sure all the work and love I could've possibly put into it goes into it.

The Mother 4 team's a huge inspiration in that field, working for five years to make a fan sequel the best they could, for free no less.

edited 29th Sep '13 10:55:37 PM by TheMike

There's the running gag that only I seem to be interested in maintaining that Fawriel handed in his man license and officially admitted to being a girl, but if we're actually going for a serious census, that probably doesn't count.

Have you heard me mention that I really like the Five Magic Stones Ask Blog and wish it updated more often? Because I frequently mention that I really like the Five Magic Stones Ask Blog and wish it updated more often.

^ Or Children's card games?

I can only enthusiastically agree with Mr. Xion that Ask 5 Magic Stones is indeed friggin' awesome! "Super-logical" characters are always fun, and the stones are very well-written versions of that, with lots of sarcasm and shenanigans sprinkled in, providing a super-unique view of Touhou.

@Clarste re: Futo: . Again super interesting! You know, I was gonna post "Futo needs her own manga" as a joke, but immediately thought "...wow, I genuinely want that". Well, it would be "standard" Fish out of Temporal Water shenanigans mostly probably, but 1)I can never get enough of that and 2)it would be, from the times and locations, completely fresh, exotic, interesting territory (well, to me ^^; there's probably already similar material out there, but then I don't know it).

Nah, Futo doesn't need that.

Miko does. It's valuable propaganda.

Tewi, I can only imagine what you're thinking.

Flandre (nws-ish)
Flandre
Yuyu-san
DJ Suika
Cloudy
Kokoro
A comic

This meets absolutely none of the criteria you went on to list save for being a manga starring Futo, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

There should be another manga focusing on the Taoist and Buddhist factions.

New RoSD chapter is up.

I'm lame and had to look up the word. B Ut... yeah, I'm really not what one would call a historian, let alone of Japanese history. I had no idea Writing was that new/Futo was that old (timelines... I should look at them). And now I do.

I kinda wonder how Futo feels being so temporally displaced.

"Aww yeah, Buddhism's the new thang!"
"Uh. Actually, that'd be christianity*

Its neat... but I honestly dunno if I like purplequest more. I'm so torn! But well, how were spellcards decided on? how/why was the women/youkai decision the one that ended up happening? Why isn't Touhou a series of computer board games (Go away Touhou Mahjong, we're not talking about you.), to name an example. Just one of those things that's fun to ponder.

I guess that puts you one tick ahead of me. I got nothing.

edited 30th Sep '13 6:02:24 AM by Antimatter625

Me too! Well... you can definitely see the author's style in both. Simple, yet nice and effective drawings, great humor and massive worldbuilding. Purplequest will probably win in the end, however, since I fully expect the overall storyline, when competed, will be amazing.

The person who asked the hot spring question has posted his recording of the question himself on Youtube, and the audio in this video is very clear.

Here's the important part, transcribed by Five Ants, that most knowledgeable Japanese fan:

Translation:

Japanese fans tend to read it as saying "of course there's nothing wrong for a father to bath with his daughters" ( back when all Japanese bathe in public baths with no gender difference, this is normal ).

Five Ants, on the other hand, has made an interesting reading when only the answer "Marisa" was known: "in the case of Marisa, a human was chosen for personal safety."

What Five Ants meant was, ZUN doesn't think of Gensokyo as a place for himself to live in. He's only an ordinary human from outside; no special treatment awaits him in Gensokyo, and the youkai will find him to be easy food all the same. So he should choose humans.

edited 30th Sep '13 6:35:25 PM by atrican

...Good point.

Iku and Okuu
Yamame and Marisa
Meiling and Sakuya
Victorian Alice Youmu, in the human village
Lonely Flandre

edited 30th Sep '13 9:17:27 AM by TheMike