WebAnimation Admirable in Premise, but Not Without Its Own Flaws.
Okay, it's been some time since I saw Diamond In The Rough, and I want to leave my thoughts for any new readers who might be interested in this story.
This Walfas movie was created to Deconstruct all of the typical Self-Insert Marty Stu Wish Fulfillment Tropes that everybody hates... and it does so, which you can see on the Deconstruction section of this trope page.
However, there is always more than one way to deconstruct clichés, and while the story of (the fictional) Brolli Diamondback started as a simple tale of what happens when a dumb kid tries to live out his silly fantasies in Gensokyo (which is stated to be a pretty dangerous place in Touhou's vague and convoluted lore), it quickly devolves into a complete clusterfuck of convoluted plots, absurd schemes, and horrible people who insist on stabbing each other in the back just for shits and giggles (Blue-and-Orange Morality combined with Accentuate the Negative).
After the four hours of idiotic drama and tragedy, I was emotionally exhausted by how horrible and pointless the story was, and I made my opinions very clear in my comments to Spaztique through Youtube and Deviantart.
Since then, I've had time to reflect on my thoughts, and in the end, Diamond in the Rough is an EXTREMELY EXHAUSTING STORY that will likely make you despise either most or all of its incredibly large cast, thanks to Spaztique's extremely liberal use of Alternate Character Interpretation (which is what happens when 80-90% of material related to Touhou is fan-created, according to the Touhou YMMV page).
Spaztique wanted to create a story that would confuse, frustrate, horrify, and sadden his audience while making them question everything they knew about Touhou canon and fanon... and he did! Mission accomplished, dude! :D
I've also spoken with Spaztique about what this story really means, and in the end, I think that Diamond in the Rough is a story that takes itself WAY too seriously, and we shouldn't be taking it too seriously, either.
It's just a silly fanfic, after all. It's just as silly as the hundreds of bad fanfics in the Touhou fandom that Diamond in the Rough was mean to critique, after all. :D
And besides, there's always Ensign Sue Must Die and "Stevo Gets the Bad Gyus"
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WebAnimation Diamond in the Rough is a grossly overrated and outdated movie that had wasted potential.
It's been a while since I picked up this series. I remember starting it 4 years ago, and not really contuining after episode 2(?). My friend decided to host a movie night watching it, and let's just say... we didn't have fun.
The whole movie's goal is to "deconstruct" the typical wish fufillment cliches that most laughably bad fanfiction carry and attempts to try to provoke critical thinking in its audience. Which I felt like it didn't accomplish.
Diamond in the Rough to me felt like a really poor, tryhard attempt at deconstructing the tropes it used. Here's what I didn't enjoy:
The narrative is inconsistent, which can feel annoying. For a movie trying to invoke critical thinking, it tends to be really, REALLY skewed on its narrative. Spaztique claimed that we're supposed to feel torn about Brolli, but the narrative speaks another story. Brolli is seen crying and wailing about how he's gonna die and lots of terrible things happen to him, and it keeps going "GO ON. FEEL BAD FOR HIM. BET YOU REGRET MAKING FUN OF HIM NOW, EH?", and let's not even get started on the ENDING. It doesn't help matters to me that Spaz's attempts to explain the narrative choices feel like insane backpedaling, which didn't look too good on his part.
The reason it exists is horrible, in my opinion. As you know, this movie exists because Spaztique wanted to critique Real!Brolli on his writing skills by making a 2 hour movie talking about how stupid of a writer he is. As an artist, this makes my blood boil. It shows how dated it is, too- if Spaz were to have this mindset nowadays and release the movie, he would be clowned on immensly. I'm glad that Brolli took heart about it, but I personally think it should've been written by him instead of a guy who didn't like the way he wrote. Spaz should've taken a backseat and just suggested edits.
Walfas limits it IMMENSLY. I feel like the movie would flow a thousand times better if it wasn't made in a flash dollmaker program. Walfas is INSANELY limited, as seen in Special Effect Failure moments such as characters having the a raindrop prop as tears, and having rather comical expressions during moments that should be serious (for example, Yukari's giant grin when she's about to gap someone away). I believe that the movie would've been more aesthetically pleasing if it was drawn and animated, and the whole thing is just insanely overhyped.
I've spoken to Spaz before about the movie, and he considers it nowadays to be a comedy. And I agree- DitR is a good movie to watch if you wanna laugh at poor writing. If you actually like it, that's okay. Everyone has different tastes. In the end, I wouldn't reccomend this at all. I wish the best of luck to Spaz in his future endeavors, and that he keeps writing!
WebAnimation People only like good tragedies.
There's several key factors that prevent me from seeing this as anything other than a teenager's attempt to make a tragedy and failing miserably. I will list them here.
1. Brolli's death doesn't feel satisfying. Pretty much everyone is miserable afterwards, and his death was a Suicide by Cop- he let Tenshi kill him out of guilt.
2. There's strong Moral Myopia vibes. Even after he goes to be judged, people still blame Brolli- even the Yama, whom one would expect to take into account "being set up to fail" and "manipulated into acting as he did." The only one who appears to blame Yukari, the actual cause for all the shit that happened, is Marisa.
3. Brolli is never considered a "hero of great status and prosperity." Pretty much everyone sees him as a brat with a bunch of neat toys.
4. There's several loose ends that need to be tied up. Yukari's still continuing the cycle, the outside world is still looking for Brolli, and several grudges have formed that need to be settled.