In sight of there being too many threads that lean too much on one side when it comes to TH discussion I want to make a thread for general canon discussion, since there is none, so ask and answer things in regards to the "story" and "worldbuilding" of these games and mangas.Starting with: Utsuho! Is the "eye" on her chest actually a part of her? Was it there before she got her brain fried by radiation because Kanako? Is it actually an eye or is it a gem? If she blinks, does the "eye" blink too, like with the Komeijis? And why is there so little (none) body horror fanart with it?
>>47303392>Utsuho! Is the "eye" on her chest actually a part of her?It's explicitly the Eye of Yatagarasu, so yes, it would've become a part of her body when Kanako fed the sun crow to her.
>>47303392>Is it actually an eye or is it a gem?I used to think the eye was just a gem and part of her outfit and "3rd eye" was just a symbolic gem like how the cannon symbolizes the Yatagarasu's 3rd leg but the g*cha cleared it up. In b4 "IT'S NOT OFFICIAL!!!!" but it sorta is since ZUN himself has to approve each g*cha alt.
>>47303502Imagine how unconfortable that must be for her, imagine that is an eye with actual nerves and shit, then imagine the skin of her tits making contact with it, constantly, it would be like touching your eyes with your hands.See this is why Utsuho has to be flat, its just practical.
>>47303392How old is Reimu again?
>>47303529Used to be a teenager, but, and dont quote me on this, ZUN aged her up and the rest of the gang to make up for the fact that they drink, and ZUN didnt want to promote the image of a bunch of minors getting wasted.
>>47303392>spoilerProbably because most art of the unyu bird gives her big boobs, and that clashes with the giant eye emblazoned on her chest as we see in her official artwork. It's easier to make it an accessory to her clothes. Or when she's not wearing much it's jammed in her cleavage much higher than it *should* be, or the one piece I saw where it's just above her belly button. That and artists are more interested in making her look sexy than not.Either way I'd say the eye is apart of her since it's proof the Yatagarasu lives inside of her. She didn't have it before then going by the official art of her being hypnotized by Kanako, though that's debatable since the artist's style and inking makes it hard to tell. For all intents and purposes though the eye is just an accessory and any animation is dependent on the artist drawing it, like Sanae's frog and snake hair accessories blinking as she does.>>47303502You could reason it being different than our Okuu since LW's story is fucky with alt universe shit. She could have the real eye grafted to her chest, and a false one that is just for her clothing and fits over whatever size boobs you decide she should have.It's all speculation anyway since there's nothing really confirming it one way or the other; canon quickly turns into headcanon when all you have to work with is assumptions to make answers of. >>47303517I've seen some anons head canon it as not really a hard gemstone thing but a flexible gel eye almost like silicone. Whatever length to go to make it seem comfortable enough to be plausible. It could also just be as big or small as you need it to be.
>>47303392What's canon is that I wanna put my cannon into Titty Nuke Bird and fuck the ever loving shit outta her while happily sucking on her huge fucking tits while jacking off to her squeezing out eggs from her sweet delicate poon.
>>47303590>>47110387
>>47303560>Detachable yatagarasu eyeSomehow the most curse thing I have seen in a long while, just behind Marisa wearing Reimus clothes.>not really a hard gemstone thing but a flexible gel eye almost like siliconeI personally feel like that would be even worse, but then again, dont see Utsuho with big breasts like everyone else, so for me the eye is as big as in her official first art and its probably a "living" gemstone, since that wouldnt be unconfortable anyways since there wouldnt be anything to clash with it.
>>47303502>In b4 "IT'S NOT OFFICIAL!!!!" but it sorta is since ZUN himself has to approve each g*cha alt.Gunna need a source on that one, since every other time I hear of the game its the most low quality shit like this. The absolute most I can see him doing is handwaving it all because trying to get them to make actual designs would be taking time away from his actual passion and family.
>>47303706Man they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Gacha and Touhou is showing its cracks. Gacha models require new content—new girls—to be pushed out on a regular basis otherwise you'd just unlock everything and stop playing. This only goes so far for Touhou since there's only so many ways you can spin alt universes and designs of every character when you're doing it at the pace a gacha requires. Other gacha's don't have this restriction, they can just pull new girls out of their ass whenever they please on top of alt outfits for previous ones.This shit isn't even Touhou anymore, it's cosplayers that vaguely look like 2hus; I can tell it's supposed to be the prismrivers and medicine, but I'm drawing a blank on who the far left one is supposed to be. Out of context Touhou would be the last thing you'd think of unless you recognize the artist and know he does LW.Sorry for off topic rant. Shit like this just jostles my jimmies.
>>47303706I literally only recognize Medicine there, and thats because of the doll.
>>47303392Who is, canonically, the lewdest 2hu?
>>47303762Define "lewd".
>>47303748>far leftAlice.
>>47303762sex fox
>>47303762My choice is Tsukasa. She wears a skintight bedsheet.
>>47303748>jostles my jimmies.Canonically Komachi jostles my jimmies but in a good way.
>>47303762Either the one who "took care" of a random man for three years or the one who fucks her actual, blood related nephew.They're sisters
>>47303748lmao the only Touhou that is 100% safe from being tainted by gacha is Ellen.
>>47303762Sannyo is a whore
What is the self sufficiency of the Village like? We know from PMiSS that "Everything necessary for human life is supplied here" but while they have farms and livestock, are they reliant on trade with Youkai for things like ores? The wording could be a mistranslation, but "supplied here" infers they get their materials from outside the Village, which can only mean from Youkai.They have quite a few luxuries (as in not necessary for life) like florists, tofu sellers, a cafe, teahouses, Suzunan, tobacco, etc. but what others could they have? Porcelain and other earthenware has to come from somewhere. Akyuu dresses in expensive looking clothes, do they have a way to make silk and dye them or do they get it the same place Sannyo shops? Scrolls and the like are everywhere, so they must be able to make paper. Anything metal related requires a blacksmith by necessity for tools, fittings, nails, etc.There's a lot of little industries like this that build off one another, and the little bits of comparatively high luxury we've seen requires a load of supporting industry from raw resources through refining to finished good. To reiterate the question: does the Village have the capacity to make them or are they simply given the finished good?I did find out that there is a native source of sugar in Japan made from certain bamboo, so that's covered and it's plausible they have somebody growing and refining it.
>>47304011Furthermore: where does the salt merchant get his supplies? Is there a secret underground trade route between Gensokyo and the outside world? Gensokyo is in the middle of the central Japan mountains, there's no way to get any salt there.
>>47304011Those are a lot interesting questions, sadly, like many other things related to Touhou, we are reliant on assumptions, as ZUN will never elaborate on them.>The wording could be a mistranslation, but "supplied here" infers they get their materials from outside the Village, which can only mean from Youkai.Or it could also mean "they are located here, for both humans from to outside that end up here, and for people from here that need them", thats how interpret it.Based on the old canon, the one where humans get along with youkai costumers at night and have special locals for them, we can assume that trade all sorts of things, not only food, and specifically not only from the kappa, the biggest "trading partners" of the village and the humans.And about the luxuries and the like, again, its never elaborated on, there could be a facility where all of those things are processed, the human is deceptively advanced and competent for a place set in medieval Japan, but I wouldnt be surprised if its like you say, where they gather the raw materials and partner with youkai to refine them, or viceversa.But again, thats under the assumption of the old lore where humans where willing to cooperate with youkai without so much fearmongering, but ZUN has long since retconned that.
>>47304031Murasa exists, what if they get it from the sea and then extract it from there? Or they could be getting it from an unknown mine we dont know about; the underground is huge.
>>47303392Some fans nowadays tend to ignore some mangas and stuff because they are garbage and I can't blame them because ZUN is a hack.Also Utsuho didn't got her brain fried by radiation by Kanako, she was retarded before meeting her and it's the divine spirit inside the eye who made her go crazy.
>>47303706Am I dumb if I can't recognize a single one of these other than medicine?
>>47304083No. In fact, I didn't even realised it's was some Touhou stuff.
>>47303706ZUN's on record saying he really regrets the whole phone game things, so I wouldn't be surprised if he just says yes as long as it's not absolute dogshit or too egregiously porn bait (though I haven't seen much LW skins).
>>47304097That game is very borderline in terms of fan service and coomerbait, making sure to "round" the characters as much as it can, no one is safe.>ZUN's on record saying he really regrets the whole phone game thingsBig if true, source?
>>47304011None of it adds up considering how tiny Gensokyo is in canon. There's probably not enough land to sustain even subsistence farming. >>47304031Salt Merchant might be a reference to Gensokyo being likely inspired by Hakuba, the town where ZUN was born and raised. That village used to be part of the Salt Road which was used to transport salt from the coast to inland.
>>47304100Some panel he did a while back, whole thread here, but pic related are the most relevant, though 2nd one is most likely just referring to people thinking touhou is the phone games.https://x.com/richard_effendi/status/1784576753186546058
>>47304114You know, thats good, that means ZUN will, probably, learn from this and think about it if he ever thinks of selling Touhous rights to some big company in the distant future.Also, what IS Touhou Cannonball? I have seen that name float around and in booru tags but I havent really gotten around it, is it another mobile game? I thought LW was the only one.
>>47304100I have altered your cat. Pray I don't alter her any further.
>>47304127Not him but yeah, although it was shut down in 2020, if I recall correctly. Right now, the only Touhou mobile games I know of are LW and Gensou Eclipse
>>47304127>Also, what IS Touhou Cannonball? I have seen that name float around and in booru tags but I havent really gotten around it, is it another mobile game? I thought LW was the only one.Touhou Cannonball was the first gacha, it had insane production quality (unlike LW) but it flopped hard and died in less than a year after launch because the gameplay was too high IQ for the pests that are gacha "players" who just want to push button that makes the "game" play itself.
>>47304136Honestly? Minus the fat cat tats it's a pretty decent design.>>47304127>Also, what IS Touhou Cannonball? A kusoge but it had some genuinely interesting costumes unlike the schlock that is LW. This one is the first one that comes to mind as iirc it's based heavily on some old-school indigenous japanese culture's tailoring. Not the Ainu but another one I think.
>>47304031>>47304101Even if it is a reference it still begs the question on where he gets his salt from in such quantities it made him rich by Village standards. Maybe Gensokyo was founded on a salt dome which would be obtainable underground.>not enough landI've not seen any mention of famine other than in Okina's Spell Card and that one fangame. So other than an Incident affecting the seasons and weather I imagine the food supply would be stable. Minoriko is also called to bless the Autumn harvest every year. So maybe they have higher than average yields to make up for the smaller arable land alongside whatever is possible by foraging outside the Village. And if all else fails any deficit can be made up trading for either food or fertilizer with Youkai since it would be very bad if the Humans were starving. There is at least organic fertilizer or compost being used and made from composting fallen leaves, Marisa mentions you can sell them to farmers in FS chapter 2: Whether that's exclusively a Tanuki plot or if it caught on with farmers is debatable, but there is actual composting and recycling going on as shown by WaHH chapter 26.While not affecting crops, there was a Hunger God around in WaHH chapter 36 that was causing people to pass out from hunger, including the protagonists, but it was dealt with in short order.>>47304136"""""canon""""" paizuri cat>>47304167>>47304169>>47304231I hope they repackage it out as a standalone game like Phantasia Lost. I liked what they had with it.
>>47304011Well it was shown in FS that the village requires youkai to survive natural disasters. Maybe it's not so direct as supplying resources, but the human village is reliant on youkai support.
>>47306638About the salt iirc sunflowers are actually more tolerant to saline soil than other plants. It might be that the Garden of the Sun is the result of land with so much salt that only sunflowers can live there. Maybe that could be the place from where the merchant got his salt.
>>47306638>I hope they repackage it out as a standalone game like Phantasia Lost. I liked what they had with it.Never gonna happen, Danmaku Kagura was also a gacha that flopped and it was repackaged as a standalone game just like 2 months after the servers shut down. Cannonball died 4 years ago and not a single peep about it since.
>>47304136Mmmmmmmm, luv' me some boobhus... Still won't playing the game tho.
Are there guns in Gensokyo? How effective are guns against Yokai?
>>47310661So flintlocks and firearms prior to menji restoration would be avaliable. Afterwards you got a mixed bag but not too hard to find. Tewi could pull out mines from the bushes but its for gags. Danmaku is non lethal on purpose, if you bring firearms it'd work fine desu, but be prepared to up the stakes drastically
>>47310661PMiSS makes them sound pretty worthless.
>>47310726Makes some sense because at the end of every battle anyone facing Reimu is going to look like a pincushion with how many fucking needles she'll chuck at them.
>>47310661There are guns, and while run of the mill firearms might not be so effective, those with names in cultural weight could have some effect, at least enough to give a Youkai pause I'd think. Tanegashima is practically a household name for firearms, regardless of whether the matchlock was made in Tanegashima or not. If you happen to have an authentic one owned by someone like Nobunaga or some other famous figure, or the match cord is made from Shimenawa and the gun is made of other blessed components, it could be a lot better.
>>47304136Kitty's titties make my pants tight leaving a little stain on the fabric.
>>47310726So the only thing that can hurt a youkai is God's Chosen Caliber, the .45 ACP.
>>47310661>>47310726Guns don't work unless you believe they will work, so you don't even need actual guns, if you really believe an airshit gun can kill a youkai then it will work, like in purse owner.
>>47310977That's so far from how anything in this setting works it's actually baffling how you believe this. If that were the case there'd be a lot more normal humans in the setting rather than just like 5, with a majority of them being from PC-98. In fact i'm pretty sure there isn't even "just an average human" since then, barring Kosuzu who only started to get abilities after fucking around and finding out, and maybe Renko if you believe she doesn't just have astral autism.
>>47304011They also get some of the random shit that falls through the barrier, so we could extend this to also include less necessarily solid stuff.Medicine that can't be produced within Gensokyo might be recovered from the things that fall from the barrier, and then it might just be studied either by Eientei or medics in the village
>>47310977I think you'd have to have a weapon that you filled with enough feeling to do that, like if you place all your grudges, rage, hatred, and frustrations into your m1911 it might turn into a cursed weapon, one that might be able to cause spiritual damage
>>47311427Are there even really that many cursed items to begin with? Only one that immediately comes to mind is Medicine.
>>47304040Gensokyo is explicitly a landlocked place, there is no sea. Murasa's a ship phantom from about a thousand years in the past when there were no barriers. Several characters talk about the sea, and both Hatate and Aya express a desire to see the sea again.
>>47310661Sumireko uses 3D printed gun as a spell card, but she's also an esper so it's hardly normal guns which I assume was what you meant.
>>4730352916? It's hard to say since she should be, like, 30, but is obviously not.
>>47303748Touhou works great as a gacha game though, assuming ZUN regularly releases new games with new characters.Much though most fans will deny it, Touhou is proto gacha.
>>47304011My assumption is that the Human Villagers trade with Youkai, but largely indirectly through merchant families. Aka: Your average human villager trades with the salt merchant if they want salt, but he himself trades with the Youkai. It makes sense as a means of controlling the human village without having a direct puppet leader. It essentially means the upper class of the Human Village is reliant on Youkai to maintain their power while the rest of the human village is reliant on the upper class.
>>47310745>>47310964>>47310977Also Silver bullets.
>>47311343>If that were the case there'd be a lot more normal humans in the setting rather than just like 5Going by PMISS there SHOULD be a lot more youkai exterminators in gensokyo. But there aren't because ZUN doesn't care.
>>47304114Honestly, my biggest problem with LW is it's cowardice. On the one hand, it's selling wedding and obvious fanservice alts. On the other hand, the main character is a girl and totally not romantically interested in anybody. If you are going to be a gacha game, be a gacha game. I'm sure people will reject it at first, but we all know they'll come around after the first event where they get to date their favorite Touhou character.
>>47311676>Touhou is proto gachaThe fuck does that mean. Gacha is a specific kind of mechanic that depends on randomness to get you to pay more.
>>47311915It means that Touhou feels a lot like a gacha franchise. Everything from the aesthetic, to the characters, to the way the fandom threats the characters feels like a prototype version of Fate Grand Order or Blue Archive.
>>47311915Anon believes that because a game has a varied cast of character designs that obviously means its a gacha, because he is what many in the medical field would call "retarded".
>>47311932You might be onto something there
>>47311939I don't mean it is a gacha, it's proto gacha insofar that it largely appeals to people in the same way Gacha does. The way the Touhou fandom acts and the way any given Gacha fandom acts is largely identical.
>>47312069So by that logic, Megaman is a proto gacha.
>>47312123I mean, kind of? Main difference is that most people don't sexualize the robot masters. With that said, a Megaman gacha makes perfect sense in much the same way Touhou does.
>>47312725There's not really a "kind of" here, because it's not. The point was to make you realize how stupid you sound, but since it needs to be made clear I'll give it to you straight.>aestheticWhat is a gacha aesthetic? Dragon Ball Dokkan Battle, Puzzles and Dragon, Granblue Fantasy, Fate Grand Order, Genshin Impact and Blue Archive all have vastly different aesthetics. There's more in common with Game of Thrones to Cyberpunk 2077 than the first and last in that list.>charactersAgain, what the hell does that mean? Primarily cute girls? A variety of designs? A variety of powers? My Megaman example here is applicable here without me even knowing since if you swap primarily cute girls with primarily cool boys (well...) then it'd fit too, despite the fact that Megaman is nothing like Enstars or Touken Ranbu or Idolish7 or Twisted Wonderland in basically any other regard. The closet comparison you could make between the two is whichever Megaman X game that had a buncha references to Guns and Roses and say it's similar to Twisted Wonderland's thing of being "what if Disney characters but dudes", except even THAT wouldn't apply because in Megaman's case that was explicitly just the translator doing a bit for some reason. I think for his wife? Can't remember and it's not important.>the way the fandom treats* the charactersI'm asking you again: what the fuck does that mean? That's such a vague statement that could apply to quite literally any given franchise in existence. Dark Souls fans have a similar autistic obsession with it's characters even when half of them only exist in Old Hand's Pedant, detailing the grim tale of Solker the Undefeated's defeat at the hand of the Frenzied Office Worker John's hands. Take it a step further and go look at any religious book or mythos and suddenly you're saying the Bible is a proto gacha and you see how ridiculous it sounds.If you have some kind of logic or explanation please give it, because with how vague your definitions are and how you've been unable to make anything clear I'm almost entirely convinced you're pulling a "taco is a sandwich" kind bait for engagement rather than actually trying to say something meaningful. Unless tacos are sandwiches? Don't know, don't really have mexican cuisine near me. You get what I mean.
>>47303545So at least 20 going by modern Japanese drinking age.
>>47304136wtf Orin is STACKED?
>>47304114ZUN is in a hard place with the gacha games. I can understand he doesn't want them to become the face of Touhou, but to be frank he's not going to support his family with sales from his games alone. The royalties were probably too tempting for him.
>>47313273Frankly I'm surprised he was able to support himself with the sales of the games alone up to this point. The dude's implied and now even recently made it crystal clear it's just a paycheck to him, I'd call him a sellout if he was neck-deep in the process but since he's clearly not then there's really no reason not to respect the hustle. It's not like Touhou will ever get devalued by games that'll only exist for 2-3 years if they're lucky. Lost Word is also on its last legs with the only thing keeping it alive is releasing a new unit type every 6 months that requires a 3 month timegate or extreme uncapped whaling, but even that has its limits. Which sucks because even though it's a kusomobage I had a fun time with the first arc's story and half of the second one.
>>47313302I do like the silly stories, aside from the cancer that is modern game deign I enjoy hearing my wifehu's voice and seeing her spell cards
>>47303502Anon, zun treats it like a paycheck 100% he handwaves most of it as long as it follows the guidelines as set out on the official site
>>47313229Yeah, but she's still drawn as a teen for all intents and purposes... in fact if we go by the 'its one to one our time' interpretation she's a hag.
>>47311764If someone releases a gacha about an outsider getting into Gensokyo and collecting 2hus I might have to break my vow to never play gacha games...
Do people in Gensokyo know about WWII and what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I know Kosuzu knows about the fall of the Berlin Wall, albeit with incorrect details.
>>47314344One of the 60 years cycle was the nuking of Japan and ww2 itself, the barrier was up then but I often hear the meme that the tengu were actively involved in ww2. Though I doubt there's much truth to it.
>>47313273I heard he had his own brewery now (never bothered to fact check), so maybe the gacha just helped him get to a point where he could be stable.>>47314344They know mass death events happen, and at the conclusion of WW2 (the bombs), the barrier weakened for the first time and it was on a sixty year cycle year (the incident of PoFV). I'm sure Youkai would definitely know. But for villagers it would depend, is it taught in school? Since Gensokyo was isolated during the war, none of the war's effects on the economy and politics ever would've made it inside to make an impact on their psyche. It's debatable whether they would've had any nationalism towards Japan as a nation before the barrier, much less after. So then that makes WW2 a trivial event to the villagers, much like the Berlin Wall, where any actual details about the how and why is from hearsay or old articles from the outside. I'd say the least they would know is it involved Japan, weapons of mass destruction, and a lot of people died. Knowing that atom bombs were dropped on Japanese soil would be a shock, but then again they know they have a living equivalent living underground powering a reactor.
>>47314581>It's debatable whether they would've had any nationalism towards Japan as a nation before the barrier, much less after.This is actually something I've never thought about before and I'm shocked I've never really done so prior. The Human Village was a town somewhere in Japan that had a name at one point. I do imagine their patriotism for Japan died within a generation just from the fact that paying taxes to a lord you'll never see immediately ceased, but otherwise... kind of an interesting thought.
>>47314227Gacha dating sim! How hard would it be to make?
>>47314613It was a backwater village populated by Youkai hunters in an area teeming with Youkai. I wouldn't be surprised if local governments just wrote off the area entirely because whatever tax or grain you could squeeze out of them isn't worth the trouble of collecting it. The Tokugawa Shogunate ended only 19 years before the creation of the Barrier (1885), and the new Meiji regime spent much of that time figuring out how to reorganize their government (and putting down samurai rebellions, the results of which tripled national debt and forced Japan off the gold standard) to what we knew as the Empire of Japan. Daimyo as a title ended in 1871. So yeah, I'd imagine getting taxes from a place full of literal man eating monsters was at the very bottom of the new Imperial government's list.
>>47314705It's hard enough for people to make a dating sim with just a cast of 5 or 6 2hus, but a majority of the cast? With gacha writing at that? At that point, just go play one of those gay game jam projects. You'll get the same experience.
Why do the animal realm looks like the outside world?
>>47314227I'd jump ship from lw in a heartbeat
>>47310726>God Created Men and Sam Colt Made Them Equal!But Zun's only a Westabo when it comes to clothes and specific fairy tales.
>>47304011You know I was just thinking about how strange it is that kosuzu has reading glassesI find it impossible to believe that it was created in the human village, though I suppose it's very possible it simply found itself in gensokyo from the outside world or that the kappa made it and it fell into human handsIt being And from there her using it is either from the glasses coincidentally fitting her vision problems or they provide no improvement but she saw the imagery of reading glasses in a book she read and adopted it as a mere aesthetic
>>47319231Even ignoring the kappa idea, functional glasses have existed for close to a thousand years. Even ignoring the Japan technology debuff it's not too unbelievable to assume they had them back in the late 1800s.
>>47319231Glasses aren't exactly new. It's not too much for a stretch to assume they can produce workable glasses locally.
>>47319855>>47319928You're right actually, I had assumed glasses were invented way later and misremembered when the hakurei barrier was put in place, reconsidering both those things it's a lot more plausible
>>47313148>The point was to make you realize how stupid you soundWell, then you failed, nice try though.>What is a gacha aesthetic?I would say you can find it most clearly in things that were made to be gacha games. Like Princess Connect, Blue Archive, Genshin Impact, etc. Very over the top designs that favor being noticeable and distinctive over consistency and unity. Games like FGO or Magica Record have it as well to a certain extent, but it was actually based on something so it tends to be a bit more complex. >There's more in common with Game of Thrones to Cyberpunk 2077 than the first and last in that list.??? Game of Thrones is extremely subdued. Most of the cast looks like medieval people. They don't dress like they escaped from, to quote Yathzee, a rainbow circus in the future like they do in Touhou. It's why while the characters are certainly marketable to some extent, the iconography and world tends to be as if not more important. No clue about Cyberpunk since I haven't played it. A lot of the designs I've seen seem pretty down to earth though, outside of the obvious punk influence. Most of which are gritty, not gacha esque over the top. >Again, what the hell does that mean?Mostly a massive variety of characters that exist for the sake of having a massive variety of characters. It's a very different approach from usual storytelling. To a certain extent you could argue it's the result of it being a video game franchise that needs new bosses. But even then I still think it's pretty obvious the appeal of creating new characters supersedes their gameplay function. It's a large cast of characters created for the purpose of marketability. >I'm asking you again: what the fuck does that mean?It means the readers fetishize and sexualize the characters in a obsessive manner. It's not simply about them thinking X character design is hot, it's about them having a level of obsessive involvement with the character that supersedes their role in the game. If that's hard to understand, go to literally any given character thread on /jp/, then compare it to the way people on gacha threads talk about their favorite gacha unit. It's identical.>Dark Souls fans have a similar autistic obsession with it's characters even when half of them only exist in Old Hand's PedantYes, the difference is mostly that Dark Souls characters exist for the story. They don't exist to be sold in the way Touhou characters and gacha characters do. Bosses meanwhile are highly varied in a way that often supersedes the obvious marketability of something like Touhou or Dark Souls. If every boss in Dark souls was a cute anime boy or girl you might have a point. >Take it a step further and go look at any religious book or mythos and suddenly you're saying the Bible is a proto gacha and you see how ridiculous it sounds.Again, you seem to struggle with the concept of marketability. The closest equivalent you would have might be something like saints or gods in a pagan mythology, and that's really not the same thing outside of joke memes about Touhou characters basically worshiping the characters. Worship is not the same as the kind of obsessive highly involved sexualization Touhou fans do.
>>47315647Just have basic 1-1 stories with every character like most gacha games. Like Rumia's story is about you befriending her after she tries to eat you and slowly turning her into daughter material. Sakuya's story is about her slowly falling in love with you and showing her vulnerable side, etc etc.
>>47314344Most likely they know a bit, but not much. Outsiders do sometime settle down in Gensokyo, or share their knowledge and then leave, meaning they most likely have a vague grasp of outside world history.
>>47311676>Much though most fans will deny it, Touhou is proto gacha.Gameplay tourist here, you are right. I mean, back then people would actually "reroll" in eosd to get a good "gacha" in stage 1
>>47320313So basically what I'm understanding from your posts is that you think that a colorful and large cast equals a "gacha aesthetic", so you're not actually trolling but instead you actually genuinely believe whatever retarded point you think you have. I'm not really sure which of those two scenarios is worse but I do know that you have absolutely nothing of worth to contribute to this thread, so please take your leave.
Let's talk about everybody's favorite topic: Man eaters.My post is less about creating answers and more creating food for thought to prompt (hopefully) relaxed discussion. I don't expect everyone to come to the same consensus, but I like seeing everyone's opinions and why they think so. If it looks like a jumbled schizophrenic mess of thoughts then that's because it is.Everyone can agree the single most important trait for a Youkai is that they prey on Humans. It is what defines them and this rule is what underpins all of Touhou and drives the actions and motivations of all characters one way or another. Whether you're looking at the newest or oldest Canon, this fact rings true (unless you're an urban myth).They prey on Humans, but the question that gets the most debate is "by how much?"You can answer that question by putting it into several extremes for simplicity's sake, which also creates the basis for the different fanon flavors of Gensokyo that anons like to sport. Do they all need to eat human flesh? Do they only need the belief of Humans? Do they just drink cum? To normal terminology this makes: Grim, Cute, and Lewd. Neatly forming the corners of a Ternary plot (really only two are relevant) of Sokyo's.Again this question can be granulated further and sets you on different blends of how much. Do they only need fear? Do they require at most some bodily part of Humans like blood? Does each Youkai vary in this regard?So where does Canon fall on this plot? Canon falls somewhere in between the extremes (it's why these [ ]sokyo distinctions exist in the first place, otherwise one extreme wouldn't exist and it would just be called Canon Gensokyo). It's not all good, but it's also not all terrible, though sadly romance is lacking; either way it's a mix. Not all Youkai eats flesh as shown by Kogasa only needing fear, but is she the exception or the rule? What about Shikigami who are fed by their master's power, do they work by the same rules since they're straddling between Spirit and Youkai?More importantly the question is why should Youkai eat Humans? They prey on them as a matter of course and fear is a necessary part of it. Death is scary, and being eaten adds the nightmare fuel, you have no choice but to believe in the horrible man eater presented in front of you and contribute to its existence. No doubt it's the most effective way and the easiest method, at least until you cant eat native Humans like you did for 99% of history. But what are the real underlying mechanics that makes it all work? This is more speculative.I'll narrow this down into two components: fear (spiritual) and flesh (material). Fear is absolutely required as Youkai are spiritual beings, but does this same requirement extend to eating physical flesh? Much like the Chinese cooking dogs alive, the suffering and karma etched into the meat could enhance the taste and provide the spiritual component. But what if a Human that neither feared nor cared was eaten? Would that make it normal meat having lacked a fear component? Or would it still work since other Humans somewhere deem it so? What about blood? Vampires can do just that and the victim doesn't have to be completely drained, so why cant there be regular blood drives to ensure Youkai have enough Human blood sausage to sate their hunger? If you wanted to get really Orwellian, Youkai could be eating something like Onions Green as their "substitute" (Canni-Can kinda does this).This dichotomy creates a dilemma: do you eat the flesh because it is the only truly nourishing thing? If so why not supp on donated blood which is practically infinite? Or do you just need the fear? In which case why not scare the daylights out of people like Kogasa? Is it a combination of the two?As mentioned before, this underpins all of Touhou. Depending on the answer it can clear up a lot of things like whether the things characters say are truthful and real, or banter to look the part of a Youkai. If Youkai only need fear then it doesn't make sense for Yukari to keep a cattle of outsiders at her house like she said in PCB and she's just trolling. If Youkai needed to eat flesh, then those monks in Lotus Eaters (you know the page) are 100% dead and taking up space in a Tengu's septic tank similarly if it's cum, those poor househusbands….Where do you think Canon falls? What answers do you prefer to take to headcanon? My answer is that flesh is the fastest way to obtain spirit, but it can be gained in slower more sustainable ways. Youkai who can get away with eating people do, while those who are too strong to not need boosts or too lazy can just get by on passive fear. Always be wary of the night as there's no guarantee the Beast Youkai eyeing you from afar doesn't try his luck to rise above his peers. Stronger Youkai (most 2hus) aren't interested in eating you since the benefit is marginal and not worth the effort.
>>47324403That is a lot of text anon, its going to take me a few days to read it and come up with a proper answer.
>>47324403Latest CoLA makes it sound that human flesh isn't an absolute requirement for youkai. Even PMiSS says humans can get away by offering cows.CoLA states youkai can't kill villagers and there's a debate on whatever outsiders are safe to attack. That implies the amount of humans getting killed by youkai is pretty low, certainly not enough to sustain every youkai in Gensokyo. Outsiders aren't that common anyway, and I doubt Yukari is gaping like thousands of people. I think that implies they don't need human flesh.Humans are like trees, imagine humans could eat trees, so you would munch on some of them, but trees make oxygen so you can't eat them all but damn I could go for a pine tree right about now.
>>47324403Canon makes it pretty abundantly clear that no youkai NEEDS to eat humans to survive. Claiming otherwise is delusional, and Yukari in particular is an established LARPer.>Referencing Zounose in the dedicated canon thread>>>/trash/
>>47324403>>47324464The way I always interpreted it was that fear sustains them; and killing and/or eating humans isn't necessary nor special, beyond the fear generated by the survivors of a real or staged youkai attack; or any "racial" considerations (e.g. vampire blood-drinking).Examples of thoughts that a youkai might want to evoke in humans for the sake of fear:>Holy shit, that thing killed Hito-san, and it almost killed me! I'm lucky it decided to eat him, but his family won't get to bury him.>Oh thank Yasaka-sama; the Moriya Shrine Maiden was here to ward off those tengu that tried to attack us! I feel safe right now, but what if we didn't have her to protect us?>I saw one of those monsters lurking in the forest, eating a human corpse! H-he wasn't one of us, was he?
>>47324403I think that you should first consider how the human village gets fed before you figure out how youkai get fed.No seriously, absolutely nothing you said is as important as that. How does a single rural japanese village manage to support itself when they're a box inside of a box? Gensokyo has limited space and in that limited space the human village only has a small fraction of it. Even if you assume they eat literally nothing but rice and drink nothing but sake, there is simply not enough space for it. Doubly so since we know for a fact that they eat things like fish, beef, beans, various other vegetables, and drink more than just one type of liquor. If each person needs half an acre to feed them and the human village is large enough to have hundreds of buildings as we've seen from various views in the manga, that means that they'd need at least hundreds of acres assuming there's only a single co-inhabitant in every single house, which we also know is false since if that was how it happened then the Human Village would've died in a single generation post-barrier. Japan apparently didn't figure out crop rotation until the Meiji era (from a quick google search so please prove me wrong) which severely fucks estimations up even more. There is absolutely no way a village the size of the Human Village could sustain itself without being a vast majority of Gensokyo's landscape, which we know for a fact it is not. The only possible answer you could have is it's handwaved by either a god or by ZUN himself, in which case you have the only possible your answer to your wall of text.It don't mattah. None-adis mattahs.
>>47313273He is not against fangame, those gacha are as much of a fangame as others. If he suddenly stop it then it would go against the spirit of the franchise that everyone can do everything
>>47324403Youkai are said and shown to be omnivorous despite liking human flesh. That's why I think only mindless youkai and a very small number of sentient youkai would actually kill and eat a person with the latter doing it because they either don't know the rules yet or are willing to risk breaking them. Most youkai still attack people though because getting attacked is scary, especially if you don't know whether this youkai is one of those who would break the rules. That's how they get their fear and reputation. This is also the reason why an outsider would probably be spared if a sentient youkai were to attack regardless of whether they're free game or not. Imagine the reputation boost from attacking an outsider, scaring them shitless and then letting them reach the village and spread the word around. That's more delicious than any meat.This is how I see the situation.
>>47303748What burns me is that they haven't even used the full roster of 2hus. Fucking scientist Yuuka came out before they dared touch Rikako
>>47304011I imagine they could to what the Sentinese do and utilize junk that washes up through the border to substitute for a mining industry. The three fairies show there are whole piles of abandoned trash around Gensokyo.
>>47310726>>47310977>>47318719Considering it's the bullets that are making contact and doing the damage, you'd need to have some kind of antique bullet of significance for it to have the same effect. It would likely be more effective to use a legendary gun like a club against Youkai.
>>47326768If that's the case then legendary bows are crap as well.
>>47326782Considering the performance of Keine's bow when compared to even the Lunarians' own guns, that might not be incorrect.
>>47326186Dude, people make do. We've never seen the agricultural area of the human village. We know for sure that Gensokyo is filled with agricultural gods, since Minoriko that blesses autumn crops is considered a minor god, and yet she still gets feasts in her honor sometimes. Productivity in Gensokyo must be substantially better than in the rest of Meiji Japan. Even then, you haven't considered that youkai also can practice agriculture, even in otherworlds.If I were to guess, the fact that modern Japan is completely dependent on exports and is almost completely dominated by urbanites means that the opposite must happen in Gensokyo. That is, their self-sufficiency must be way higher and rural life must be dominant.There are some big bodies of water that provide a lot of fish. We still don't know the true size of Gensokyo neither of its population. In fact in most manga we just see one main street. For all we know the outskirts of the village could be pretty dead.
>>47326820You're not exactly wrong, but please consider that Gensokyo is literally this tiny patch of land where much of it is mountains. The agricultural gods must really be pulling their weight to feed any kind of a substantial human population.
>>47326820The point of my post was less about the actual logistics of the human village, even though once again it is a literally impossible to sustain village, and moreso that it has to be handwaved to some degree no matter what argument you make. Which means that anything that's non-essential to the plot beyond a simple background like how Youkai eating people is, is of course, also handwaved. Because it's not important to the stories ZUN tells, nor has it ever truly been important.>In fact in most manga we just see one main street. For all we know the outskirts of the village could be pretty dead.Also not true. I could grab some screenshots across the various manga myself as I'm pretty sure FS has a bit where Aya's flying over the skies and writing an article at the end of a chapter too. The other thing is that the size of the Human Village and also Gensokyo also gets handwaved intentionally which leads back to my original point of how none of dis mattahs.
>>47326714They don't seem to want to touch 98hus until only recently, and even then the ones playable so far were because they were possessing (at least that's what it looks like) Merry or Renko.
>>47327791How big of an estimate would you give for the population in each block? It's clear that not all buildings are dwellings. On that image, there are two types of block, one smaller and the other bigger. I can't really imagine a population of more than 50 for the smaller blocks, and 100 would be a generous estimate for the larger ones. Remember, there's no high rises or high density zones.Even if the village had 100 of the bigger blocks, which is already a high number, it would only be a thousand people. A thousand people is significant for a village, certainly, but definitely a quantity that is sustainable. Even if we give a higher estimate, I think Gensokyo should probably be able to sustain at least 5000 people.The big question is where are the fields. There's a lot of wilderness and empty land between landmarks that hasn't really been visited in any mangas yet. I don't think it's a stretch to think that the village could sustain itself.On festival days, when the shrines are full, it doesn't really look like there are more than two hundred people at the same time. I think you're overestimating Gensokyo's population. Ancient villages never had big population densities. There aren't many beggars, suggesting low levels of poverty.It's not impossible to sustain at all.
>>47328448I really do not know how I can make it any clearer than I already have; the human village isn't the important part, it's the fact that you cannot have a living world like this for a variety of reasons. From the youkai eating people angle to the people thriving without many dying to youkai angle, both of these things are in active conflict with eachother at their very core level. Takeshi's a meal for maybe a few days for one youkai which means that there can't be only 50-100 people in a block otherwise either the human village or youkai would be extinct by the end of the month, and on the flipside Takeshi's household would need to have a field magnitudes of order bigger than his house to feed his family. Times that by all the other humans in the village assuming a handful of people per household and you get fields bigger than the fucking Sanzu River and an area so large in size that every other place in the setting would have to balloon in size to keep the "human village is roughly in the center of Gensokyo" baseline. Moriya Shrine would go from being a large shrine to a damn city in size to keep that relative size to the Human Village for example, and the Gensokyo Barrier would have to encompass the entirety of Japan to keep up. Things that're impossible.The point is it's not important. It's never been important. It will never be important. The logistics of how the world function simply do not make sense and thus are barely even a thought to the actual meat: the setting. You can handwave absolutely everything regarding humans beyond a vague idea of seasons and holidays because again, it does not matter, and even when it does matter like in PCB the actual effects of a long and deadly coldsnap in spring does not matter. Any place is as big as it needs to be or as small as it needs to be, with things like supply chains being completely irrelevant as they're not real places until supply chains come into play in the story.
>>47327633Well, that's the point isn't it? Gensokyo is built on the basis that human are scared of youkai but there are the gods who protect them from it and grant them everything they need to live
Bump
>>47326820>We've never seen the agricultural area of the human village.We do see some glimpses in the Whaloid mango, one of the perverted oji-sans is a farmer.
>>47328632>Takeshi's a meal for maybe a few days for one youkai which means that there can't be only 50-100 people in a block otherwise either the human village or youkai would be extinct by the end of the monthNTA but Yukari solves that problem by bringing people from the outside world to feed the youkai.
Something I still don't understand is how people began to disbelieve in yokai when they clearly exist and are capable of eating people. Has ZUN ever explained this?
>>47331365>Has ZUN ever explained this?Progress, science etc etc. So the few yokai left that people somewhat still believe in are the urban legends.
>>47331365500 years ago something like lightning would be blamed on god/gods/youkai, nowadays it'd be understood to be a natural phenomenomIncidently, in touhou Youkai are a little bit like Gods, instead of faith they receive fear, what a lot of anons seem to misunderstand is that in order to receive fear they have to eat people, but they really don't.In WaHH, Kanako does a whole show of protecting the trolley from the Tengu, and this gives both faith to Kanako for protecting the villagers, and fear and respect to the Tengu for doing a show of strength
>>47303392I would like to draw some Utsuho with some eye body horror. I'm learning so it's just someday™ for the moment. The whole Utsuho-Yatagarasu deal is pretty unexplored I would say but I can't remember many Okuu focused fanworks right now.>>47304011Considering CoLA and PMiSS stuff like extinct animals can appear in Gensokyo en masse.Also things like paper in CoLA where with the start of digital mediums substituting paper makes paper appear in Gensokyo so Tengu can write as many newspaper as they feel.Depends a bit on how far the range of the barrier goes and the requirements for stuff to pass the barrier. If they get in Gensokyo a 1% of all discarded food of Tokyo they would probs have enough for the whole village.But then they won't farm... So dunno maybe they just get stuff like coffee since it was "fantasy food" from places that had luxury good but stops having them due to war or similar reasons.But probably inorganic stuff that doesn't need electricity of fuel is what gets in the best/most usable state.And youkai can just trade with humans like >>47311696 says.We also god the magic/gods they could sustain themselves via magic bs, going by SaBND just fairies can make stuff grow a lot, just a day of the three fairies "living" in the tree struck by lightning and a small new tree grows, the bamboo forest of the lost also supposedly grows so fast that the scenery changes, but I hope that last part is just Reisen messing around or other anomalies because if not the bamboo on fairy steroids would probably end up consuming Gensokyo.>>47304101Could be that the forgotten salt road still works. Operated by ghost or youkai or salt from the outside world just pops wherever they did the trade in the past.>>47326186>It don't mattah. None-adis mattahs.But, it's fun! It's true though that logistics tend to get handwaved. ZUN probably gives barely any instructions on how the village is supposed to be and the only time it "appeared" in game was the most trippy stage of the game.>>47318451If people that are dying now end up there their technology could evolve. Or maybe they developed their technology parallel to the outside world, since they seem a bigger place with more factions wanting to outbest other factions they might have a need to actually develop unlike Gensokyo or Lunar Capital where they might see no need for that (until Kanako thought otherwise I guess).>>47331365On the less talked side of youkai:Yukari's profile in PMiSS talks a lot about how youkai became more reclusive, went from even outside of Japan into Gensokyo and got distracted from attacking humans and quarreled among themselves so attacked less humans.Some like Oni also decided to go to a different world.Magicians probably also followed the flow of magic and went to otherworlds.And human exterminators, who probably fell from grace kinda like samurai or knights and got labeled as schizos once their jobs where done,
>>47324446Take your time. You don't have to answer every question there, just whatever you feel like thinking about. Most of this was from sleep deprived delirium which is where the best brain thinks come from.>>47324464PMiSS also has some goodies in the countermeasures of each Youkai, many of them can be bribed off with food you have on hand like with Beast Youkai for example, but if you run out… Better start praying. Then there's Rumia, the posterchild for man eating Youkai, and while she would go and eat people, she's lazy about it as she admits in her interview with Aya, or she's just scared shitless of Reimu coming to beat her up again.>>47327633>>47327791Consider the geography and the people living there. From a Western standpoint there cant possibly be enough land to grow crops because huge flat land = farm land. Mountainous cultures like Japan and other had this solved. Their villages were designed around these restrictions. If you have a hillside you can grow tea, grapes, flax, and of course rice on terraces, and in the flatter areas you could maintain larger rice paddies irrigated from the river. If you have space inside the village small gardens could've been an option, and it is since the youkai Marisa stomped in FS was eating melons and plums. Japan won the geographic lottery because it's a very fertile land and water is basically free, it's land could support a staggering amount of people. This also isn't counting any advantages they have over contemporary peers like technology, hardy strains of seeds, and literal magic and miracles. While there's no smoking gun, it's enough to make it plausible the Village could support itself and whatever population ZUN thinks it should have after he forgets again. Whether the logistics makes sense or not, so long as it's "plausible" it can be handwaved away.Handwaving things is part and parcel for worldbuilding. You can't explain everything especially when it's not the focus. ZUN isn't trying to copy the 10 million kingdom/town building isekai.>>47328632Of course it's not sustainable if they just ate people willy nilly, that's why they have 'da rools' saying you aren't supposed to attack and eat the townspeople. I started with Youkai is that they're simply more interesting to think about and speculate Gensokyo metaphysics than where the farms are. It's more important to the core of the setting as it has ramifications on the interactions between Humans and Youkai.>None-adis mattahsYes it doesn't matter. No I don't care, shut up, it's fun.
>>47304050>she was retarded before meeting herOn that note, is there any reason why a raven of all things is empty headed?Although I guess that hell ravens could have 0 relation to our ravens, or idk be the retarded ravens that got filtered by natural selection.I'm also not sure if it's a characteristic of hell ravens in general of it Okuu just got empty headed after regulating the flames of hell for who knows how much time, but iirc it was never specified.>>47328632>PCB the actual effects of a long and deadly coldsnap in spring does not matter.Ah yes, all that got mentioned by Akyuu was flowers didn't bloom... As if that was the biggest problem.>>47324403The answer is clear: it depends/it's inconsistentWe have early CoLA with youkai eating flesh is unsanitary so it isn't done, PMiSS with youkai barely eat humans nowadays. But of course both are in universe sources...Rinnosuke is also an oddball. Like all his half youkai nature does is him being able to eat less than a human to sustain himself and... that's it...? No need to feed the "youkai side"?Also some lines like with the yamabiko just seem to talk about them losing purpose in life... So do they just pop away of existence once they go "my life makes no sense"? I mean Rumia seems to not do much youkaiing, but idk maybe her ball of darkness of who knows what size floating generates enough fear to live.>More importantly the question is why should Youkai eat Humans?If they really need 0 flesh they might as well just knock out people and leaving them with the doubt of if the attack was real or not and with a "wtf better not get out at night" kind of feeling. Or they just loose control since humans saying they kill humans should make them kill humans. Maybe not actually attacking killing humans would make them think that their attacks are pointless and eating gives a "reason to attack" or it could just be the feral instinct of eating what you hunt of youkai that were former animals/humans, maybe those more physical youkai inspired humans to define the more mental youkai as also flesh eaters.>I'll narrow this down into two components: fear (spiritual) and flesh (material). Those things are probs intertwined. You can reason that ADN holds data. And with ghosts it seems that altering their physical body would also alter the ghost.>But what if a Human that neither feared nor cared was eaten? I wanted to say Zanmu Enoko moment. But in that case there was also the gem, but at the same time Enoko didn't just not eat her flesh despite the lack of fear, but as a beast youkai her existence is more bound to the physical layer than an "average youkai".> If so why not supp on donated blood which is practically infinite?If they want infinite meat they could just abuse the Mokou infinite body spawn glitch. Or make Eirin give it to a poor soul inb4 I can see a youkai eat my corpse after respawning HOT!!!On infinite shit you could argue that corpses that don't get discovered might after some time just pop there or just living missing people.Your conclusion seems to be the most likely imo, considering also the whole eating a hermit levels up a youkai of PMiSS I guess certain individuals could also be interesting to eat, most likely those that have ways to defend against youkai. Maybe with some famous youkai hunter showing the corpse to people that believed could give more fear points but I guess they could also do both.>>47324957>any "racial" considerations (e.g. vampire blood-drinking).Makes me think of Kappa, which due to a way to explain the looks of drowned bodies got the whole shirikodama thing going on... But then WaHH defined it as fricking salt deficit? thx ZUN for telling us that soul ass balls taste salty that's truly peak 2hu nip myth lore. That chapter was weird.
Are there other hidden places on Earth for mythological creatures like Gensokyo, or is Gensokyo a one of a kind thing?
Has ZUN ever explained how come human characters like Reimu and Sakuya can fly? I know it's for gameplay reasons but at least he used to try back in the PC-98 days with Reimu riding a flying turtle, Marisa using a magic broom, Kotohime using Goku's cloud, Rikako flying with the jetpack she built...
Do youkai girls try to rape taoists because their life force is stored in the balls? Asking real important question here.
>>47328981Well, it's said many times that you should abandon common sense in Gensokyo to begin with. I guess my point was mostly that the humans would struggle the support themselves under real world conditions. >>47331375I don't think ZUN has ever explicitly explained it, but do consider that in Japan during the Meiji Restoration certain religious traditions were banned as "superstition" so that the Europeans wouldn't regard the Japanese as some backwater barbarians. Belief in youkai IRL probably declined around this time for similar reasons. If a powerful authority tells you that you shouldn't believe in something even if you know it's lurking in the nearby woods, maybe it's better not to believe. And it's even easier to not believe when you're far away in some big city. A critical mass of people could flip their opinions relatively fast if pushed to do so. It has happened many times over regarding great many things and it will happen many times over again. >>47331713>Could be that the forgotten salt road still works.I really like this idea! It would also fit Gensokyo really well - something forgotten living again, going against common sense and so on. One could also think that decline of physical markets and demand for certain goods could make Gensokyo more materially richer as they become forgotten and pass into fantasy. >>47331887Even considering the Japanese forms of agriculture I think the locals would struggle to feed themselves with mundane means. The human village seems like a pretty substantial settlement, Gensokyo seems pretty wild, mountainous and also inhabited with literal monsters who are territorial. >>47332469The idea of spiritually powerful enough humans being able to levitate, even fly is really common in Asian religions and mythology. So with certain figures like Byakuren and Miko there might even be bit of a cultural expectation that they could fly. With Reimu, I'm not sure if it's ever stated 100% explicitly but it's probably extension of her ability to "float over life". Marisa I think has occasionally been depicted with a broom post-PC-98 too?
>>47332252Gensokyo is described as an otherworld, this can be mostly known through Hecatia, but there has not been implications of another gensokyo-like entity
>>47333304That's the first decent explanation I've ever seen for why people stopped believing in youkai.
>>47333247That's just true of spirit in taoism in general, not just of practitioners of it, but setting aside the fact that ZUN would never go there himself, it can be assumed to be another technically viable means of survival for youkai.
>>47336745Another thing to consider is that in pre-Meiji times the youkai might not have been that common. I don't know if the situation in pre-Gensokyo times is established in canon, but I do know that Yukari basicaly has done her best to get every youkai in Japan into Gensokyo. So the situation in Gensokyo is probably not the same as in any random Japanese countryside town in the early 1800s. Youkai might have been common enough to be established into legends and feared, but perhaps not so common that every town that had their resident Kogasa/Sekibanki harassing the locals. IRL Japanese mythology feels a bit mixed when it comes to how common youkai were. On the other hand it feels like they lived in a world where there was a youkai haunting every toilet, but on the other hand you have material where an alleged youkai sighting was a substantial event worthy of recording.
>>47331928>all that got mentioned by Akyuu was flowers didn't bloom... As if that was the biggest problem.I mean it kinda is. Flowers is how many plants reproduce, if they don't blossom then they don't produce fruit. It's why growing cherries fucking sucks in the north because a late cold snap killing off the delicate buds means no cherries in the summer.t. grows fruit treesWho knows maybe Yuuka, well, you know…>Zanmu EnokoI completely forgot about the newhus…>>47337030IRL Mythology is also a double edged sword in Japan's case. Toriyama Sekien made one of the first "Bestiaries" during the Edo period when there was an already big resurgence in culture, and not all of his encyclopedia's Youkai were "real" as some were just made up for the entertainment value. This then set other artists to do the same. It's a hodgepodge on whether any given Youkai is "genuine" or not, at least outside of the common and notable/researched ones.
>>47326223>those gacha are as much of a fangame as othersThere's a big difference between a fangame created out of love for the characters/setting and kuso mobage made for the purpose of selling waifus to png collectors
>>47338174>not all of his encyclopedia's Youkai were "real" as some were just made up for the entertainment valueYep. Then again, since Gensokyo seems to work on the power of belief, perhaps it doesn't matter so much. Or rather, maybe it helps. More cool youkai, more belief in youkai. Maybe the youkai even compelled poor Toriyama Sekien into writing the bestiary to begin with! Embellishing things certainly happens in Touhou itself too with Akyuu and Aya.On a related note, there is a precedent of a totaly fictional character becoming revered as a kami. One could just easily imagine that a totaly fictional youkai could become feared as a real youkai. Especially in Gensokyo.
>>47326223>those gacha are as much of a fangame as othersNo they aren't, not even close. You're coping.
bump
Did the moonies create the youkai?
Is a cure for the Hourai Elixir theoretically possible?
>>47348555Kaguya claims they did, and Yukari mentions the moonlight in a way that you could attempt to make an argument for it, but the Mental Layer largely debunks the idea that they created youkai, and it isn't in line with their established behaviors of conflict avoidance.>>47348851Eirin might be able to, but she would never do so unless Kaguya actively wished for death.
Any new lore from the exhibition?
>>47349684Mokotan's hair apparently ages unlike the rest of her body because it isn't protected by the Hourai Elixir
I can't believe this is canon
2hu is realComing SOON (2027)
>>47350077Then what about Kaguya's hair?
>>47351613maybe she paints it
>>47351613NTA, but here's three possible explanations:1) She uses her power of instants and eternity to preserve her hair.2) She cultivates purity to the best of her ability, preventing her hair from aging through the same processes that allow Lunarians to live functionally indefinitely.3) Hair dye.#1 is probably the most likely, #2 is a crapshoot that I thought about first before realising it was pretty dumb, and #3 is probably a good plot hook for a gag manga where she runs out and suffers from a mistaken identity.
>>47310745So for example an MG-42 goes hard you mean?
>>47318451That’s the human part of the animal realm.
>>473522514) it's a wig
Do they Taoists in Gensokyo hate Buddhism or the Myoren posse specificaly? I know Miko thought Buddhism was a religion aproriate for the massess and Futo is based on someone who was anti-Buddhist in real life. But do they have a bigger problem with Byakuren's crew being youkai than them being Buddhist? Does Seiga even care about any of this?
how do the items appear in the shop?do they just appear one day or does he go dumpster diving in new york
>>47354223Dumpster diving in Muenzuka, where items from the outside world crossed into Gensokyo periodically.https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Curiosities_of_Lotus_Asia/Chapter_10Second choice would be bartering with Marisa and later Kasen and Sumireko. Yukari was also mentioned to be dropping in things from time to time iirc.
>>47313148NTA but I’m gonna back him up here. When Kancolle hit the internet the reason that everyone said it was gonna be the Touhou killer is because it was a >vague or largely irrelevant story>vague lore>massive cast of cute girls without any attachments to romantic partnersThe fact that one of them had built its cast over the course of a dozen games and one forced you to pull the cast through a gachapon system is immaterial. They have the same basic building blocks. It just turned out that Kancolle didn’t have staying power like 2hu does, largely due to its parent company fucking up handling the IP and restricting fan creators from really being able to be rewarded for producing anything special. But it set the stage after that for every other gacha game following the formula. What do you think the rise of gacha is if not for “hey look! We cracked the code on how to get as popular as the absolutely massive cultural phenomenon known as Touhou!”.It literally is the proto gacha. The gacha gameplay part is the only thing it’s missing.
>>47324403My crackpot theory is that it used to be flesh was required, but now it is only fear that is required, and eventually none of it will be required at all as youkai are transformed into something closer to gods or humans. It is my belief that Yukari’s Endgame is to use Gensokyos controlled environment to slowly transform the nature of Youkai and Gods to the point where they can tear down the barrier and still exist among the beliefs and humans of the outside world. Part of that is convincing the humans of the village generation by generation exactly what the nature of Youkai should be, since the human gestalt is what gives youkai their power and shapes them. To this point it’s worked massively well considering how many Youkai have already changed to be in a much more human like form.
>>47354522There's some precedent for spirit creatures getting "domesticated" in real life mythologies. In Tibetan Buddhism the dharmapalas used to be pre-Buddhist, terrifying guardian spirits that wanted human sacrifices for the protection they provided. The Buddhists there believe that when Buddhism arrived in Tibet they negotiated a new deal, where the dharmapalas would receive worship and offerings of cakes shaped like decapitated heads instead of human sacrifice.In Japan, the standard Shinto prayers start with something to the effect of "Kami of this shrine whose names are too fearful to even mention". The overall vibe is that the kami used to be mainly feared, but then it's as if people managed to appease them enough that now they are revered and can be petitioned for favors. There's very explicit examples of this. Tenjin used to be a real life person who started to be worshipped after his death because people wanted to appease him so he wouldn't attack them from beyond the grave. Over time he however became to be seen as a patron of learning, appeasing his wrath lost it's importance and now he is prayed to for academic success. There is definitively some cultural precedent for this idea, but the difference here of course is that the youkai would be trying to kind of self-domesticate themselves.
>>47331365The invention of gun planted the thought "I can finally fight back against youkai" in their head, and it all snowballed from thereThat's it, youkai sole weakness is human believing they can fight back
>>47348851I'm leaning into no. Hourai immortality is technically not a sickness; in a very weird sense it's a state of permanent good health. Your question basically reads like "can you heal a healthy body".Another thing to consider is that whether taking the theoretical cure would just result in immediate regeneration of the body (and possibly expelling of the cure from the system). It could end up as an endless tug-of-war, with both sides activating after the other.That said I do think it can possibly be undone, for example if you have someone who can erase or change past events, like a more powerful version of Keine's history manipulation, and say she uses it to stop the elixir from ever being made (which is a damn impressive feat considering you'd be going against Eirin) or Mokou from ever taking it, then yes that can "cure" immortality.This is assuming of course that reality doesn't try to fix itself so no matter what you change, it will happen still.>A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it
>>47354461I am a bit iffy on calling it a proto-gacha, mainly because the only thing it's really got in common is the "event" of new characters and stories every now and again. The premise of gacha, back when it was physical machines even, was the uncertainty of rolling existing desirable collectables with chances for rare collectables; there would be new collectables added to the pool just in case you got all of them already to encourage you to keep trying your luck. As gacha moved from figurines to waifu pngs and attached CG events this didn't change. Touhou is fundamentally different in that there isn't anything being done on the player's part and there is no "collectables" apart from owning the game itself which contains everything in it. ZUN puts out a game, this has a selection of characters that is guaranteed to be in that game, and you get to see/beat/play all of them if you're good enough in skill, not RNG. If we call Touhou a proto gacha, then that makes Final Fantasy a proto gacha.>>47354522>>47354701I've had similar thoughts since Gensoyko is walking a knife's edge. Yukari can't be so stupid to come up with this Youkai Expansion Project to preserve Youkai past the 20th century, and then stop looking for improvements after the Barrier is made. So long as Gensokyo remains in the hands of Youkai, and the outside remains in the hands of Humans, Youkai in Gensokyo will survive; however, this is dependent on Gensokyo's continued stability. Youkai are fundamentally parasites in a world that has developed the cure for them, in order for them to survive in the long term that doesn't end up with them going extinct, Yukari needs to find a solution and rework the fundamental foundation so that Youkai can be more independent.It fits her character. She has the ego to play capital G God, is patient enough for very long term plans, and if the theory that Youkai are in large part created by Lunarians is true then it will be a massive middle finger to the moonies. If she succeeds she can stroke her ego more by taking all the credit and forcing all Youkai to recognize her as their savior. There's also her character as the Youkai of boundaries, this is the one boundary she cant bend and Yukari WILL NOT BE BOUND.I have another theory that is tangentially related: the first Gensou—Lunar War where Yukari lead a bunch of Youkai to attack and steal the secrets from the Moon, was planned to cull out the most violent and incompatible Youkai in a suicide mission. It's said in PMiSS that as a result the "impudent" Youkai were crushed and from then on Youkai didn't like to expand past their territory. To me this seems like a setup to keep more docile Youkai and curb their desire to expand where they ought not to. To keep violent monstrous Youkai like Ibaraki-Dōji from undoing all her hard work in a flash.Though depending on your view of Yukari, this is giving her WAY too much credit.>>47354939My take on the concept of Hourai Immortality is that it is eternal, immutable, irreversible, permanent in every meaning of the word. Otherwise having some way to remove it makes it not nearly as tragic as the option would've been found and kept in Eirin's back pocket if it were possible. Like the Heida clan's history is above Keine's powers, the Hourai Elixir is above that. In canon this is what I think is the case, but it doesn't stop fan stories from coming up with related plots. IIRC grotesque land story had the Hourai immortality be removable as part of it's plot: Kaguya wished to die as a mortal, Eirin obliged and tragedy struck mid surgery causing Kaguya to die, this lead to Eirin making a deal with the 'devil' out of desperation to get Kaguya back. Similarly variant Keine could undo Mokou's immortality and regeneration, at least temporarily.
>>47355359>Yukari can't be so stupid to come up with this Youkai Expansion Project to preserve Youkai past the 20th century, and then stop looking for improvements after the Barrier is made.That's where you're wrong, bucko. Never forget she is happy to pick a fight with the daughters of the thing that allows Gensokyo to exist, in spite of specifically being told to keep the peace by that very thing. Yukari, if not for literal plot armor, would not have survived as long as she has in canon.
>>47355359You know, based on what you posted, I think Gensokyo being Yukari's plan to change the youkai into a more pleasant form starts sounding very logical and totaly something that she would do.
>>47314581He really should market beerko more
>>47349018So the moon itself creates youkai?
>>47354343How could he survive Muenzuka? isn't that place infested with dangerous youkai?
>>47354939Hourai inmortality is described as straight up pulling a person out of the reincarnation cycle, so in theory, a cure could be something that forcefully reintroduces a person into the reincarnation cycle
>>47352300I assume that's what he meant.
>>47310745My unwavering belief in the infinite stopping power of the Colt M1911 in .45 ACP, as originally gifted to the world by the Son of God Himself, John Moses Browning (PBUH) will keep me true and safe.
>>47355600Beerko a cute
>>47355648Because he's a half-breed, nobody from the youkai side have any desire to target him. The human side is just human enough that the full humans don't outright shun him. He exists as "that guy that's not quite like us, but is decent enough" that nobody really fucks with him except to break in his shop and act like they live their or borrow/buy stuff at odd hours of the night. He gets left alone to his autistic shenanigans.
>>47355632Humans inventing youkai and kami as explanations for phenomena they don't understand is what creates them. Kaguya and Yukari's comments on that are likely boasting in the former case, and possibly a lack of understanding of the setting's cosmology in the latter.
>>47356057Lucky bastard...then again, having to regularly trudge across the landscape for miles, sifting through largely-discarded garbage items to peddle for a living only to return home and have some zoomer tirelessly explain to you how you don't know how smartphone apps work could likely also be seen as it's own punishment in a way.Not all strife & misfortune for Youkai-adjacent folk can be immediately obvious mind you...Without prying open any potential details to any hypothetical long-term plans at greater spiritual stabilization as well, weren't those "plans to pick a fight" touched-on in >>47355490 ultimately only meant as an extended scare tactic/underhanded ploy towards the Lunarians in the end? Something like that ought to be self-evident enough from the perspective of that Dragon God imo. Let's not forget Who exactly we're talking about here, given gaps in her memory/true capabilities or more "Unique" senses of expression aside, Pic related.Chapter 18 of SSiB also feels a bit relevant here, isn't this where her infamous Grifting Hag Joker status really cemented itself within canon anyways? Feel free to point out earlier examples, wouldn't be surprised over how many there may be exactly.I will also point out the following Yakumo quote (from the same chapter as the pic) on the subject of >>47348555, >>47355632 and >>47356102:>Under the dim light of the moon, all sorts of things blanket the Earth in shadows, such as grasses, trees, mountains, rocks and buildings. With light as weak as moonlight, it is impossible to eliminate these shadows. And they are the birthplace of humanity's fears, sometimes creating legends of youkai. In a manner of speaking, the moon gave birth to all youkai.
>>47356313>weren't those "plans to pick a fight" only meant as an extended scare tactic towards the Lunarians in the end?It was literally just because she wanted to pull one over on Eirin, probably because she was feeling insecure about her perceived intelligence now that an actual genius was in Gensokyo.>Feel free to point out earlier examplesBougetsushou genuinely isn't the first. A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty Years released not long after PoFV, and in it, Yukari actually talks about playing Shogi with herself as though it's something to be proud of, and more importantly, it's our first glimpse into her mind, and she's so obviously a moron who just acts mysterious to sound smart that I feel embarrassed FOR her.
>>47356313Poor Ran… She was just there to be a dummy for Yukari to exposition dump deep lore to.>>47356392Maybe, just maybe, we give her the benefit of the doubt that her thought process is literally incomprehensibly alien to even Youkai that nobody can see the true depths of her intelligence. Just as Ran says in her Aya interview. Or she's a dumb college student riding off the 'fake it till you make it' school of thought to cover her weakness and the subtext of Ran's words in the interview is "I have no fucking clue what she's doing".I want to believe that she knows what she's doing and is playing 6D chess with everyone, but she's it's hard to take her seriously.
>>47356416>I want to believe that she knows what she's doingYou'll only create a barrier between yourself and Gappy that way. To reach her heart you must accept her for the incompetent, impulsive, imprudent, (etc. etc.) dork she is.
>>47356392It had actually slipped my mind that Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet was released a few years beforehand, thanks for pointing that out.Reading through it was actually fairly illuminating for myself as well in a number of ways, although perhaps not for the same reasons as you as it seems. I'll save those thoughts for another time though.This back and forth also feels a little familiar...I wouldn't go so far as to call her a moron but I'm not sure if this would be the wholly-correct time & space to go into things there either.I believe you've explained yourself elsewhere well-enough at least, if my assumptions are correct. Wouldn't want to derail too far from canon discussion or start anything pre-maturely.
>>47356458In fairness, she has yet to do anything dumber than her plan in SSiB.>This back and forth also feels a little familiar...I don't memorize most anons lmao. Calling Yukari a moron may be a little extreme since she's typically more sensible than in Bougetsushou, but all the same, she's not the genius some people want to make her out to be.
>>47356392>A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty YearsI haven't heard of this gave it a read, and Oh My Fucking God, Gensokyo's full of retards…The bouncing around between different Humans, getting dejected at their responses, Reimu asking the question Yukari really wanted to ask her, the mental shogi autism excuse, the entire scene between her and Yuyuko, her onesided spergout on metaphysics (which Eiki explained in a much less roundabout way), then running away before Eiki showed up for her Extra Stage battle with Reimu.This was mentally devastating, I need some time to process this.
>>47356313I always take everything Yukari says with a grain of salt, although I find her perspective interesting.See how she classifies Gensokyo's residents as Human or Youkai here? That's one model of consideration, but it doesn't account for Deities, Fairies, Spirits, immortals, or Hermits. Yet, when talking about new arrivals, she classifies them as 'Human' based on behavior, even though I wouldn't say Eientei is reliant on Youkai like the humans of the village are. If we step back, what Yukari effectively says here is that actual race matters less in Gensokyo and rather it's behavior that determines someone's role. This idea is interesting because it accounts for actual events like incidents much better then race, since many incidents aren't actually perpetrated by Youkai and thus events caused by Deities, Lunarians, and Ghosts still stoke human fear.But what she doesn't account for here is that there's definitely competition for Human reverence, especially from people like Kanako. Despite how much she brags about this symbiotic relationship, I imagine she has to do a lot of work behind the scenes to keep everyone harmonious with each other, since they are competing for limited resources. She definitely does so amongst the Humans, like planting spies within the village.It's kind of funny how Yukari is described as someone who's comfortable in the morally grey, since she seems to have such a strong fixation on categorization.
>>47331365Youkai were basically wiped out by Youkai exterminators. The few remnants basically created Gensokyo as a means to escape their fate.
>>47331713>And human exterminators, who probably fell from grace kinda like samurai or knights and got labeled as schizos once their jobs where done,Most likely they either moved to Gensokyo, fell from grace, or joined the army and got shot in China. All in all: Not fun.
>>47331887Honestly, the biggest issue with Touhou from a worldbuilding perspective is that the human village is simply too big. Everything else isn't that hard to understand, but you need a lot of reaching to justify the human village basically being a small city by medieval standards.>ZUN isn't trying to copy the 10 million kingdom/town building isekai.Most of those are shit, frankly.
>>47331928>Rinnosuke is also an oddball. Like all his half youkai nature does is him being able to eat less than a human to sustain himself and... that's it...? No need to feed the "youkai side"?Half Youkai are literally the ultimate master race. No weaknesses, all strengths. The only reason they aren't the rulers of Gensokyo is because canon Gensokyo is sexless and everybody reproduces assexually.
>>47354164>Do they Taoists in Gensokyo hate Buddhism or the Myoren posse specificaly?We don't know since there seemingly are no other Buddhist groups. It doesn't help that hermits are kind of a weird hybrid of Taoist and Buddhist believes.>But do they have a bigger problem with Byakuren's crew being youkai than them being Buddhist?Yes. Though it's a fairly complex matter. Miko is also approaching Buddhism from a rather legalist attitude. She thinks most of what Byakuren is doing is either a total waste or actively detrimental to human happiness. >Does Seiga even care about any of this?No, far as I can tell.
>>47355359>I am a bit iffy on calling it a proto-gacha, mainly because the only thing it's really got in common is the "event" of new characters and stories every now and again.NTA, but I think:>vague or largely irrelevant story>vague lore>massive cast of cute girls without any attachments to romantic partnersAlso apply. You can see this in a lot of other gacha games: Blue Archive is a obvious example. You also have stuff like Magica Record or Fate Grand Order, but that's a different matter. Either way, I think you are getting too stuck on the gacha elements themselves. I call it proto gacha more because I feel it inspires a lot of gacha writing tropes, as well as a general approach to world building. That doesn't really apply to, say, Final Fantasy. Which has a very clear story, very clear lore, and very clear characters with obvious relationships.
>>47355495I think it's logical only if you assume she's lying about murdering people herself. Otherwise she's just a psycho who created Gensokyo because she enjoys killing without consequences.I honestly think she's that. She never struck me as a "Means justify the end" kind of person. Not helped by her just being kind of a pathetic attention whore.
>>47356313>The lives of those who live in Gensokyo are maintained by the Youkai.>If there was no youkai in Gensokyo would collapse.How would this be anything but 100% benefitical to every single human living in Gensokyo? There is literally no morale case to be made against total youkai genocide.
Honestly, my biggest question about Gensokyo lore is the Hakurei Shrine Maidens. We know very, VERY little about them in practice. I generally assume most of the once before Reimu were total psychopaths. But that's largely just conjecture.
>>47356798you really don't have a sense of scale do youThe human village is perfectly sized for Gensokyo.
>>47356798>the human village is simply too big.That place was too big to be called a village.Too crowded, too undeveloped, too codependent, and too contained.Indeed, it was nothing more than a congregation of memetic cattle.
Why is okina wearing her battle attire 24/7?
>>47357731Okina's battle attire is standing up.
>>47355359> Yukari can't be so stupid to come up with this Youkai Expansion Project to preserve Youkai past the 20th century, and then stop looking for improvements after the Barrier is made. She's pretty odd, could also be laziness seeing her PCB profile, but that might have been rewritten into implying that she might not just sleep afterwards. She also kinda lost her feeling of importance as ZUN kept releasing more stuff afterwards.... So good luck trying to reason stuff about her.Although I guess she still was technically altering the barrier in PCB and doing some maintenance here and there... But also who knows how many years it takes for a youkai project to develop...>t's said in PMiSS that as a result the "impudent" Youkai were crushed and from then on Youkai didn't like to expand past their territory.Nice to see someone noticing the weirdness in Yukari's article. Makes sense more sense with that info that youkai, especially old ones like Suika, get to despise her despite helping youkai out so much.>>47356392>talks about playing Shogi with herself as though it's something to be proud of, and more importantly, it's our first glimpse into her mind,I just thought that mental shogi thing was just le typical chess compared to discussion/mental battle sort of bs if not just some bs she made on the spot to avoid the question.>>47356458>although perhaps not for the same reasons as you as it seems60 year cycle stuff?>>47356631I thought that perhaps Yukari was reaching a bit of "the limit" of her memory considering how Akyuu is physically restricted in exchange of gaining more memory. Maybe some three layers relation I guess.Maybe she is finding a bit of an age limit of youkai...>her onesided spergout on metaphysics (which Eiki explained in a much less roundabout way).On the other hand I appreciate her getting more into details, but yeah, it's much of a story plays around with a question in a silly way to postpone it moment.>>47356646In the case of Eieintei they even proclaimed themselves to be humans (BAiJR) so they chose to be humans by their own accord. They seem to simply be opposite roles like heros and villians in a stage, and helping a side probably takes you closer to it.The youkai might be the non-human in general, but it's odd to not account for deities as they might fall into either category or even both depending on how you take it into account.
>>47355686How would that happen? could the yama do that?
>>47337030True, Touhou seems to imply they numbers being low compared to human, Gensokyo is pretty small after all and I guess that youkai have low "birth rates" or might be too volatile to last long.>>47338174>t. grows fruit treesThat (sounds) pretty cool. Probably troublesome and seamingly pretty random at times like it tends to be when dealing with living things.My problem is more that it sounded more like "sadly no pretty flowers" since there is no mention of food rather than importance of flowers themselves.>I completely forgot about the newhus…Won't lie to you my memory isn't reliable and the newer the usually worse I remember 2hu stuff,But that caught my interest due to PMiSS mentioning the animal eating a trained monk to become a youkai. >IRL Mythology is also a double edged sword in Japan's case.And everywhere else too I would say, stuff seems to change a lot depending on who you ask and medieval Europe also got a few wacky bestiaries with stuff like the Bonnacon that attack you with fire(from it's ass) to normal animals(sometimes with magic powers)...And you never know when people in the past where being literal, metaphorical or just joking.>>47342211They were a few word pun youkai but I guess most of them were made up from the start in Touhou anyways, save for ex-human and ex-beast youkai.>>47350077Sounds reasonable, did you go there yourself? If so, did you see anything else interesting? >>47356896Same, at least CDS will (maybe) shed a bit of light into that... But maybe I'm hoping to much if I think that we'll see the miko of Mizuchi's time>>47358240afaik never even explored in cannon, closest thing to kill hourai immortal we got was fans speculating if Junko could purify the elixir out of Chan'ge
>>47356874>The lives of the animals who live on the farm are maintained by the humans. >If there were no humans, the farm would collapse.How would this be anything but 100% beneficial to every single animal living in the farm? There is literally no moral case to be made against total human genocide.Or a more serious answer: Gensokyo is a civilisation created by youkai, run by youkai, and benefiting youkai. The humans are little more than cattle, tended to by youkai "farmers" and used to sustain the youkai.Gensokyo does not benefit humans.Humans benefit Gensokyo.Gensokyo benefits the youkai by using humans.(I focused a lot on youkai, but Gensokyo is also run by and equally supports gods)
>>47357731Just because Yukari considers the formal attire of a sage her "battle dress" doesn't mean it is such!
>>47356458>Reading through it was actually fairly illuminating for myself as well in a number of ways, although perhaps not for the same reasons as you as it seems.If it's because of Chimata I'm gonna laugh.>>47356798imo afterlife is a big issue in worldbuilding in general, in this case it makes Gesokyo seem a bit pointless as other youkai could just follow the example of oni and go to old hell if they don't want to stop existing. Especially considering that some went as far as to seal themselves in books for self-preservation.I also doubt we'll know it's actual size, with ZUN ZUNning around I can't even be sure if Remilia sleeps in coffin but lies about it, ZUN didn't correct the artist on that or if he explicitly told the artist to do that to show her being a liar or being influenced by the belief of that stereotype(probs spread by Reimu) due to being a youkai.Worldbuilding in general tends to fall apart pretty quick once you consider logistics and stuff, the best way to get away is to just make it all in written format since as long as you don't describe in detail stuff you have no room for mistake, whereas with visual stuff one dude looking at a background for more than a second might call out contradictions easily.People also take more stuff literal in visual mediums and discard completely that something might just be a visual representation whereas in writing stuff like "as if" and a non-omniscient narrator gives room for almost everyone that it isn't meant literally. >>47331887 >ZUN isn't trying to copy the 10 million kingdom/town building isekai.Well, guess now I know that's a thing... I kinda want to know what they are like but at the same time it sounds like it could go 10 times worse than your average isekai.>>47357749Huh so kinda similar to the second phase of Dracula in OOE where he just walks menacingly>>47356864That seems to apply to also 4koma and monster of the week kind of settings, magical girls and some VNs.The lack of relationship is supposed to be because their interested in (you) whereas in Touhou romance references are like a panel and 3 or so yuri jokes, characters already having children/not being virgins isn't really popular in those sort of games(I think) so it goes more to VN or self insert isekai harem there imo.Would say that other things influenced the "modern Japan" sort of thing you find in those games and fanbases:Type-Moon stuff, Idolmaster, Vocaloid, Isekais and some internet culture stuff like Pixiv Fantasia.I mean the megaman example fits in a similar way except for the girl factor(as well as many other things), pokemon also kinda fits even more with their releases and lack of relationships and lotsa grillz(or anything looking feminine enough) people simp about...I can kind of see your point but I don't think you might be giving too much credit to Touhou's importance there, new things pick more than one thing for inspiration and I don't see as much Touhou as you do there, but I could be also pretty much wrong since my knowledge of gacha is just superficial...
>>47358359It's also interesting that being eaten turns you into an oni
>>47356493>she's not the genius some people want to make her out to be.My own biases aside, you are at least right about this. The anon talking about a potential Youkai age limit & other similar comments over her memory aren't completely unjustified in their thoughts.Such is the given cost for opening your own scopes broadly enough after that long & varied of a life perhaps...>47356646>it's behavior that determines someone's roleFeels very relevant to the fact that the souls of the Divine & the souls of Youkai are extremely alike, as well as various histories of non-Divine entities eventually going on to be revered as such. That fluidity between these states of being is very fascinating to me, but I'd start extrapolating way more than I ought to here if I get into it (the rest of this post aside lol)I feel a little unfit to get into that "competition for reverence" dynamic here as well for similar reasons, but it certainly wouldn't be any easy feat over this much time.>It's kind of funny how Yukari is described as someone who's comfortable in the morally grey, since she seems to have such a strong fixation on categorizationAs someone who does honestly personally relate to this, perhaps it has more to do with her own personal comfortability in such fluidity and how she sees that applied to a world/people who may not be fully "with her" in that sense. Of course she's not the most socially adept, she's spent so much time above the shogi board at this point that the pieces melted straight into the wood long ago. It is understandable why most tend to only humor or ignore her when they aren't under other pressures, but it's not as if she's completely cracked by this point either.We can't all be perfect, or wholly selfless at all times, despite what we may Try.>>47358662>because of ChimataNo actually! >>47358213 was far closer to the heart of the matter with that particular guess.In short: I'm essentially trying to boil-down the collective functionings behind the 60 Year Cycle (Three Lights, Four Seasons, Five Elements), the ever-present dynamics between Humans & other beings of the land (well-discussed here & elsewhere) and the nature behind what I'll reference here as Gensokyo's "trifold-cosmology" with existence's various Layers (Physical, Mental, Memory/Karmic) into......well, what I suppose would be my own rough equivalent to a "Super Unified Theory" explaining how a lot of these collective goings-on/relationship dynamics work on an inherently-broad scale.Lofty and potentially delusional yes, but it is indeed fun!This is something I'm doing on my own time however, there is still a lot I need to research and a great deal of its content would certainly reside beyond "canon" subject matter to discuss.>>47358543>Gensokyo does not benefit humans>Humans benefit Gensokyo>Gensokyo benefits the youkai by using humans>Gensokyo is also run by and equally supports godsI would argue that, aside from benefit towards the Humans naturally being paramount when said-Gods are properly involved with things (and I'm talking about the revered, "faith-driven" ones here mostly), those well-revered Youkai hunters & other pre-Meiji villagers that went on to seed the majority of the others from practically nothing could have left for greener pastures in their own times if they so desired or deemed such change necessary for their own "benefit" (even before the Barrier was fully established, I'd imagine not every individual in the area would be fine with a steadily-increasing local concentration of Youkai). Essentially, the village population we have today could very well be the result of yet another "filter" of some kind, designed (consciously or not) to produce an inherently curated general outcome to rely on in various ways not unlike what's discussed in >>47355359Without the literal bubble they all must be somewhat kept within in modernity, those ways of living on all fronts would complete dissolve within the progress the world at-large has made, bringing us ever-closer to the spiritually desolate/desensitized reality the Hifuu girls live within and fully paving the way for few genuine understandings beyond >>47356874I wouldn't simply brush them off as nothing but cattle however. You can argue over legitimate quality of life improvements we have sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to label what they have as inherently worthless in any greater sense because of such improvements.(fwiw I'm also on the "the village is reasonably sustainable despite dubious population density" side of things for reasons others have already said, so much of this would just fall flat on its face if we reduced things down to "Real Life Village Don't Work, ZUN is ZUNing") >((PhilosophiesOfaNewJerseyMan.jpg))If I didn't have that much to say as it stands, I may have also tried to tackle some points in >>47324403 but I'm trying not to just veer into off-topic rambles ^^;;
>>47356646>it's behavior that determines someone's roleThe "youkai like humans become youkai" thing supports this. Tenshi's family also became celestials inteas of being born as such. Of course heaven's closed, but the point still stands...>>47356869I would assume that the role of "sage of Gensokyo" kind requires you to be seen as someone who is really powerful and scary. Humans are probably the least of your problems when it comes to running the place. >>47356896It would be fun to know how the Shrine Maidens presumably over time went from the usual role of assisting in religious ceremonies to hunting youkai. But I don't think canon answers that. It's probably an extrapolation of the purification rituals. >>47357585Good one.>>47358543>Gensokyo does not benefit humans.I don't think it's quite that simple, or rather, their situation isn't necessarily a direct downgrade from ours.We are also "farmed" by "youkai" here in real life. The socialy powerful may not abduct, torture and eat people (althought they do that too), but they certainly rule with a mix of threat of violence and persuasion, which is essentially the case in Gensokyo. Whereas the villagers have to fear getting eaten, we are "eaten" by pollution, carcinogens, endochrine disruptors and infectious diseases. We are also "eaten" by social isolation, mental health problems, lack of community, escapism, pornography... We hardly live in a paradise, and the average person can do very little against all of this. It's just that we are constantly being nibbled bit by bit, not consumed rapidly as a whole. And the worst thing is, they do really feed on our fear and misery too. The powerful enjoy their sadistic use of power and the suffering of those they deem below them. In Gensokyo, they might have to fear getting eaten, but there are also clear limits to what the youkai can do to humans via the Spellcard Duel rules. The villagers most likely have a very close knit community. There probably isn't a single hikikomori or porn addict in the village. There are no NEETs and nobody probably wants to be one. Everyone is needed. Of course such a close knit community can be suffocating, and I think any of us would struggle to adjust to such life. But is it worse than what we have? The village certainly doesn't seem like a horrible place. They probably can even sidestep the biggest problems in premodern life with magic and faith, namely the lack of modern medicine. Then again, they probably suffer less from things like cancers, cardiovascular disases, diabetes and considering how isolated they are, infectious diseases probably aren't as big of a concern. Gensokyo might not be better, it might not be worse, it might simply be very different, But given the choice, surprisingly many might want to choose "I have to fear being eaten to death by youkai" over "I am being slowly eaten to death by "youkai" right now".
Nice thread
>>47360982
>>47360982>>47361040Where are these from?
something that I personally think is pretty major happened at the touhou exhibition this year that I haven't seen anyone mention yet. In the no photo exhibition, ZUN's manuscripts along with the notes by Mizutaki were on display, which means that finally, we get to see just how the manga gets made, and more importantly to this thread, an idea on how much ZUN contributes to what we finally seehttps://unrollnow.com/status/1814651965173084480
>>47361865and then, in the photo exhibition, there is finally images of the prelogue of LoLK, we finally see the Lunarian Spider...and was just a small land Rover, an imitation of the rovers from NASA. Lunarians surely aren't Creatives.
>>47361865A lot of it is... quite bare bones isn't it. I guess it fits considering how he usually writes the games, only leaving crumbs that people pick up and create a whole path. Most of the meat seem to come from the discussion he had with the artist and anything added by the artist's own discretion.Also I see that favoritism ZUN you raccoonfucker.
>Gensokyo is like a nature preserve built for youkai>youkai need food so there's a human village>youkai feed on fear/faith but can also just outright eat a man too>actually eating isn't really sustainable so there are rules that you can only eat a human if they're doing dumb shit like fucking around outside of the village after dark>since it's a preserve for youkai obviously youkai are the main focus and get the most benefit of the rules>even the more hated youkai that went underground still know that these rules can't be broken or else Yukari/Hakurei will kill them>if you want to go grimsokyo yukari pulls in suicide attempters and other "spirited away" humans from the real world as physical food It always seemed pretty straight forward to me, not sure why there's so much hair splitting.
>>47362327>Lunarians surely aren't creativetheir whole society is just ripping off Heaven anyway
>>47360781>Tenshi's family also became celestials inteas of being born as such.Anon, pretty much all Celestials are made, not born. The Hinanawi clan is just a case of distinct nepotism, since they served another clan that was ascended.>I would assume that the role of "sage of Gensokyo" kind requires you to be seen as someone who is really powerful and scary.It seems more to be the matters of being able to handle traveling to both sides of the Barrier, and presumably some level of being able to maintain it as well, especially if the Moon Sages are any indication, since Gensokyo largely seems to be aping the Lunar Capital's answer to things.>Gensokyo might not be better, it might not be worse, it might simply be very differentConsidering you can actually express dissent in the real world without being unpersoned and killed because those ideas themselves are literally harmful, no, Gensokyo is definitely worse even with the most generous interpretation.
>>47362377The average "lore expert" on this board is a blue curtain analyzing aspie who is also functionally illiterate.
>>47363063Wow that's so me haha
>>47362377pretty muchthe only thing I'd add to this is that even the 'eating people from the real world' thing is hotly debated amongst the youkai because there's a bunch that believe it'll lead to someone discovering gensokyo
>>47363021B-but in the real world I can't marry/bone my favorite 2hu!!
>>47358662>I kinda want to know what they are like but at the same time it sounds like it could go 10 times worse than your average isekai.Yeah don't bother, they're crap. The author gets too bogged down in the wikipedia page tier descriptions about how they think things are and then the hero is fellated for his genius of bringing his wikipedia page tier crop rotation knowledge.>>47360781To add to your last point, Youkai are a very obvious danger. It is spelled out everywhere that you should be cautious around them, you can disregard that advice but you were warned if anything happens. As opposed to our "youkai" who pretends to be our friends and there for our best interests, they want you to idolize them and rabidly defend them against the tribe of a different idol. God help you if you publicly criticize them because they'll bury you in fines for whatever they damn well please, or they just 'happen' to find pizza on your computer and your life is over. Arguably worse than just being killed since you have to live with that. And that's just modern politics.Youkai aren't pretending to be something they're not, the monster part is on the outside and they wear it with pride. I'd take my chances with Youkai any day.>>47361040Strange Creators of Outer World>>47363021>Considering you can actually express dissent in the real world without being unpersoned and killedt. thinks everything is americanYou fixate too much on the worst and say it like there absolutely isn't a single other alternative to someone grumbling other than "kill them lol!" Has there actually been any cases where expressed dissent lead to death, unpersoning, or otherwise? The only example I can think of is the low hanging fruit of Fortune Teller, and that's very debatable. If this was truly the case then the Geidontei regular who claimed the village was a ranch for Youkai would've vanished like his buddy did (who came back fine after his kidnapping unrelated to this). After all, Miyoi is a Zashiki-warashi who were said to be explicitly spies by Yukari, but since nothing happened to him either they don't care about the common man's complaints and criticisms, or Miyoi isn't a spy which stands to reason that not all Zashiki-warashi are spies either. They do remote work in the Backdoor but they seemed more preoccupied with managing their households over being Gensoyko's NSA. The only thing that I think would warrant the things you say is if someone tried to rally and rile up the Humans into fighting, the most likely to do that is Miko given her stances in SoPM but she wouldn't unless Gensokyo were actually at risk of collapsing. Aya in FS stated: "If that happened, the Humans would surely begin to mercilessly break Gensokyo's rules." Expressing dissent doesn't cut it, being a revolutionary would and so far nobody has done that. Which brings back to the first point, if someone were a revolutionary the most likely outcome is a kidnapping and a good scare, maybe their memories are a little foggy afterwards such as with the case of the Geidontei regular when taken by Mamizou. They might've had dangerous ideas, but were 'convinced' that acting on them is a Bad Idea™ and counterproductive to living. Revolutionaries are prevented from emerging in the first place which means nobody is really at risk of what you describe. Keine's history school has culling this behavior as a goal because Mr. A is a retard and has gotten people (likely not actual exterminators) killed picking fights with Youkai, and there's been no confirmation or denial that he was killed or whatever. Then there's reassurance to Humans to dissuade them from doing something stupid that can get them killed as we see with Miyoi. Good enough living standards and safety is something most people prize and don't want to throw away to change some lofty status quo that has little impact on them, as Aya also said in FS: "No matter who rules the village, it wont have any effect on the daily lives of Humans. It's simply a battle for influence among Youkai." These Humans don't pose a risk as revolution is far from their minds, so why would they be unpersoned, killed, etc. etc.?The real meat of it is that Rulebreakers aren't allowed. Not Humans opposing Youkai. Independent Youkai Exterminators can exist in Gensokyo provided they understand the rules. If they weren't then Marisa wouldn't exist as a character. The difference between her and people like Fortune Teller is that Marisa understands the rule of Gensokyo and knows how things really are, Fortune Teller should've done more research.If you want a real example of a revolution of a horrifically awful police state like you think Gensokyo is, look no further than the Romanian Revolution. Every house had a wiretap, people got taken by the state often, standards of living were abysmal, but because it was dire enough for the common man they revolted and successfully overthrew the state.
>>47363961>If this was truly the case then the Geidontei regular who claimed the village was a ranch for Youkai would've vanished like his buddy didNope. It's not complaints, it's the matter of the fact that the moment you ask "Why haven't the youkai killed us all yet?" You'd be creating an existential threat to them. Those are the sort of people who would be killed, and of course that will lead to people who lack critical thinking to the extent that they will no longer be able to uphold the Mental Layer. If you actually paid attention it would be easy to tell that the way Yukari manages Gensokyo will inevitably lead to its destruction precisely because she insists on the adversarial dynamic remaining.
>>47364263>Why haven't the youkai killed us all yetIsn't that what he says here? Instead of a question he answers it himself. "Why haven't the youkai killed us all?" -> "Because they're waiting for enough of us to eat."That he's still alive some 50 chapters later is more than enough proof.
Why not just eat them back? I don't see why humans can't kill and eat youkai.
>>47364444Their spiritual beings so there's nothing to feed on since humans are self sufficient when it comes to spirit. Kind of like hunting a diseased elk.Although I would love to try if it was do or die.
>>47364487I'm sure its possible to eat them somehow. Okuu ate part of that god Kanako fed her, though she's a youkai so who knows...
>>47361865Apparently Yukari's IN outfit is her battledress rather than her day-to-day outfit.
>>47364290You're proving my point, because he rationalizes it with that idea, which really doesn't hold water if you think about it for more than a few seconds, he doesn't realize how dependent youkai are on humans.
>>47362327>>47361865What exhibition? The one that was like a year ago and we have nothing about it because all the obedient little sissies that went obeyed the "NO PHOTOS" sign?
>>47364644His is just an example of someone broaching the topic you deem to be such a massive threat they need to die for saying it. The whole "why haven't they" question falls apart because the villagers already know the answer if they were dumb enough to ask it in the first place. The Youkai haven't killed everyone because the Shrine Maidens exist, and this is just if Villagers are completely ignorant. It doesn't matter if you buy into the Youkai Shrine Maiden idea or not, the fact of the matter is that they (and other exterminators like Marisa) protect the village from Youkai. Anyone with eyes can see they respond to Youkai created incidents as small as kidnappings and minor disturbances. Youkai harass Villagers -> Shrine Maidens protect the Villagers from Youkai -> Villagers give Shrine Maidens faith and donations for their gods: this is the delicate balance by which Gensokyo is founded upon.The Genoskyo Chronicals are also available to be read by any Villager, and all it takes is reading the articles on Youkai to see that Youkai need Humans to survive which is further reason for why they haven't all been eaten. Akyuu knows about these truths and wrote them into the Chronicles. You can make a point that the Chronicles aren't available because Akyuu is still alive and writing them. If they didn't know then, they'll find out when it's done. Humans will still fear Youkai even if this is known, the Shrine Maidens aren't omnipresent. Accidents can still happen, they are always a danger even if the Village as a whole is safe. This is supported by Miko saying in SoPM: "The safety refers not to individual humans, but to the race as a whole. I suspect individual humans will, of course, continue to live in fear."Back to the original point: Unless you're a threat to Gensokyo's balance like Fortune Teller, nobody is going to do shit to you because you bought into or spread a rumor about how bad you think things are. Any Youkai attacking you is doing so for completely unrelated reasons.
>>47364787Speaking of Keine, the expo and villager's education levels, it seems to me ZUN really wants Keine to be the only thing holding it together education wise, villagers seems completely uninterested in educating themselves to the point Keine might be the only teacher around.Villagers don't care about learning and then make a mountain out of an anthill because they don't bother researching.
>>47364951pretty accurate depictions of hillbillies
>>47364787>You can make a point that the Chronicles aren't available because Akyuu is still alive and writing them.No, the Gensokyo Chronicle is a separate matter entirely, there's issues with the way it depicts things compared to post-SoPM Gensokyo, but we also know it's publicly available at Suzunaan. As for Reimu and other exterminators, there's a relatively small number of them, and they don't typically stick around the village. From the perspective of a villager, it's easy to think that these "super-intelligent youkai" could easily outwit the lobotomite miko and her friends and massacre the village in short order if they so chose, which once again begs the question, why don't they?
>>47365129Even a complete midwit can understand cause and effect. It's suicide for the Youkai. If they massacre everyone while the Miko looked away it's obvious to everyone what'll happen to them after.
>>47363305What would happen if Satori's third eye got pepper sprayed?
>>47359286>>>47358662 (You)>because of Chimata>No actually! >>47358213 (You) was far closer to the heart of the matter with that particular guess.lmao, I have to say that I said at first the cycle because it was what caught my attention first time reading, but then seeing that water had the same description as Chimata's catchphrase and seeing that according to the wiki in the description of the Month of water(水無月)* made me think that, that would be a funnier and more specific thing since I think most people with videogame or myth liking mind would mostly be interested by that.*https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Gensokyo_Timeline#cite_note-2 That being said translation feels a bit funny sometimes you have 再生 twice and only translated once as rebirth.It says rebirth of all living things for あらゆる物. But あらゆる物 should also include things like the barrier since it's all things.And in Earth it says 全ての物が還る先となる再生の土 Which is a bit more like Earth, reborning when everything returns to it.Well sounds like a nice project, imo 60 year cycle and it's components are a bit overlooked by most people, you probably already know it but you also have the wiki timeline to see what each year is. That being said I find weird the order of the elements but I think this is the only time they specify an order(or perhaps Yukari just mentioned them just in the order she remembered)Also funny that you mention the layers since I thought of assigning one of the three lights to each but maybe the three lights together align with the memory or mental layer the other layer with season. And the physical one with the elements I guess.>>47356313I think Yukari is answering Ran literally. But If they are really talking about looks literally that would mean that lunarians(or at least hourai immortals) look differently physically (although maybe it only applies to youkai who are said in CiLR to have a different visible spectrum)>>47358675Her profile says she threw away her humanity for absorbing spirits of youkai beasts though.>>47361865Thanks a lot. Will look into things latter but lol at the spear with a ribbon for Shou, guess ZUN had those ideas even before Nemuno.The manga part is also interestin, It's kind of around the leniency level I expected of ZUN honestly.>>47364444Nice one Komachi. Beast youkai are probably pretty eatable and you also have mermaids getting eaten(side effects might include immortality) consequences might be a bit random, and as with Zanmu above you might lose your humanity.Some youkai don't feel very eatable tho, but I guess you can absorb them in a spiritual way.>>47364530While the eating way of saying it is funny it's more like the Yatagarasu got enshrined into Okuu, kinda similar to Reimu and Toyohime channeling but more permanent, like with a shrine. >>47364777https://tokutenlove.livedoor.blog/archives/24929278.html>2023Yeah that one>>47314344I mean they seem to know that commies exist and their association with red (Marisa calls Reimu a commie for wanting to use red miso on a red dish in CoLa ch3)Captcha: WVARS lol
Every youkai is a man eater and has mercilessly killed people
>>47366082Yeah but she won't kill me because she likes me.
>>47366082Not all but some do.
>>47366257Keine, Rinnosuke, and Youmu are all also technically half people too
>>47366257Miji is a good girlshe wouldn't nom on me
>>47354461>The gacha gameplay part is the only thing it’s missingOh, but there is! It's called "hoping ZUN remembers or doesn't remember your favourite and does/doesn't do something with her". So far I'm winning.
I try not to be a party pooper but it kind of chaps my ass that a lot of Junko's core in fanbases have been replaced with "lol reisen" gags. She has an unparalleled amount of hatred and the rabbit does not take away any of it.
>>47366031I love that scale model of Hakugyokurou. Shame that's the only location that got one.
>>47369978Why didn't the lunarians just let her snuff chang'e out?
>>473705431. Chang'e is a figurehead and still the goddess of the moon. They can't get rid of her without losing the rabbits at the very least.2. Lunarians are stuffy and don't want to bow to anyone.
>>47369978Tell us you didn't finish LoLK without telling us you didn't finish LoLK.The real issue is that she gets the "racist against lunarians" meme when she really doesn't give two shits so long as they don't get in the way of her revenge. Hecatia, meanwhile, in spite of blatantly false propagandizing against the Lunarians in AFiEU, doesn't get any of that.
>>47369978>She has an unparalleled amount of hatredToward one person, who she even agrees to postpone revenge on during LoLK. The Reisen stuff isn't much better in all fairness, but it's not wrong to have Junko do other things from time to time.
>>47371505"Junko's taken a bit if interest in you" is not the same obsessive stalking or eating her ears.
>>47371773You're right, however, Reisen Udon Inaba is a pretty good pun.
>>47368595do you really trust a big scary wolf to not try and gobble you up?
>>47371773>Missing the point this hardI forgot /jp/ is filled with illiterates.
>>47368595Even f she didn't wanted to, the second Megumers orders "kill the intruder, you can eat the carcass" it's over for you.
>>47366257When was Nazrin hinted to eat people?
>>47373021She says her mice have a taste for human flesh in one of the sources. Can't remember where though.
>>47366257mystia still isn't in the is food teir, still innacurrate ranking
>>47366257Any info on the tengu? There's this whole kidnapping thing but it's not mentioned as a threat in PMiSS so I just assumed they had been abducting people for their oni overlords in the good ol' days.
What the hell was his problem?
So how harmless is Grass Roots Network ACTUALLY? I have seen people say that going with them if you get spirited away is a safe bet because they are suppoused to be an alliance of weak youkai that supposedly dont eat humans. I know that Kogasa preys of fear, but I find that hard to believe when theres a dullahan and a werewolf on the alliance.
>>47380678The grass roots network is a group of youkai, for youkai. You can't expect any type of help from then, even moreso given that you could blow Banki's cover in the Human Village. They're safe as in the sense of that they won't attack you and they're fairly peaceful, but they also won't help you. Waggy might not be much danger, but it's hard to meet her and the Lake has other problematic youkai. Kagerou lives in the forest, where other dangerous youkai also live, so going out of your way to meet her is foolish. Banki most definitely does not want her cover blown, and I can't imagine how she would help in the first place.
>>47380778>Banki's cover in the Human VillageWhat cover?
>>47380804Banki pretends she's a human, sometimes.
>>47380846How would helping a human blow up that cover? How does that make sense? Wouldnt be the other way around?
>>47380678The only thing I'll say is that if you care about your family, you will stop looking into them. Your daughter is on the way home from school right now, right? Around 5th avenue?This is your first and last warning. The Grass Roots Network is harmless, end of story.
>>47380856If you know she's a youkai, you're already dangerous to her. Why would she trust you? You could very well denounce her to the villagers and cause her death/expulsion.
>>47380901Ah, I guess looking at it from that perspective it makes sense.
>>47380678Kagerou is a bit lonely, as evidence of Rinnosuke having to teach her a variant of werewolf to have someone to talk to, so if you're polite she might let you off with a squeal or two!
>>47381018But how schtinky is she?
>>47381018Schtinky dog, go eat a bone. ItwasajokeI'msorrypleasedon'tbemadandleave.
Is there any specific deity you can serve and worship in Gensokyo to save your ass from Youkai?
>>47373021>>47373823>Can't remember where thoughStage 1 UFO dialogue, but in each scenario she focuses on the mice rather than herself. Buddhist gang is vegetarian anyhow so I doubt she partakes of human flesh.
>>47387475OUR LORD AND SAVIOR...JESUSMOTHERFUCKIN'CHRIST!!!!!
>>47387475If you're being chased by a Youkai, just yell "Help meee, Mikoemooon!" and help will come to drive the Youkai away! and bring you back to her home for "safety"
>>47387704
>>47387526Im pretty sure some of them cheat on the vegetarian diet, I dont remember where I got this information and which were the ones that cheated though, so I wouldnt put it past Nazrin to eat people.
>>47387878
>>47387704Well duh. Why do you think I said 'Deity' instead of 'God'?>>47387712Would she really though? Are the Touists actively saving people getting attacked by Youkai? I got the impression they were more on the PR and subtle manipulation side of things.
>>47387704I like the way this little nigga thinks.>>47388024>I got the impression they were more on the PR and subtle manipulation side of things.Which they are, remember that one of Touhous mottos is "no religion is good religion", literally all of the religious leaders have skeletons in the closet.
>>47372124>rambles about something completely unrelated to the original post>calls others illiterateBased retard.
>>47388051>literally all of the religious leaders have skeletons in the closet.Don't mind me, just posting Paul the Apostle, previously known as Saul of Tarsus, notorious Roman persecutor of Christians prior to his conversion, known as one of the most revered Saints after.Unless you mean "skeletons in the closet" as things the religious leaders are actively trying to conceal. In which case I could see Miko, Hijiri, or even the Moriyan's as reluctant to talk about their past, although both Miko and Hijiri have shown some repentance for their acts.My guess would be either way, if any of these people saw humans being attacked by Youkai they wouldn't stand idly, Miko because virtuous acts probably lead to celestrailhood, Hijiri because it would work against co-existence, and the Moriyan's because that sweet, sweet faith.Now if they go on patrols is a whole other question entirely.
>>47388173I dont know anon, comparing Paul, a guy who had no ulterior motive or agenda other than spread the word of God after being shown how much of a dick he was being, to Byakuren, Miko, Sanae or Reimu feels farfetched, as all of them do have an agenda and motives of their own to do what they do, they dont do it out of the kindness of their hearts, and if they dont (Reimu) they admit that they are actively lying to the villagers about the whole thing.
>>47387526>>47387983It's implied that all of the Myouren gang eat meat and drink when Byakuren isn't looking, as about the only thing she's actually decent about when it comes to her hypocrisy and beliefs is the vegetarian diet she sticks to.
>>47388173I feel the Moriyan's would probably make a thing out of it. Like "Yeah, we'll save you, but you are giving us your first born child".
>>47388024>Would she really though? It's what Symposium mentions. Unless you want to assume Akyuu was bought out, it seems plausible.
>>47373827Memes aside, Mystia is WAY more prone to eating people than getting eaten.
>>47388406I mean, knowing that Yukari buying Akyuu in Perfect Memento is a poorly kept out secret, I woudlnt discard it.
>>47388423I agree, but at the same time I feel she can't get bought out by both Yukari and Miko at the same time. ...R-Right?
>>47388443Thats up to interpretation, and I interpret it as those 2 trying to lever some political power only to end up jobbing, because its Miko and Yukari we are talking about here.
>>47388451Not to dicksuck Miko. But comparing her to Yukari is silly to me because Miko is literally leagues ahead of her in political competence. Like, Miko is a famous Japanese emperor with decades of experience under her belt. Yukari is a lesbian college student who mostly just lets Reimu fix her messes while she abducts people.
>>47387475Ironically, maybe Okina? She's a god of the disabled, outcast, and weak. I wonder what she'd choose between fulfilling her god duties and running Gensokyo though.>>47388469Yukari is canonically a cock lover.
>>47388489>Yukari is canonically a cock lover.[citation needed]
Do youkai have an afterlife?
>>47355359You’re talking about gacha as a game mechanic, we’re talking about gacha games as a phenomenon. They are majorly popular for the same reasons as Touhou. Nobody would, or did, give a shit about gacha games for the gacha mechanics. It’s all about the large cast of cute marketable exploitable girls.
>>47389991Nice digits. I've read where they don't and simply cease to be once they actually "die", but also that they sort of disappear into a sort of dream-like slumber outside of conception until they either change to fit what is needed, or they find the world calls for their existence again in a newer way. It's said to think about, honestly. Like they drift into eternal slumber, in something like an ephemeral waiting room until called for once again by humanities collective need or want.
How does faith actually work? I have seen some people here and outside say that you need a fuckload of people to believe in something for it to actually be powerful, like, say, a weapon.And theres the fact that Reimu I believe created a youkai tree on her own by accident.So which is it?
>>47366257Nue can feed off me all she wants.
>>47391849Its how Marisa feels about magic
>>47391849It's both. You need lots of people to believe in something, or you can be so disconnected from reality you go full blown schizo and create your own reality that overlays everyone else's because fuck your common sense! Then it just works.
A bit of a dumb question in comparison to everything posted here but, can Touhou be considered urban fantasy?
Could someone elaborate as to why Byakuren is considered to be a hypocrite?
>>47392041No.
>>47391849You can think of it as psychic manifestation. Belief in a particular idea, outcome, existence, etc. cultivates its presence. Within Touhou, more belief in a particular youkai/youkai+ (God) increases its bearing within reality.
>>47392134It's because she learned dark(youkai) magic to extend her own life because she feared dying and tried to preserve Youkai kind because if she didn't, her life extension magic wouldn't work and eventually she started to believe Youkai deserved salvation as well.So she started doing the righteous thing for the wrong reason, but started doing it for the right reason later.I think there's still some evidence of her being a little vain about her appearance, she's got a full head of hair despite being Buddhist after all, but beyond that she's shown to be more altruistic then not, like not drinking, eating meat, and lowering Youkai aggression.
I liked this thread, maybe I should make one of these from time to time.
>>47392184Please do!
>>47392041Yesnt, by sheer technicality, it is, but in a practical sense its not, when you say "urban" fantasy, you think in something like Earthbound, and while the setting of TH does count for it to be considered "urban", I think you and I both know thats not the kind of "urban fantasy" people refer to.And Hifuu is just straight up science fiction so that doesnt count.
>>47392171>full head of hairZUN simply didn't want an entire cast of women with shaved heads.
>>47392171It's mainly now her whole thing about not actually admonishing any of the Youkai when they blatantly do something immoral or illegal or dangerous to the villagers. She plays favorites with a "teehee, those loveable disciples of mine would never!" as there's blood on the floor or a pile of empty bottles at the bottom of the stairs from an all night binge of drinking. She was hypocritical for one team and then just switched sides despite claiming to be equal for both now. She doesn't eat meat, drink alcohol, or have sex(that we know of), so she's art least holding that part up, but she'll still body a motherfucker in the off chance it comes to that even if she's "against violence. And that's not to get into a philosophical debate about things, but just that her flaw is obvious to an outside perspective and should be to her when she claims she's not. And all that stuff, etc.I like her and her theme but I'm not trusting her. Would rather trust Yukari because at least she doesn't pretend to be what she isn't.( a jobber)
>>47392362>she doesn't pretend to be what she isn't.( a jobber)bruh
>>47392470Eh, could've worded that better. I meant to say she's not pretending to be the good guy like Byak, and that she is a jobber. Good catch.
>>47303502ZUN didn't write that gacha genius
>>47392708But he totally has input with the designs, now we know for sure.
What's the canon of nuenis?
>>47394468Hijiri's personal cumdump.
>>47394468Incomprehensible.You have been met with a terrible fate...
>>47394468You cannot comprehend the true canon status of nuenis!
>>47394468I may be wrong, but I remember ZUN being very insistent that she didn't get shot for some reason.
>>47395219Was it all a big cover-up?
>>47395219What's this about getting shot?
>>47303517
>>47398449In the popular heian era legend the Nue gets shot with an arrow and killed.
I think this thread was pretty decent. It had some nice discussion.Good job OP.
Good thread
