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You are welcome . On a serious note, I am glad you have enjoyed the whole project I have put together. It took me about 8 hours to compile all this information, and I wanted to make sure all the effort was worth it. Honestly, my reaction towards Memories of Phantasm is very similar, even now after rewatching the series and watching Megafrog's review. When I first watched MoP, back in December 2020, I was still new to the Touhou fandom (about 2 months "old"). At the time, I was interested as I was seeing the new series I got into put into motion (despite alright having got the taste of MVs and some short animations), this one being pretty much the biggest fan project I was aware of (interesting enough, even but that early point I was aware of the concept of "what is canon" and "what is fanon"). Yet halfway through (it really was the halfway at the time), I stopped, and left the animation aside for almost 2 years. Now, I still can remember a little more warmly of some episodes (especially from the first seven), then it started getting a little colder the more I got into the never-ending IN arc MoF. To me, it is also "the Touhou anime", even if I still have to watch A Summer Day's Dream and Hifuu Club Activity Record. Honestly, up to the moment Megafrog brought it up, I have never really been aware of what "authorial intent" is, and I am still in a much better shape now either. Now I am honestly very curious about the points you were initially going to bring up, in case they are any different to the ones we have ended up with in your answer. (sorry that I am answering this late, I am honestly in the shape where I really want to solve some unsolved business in regards to threads I wanted to answer to or create). I have to agree on this one. In a way, MoP is trying to be its own thing, but at the same time it ends up still retelling the story of the games, even if in a more confusing order, and with included confusions, unconnected plots and gratuitious fanservice. Therefore, am not sure either what they were looking for. Did they want a faithful recreation of the game events? Did they want to tell a new story/"reinvent the wheel"? Were they actually looking for a middle way? I am still a little confused about the "tells the story of the games from the perspective of fandom" statement to be honest. Another point I honestly agree on. Aside from Memories of Phantasm and the animations of minusT, seeing a danmaku battle on screen is extremely rare, if not absent. Which is probably one of the better points this anime can get. I was going to say that besides "Stormtrooper aim", it might also be the small hitbox of the characters, but I guess you also do have a point in here. Again, I really enjoyed that episode, and I did not really realize it until Megafrog came up with his review. Until then, I only knew The Mysterious Giant Youkai as "that episode everyone and their guts hated on YouTube when I was watching that version of MoP". I can still remember one of comments regarding the final scene with Cirno and Daiyousei, in which the person was saying "JUST KISS ALREADY!", making it as if the scene itself was building up for a yuri moment. I loved that moments as well. That is why I wanted to point out the precious smile moment shared by the two waiting for the missile to lift off. I guess you got a point. Despite being treated like I joke, I guess it was cute to see Meiling acting as if she were Flan's mom. About the artist being into it.... It was funny in Megafrog's video to find out that tweets from the Manpukujija team taking so much about boobs (like that situation of basically "1 in 20 words" of a tweet referring to breasts. I can see the dissonance though with the official materials. Normally, official Touhou materials (with some slight moments of fanservice) are devoid of any lewd content. However, fandom has made sure, and went beyond the call of duty to lewd everything to hell (which "hell"? I am not sure, given how many there are in Gensokyo) and back. And of this show really was supposed to be a reflection of the fandom, I guess they got that aspect right. Again, in my opinion, it just felt a little out of place, and rather distracting from what was normally supposed to be going on that scene. Like how the naked Yakumo clan and Chen's ass were distracting from pretty much the scene that properly introduced these three characters and their motivations, to Kaguya and her backstory being told in the middle of a bathing scene. I think GensouChronicle really got a good point in there. At my first watch, I was amazed about the sheer quality coming from what was basically a group of fans doing a small project for their fandom, without the backing of a big studio. Even now, I still hold to that opinion. Besides, MoP has such a recognizable style, that you could recognize it anywhere you go. Initially, I was quite repulsed by any of these disrespectful fanon depictions of Eiki. In some measure, I still am, even if I paradoxically believe that Danzai Yamaxanadu really slaps as a song. As for her being able to strike fear, I think that one is quite spot on. Normally, this is what the wiki has to say about Eiki and her canon personality: "As the Yama who judges people after they die, Eiki is impartial to anyone when lecturing them, whenever they are human or youkai. Since she is very preachy and is never mistaken about anything, this makes her hard to approach. Despite her stern attitude and seriousness at her job, Eiki has a teasing side, smiling even when revealing the shortcomings of the people she's lecturing. She's described as being polite and patient when lecturing." Meanwhile, this bit comes as a comparison written in her fanon section for PofV: "A lot of fanworks portray Eiki as a bit of a short-tempered grouch who will sentence people to hell for any arbitrary reason, but this conflicts with her personality in Phantasmagoria of Flower View where she's stern, but patient and is constantly smiling even when having to reveal someone's shortcomings. In fact, she spends a lot of time lecturing people on their shortcomings and sins for the sole purpose of getting them to repent before they have to be judged. In her opinion, "Hell does not exist to punish sinners. Hell exists to ensure that no-one sins." (I am sorry for being a little biased, but I really am a little biased due to the fact she is one of my favorite characters in the series) Yeah, the absence of focus on any character below Stage 4 (sans Alice) is quite sad. I wish they distributed better some of the lengthier arcs so that we could actually get some screen-time for these characters instead of just rushing towards the Stage 5 boss most of the time. Instead of bloating the final two stages (and still have pretty much nothing happening on screen), why not distribute the acting a little bit? One of the unique (or maybe not) and strong points of Touhou is the huge and varied cast it has. But I could imagine shows like this one, given the strong impact on fandom, could also negatively help in keeping those early stage characters low in the popularity lists... I am sorry to keep the answer short for this one, but I agree that the lack of a clear direction and overall tone set for a series can end up making the series unappealing to everyone. You just can't make everyone happy, it never works in real life (I know it from personal experience). Trying to appeal to absolutely every splinter opinion group of the Touhou fandom can only end up with everyone not feeling satisfied as they did not get enough of what they really wanted to see? I guess that is why we should have more fan-made anime, to satisfy all the needs. Make a show for a specific target public: a series/animation focusing on the 2hus being adorable little beans, an action series focused on danmaku battles (already covered by minusT), a series coated in raw sex appeal to appease the fandom's need for yuri and tiddies. Or maybe not, that might be a bad idea? Oh, you just perfectly said what I was looking for. Darn... Oh, don't worry, I will cover the topic of Fumo (and overall Fumo craze as I witnessed it since autumn 2021) somewhere early next year, in case I do ont get into any complications with college. It was another thing I was planning to write about since spring, but I guess I just ended up not doing it. But indeed, it is quite heath-throbbing to see the situation of Memories of Phantasm. And the situation I have heard of from China (the problems regarding the circle who made Hifuu Activity Club Record, the Chinese Playboy dude who pumped money into the Chinese Touhou community until the moment he lost all due to "2020 just being 2020" and so on), despite still being confused and not really sure what it was all about leaves me a little bit worried as well. As an end note, I hope you have enjoyed some of the funnier notes I tried to insert into the review, just so it would not be dry. A few jokes here and there, some memes, maybe a light-hearted tone in presenting some of the stuff, the jokes about how the defeated characters' clothes started to resemble a contest who who can become more fanservice-y the longer we advanced through the final couple episodes of the MoF arc (kind of a close competition between Aya, Sanae and Kanako) and a few links here and there (probably one of my favorite inserts was the Komeiji Records song for the moment Okuu was confused about what she had to do - it took her quite a bit to process, to be fair).