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Hello again! I've been absent for quite a while now, been busy with schoolwork and other stuff. Since then, my interest in touhou has not vanished, but it diminished quite a bit, so I decided to do a touhou sort to see what my tastes are now. Here are the results: (tbh I have no clue why flan is in the top 10, she wasn't really favored in this one. guess picking ties kinda breaks stuff a bit. oh well!) Post your sorts here so I can see if I'm either really weird or really basic somehow till next time, bye

I recently decided on a redo of the Touhou sorter, so I've got mine: I think the sorter is just weird at determining rankings. The amount of ties was concerning, and I have no idea how Elis made it into the top 10 (I might have a PC-98 bias, but still).

The phone tengu with a missing texture skirt. Day 12: Hatate Himekaidou Hatate is an okay character. She definitely isn’t interesting in my opinion, but she has enough to kind of go off of. Her personality is generally pretty grating to me, as she tends to only care about news reporting and her rivalry with aya, going to dirty methods for it. Hatate generally tries to show what it would be like if aya played dirty with news, but fails because hatate isn’t like aya at all. Hatate instead really just exploits her ability to make news, which aya isn’t even close to doing. Let’s take another angle of her character possibly showing how the tengu operate on a normal level with hatate as the example. This also wouldn’t work because she isn’t similar to a normal tengu, with her not being very active in the field and not getting caught up in the usual tengu business. Overall, the two angles she could show fall flat because she doesn’t have the character development to show them, while also not showing anything unique. Hatate ends up only giving us her as a character, which is a rival to aya that doesn’t show up more than like twice. She really just feels like a purple aya in my opinion.

3 Favorite OSTs (not in order of favoritism): 1) Touhou 5 Mystic Square: Mystic Square is my favorite PC98 Soundtrack, i feel all of its tracks are pretty memorable, although they are simpler in composition than the Touhou standard. They are not noisy even with their fast tempos, and they go along great with the stages/bosses. It pushes the limits of what FM Music can do. Well, some of the tracks are pretty boring, like Treacherous Maiden ~ Judas Kiss, at least it's a clear example of the chord progression ZUN uses (VI VII i) My favorite songs from Mystic Square are: Alice in Wonderland (it's one of the few Touhou songs that changes a lot with the loop, it really feels tragic and epic and the same time. The key change near the end and the deeper FM melody makes it one of my favorite songs on all of ZUN's work, it shows the potential FM music has), Plastic Mind (the melody is somewhat melancholic, combined with its speed, really makes me feel this song represents a mix of desperation and anger, probably symbolizing Alice trying to stop you from wrecking Makai) and Doll of Misery (the drums are great here, overall the melody feels overly quiet almost like it's repressed, maybe it highlights Yumeko being a Maid and probably lacking freedom. It's one of the most complex PC98 songs ZUN made) 2) Touhou 11 Subterranean Animism Subterranean Animism's soundtrack is a good song after another good song, it's especially darker in tone and fast paced. The drums and bass are very well achieved (something that is usually overshadowed in ZUN's mixes), they help the songs get a darker/deeper feel that helps convey the overall darkness of Former Hell. It also has some good guitars, like in The Sealed-Away Youkai ~ Lost Place or in Last Remote. My favorite songs from Subterranean Animism are: Last Remote (the tension and release of this track is legendary, combined with the climax, wow!), Lullaby of Deserted Hell (one of the few calm songs in Touhou, i like it a lot due to how it's synchronized with Orin's movements during Stage 5 and the folkish adventure tale vibe it gives me), Corpse Voyage ~ Be of good cheer! (the drums in this one are what i said earlier i liked about this OST, it complements the melody very well as it's rhythmical almost like a machinery moving. When it stops the rhythm at the climax and the guitar kicks in, its glorious.) 3) Touhou 18 Unconnected Marketeers Unconnected Marketeer's soundtrack shines in how comfortable it is to listen to it all in one setting, as an album the tracks go back and forth from being relaxing (as relaxing you can get with Touhou) stage themes and epic boss themes. You can really sense ZUN's improvement at music making here, every song is good without being boring or repetitive. My favorite songs from Unconnected Marketeers are: The Perpetual Snow of Komakusa Blossoms (one of the few times ZUN used a mayor key, and it shines thanks to that. The song feels romantic, like a bird flowing through the wind) The Abandoned Industrial Remains (ZUN really nailed the nostalgic feeling here, the acoustic guitar with the notorious bass and the flutes really makes me feel like im looking at something past it's glory days that has a future filled with hope) A Fantastic Underground Railway Network (That feeling of hope gets realized here as you come back into the mine more prepared, it makes me feel like i can conquer the world and the combination of all the instruments in the mix with the well-placed silences is very well achieved) Least Favorite OST: I'm keeping it shorter here, as i dislike this particular OST for these reasons: I really dislike it when ZUN decides to ignore basic music mixing strategies, and he just pumps the ZUNPets to ear breaking volume, when the entire song is just the same repeated thing with no variation or when he abuses the same instruments in the OST. I'm not a fan of repetition in music, one of the reasons I usually like ZUN's music is how he manages to repeat the same VI VII i chord progression without feeling repetitive (like how popular music abuses one chord progression to death, without variation). Touhou 07 Perfect Cherry Blossom It breaks my heart to include this one here, but ZUN really dropped the ball. Not necessarily with the composition, as most songs have very memorable melodies, including some of my favorites like Border of Life, The Doll Maker of Bucuresti, Eastern Ghostly Dream ~ Ancient Temple and Hiroari Shoots a Strange Bird ~ Till When?. Unfortunately, ZUN forgot to add more instruments aside the piano and ZUNPets. He also forgot to add any kind of bass and to regulate the mix before releasing the game. Why do i say this? Have you ever heard Necrofantasia or Border of Life with headphones? It breaks your ears, the ZUNPets are too loud compared to the rest of the instruments, and it really harms those songs (and your ears). It's not the only problem, the OST uses the exact same instruments on all the songs aside Hiroari and all the bass contained in The Fantastic Tales from Tono. When you play this game, your ears saturate quickly from the barrage of the same high-pitched sounds over and over again (it doesn't help that PCB is one of the longest Touhou games) It's especially disappointing because Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil doesn't have these issues, even if ZUN was an amateur when using Windows and not that experienced with non FM Music. Honorable Mention: Touhou 12 Undefined Fantastic Object Don't get me wrong, this is a great OST, all the songs are good. It's only problem is that all the songs use the same instruments (less prominent than PCB), and they sound too similar, it ends up feeling repetitive, even if by separate the songs are amazing. Thankfully, things change musically in the later half (from Stage 4 onwards), with some pretty unique songs like Captain Murasa and Heian Alien, but the first half almost sounds like the same song.

Since my bingo marathon is based on my sorter, I’ll just drop this here

The real nothing character Day 11: Sara Sara legit has nothing lmao. A short speaking role, a mediocre design, and not much else. She isn’t even notable in tpdp for being a good puppet, where she is also pretty mediocre. Overall, she doesn’t stand out.

On the 25th of February 2023, ZUN was invited to a high school talk show where he was asked several questions about Touhou. While there doesn't seem to be a video archive, a Twitter user called AQNAWNA made a recap of the questions and answers. And from there, the questions have been translated to English by user IceFairy. In the following presentation, I will use the translations of IceFairy, which can be found here: https://twitter.com/richard_effendi/status/1629816649493942273?s=20 [ZUN appears on stage and reveals a presentation slide] ZUN: I made the slide while I was on the bullet train heading here. (Note, I won't be translating every tweet as some of them have already known information. I'll be translating the interesting ones) Host: Are the music CDs connected to the games in any way? ZUN: If I say they're definitely connected, it might cause some sort contradiction somewhere. So I just have them as vaguely connected in some way. Host: Recently there's been a lot of current events related content in Touhou, hasn't there? ZUN: It's because the series is like my diary. Whatever I'm feeling at the moment, I put it in the games. I think the first time I put something that was undeniably current events was in DDC. At the time overseas indie games were becoming mainstream and I wanted to make a game that had my feelings of "Hey, we have doujin games here, too!" Host: The games have been popping up on Steam recently, haven't they? ZUN: Well... It's cause nobody buys CDs anymore, hahaha. PCs don't event have disk trays anymore. And most shops don't carry them either. I thought it'd be best to go with the flow. Host: As a doujin game creator, what are your thoughts on the world becoming less interpersonally connected? ZUN: I don't really need interpersonal connections when making games, since I make them alone, hahaha. But I do miss the fun I used to have going to offline events. Chatting with people online makes me feel a bit lonely. Host: There's been more officially recognized gacha games lately. Did you have a change of heart about them? ZUN: Nope, still not fond of them, hahaha. Don't think I'd ever make one myself... They say it's "free to play", but they're definitely not free to play. Host: What are your future plans for Touhou? ZUN: Well, I'm getting on in years. I plan to keep making it until I don't want to anymore, but I'm also afraid of when that time comes. So I've been ruminating on how to keep myself motivated in making Touhou. Host: Any plans on making things other than Touhou? ZUN: Everything I make ends up becoming Touhou anyways, so, nope, hahaha. Host: The moon appears often in Touhou, any special reasons? ZUN: I just think the moon is neat, hahaha. I like the words "lunar capital" and "lunar exploration". I also like Mars. Host: Any plans on having Mars appear in Touhou? ZUN: Hmn... Well, humans might be going to Mars in the future. We still don't know what's on it. It might be interesting to have Mars in Gensoukyou... hmn, not too sure about it yet. Host : Tell us about the Yukkuri trademark incident. ZUN : Well, Dwango took care of it pretty quickly. And the culprit also rescinded the trademark. But, we also needed to avoid a repeat of this incident, so... So a few days ago the patent office put out their opinion on Yukkuri as a genre. It should be alright now. To be honest, I feel like that incident became an advert for yukkuri (hahaha). I got excited when yukkuri started appearing on broadcasts. It was kinda fun. as a result of that, everyone became familiar with yukkuri (continued). In that way, I kinda way to say "thank you" to the instigator (hahahaha). Q: What's up with the clown in Dolls in Pseudo Paradise? ZUN: Clown? What Clown? Are you talking about the jacket illustration? It doesn't have any special meaning... To be honest it's been so long ago, there's a lot I don't remember. Q: How many Ultimate Foul Lifeforms have come up to you (note : the title you get if you clear Impossible Spell Card without Items). ZUN: A lot, hahaha. There were middle schoolers among them, too. Pretty amazing. Q: Are you an Ultimate Foul Lifeform? ZUN: Nope, I can't become one either, though I set the difficulty it so it's not impossible to become one. Q: How good are you at Shoot 'Em Ups? ZUN: I used to be pretty good at it. Though, lately I struggle to clear Lunatic... I make the games clearing the stages separately instead of all in one sitting. It's fine to set the difficulty to a level where I can clear it, but if I don't increase the difficulty some people will be able to clear it pretty fast just like that. Q: Any plans on reviving the PC-98 characters? ZUN: I'm not gonna say "yes" or "no". For questions like that, I'll just accept your desires. Q: How do you decide on the character names? ZUN: I ruminate about them until the deadline. If I use common names, then I'll and up with characters with the same surnames and given names. I also have to make sure the names fit with the character. If it doesn't feel right, I try again after thinking some more. If it feels right then I decide on it. Sometimes I change it pretty close to the deadline. And when that happens, I can forget to change the old name somewhere. (Narumi/Naruko) Q: What sort of Youkai is Meiling? ZUN: I believe... I had it written in PMiSS, "Youkai" simply means "other". If it's just "youkai", then there's no species, just think of it as "something that's not human". Q: Which games should I play? ZUN: I think you should ask the fans that not me (hahaha). But ok, the latest game.... right now is UM, so why don't you play that? Since the series is my diary, if it's too long ago, I don' remember it that well. Q: What do you think about the popularity poll? ZUN: It's fun to watch. Though, I don't entirely get Youmu getting first place or Flan getting first place. There should be a lot more bigger weirdoes than them in Touhou. Q: I'm a 20 year old male. How do I become Marisa Kirisame? ZUN: Well... Why don't you buy a pointy hat and put it on? (hahaha) But you know, Marisa is still a human, so it's pretty easy to become her. Otherwise you'd need to reject your humanity. Q: Do you have designs for characters who are only mentioned in the setting? ZUN: No, at least for the ones I don't plan on giving an appearance in the future. A part of these questions have also been covered by Megapig9001 in his most recent video: And an interesting conclusion someone has reached based on the Q&A: "Alright, this confirms something I've been suspecting for ages now: ZUN has literally no idea what goes on in the Touhou fandom. His insistence on not looking like he's playing favorites (or whatever's going on) has led to a profound ignorance regarding which characters are popular and why. He wasn't trolling by keeping Flan in reserve for two decades; he truly believed this whole time that no one was interested in seeing her again. That said, I'm glad to know he doesn't base his creative decisions off of whatever fans seem to want most. He neither caters nor trolls. For better or worse, he does what he feels is best from an artistic standpoint".

Favorite OST: 10, with 11 being a very close 2nd place. The overall lineup of 10 and 11's tracks are strong. There's only like a song or two from both I'd consider forgettable. Least Favorite OST: 12 (Probably controversial, so I'll explain myself), with 2nd place being 16. The game might have my favorite Stage theme in the series ("Rural Makai City Esoteria") and Byakuren's theme is amazing, but I have to weigh them against the rest of the OST, which has a ton of "Meh" tracks like Stages 2 & 3. Stage 1 has a really good hook but I can't remember much after the first few bars, both Stage 4 and its Boss track are just okay for me, and I feel like Shou's theme takes a while to get to the good bits. The loud clanging metal in "Fires of Hokkai" is off-putting in an overall decent buildup song to the final boss, and "UFO Romance in the Night Sky" is my least favorite Extra Stage theme in the series (I hate the laugh sfx and the song kind of meanders in the beginning too much). I think "UFOwen Was Her?" is pretty good, I like the part about 1:20 in that's "Divine Bloodlines" from Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.