CountVonNumenor

I am back. And this time, I would like to announce that I have completed my watch of Amagami SS. But before I am doing an overall review of the series, I have to catch up with talking about the arcs and extra content. The Rihoko Sakurai arc Oh, this one sure has been different from the rest. I do not have very much to say about it, besides the fact it focused quite a lot on the development of the high school tea club (apparently a common complaint towards this arc), while leaving aside the romantic plot we got all so used to in the previous arcs. This is probably the only arc where the story is not complete, the viewer having to wait until next season (Amagami SS+ Plus) for a proper conclusion. It was a little sad to see things not going very far, but I guess childhood friends ended up getting closer and working together in trying to make things better for the club. Some things I found interesting: this arc goes beyond Christmas, until the next spring (since apparently the action of the game is placed through 40 days, with the conclusion coming on the Christmas Eve) Rihoko just can't keep to her diet, be it by delaying when she wants to start it or ending up doing exactly what she she wanted to stop doing both Kaoru and Tsukasa are not the kind to offer "obligation chocolate" on Valentine's Day The Tsukasa Kudamaki arc Along with the Kaoru arc, probably my favorite of the series. Tsukasa is a very interesting person, whose personality is greatly explored through the episodes. She can be sweet, she can be scary, she can feel anxious and insecure, even if trying to pose in one way or another. She's also extremely dedicated to her goals. I really do not want to go into the details here, as I think the arc is worth exploring on your own. However, there are a few things I would like to mention: this is probably the arc, outside of hers, where Kaoru gets the most screen time; and oh boy, each time she shows up it's quite a treat for all the reasons looks like someone has skipped one too many PE lessons: bonus, for anyone wondering where Keiko disappeared in the previous episodes, this is also the arc giving her most screen time (even more than the second arc) on today's "Reasons why Kaoru is the best girl" topic, probably way too many good moments, quite ironically, in someone else's arc: Ready to support Tsukasa in an argument regarding the organization of the Christmas festival Again, ready to side with Tsukasa just when everyone was against her. Kaoru turned the whole situation from "Tsukasa vs everyone" into something more manageable And mere moments after Junichi decided to join in too And of course, despite skipping some of the PE classes, it seems that Kaoru is strong enough to beat a guy at wrestling (continuation of the discussion about that punch from her arc) Tsukasa: "Alright, just don't make your outfit too risky" Haruka & Hibiki: "Got you" Also Haruka: (bonus for that white dress, it looks very good) oh, we are also learning about an old decision that Umehara regretted up to this day, and which haunted him for quite a while; therefore, he just wants Junichi to avoid his mistake Keiko is back even more we all knew that the arc would get a good end, but I sure was not expecting such a sweet end as we got. It was a very good way to end the show... The Kamizaki Risa special episode ...until we got to the specials. Once the 6 protagonist's arcs got over, there were two more specials. First of them was dedicated to Risa. I... this is probably the only episode of the series that seriously left me with a bitter taste and dislike for the supposed heroine. She pretty much represents the "stalker with a crush" archetype, and since this is just one episode, I don't think it will matter if I just talk about it. Overall, I do not know what to say about the episode. I guess it was nice to see the final heel-face turn, but it still comes after giving you a very bad taste of everything that happened up to that point. Some wish other bonus character got this special episode, while others simply recommend skipping it at any rewatch of Amagami SS. The Miya Tachibana special episode The final episode of the series is dedicated to Miya, Junichi's younger sister. This was a more enjoyable episode than the previous. There's not a lot happening, but it get a sweet conclusion and the proof that there's love and caring even among brothers. Again, I will not spoil this one, since there are some interesting parts about Miya trying to understand her brother, as well as the way they interact. Oh, and since Risa was established as a character in the previous episode, from now on she will appear in every episode left, be it in her side quest with Miya this time, or as someone observing Junichi from the shadow each time he is with a girl. I have to say though that the final shot of the episode, even if for comedic purpose, might be what triggered all the incest fanart I was talking about when I was making Miya's character introduction... The OVAs Not so much to say about those ones either. There are two episodes in which we are getting an extra interaction scene between Junichi and each of the 6 girls: sharing a dessert with Haruka helping Kaoru with a selling cake before Christmas (she has 5 part-time jobs, how can one deal with that many?!) receiving a birthday present from Sae cheering up Ai when she was going through a rough patch cutting Rihoko's toenails with a special nail clipper (yeah, this was a bit of a weird short) going for a melon bread with Tsukasa Just some nice interactions, 3 per episode and around 5 minutes long each. And just to be biased one more time, from the Kaoru short: Is it just me, or she looks great no matter what she is dressed with? Be it the high school uniform, a leather jacket, a swimsuit, a dress or the Santa outfit. Oh God, I am fanboy-ing again... Alright, next time I am writing something, that will probably be the overall review of the series. Until then, I might start Amagami SS+ Plus, I also got my hands on a digital copy of the Amagami: Precious Diary manga with English translations thanks to SoundOfRayne. See you around next time!

Besides the obvious "I would not have given green light to that game to begin with"... The game has been up for almost three years (counting the original server), and there seems to be no sign it will die soon. Which is a paradox, given the fate of the previous Touhou mobile games (Cannonball and DanKagu). However, for as long as LostWord has been up, especially after getting a global server, there have been numerous complains about the nature of this mobile game and the way it has been run. And there are some who just deny the entire existence of this game/don;t want to recognize it as part of the Touhou community as a whole. Even one of my original threads at the Shrine was one in which I was criticizing LW and the shortcomings of its systems. Only for afterwards to turn the thread into the news roundup, which lasted until January 2023. I am sorry for not having updated the news ever since, I just feel like I lost the whole drive to do that. Everything is quite stale, and outside the release of the next arc in the Beach Episode Chapter 4, there has been nothing significant going on, or worth mentioning. Therefore, the need for a fresh approach, one that can actually turn into something constructive. Here are some of my opinions on shortcomings. To be fair, I do not really have a solution for them, as much as I would like to think of one - especially when it comes to making the game profitable: the very nature of LostWord being a gacha game; we all know too well how predatory gacha tactics are the story, somewhat coherent until the first half of Chapter 3, is going off the rails in the second half of that chapter and stays so ever since in terms of coherence being a gacha game, the story can be extended indefinitely, just so you could milk the series for more money and add new OCs based on the original 2hus the very premise of the game (having a self-insert isekai protagonist who gains the trust and affection of the 2hus) and the OC (funny how the OC is a woman - not complaining about that) is way too close to other games of the kind, best examples in my mind being Azur Lane and Kantai Collection the characters are also quite shallow, relying a lot of fanon personalities and canon stuff being randomly thrown around just to look smart in a trivia section speaking of which, I have not fully checked it yet, but LW seems to be quite close to being just a clone of Azur Lane, just that with a Touhou skin and slightly less horny Fantasy Rebirth (marriage under another name) seems to also be inspired from games like AL; it is not the first Touhou fangame that introduced the concept (as far as I am aware, it existed even in older, more appreciated games like Fantasy Maiden Wars with the "wife" mechanic), but it becomes a little bit questionable at points - overall not my cup of tea, but some costumes do look cute the game system, even if having an interesting premise on the use of elements, eventually ends up in one of the two - either you just "Auto-Play"/"Auto-Replay" because of boy, THE GRIND NEVER ENDS, or ends up in the creation of new, stronger units for stupidly hard challenges and on the same line, since we have a gacha, you always need to push out new content; and that is not not an easy task, given this game is an adaptation of an already established series, you can pull just that many characters from ZUN's collection until you run out of them; also not to speak about power-creep... the game...just became boring; after almost 2 years of daily checking it out, I am not longer feeling too much excitement; it's more like a chore than anything else And probably one of the worst parts, despite being mostly a repeat of the first point, is that this is a gacha game. However, there are other problems. If it was not a gacha game, how would you have ensured the survival of the game? It eats a lot of money to be maintained, and you need a constant flow of cash to keep it going. From the stats I have seen, the situation is not really that hot, at least in terms of global server. This is the revenue situation of the game. Even with all the gacha tactics and that, it seems to be mostly in the red through last year on Global (or at least the JP players are more willing to invest money). If this game was not a gacha, I am afraid it would not have gone past the first year, and would have never come outside Japan. It is also scary to think that if a game is not a gacha, the "mobile game" industry will not provide too much revenue on that project. Some of the stats I have seen recently show that mobile games earn more income than PC and console COMBINED. And that some gacha games can earn in the tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars a single year. Therefore, I am not sure how could this game be better executed. And this is where YOU guys come in. And for that, I am launching the following question: what do you think are the greatest shortcomings of Touhou LostWord, and how would you you have created/developed this game if you were in charge of the development team?

Alright, I was supposed to write this review a long time ago. Since my previous one, I have actually finished two story arcs, so I think I will go with a double feature. It is the middle point of the season, so why not. Therefore, let's just get to the story: The Nakata Sae arc In these 4 episodes, we are getting into yet another new kind of situation. The trope is that of that os the shy girl that has to overcome her fears and get the courage to speak up (or at least just speak...). I will try to keep things short, as spoiler free as possible. There are still some things though that I can mention without giving away too much information: if people think Junichi is a perv, his younger sister Miya is not so much behind him (quite a bit of a surprise, but it was executed in a way that was rather fun) and speaking of Junichi, a series of unfortunate coincidences - some situations that are very easy to take out of context, which attracted the anger of his sister twice despite all the accidents, Junichi has good intentions, and shows one of his positive aspects through the episodes - you will see what I mean if I though there was an increase in the amount of fanservice through the Kaoru arc, this one really takes the cake with several scenes and speaking of Kaoru, she really does seem to appear in every episode at least once; same goes for Umehara - they are both Junichi's best friends, so I guess it makes sense "imagine moment" happens (with a fun answer from Junichi and Umehara afterwards): I will not give context for the following image: Keiko laughing sure is something I was not expecting to see. Looks like she has more moods than just being angsty and shy to confess her feelings... The Nanasaki Ai arc First, I would like to point out a significant change. All the way to Episode 12, we have had one intro sequence (represented in a previous review through the Keiko scene) with the song I Love by Azusa. Starting with Episode 13, there is a new intro, with the song Kimi No Mama De by the same Azusa. The original intro song The second intro song Now, for the story itself. I am not very sure where to place it in terms of reaching an archetype, but it sure is somewhere. All I would like to say, without spoiling the story, is that we start from a rather cold relation between the two characters, which is only improving through time. Also, we finally get to see another trait of Junichi - his talent at Mathematics, as well as its use for good means (he is also very good at comforting people/make them feel better). And without giving away too much of the end, I find it interesting that apparently the best and bad endings have been combined for the anime adaptation. Now for a few quick notes: I can confirm, there has been no episode as of yet to lack featuring Kaoru in any shape or another; even when you don't expect, she will be there. Guys want to check on a new librarian chick? She will come to check too. Get a hallucination where you see a gender-bent Kaoru going hand-in-hand with Keiko? You sure will get that. and speaking of Keiko again, it sure was a surprise to see her dressed in a Santa outfit (the cat in the bag is included) Maya Takahashi (the teacher) is getting more screen time; I was not expecting her to get drunk though at the students' food stalls though (show spoiler territory below) Anyway, time to go to the next arc. The story will cover Rihoko Sakurai However, there is one thing concerning me. I have heard about the reputation of this specific arc, which was apparently butchered by the network. Therefore, things will go a little different from how we got used to the formula of this show...

I would like to thank everyone who has contribute to the thread as of yet. This is still open for discussion, so anyone is welcome to join the talk...

Yeah, I really think I am starting to have problems with either burnout or procrastination. Therefore, why I am so much less active in the past and sluggish with answering threads/writing new threads. However, now it is time to finally answer to this round: C-CLAYS - Rest in Dark Night This is the first time I am coming into contact with C-CLAYS or the "RnB" style of music. All I can say is that the song sounds energetic from the very beginning. And keeps that vibe all through it. I fail however to identify anything out of the original song that inspired this arrangement. And overall, it is not really something to write about, or come back for a second listening. Not bad, but... ehh? (EDIT: this was supposed to be based on Oriental Dark Flight? I did not really notice that. I mean ODF is not really a song I tend to think of often, or really place it too high even among the Marisa themes - to me, probably the two songs I tend to always associate her with would be Love-Colored Master Spark from IN and Vessel of Star ~ Casket of Star) Overall, I will rate this song at 5.5/10 Virus Key - 氷精たちの踊り Virus Key is yet another music group I am listening to for the first time (it seems like a lot of the stuff in this Remix Tournament are a "first time" for me...). Oh, symphonic arrangement for Cirno. This is already a good start. I like symphonic music for how relaxing it is to listen to, and I think it is quite a nice idea to combine it with Cirno's theme. A little silly idea, yet which works fantastically well. This is very entertaining, so I would probably give it quite a bit of praise. At the end, I will probably give it a 9/10. Waltz is nice, I like that feeling of grace, elegance and grandeur it offers. O-Life Japan - Dawn Sky of the Myouren Temple This time, a group I have listened to in the past, and have a little bit of familiarity (even through probably 2-3 songs as of yet). This song, in the opening part, sure does have that "good morning" vibe, with everyone waking up. And then, there's the sudden Byakuren theme. Now everyone is up, ready to go for they usual daily business. It is quite a cute sounding song, with a lot of... how to define them... "sweet" instruments? Oh wait, that might just be the effect of symphonic music. Things just sound very well put together. In the end, I will probably give this a nice 8/10

When I do not listen to rock or anything symphonic, it seems like I have been listening to more and more music from Japan (be it Touhou related or other series). Therefore, the recent example of two songs from Amagami SS: The opening theme of the show for the first half of Season 1 The end credits theme for the second arc of first season. Episodes 4-7, Tanamachi Kaoru (voice and singing: Rina Sato)

Holy shit, I am sorry for delaying the Remix Tournament again I am feeling like drowning in exams and assignments, and yet I have just a few more days until I can get some deserved rest. Anyway, with that out of the way, time to review the songs of this round: TsuBaKi - Artemis Wept Interesting song. I have never heard of this music group before, so it is a new experience for me (something that I greatly appreciate at each Remix Tournament). The intro and outro of the song did not give me at first the vibe it would turn into rock but it sure was a surprise. I like metal, but I am not very sure yet about the "screaming util you destroy your cords and lungs" part of this kind of music. However, the female singer has been very good, and I appreciated that. The original song sounds familiar, yet I still cannot recognize it - a little bit of help just like last time, please? Overall, it was not bad, so I will give it a 7/10 Lycoris - Hammersmith in the Sky I absolutely love the presentation for this one. The whole tape thing is something I have not seen in a very long time, and reminds me of childhood (even in the early 2000s, you still might have had a music machine at home that used tapes). And the sound of music reminds me exactly of that times. Plus, the song itself is good too. A nice arrangement for Greenwich in the Sky. I just had one of those singalong moments as it was going. It sure had brought up some old nostalgia. Given how good of an impression and old memories it gave me, I will give it a 10/10 - definitely need to use the music machine ("combină" as we tend to refer to it in Romanian, as it has incorporated a radio, a player for VHS tapes and a player for old vinyl disks). MA's ATTACK - Hartmann's Youkai Girl HOLY MOTHER OF SEAL CUBES, ALMOST 10 MINUTES? I have to admit, the intro to the song has a very eerie feeling to it. Ok, the more this song is going, it starts to sound a little less eerie, even if that vibe still persists (definitely not helped by the background choice). Otherwise, I am not very sure what to say. It sounds like a slow rendition of Koishi's theme, and as I am only halfway through, I still have not noticed anything special besides sounding chill in a slightly weird way? I am slowly getting close to the end, and I have to notice anything special... (as you can see, I am writing as I am listening to the song). And now I am suddenly getting an eerie feeling again. Like a set of footsteps in the middle of an empty room, coming from nowhere, as the song ends. I guess this song has been mostly some sort of ambient stuff I am not very sure what rate to give to this song, so would probably go with a 5.5/10

Alright, so I finished watching the second arc. All I want to say is that I have not felt so happy in a very long time. I might be extremely biased, since it was the Tanamachi Kaoru arc, but I really had a great time with it. Last time, I was wondering if the timeline just resets at the beginning of each arc - YES, it does. Interesting though, this time we received a little more of the flashback, as a continuation of the first arc's opening flashback. Maybe in time we are going to build a greater image of what happened during the fateful Christmas Even from 2 years prior? Anyway, back tot he arc itself. If last time, the story kind was that of "romancing the popular high school girl", this time it was more of a "two old friends end up developing feelings for each other, even if they initially deny it". And from there, all the build-up through 4 episodes leading to a cute resolution. I would like to talk more about the episodes, but I would prefer not to spoil the synopsis for an anime from 13 years ago. However, some highlights: Kaoru really knows how to punch, and will jump in an instant to defend her friends, even if it means potentially picking a fight overall, she is quite a tomboy in her general attitude despite being seemingly strong, Kaoru does have her weak spots - it will become more clear in the second half of her arc the Keiko subplot - hinted from the intro, we got some of it through the arc; I feel though there might be more to it in the future though; it's cute though how Junichi and Kaoru would end up helping her; a little bit of a payback later, organized by both Keiko and Masayoshi our protagonist is also quite acrobatic, given she can climb a tree, retrieve something stuck there, then come back to the ground gracefully, just like a cat this arc overall has had, surprisingly, more fanservice then the previous - not that I am complaining; part of it comes from the imagination of Junichi only now, 8 episodes in, did I realize that each character has their own music theme, sang by the voice actress of the character; in the case of Kaoru, her music theme in first season is Kitto Ashita wa... ("Surely Tomorrow Will...") - all I can say is that I love that song, and without a joke, Rina Sato really has talent for singing: (funny how on Spotify, for the song author, they have decided to first credit the character, then the voice actor for it) I've felt a little weird as a side effect. I have felt so much happier than I usually am, and for a few days really developed a crave for sweets. Could there be any connection between the general happiness and crave for sweets? An the fact I have been listening to the song for the past few days since I found it. Yes, I am starting to believe that Amagami is the new big thing happening to me after Touhou. Not that I am going to drop any of them, alternating the two things (as well as Warhammer and BattleTech) can prevent a burnout. And all of this sated because of a single character, found long ago through a random image on Pinterest... And now, after watching this arc, the following meme feels even more justified: And for a bonus, a list of characters voiced by Rina Sato (Satou? It's a weird "o" with accent - this thing ō) in 20 years of activity until now (not all, since the list might be much longer): Next time, I will return with a spoiler-free review of the Nakata Sae arc.

For quite some time now, it may seem like I have been missing from the Shrine. Yeah, I really did. Recently, I've really felt devoid of ideas to write about at the Shrine. Ran out of any inspiration or interesting topics. And the decrease in interaction with what I already created has also been a little deterring. But the final nail in the coffin has been the beginning of the exams. I really hope those will be over soon... As for something different, I actually started watching Amagami. Until now, I only had time for one arc, but I would like to get one more this weekend. First story arc has been that of Morishima Haruka. I will not go into spoiler territory with what is going on (I may have already spoiled it from her character introduction), but I think it was a nice story. Sure, like in any anime, especially those that have romantic plots, you may still have one of those eye-rolling moments, and one of the points I've seen in another video recently seems to apply (even if just like 1-2 times as of yet) about the use of female fanservice applies. But as a whole, I think the first arc has been quite a nice way to spend one evening (since it's just 4 episodes, about 24-25 minutes long). Heck, and I even ended up liking Haruka more than I expected. As for side characters, I like the way they were handles. Each of the girls still exists, even if they are downgraded to episodic appearances. Probably the characters that get most of the screentime, besides Junichi and Haruka, might be Miya (Junichi's younger sister), Umehara and Kaoru, the latter two being Junichi's comrades he might get into a friendly banter with (especially with Kaoru, it's almost like a gag through the arc). Anyway, time for next arc. This time, the story will focus on Kaoru. Given the way this series works, and the nature of the source material, I really wonder how it will handle the fact you basically make a story arc out of each game route. Does the timeline simply repeat? Does the poor Junichi live Groundhog Day each time the arc ends? It remains to be seen... PS: to my understanding about this series. Amagami SS is basically treated as a Season 1 of the series, which came out in 2010 (25 episodes). Amagami SS+ Plus is basically Season 2, and that one came out in 2012 (13 episodes). Besides the two "seasons", there are also two OVAs for Amagami SS, and the Specials for SS+ Plus. And then there is one more anime called Seiren, released in 2017 and basically considered a sequel to Amagami (I know that apparently Seiren takes place in the same universe).

Honestly, I would say that we could post the next round. If we are to take it like this, it might take weeks until we are getting more replies. Especially given how inactive has the forum been as a whole recently.

Please remind me to come back with an actual, elaborate reply once I return from my journey. I would like to say more right now, but I have to go to sleep soon as I am leaving early in the morning. So see you all later. Oh, also @Reitisen, if you are interested, I did cover quite extensively the very topic you have talked about in 3 threads last year. But I am glad I am no longer the only one who is addressing the whole concept. Overall, it just looks as if we are just throwing it under the rug and make ourselves it does not exist.

It seems like I am slowly coming less and less to update this thing. However, I could not skip the chance to look a little bit at some recent evolutions, and talk about them right here when it comes to LostWord. News and updates Oh boy, even talking about the things since the beginning of this year is quite the circus this time. Actually, just covering this week should be enough to give an idea what the hell is going on with the game: First of all, for the basic update news. Tomorrow, 13th January, LostWord Global shall go through one of the regular maintenance breaks followed by an update. Among the relevant things that shall be added to the game following this update: new Tewi alt - Bunny Rebellion Strategist (she's basically Paripi Koumei, let's face it) loli Yuyuko is getting her Fantasy Rebirth finally some more extra story... for the Chapter 1 Extra the Collection Prayer thing that started around New Year will continue for a bit more time more Scarlet Devil Tower floors we are getting an event rerun - the Valentines' Day event from last year About the Collection Prayer banner. It is a thing where, if you use 600 GCs, you have the chance to obtain one of the characters listed as part of that banner. Those characters can be SFES, Relic or even EFES. And there are three special banners: Attack Class banner – Reimu Hakurei (F1) Epic – Watatsuki no Yorihime (B3) Ultra Festival – Patchouli Knowledge (E1) Ultra Festival – Byakuren Hijiri (A12) Festival – Sakuya Izayoi (A6) Festival Heal & Speed banner – Yukari Yakumo (C3) Epic – Watatsuki no Toyohime (B3) Ultra Festival – Koakuma (E1) Ultra Festival – Satori Komeiji (S2) Ultra Festival – Alice Margatroid (A7) Festival – Reisen Udongein Inaba (A8) Festival Attack & Defense banner – Remilia Scarlet (L80) Relic – Reisen Udongein Inaba (B5) Ultra Festival – Hong Meiling (E1) Ultra Festival – Junko (B2) Ultra Festival – Toyosatomimi no Miko (A13) Festival – Reimu Hakurei (A6) Festival LostWord JP is getting a new Relic character announced. This time, it is another version of Youmu. If we are to go by what people are discussing, she is going to be a Support unit. Oh yeah... Meanwhile, LostWord Global got two more Epic Fes characters, in the form of two more versions of Satori and Koishi. The only difference this time is that they are wearing swimsuits and are coming from the Chapter 4 world (I think? I lost count of how many universes there are now, but they sure are from somewhere) Besides the Komeiji sisters in swimsuits, LW Global also received a retro version of Rumia. Now that I see the battle sprite of L1 (left) and A6 (right) Rumia... wow, there is almost no difference. So nanonka? "They're just rereleasing an outdated unit and giving them a modern kit. you want to actually use rumia? better roll A6 Rumia because L1 is nearly unusable in today's powercreep. Feels the same way with satori's alts too. you like satori? better hope you rolled on her alt banners because L1 satori is awful. On the bright side, it seems like alts aren't just restricted to EoSD characters or popular Touhou characters. we've seen alts for characters like Watatsuki sisters and Rei'sen. Now if only they'd distribute the alts more properly, why the hell do we need 5 Satoris? give me Shion and Tenshi alts" (u/TraditionalCycle6279) And now for the truly bad and ugly side of things. Recently, people have started to complain more than ever about Chapter 4 and the characters that are constantly getting pumped out of it without any context, and yet they are all Epic Fes banners. But I feel like a recent move has actually broken the camel's back for everyone: https://vxtwitter.com/Touhou_LW/status/1613460784213884929?t=J57yDgLrBCGvV9tMZ6BKXQ&s=19 Yes, you are seeing right. Miyoi is coming into the game, as a C3 universe character. I would like to say that the Global community... did not really receive the news very well: "PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT I'm convinced, this is an actual clown show now, like everything about this is stupid to the point of being funny. Skip every other rarity and jump straight to another Efes release right after a double Efes release 2 weeks ago and Relic Youmu. C3 for a character who doesn't even have an L1 yet, BECAUSE WE ASSUMED SHE WASN'T EVEN ON THE TABLE FOR ONE. C3 Efes for a non-combatant support character who's barely present in the story to begin with. She's a heal unit, so imagine she power creeps the beach hag, imagine she has double lock removal and has the fucking overpowered infinite buff extension that Beach Marisa and Relic Youmu have, and 'cus she's a C3 unit, 100% chance her kit is water based so her EX stage and card will be easily farmable using the beach hag yet again, and the other C3 units because we just gotta keep selling the C3 units no matter what. This is a clown show, it's gone beyond despair and wrapped around to being funny. I cannot wait for Efes Rinnosuke in 2 weeks and I can't wait for him to be the best unit in the game. THE DREAM ISN'T DEAD!" (u/Kdog8273) "Such a cheap move. They continue with trashy C3 EFES units instead of releasing long awaited units like some of the missing EoSD like Meiling. This feels like another whale bait before they actually release potent EFES again. But we will see." (u/N8falke) "SUMMER MIYOI? Before regular Miyoi? What the hell? She’s an EFes of course and either a Heal (most likely) or Technical unit" (u/WWWWWWRRRRRYYYYY) "Next Ninja: "You'll have an alternate version, but we do not grant you a playable L1 version." "Miyoi: "...What? How could you do this!? This is outrageous! It's unfair! How could a reskin be playable before the original?" "NN: "Take a swimsuit, young Okunoda." (u/Le_Charlie) "I predicted that this would happen seeing how Beach Rinnosuke was a thing. What a horrible move, at least make her a super fes and not an epic fes. Miyoi fans who have been waiting for her are forced to potentially fork over 400 pulls and 4 epic paper dolls to play her. Im already dreading what they'll do if PC-98 is ever introduced. Watch them go back to no pity units when Mima comes. Rinnosuke fans better start saving" (u/TraditionalCycle6279) "All the C3 units are gonna be Epic?. Why!? There is no reason at all for them to be epic units. Koishi and Satori are on the levels of an UFES. This game have a really weird idea of what is "Epic". Mima, Shinki and Sariel are epic, not a fanservice swimsuit that can easy be a normal costume for the L1 units. Even the mecha girls looks more epic than this and are UFES. Yukari was loved since she is broken as hell, but the rest of the beach units are a "try hard" at this point. Also, Miyoi got an alt before the L1 version got released! What's next?. A bath chapter that will add "Super Duper Epic units" that have only a towel!?" (u/ZeoOmega) "I kind of guess what is the reason for this action? Miyoi hasn't shown any of her power and Lotus Eaters is still ongoing, so I think they will wait for that before making the L1 unit for her. Instead of taking a risk of creating a unit that might contradict the future canon works, they chose a safe path that is creating a unit in their original world, which can let their imagination go wild. I don't support them about this, but I can see why they made this choice. Tbh, instead of pumping out C3 units like this, best would have been something else to shake things up a little. A15 Junko when?" (u/Eistik) "The saddest part about this is for how much global has improved upon the JP version, there isn't much they can do about this. Like I don't think they have the resources to pull a Magireco and build global-exclusive units and they have to release this eventually." (u/miyamoris_) "Another Efes is coming, and its before the L1, this game is going downhill because of "C3" units. I wouldn't call them Efes' anymore, its Cash-fes due to epic paper dolls being so scarce and grindy. The fact they are still releasing summer costumes in the winter, and the fact they made this before the L1 variant, and the fact that epic paper dolls being locked out for "10 to 5 lucky winners" is a possibility makes this game very disappointing in my own eyes right now. Soon they'll make an LFES but the paper dolls for it are barely obtainable unlike epic paper dolls." (u/Subwoofer45) "This is absolutely ridiculous. First of all, why is not L1 Miyoi released, but her C3 self gets released??? Secondly, can we AT LEAST, and I mean AT LEAST cool down from releasing too many goddamn C3 units? We keep getting other less released units to get if this is ongoing" (u/eyadkhaledd) Oh, and there is more to this. If you though I was over, it is never the case. And the community really seems to be getting pissed not just for te Miyoi part, but for the entirety of Chapter 4, from characters to the execution and very idea of the chapter itself. "This. I don't believe it's totally game breaking but, and this is a big BUT, devs are getting too focused on the new units rather than in improving the current experience while also adding more content to the main Story; crazy huh?! I forgot LW had a story since it has been months since the last update. There are many aspects, such as the tower that need to be on par with JP. I think adding more challenges, like bigger waves of more and more enemies that also get tougher, anything that keeps the game relevant and gives the player an incentive to have so many units. Devs have a nice franchise with a loyal userbase, it would definitely SUCK seeing an official Touhou game go down the route of a p2w game. Also wtf LW seriously? Only C3 Miyoi? Where's the L1 counterpart?! That really grinds my gears." (u/jazznesa) "People here haven't played greedy gachas and it shows. Also, for those that do, stop showing them your wallet." (u/Kiter27) "When units intended for fanservice became disservice also no Rinnosuke" (u/khanivorus_rex) (In answer towards u/Sylphiad, who asked why do people hate the C3 universe and its characters) "Spammed one after another. All EFES, the rarest of the dolls. Super powercrept all previous units. 2hus in swimsuits? Come on. This is the equivalent of having a "beach episode" of an anime where female protag gets grabbed by tentacles with dumb slow motion and camera angles. Or the equivalent of a hot springs episode where male protag goes into girls sauna and slips into ultra mega jiggly boobs and gets a nose bleed. It's a bloody insult to any fans of Touhou. The fact that they tried to shoehorn it in as the main story, instead of a little summer event/update is even worse. Notice how we're not getting main story updates anymore? Because it's all this beach crap." (u/PlusNature6947) "Fair, I do like beach episodes that are "Side stories" instead of it being in the main story. While I don't have any issues with regards to the C3 spam, I can fully understand why you guys are mad. I mean, if I were to be a spender, I'd be VERY mad. They could have diffused the situation, had they have been units that can be limit broken by normal paper dolls (Seriously, I have 30 of them in my inventory, send help). Powercreep is inevitable, but come on, THIS FAST?! I'm a casual player that plays for the characters, the story, the music, and their interactions, it's why I decided to go deep in the Touhou rabbit hole, but this... Not cool. Though I still won't quit, I'd like to see how they handle this though." (u/Sylphiad) "Alright so I stopped playing LW like ages ago because it was just incredibly dull and unengaging, despite having spent no small amount on getting everyone I wanted including multiple copies of MFes Reisen and blonde Reisen, so I dunno what this is about you saying they've replaced the main story with a completely different universe that's just built on whale bait limited characters. Is there like a TLDR I can get somewhere" (u/NovidasX7) But wait, there's more... "I'm surprised C3 units are the most disliked units in LostWord, I actually thought it's the loli units" (u/TFritzelagram - creator of the Kakashi News Spirit news section of r/touhou_lostword) "I mean, at least Smol Yuyuko has a compelling story behind her and isn't absurdly broken by the standards of her release. The C3 cast are all "this could have been a costume" from a design perspective, but instead they exist to powercreep everyone before them, including F1 Reimu." (u/CrescentCrossbow) "What I don't like about them is they contribute nothing, literally zero to the story. Like the only relevant units to the story (at least for now) is Beach Yukari and Hecatia (and Hecatia herself is already a stretch), while Reimu and Marisa just appeared for literally 2 scenes (and one of them being that they ran away from the danger lol), and Beach Satori and Koishi came out of nowhere. How am I supposed to like them if I don't even know who they are? And not to mention those units beat my friends to pulp via the EX challenges lmao. In contrast, we have 3 loli ver, and all 3 of them are important figures to the story. Loliko is a deuteragonist to the 2nd arc, Lolijun is a main villain (?) of the Hifuu story, and Loli Yukari (Loliri?) is being Yukari. I have no problem in their power, they are supposed to be strong since they are, well, Epic, but at least design them with the plot in mind. Imo, the only "successful" unit is Blue Reimu, since they build her up via multiple quest lines, which makes her more memorable than every other else." (u/Eistik) "C3 Hecatia just feels like a gag character (my only maxed C3 friend). And Beach Marisa does feel like an excuse to do a 17.5 version of her (my other C3 friend, and i like this excuse). Plus, all of them are on swimsuits, witch makes people think that the devs only want to squeeze money from us by getting all the horny players to spend money (works strangely well on JP, or so I heard)" (u/nonexitent_account) "It's that the swimsuits - which should be costumes, let's be real - are being pushed as the highest cost unit instead. The loli Friends all cost less, and are easier to justify as separate characters. Not to mention that the challenge content is being designed for the Epic units, so it's becoming increasingly hard to play the game without these high-cost glorified costumes" (u/GeminiMaxxim) "Ngl, at first it's interesting and good to see 2hus with swimsuits, but In time, they just keep spamming epic swimsuit units, i mean, we are in fucking Winter, and they STİLL giving us swimsuit units, it's starting to be really annoying. And most annoying part is they're all Efes units, for example if they just give a swimsuit unit in every 3 or 4 months or only summer times, it'll be good ¯_(ツ)_/¯" (u/HexyCupcake) "Yeah, the main problem, maybe as mentioned before, THEY HAD NO CONTRIBUTION TO STORY PER SE. Only 5-6 lines of speaking, no big impact on story, and BOOM. EPIC UNITS. The other thought, I wouldn't mind if lunar war character being Epic units rather than those swimsuit, story-less characters are dominating the powercreep." (u/AgitatedBlood1593) "There was an actual story reason for the Lunar War characters, weird and sometimes shameless recolors (like Alterisa and P2/Blue Reimu) and the loli characters. But the C3 variations are literally just the base cast wearing swimsuits and holding various beach equipment. I'd say the Retro units would also be a universally despised concept considering most of them barely have any visual differences from their original counterparts. But considering some of the units that were given retro variations have costumes that either completely change up their appearance or make small tweaks to the color palette, I'll let it slide. ... FOR NOW. I'm surprised the first variation units weren't the school outfits. But I guess it shows how drastically different the mindset has become for the lead devs of this game given that it's become less about telling a story with interesting characters and more about making money by milking said characters. Kinda feels like the story's more of an afterthought now instead of being the main focus. Sure we've got various challenges to keep ourselves busy, but considering one of them is on a timer for some bizarre reason and becomes inaccessible after said timer runs out and the rest require having an obscure amount of Story Cards that have abysmal drop rates and no way to increase those drop rates naturally I don't think the devs actually thought things through with this game and just did the throwing ideas at a dartboard thing that seems to happen with other games of a similar nature." (u/MysteriousBirbNukes) "A lot of gacha players are pedos, so it stands to reason they'd have a solid consumer base to market those characters to, unfortunately." (u/ThePhantomSquee) And with all this in mind, time to get to the next section of our news roundup: Community discussion and memes Some of these characters are actually new to most people. Especially since they dropped in JP, and will probably be mentioned in Global soon as well... And more discussions about MC-chan. People still really are curious to talk more about her.

I have accidentally covered a new thread with old, updated ones. So here we go

I am still not 100% convinced what I would like to do next. I would still like to stay here, but I am thinking if covering the spin-offs would be worth it. Perhaps they can be a multiple feature, one for each of the games given that I may be able to sum them up in the length of a single long Amagami character introduction comment. If there is not much fanart, then it will be easy. Anyway, thank you so much for having been around, and just giving me the energy to continue this. It feels so much better to know that at least one person seems interested in what you are talking about, as it seems like you are the only persons who has interacted with the thread besides myself. In a way, I wish there was more activity in here, but I guess it makes sense not to be so many people given this is an off-topic series compared to our main focus centered around Touhou.

Oh, I am definitely planning to write that thread soon. Thank you in advance for wishing to join the conversation

Happy New year everyone! After watching and reading some content recently, I have started to become very curious about the subject of rivalries between Touhou and other series. (This does not deny the fact I am quite happy the Touhou fandom is actually friends with other communities as well, probably the best example coming to my mind right now being the TF2 community) Especially since for as long as I have been in Touhou community (entered my third year), I have not seen anything serious going on. I have heard a lot about the times when some parts of the Touhou and Undertale fandoms clashed, and actually seen some of those in comments for old videos (they really feel like a time capsule reflecting the times). But there are some old, perhaps gone rivalries I have heard about, yet know too little about what happened, and would like to learn more about those times. First one I would like to ask about was apparently between Touhou and Kantai Collection (Kancolle) fans. From the very little I know, Kancolle was nicknamed something like "the Touhou killer/the series that will kill Touhou"? I would like to know what actually happened at the time, how things developed, and what is current state of the relation between the two fandoms. The second thing I was going to ask about, despite possibly not being a fandom rivalry, but really got my attention as I was writing this, is regards to a Twitter post (confirmed to be fake news - I will cover that in the following days). Apparently, Touhou has been replaced this year from the Comiket introduction booklet by Blue Archive, and that this is the only other time it happened was in 2007 (which again, was confirmed to be false). Does anyone have more context on this issue? I don't really know what is going on, how it ended up like this, and if there are any possible consequences if fandoms start acting up again. From the way that tweet was framed, it implies that Touhou was used for the booklet for a long time, and this year it was for the first time replaced by another series after a decade and a half? I would like to learn more about the topic, especially about the relation with all the series that through time were framed as "the series that will kill/overthrow Touhou". But to me, one thing is clear: you can't kill Touhou. No matter if is is no longer the most popula series or ends up getting outshined by some new sparkly thing, Touhou will continue to exist. Therefore, I would add it as a third thing that would survive a nuclear fallout, along with cockroaches and rats.

Fair enough. What I meant was that I have heard quite a few people in different groups recently saying that the bad is not for their taste, which I am fine with. Oh, I think I missed that Tournament Edition. But you have also made me curious about the song in question. Thank you. REAL WORLD -to the beginning 01- is one of those albums I still have yet to listen to. Also 2016? That is definitely way before anything from Akatsuki Records that I am familiar with (in my case, mostly songs after 2018). Anyway, Phoenix Kappashiro always has a wonderful selection of Stack songs.

Both Sturm und Drang and Gray Zone in the same round? This will be very interesting... Silver Forest - Keep the Faith There is something interesting about this song. From the intro, it really makes me think of a Touhou fan-game from a decade ago. And all through the song, it really gives me the same feeling. The voice of the song is nice, I ill not lie. She sounds like something I would like to listen a little more, just to get a proper taste of the vocalist. The voice filters are also interesting, even if I could not understand anything out of what as said (was it on purpose?). Otherwise, I am not very sure what else I could add. Overall, I will rate it 7.5/10 IRON ATTACK! - Sturm und Drang Oh, Sturm und Drang! It's been a while since I last listened to this song. And first time, it came just about the time we were studying about Romanticism in high school. Why do I bring this up? Because according to what we were taught, Sturm und Drang is the name of a German precursor movement to Romanticism. As for the song itself, it is very refreshing to listen to a male singer after so long. I got so used to girls/women singing that I almost forgot men can also sing in a Touhou arrangement. Following this song, I have been lookin for more from IRON ATTACK!, and I sure was not disappointed. They are a very interesting group, definitely worth checking out. Until now, I think this song has been the most pleasant surprise from the remix tournament. Therefore, I think I will give it a 10/10 Akatsuki Records - Gray Zone Looks like I have brought another weak contribution to the remix tournament. Last time, I brought another Akatsuki Records (by now, I think it has become almost mandatory on my side o bring them up), and the general opinion was that Stack sounds too rough and rugged. (As a side note, I think she is pretty much the defining elements of the group; I have grown quite tired of the generic, little girl Japanese idol kind of voice that sound so sugar-coated and squishy, and therefore thought Stack is extremely good for a change, something that really sounds like a mature woman) Now, I tried something different, a little more calm - a disco arrangement. Ironically, this one has been for me the introduction to Plan Asia as a Touhou song. As for overexposure, I really did not know they have grown so to become a circle with (perhaps too much) exposure. Was it in the past couple year perhaps? I have seen the fact they were featured a little more than usual, but never expected to be on that extent so that to cause a burn-out. But I can see why. Stack is not really for everyone, and I guess people have different tastes when it comes to vocal preferences. But enough with the self-defence and loathing, I think overall I will give the song a 7.5/10. It was the most calm Stack song I have in my library, so I thought why not throw it in. Perhaps, if people really feel burnt out, I will drop them next time, therefore making room for another music group (I will talk much more at the end about all the music choices that almost made it to the list). I just hope my next pick in this tournament will be a little more enjoyable.

Happy New Year everyone! Holy shit, it looks like I have a lot of things to reply to. So, where do I start from... Well, I guess that is just the way I like my threads - challenging and thought-provoking. I always enjoy having a talk to people, and see the way they interpret different aspects of the world and what is going on (in our case right here, talk about the Touhou community and the quality of being a member of it). The entire "us vs them/the others" segment from the first reply has been very interesting (I will totally not further analyze it, or at least keep it in mind given the nature of what I am studying in university, where I do have bits of psychology and sociology among others). Thank you very much. And yet, there are people who really acting like the "Morality Police" that will judge things in accordance to their own standards of what makes someone fit into a group or not. Yeah, honestly I am very glad for the fact they managed to move from one platform to another. Maybe a 1-purchase formula, without other unnecessary IAPs would help them maintain the game afloat, and perhaps wash out some of the bad reputation associated with the gacha past? They still need to gain money to run and update the game from something, and I really hope they can find a way to do that which will not involve gacha. Honesty, I believe that is no longer jus being a bad fan. I would even call that bullying if one cannot let people enjoy a franchise for all that it has to offer. there are some who will religiously defend a piece of media coming from said franchise, while others will also try to religiously impose their favorite piece as the "one true/best of them all". Which usually does not end up well if people get into harassing others just for having a different way of thinking. That is why pluralism exists, people have different opinions, preferences and points of view. One can't just shove his own views down the throat of the others just because he considers his series to be subjectively better. Just out of curiosity. I know you are also Romanian, just like me. Does it happen that you have met the Romanian Touhou community and their own Discord server? Romanians, at least from my experience meeting them online, seem to be rather unhinged at times and perhaps go a little far with their jokes, no matter the topic. Yeah, I am quite aware of what gatekeepers are. I actually addressed the issue somewhere through the spring of last year. They are that kind of people who really feel like they can suck out the enjoyment out of anything with how vocal and sometimes entitled they want to feel as. But I guess these kind of people will be everywhere, no matter how much you might be trying to run from them. This is exactly what I was saying in the opening post of the thread. There are so many things you can pick from when it comes to Touhou, and this is probably one of the things that helped me stick with it for so long. At the time when discovered Touhou, I already went through a few communities that year (in 2020, my focus shifted from Warhammer 40K to SMG4, then to Meta Runner, then Rhythm Heaven, then I had a brief Vocaloid phase just before finally landing in the realm of Touhou, where I am up to this day). Compared to some other of my original fandoms of interest (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Warhammer), they now feel extremely different because there is no such strong fanon culture outside memes, nobody comes up with their interpretations since you have a rigid canon, there are very few fan works compared to Touhou (many times due to the IP holders and the copyright - looking at you, Tolkien Estate, Disney/Lucasfilm and Games Workshop/Black Library/ForgeWorld), therefore you may not find as many things created by fans as in the case of Touhou. Therefore, I greatly appreciate the creative freedom given to the fans, as well as the great variety of things to pick from. Oh, thank you for the intervention. Goof to know all of this. If there is anything, I will make sure to contact you. Thank you wholeheartedly. These are probably some of the most heart-warming words I have received in 2022. I was reading this comment just a bit after the beginning of the new year, and it really made my night much better, knowing that maaaybe I actually did bring a contribution to making Touhou a better place for everyone. And that is something I am really looking to do through 2023 as well, as much as I can. Thread by thread, discussion by discussion. Also funny enough, the experience until now has actually made me start considering more and more a future carrer in article writing, as I like both writing teaching people about things, especially teach them about things I am very passionate. But as long as I can contribute in making the Touhou community a more welcoming place for everyone, I think that will always be the greatest win. I was not expecting, two years ago, to go from just having joined a fandom I was not so sure how long will I stick with given my evolution up to that point, to writing related topics with strong passion and actually make people be curious and stuck with us through this journey. But I guess life always ends up up in unexpected places, and chances to do things can always appear. Anyway, I am glad of the way things have been going until now, for as long as I have been a member of the Touhou community. And I really wish all the best for everyone who is already here, as well as anyone who wants to join. Wow, going from doubting at one point your place to actually being regarded as a positive element of it is a strange feeling, as I rather rarely get praised for this kind of things such as being dedicated to something I like. Honestly, I am not really sure how to answer. All I can say is that it is one thing to actively go search for unholy content, and another one is to end up seeing it de to the nature of the image board. Using Danbooru as a source for images has its own risks and rewards. On the positive, more image than on Safebooru. On the negative, you end up inadvertedly seeing inappropriate content. And a full year of use, one may go from absolute shock to desensitization (which in itself can be just as much of a scary thing). I will be completely honest, I am no saint. But if I really wanted to go look something like that up, there are better, more dedicated places than Danbooru (since Touhou is leaving its mark absolutely everywhere online). It is not like I am almost 21, never have been in a relationship, and basically am the perfect target for content of that nature. So, if that makes me a bad fan, so be it. I am feeling just the same about Touhou. It has long transcended the realm of a game series I was clumsily trying to explain to my best friend when I first discovered. Now, it is a full land of eternal possibilities, where there is anyone for everyone to enjoy. To me, Touhou is more than just the sum of 18 main games and a few more games with funny decimal numbers, accompanied by a few manga series. To me, it also contains the entirety of the community, its creative spirit, the discussions between people no matter the topic (lore, gameplay, fan culture or just the latest fan game/song of a music circle). This is probably one of those series that just cannot die, and will always survive in one form or another. If someone said long ago that after a nuclear fallout, the only thing that will survive are the rats and cockroaches, i would probably add Touhou somewhere in there too. This series just feels way too big to kill, and if you try to cut one of its heads, a few more will appear. I guess that just happens, especially if said cosplayers are not loyal to just one series and instead just dress as whatever is popular at the time. I have talked about something similar in the thread about the migration of artists towards other series, people of which I chose to brand as "mercenaries" back then. Artists have also migrated to other series, probably a very common example I have seen and heard of being the migration from Touhou to Kancolle, but my take is that those who really are loyal and dedicated to the series will stay, whole the rest will further migrate for as long as they consider profitable, or will finally discover a series they can identify with and will finally settle in.

For the end of the year, I will finish showcasing the Amagami characters by going through our final character, the protagonist himself: Character introduction: Junichi Tachibana General information (curtesy to the Amagami wiki): Junichi Tachibana (橘 純一 Tachibana Junichi) is the protagonist of the anime series and video game Amagami. Two years ago, he went out for a Christmas date with a girl that he'd recently confessed to. Unfortunately, she never showed up. Since that day he grew hesitant in the matters of love and despise Christmas Day. However, when he meets one of the six girls in the school, he might have a chance to change his current lifestyle. Appearance: Junichi has black hair and black eyes. He wears the standard school uniform. He usually seen wearing black coat rather than vest. His casual wear consist of a long-sleeve white v-neck with blue jeans. When Junichi is outdoor, he would sometimes wear a brown overcoat. Personality: Junichi has a calm and kind personality. He is also a very patient person but sometimes he can be very immature and forgetful. Even if he is currently in a state of depression, his way to treat everyone doesn't change. He is also very unselfish and helps anyone in need. He can occasionally be a pervert and will even accept to touch a girl who offers herself. He also watches porn if he feels lonely. In the anime, it was seen numerous times that Junichi has acrophobia, as in a fear of heights. However, it seems that 6 girls of the anime seem to accept that. Age: turned 18 during the main story of Amagami and Amagami SS - 26 in Amagami SS Plus Episode 10 (Sae Nakata Arc Part 2) - 27 in Amagami SS Episode 4 (Haruka Morishima Arc Part 4) and Episode 24 (Tsukasa Ayatsuji Arc Part 4) Some trivia from the same article: In Amagami SS Plus, Junichi is somewhat fond in photography, as seen as in the intro where you will see him holding a camera occasionally, as he is also into filming. He seems to be fond of oranges as he is seen eating in his home in some episodes. This is most notable during Morishima's arc in Amagami SS+ where the table was filled with oranges. This may be linked to his surname Tachibana which means "orange, tangerine" (橘). In the anime, in Tsukasa Ayatsuji's arc, Junichi and Tsukasa came back to the founder's festival 10 years later with there unnamed daughter, who bears a resemblance to the younger Tsukasa. He only fell in love at first sight (Haruka Morishima arc) once in the series. The same case could be said for Sae Nakata but it he was only attracted when he noticed her breasts. During the end of Morishima's arc it was revealed that he became a detective. This is the only instance shown where he gets a job in future sequences. He expresses a hope to become a police officer a few times in the game. His personality remains the same throughout the series and each arc but the dynamic with each female lead is what changes him in each arc. His parents were never seen in the entire series. He only proposed once in the entire series (Haruka Morishima) When depicted of having a child in the future it is often the child is a girl and resembles the mother in during the start of the series. This applies to Sae Nakata and Tsukasa Ayatsuji. He is not a particularly bright student but excelled in mathematics. One episode depicted him being attracted to their teacher. According to Miya, he could only cook fried rice. He often exaggerates his fantasies especially when the perv side of him appears. In the series he dated two president of the foundation festival (Nakata and Ayatsuji). Even outside their respective arcs, Junichi shows interest or even slight attraction to the female leads except Kaoru and Rihoko (possibly because he considered them more as friends). In season 1 each of the arcs climaxes at Christmas eve (except Rihoko where the Christmas episode was finished by the 2nd episode of the arc). Rihoko is the only girl he didn't realize he had feelings for until season 2. He was depicted getting married only once in the series. In game, Ai Nanasaki is his only lead that regardless of the ending will love him still. Sae Nakata also has this disposition but it was implied that they never saw each other again in the bad ending. And now for the art gallery: Source: official material Illustration by kaoru348 (source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/52935897) Illustration by wiori (source: Pixiv - illustration no longer available for the public) Illustration by h.i.t (source: Pixiv - illustration no longer available for the public) Illustration by shouji nigou (source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/41658157) Collection of illustrations realized by santa (over 100 images), put together as a GIF (star of the GIF: Ayatsuji Tsukasa) Illustration by peg (source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/34972386) illustration by yuzuki n dash (source: (C79) [Lv.X+] Soen Rihoko) I spot a few memes in here. Illustration by wiori (source: Pixiv - you know the drill...) (star of the image - Miss Takahashi Maya, creator of the current form of the Santa dresses contest in their high school - more about that in her character introduction) Illustration by ishikura keiichi (source: image board - quite possible to be official art for the anime) Illustration by nagisa manoa (source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/15757054) Illustration by kasuga souichi (source: Pixiv - no longer available) Illustration by shouji nigou (source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/11696508) Illustration by Takayama Kisai (source: https://yande.re/post/show/108205) - even here, people are still talking about Kaoru's gorgeously messy hair Illustration by peg (source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/3863877) End thoughts This is it. The end of the character introductions for this year. I have left Junichi for the end because I think he has been a very interesting case. Usually, when I think of the stereotypical dating sim game, I think of a shallow protagonist, only useful as a vessel for the player to self-insert. However, quite possibly in part thanks to the anime adaptation, Junichi really got a bit of personality. And from what I read, he seems to actually be quite likeable. And maybe even a little bit relatable? At least in terms of personality and development until the game (and meeting all these girls), I may even dare say I have found some things that reminded me of when I was his age (17-18). But maybe this comes from the fact I am still half-baked, and do not really have a lot of experience be it with anime, dating sim games or just romance as a whole. In terms of exploring his fanart, there are just 10 pages of it despite the fact he is the main character. There are a lot of images of him interacting with the girls...sexually, but I guess it is not so bad as I thought it would be (he is 18, and the characters depicted with him are the same ago, slightly older or just a little bit younger). The only ones that cannot be redeemed are those involving incest (that ones can go straight to hell). However, there are also a lot of wholesome ones, from interactions with his colleagues to simple scenes of the future featuring Junichi, his wife and child. Of all kinds of interaction (safe or not), I think the most I have counted during my search were in regards to him and Kaoru. Which I think is extremely cute (and this is not just because I believe she is such a precious bean, I swear), they are just so cute when interacting. Anyway, as we are soon getting into the next year, I wanted to make sure I will not cross with unfinished business. If there is ay plan for expanding this thread to the connected series, that will most likely come through January or later. Until that, I will leave the floor to anyone willing to joining the discussion. I will probably end up coming back to posting Kaoru art in here, so don't mind me (unless you do, and would like to talk about it; I am open for discussion). Until that, see you next time.

Before going into Retrospective 2022 (either on the 31st December 2022 or first days of January 2023), there is one more thing I would like to talk about before the end of the year. This thread is going hand in hand with the one I have posed yesterday. Just before the end of the year, I would like to make both an evaluation of my place within the community and the situation of the regular Touhou fan that engages with the series in one way or another. I was thinking about tackling this question for about a couple months, after a series of weird events. Before going into the thread itself, what makes someone a Touhou fan? Is there such a thing as "fakers", or everyone has their own place? Think of it, then come back to the question once the journey through this thread is complete. So, how did we end up here? Somewhere in July, out of all places possible, I ended up finding another person who knew about Touhou in a Warhammer 40K channel of a Sci-fi Discord server (probably like 10-15K people). The guy was randomly posting a Touhou hijack every now and then, and once I did have the chance to catch it. During one of those hijacks, I was also around, and like the innocent fool I was, I pointed out "oh hey, that's Touhou, nice". Then, I did my big mistake: I said I am familiar with the series. Which spiraled him into asking me how many or which of the official games I have played. When my answer was none, and that I was struggling to finish PCB on Easy, all hell broke loose. "How can you call yourself a Touhou fan? How can you not even finish that game? It is so easy". I responded that I may have not finished any game yet, but at least I read from the official literature (at the time, Perfect Memento in Strict Sense and the first 4 volumes of Forbidden Scrollery), yet that was not enough to qualify me. Then he proceeded to talk about how much he played the games, saying that playing them is one of the qualifying factors. The discussion died off, at least for a few more months. At the middle of November, I caught another one of his hijacks in the Warhammer channel. At the time, I responded with this image, which I thought combined in a funny way the two fandoms (for context, Orin and Space Marin of the Iron Warriors legion acting as if he were her big brother): Art by BIGCAT_4424 (source: https://twitter.com/BIGCAT_4424/status/1267026103106965507) The image itself did not spark any negative reactions, but the guy went into a big rant again about the games, starting to judge categories, who is a real fan and who is not. Then this happened (I have censored names for the name of privacy): The video attachment he posted was an MP4 file of the video "ULTRA Instinct Junko is Born" by lunaPrism. And from there, the discussion died again. It was never brought again, and probably never will (hopefully) if I stay low. Besides, I can not do anything about it, or even just comment, since it would be basically me, a low-ranking member, again a Discord mod. Looking for some more information, I started talking to the other Touhou communities on the question of what makes you a fan of Touhou. The big Touhou server had a very civilized discussion with me, even if it was very late in night. Them , I tried asking the same question on the Moriya Shrine's Discord server. Oh boy... Besides people saying that the take of the mod was "based", they also guided me towards the following image. This, is surely an interesting take: Basically, they have told me I am bad fan, and people like me are one of the causes leading to the decrease in quality of the Touhou community. (slight slander towards the Moriya Shrine Discord server; that place has serious quality control problems when it comes to behavior) When I went back to the other Touhou server, and presented them this image as "the answer I got to the same question from another Touhou community", everyone was in shock. The reaction was quite poor towards the image. They just could not believe someone would even come up with this when answering to the question "am I a bad fan?". Everyone dismissed this image, and I was told not to worry about it. And from that point, I have thought a little bit about how to address this question. Now, coming to the person case - am I a bad fan? Originally, I have addressed this question ever since my early days in the fandom. I have eventually addressed the following text and question on r/touhou on the 8th December, 2021, just 1 year after getting into the series. This was my original text: And now, one year later, this is what the situation looks like, and what has changed: Canon: I am still struggling to finish PCB, but things are not going much better. The best I could achieve was the Prismriver sisters battle, but only after I used all the Continues (damn you, Stage 3 and first half of Stage 4). And that was on "Easy Modo" I have not advanced much more in reading Bohemian Archive, but I can say that I have briefly read through the characters section for Perfect Memento, as we well as briefly reading though multiple parts of Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia. Probably my greatest achievement however was finishing the first 5 volumes of Forbidden Scrollery, with two more to go in the following weeks hopefully. and not just read FS, but actually own physical copies of all the volumes. There is a funny anecdote that given the low supply here in Romania, I may have accidentally ended up buying the entire stock for the first 3 volumes from that manga (now even more so as I bough the final volumes). Before I ordered them, they were in Limited Edition. Now, they are in No Stock remaining: Along with Changeability of Strange Dream and Neo-traditionalism of Japan, I have finally added Ghostly Field Club to the list of CDs I have listened to (actually, right now I am listening to GFC again, since I like it very much). For the next year, I am planning to listen to the other music CSs as well (I may have already listened to CD 9.5, but I am not so sure how much it counts as an actual product and not just a glorified commercial) Fanon: The only fanon game I have constantly played still is Touhou LostWord I have a few more ideas for fan games, but I never ended up sticking with them. My Steam library has a section for free Touhou fan games, yet they still wait to be played. In it, there is stuff like Hina-Chan 2nd Break, Servants of Harvest Wish, Perfect Memento of Touhou Question and Touhou Mystery Reel. Out of all these titles, Touhou Mystery Reel is the only one I have actually played until now. And it convinced me of two things: 1) I suck at platform games and 2) I suck at fighting games. But more on that in my eventual discussion about looking for a Touhou themed game to enjoy... The music scene is just as rich as last year in my collection, even though through the year I have added a few more names like Komeiji Records, Konagusuri, Lyrica Live, Stringstorm (given he has started creating Touhou music), YaboiMatoi, Yuuhei Satellite, Demetori (even if I am still just scratching the surface) and UNDEAD CORPORATION, as well as the regular one-off song I might be listening to from one group or another (some of them discovered through the remix tournaments). My collection of fanart that I like from the community has increased, reaching nowadays an astonishing number of 23.8k pieces. On that note, I have recently created a new Pinterest page, CVN database, that will act as a way to more properly categorize Touhou images of different characters and the games they have come from... if I manage to sort out all that stuf, given the rapid pace in which the collection is growing My skills at creating Touhou fanart have not improved; I am still doing just as poor of a job and as little of a contribution to the fandom as before, if not worse than before I have finally finished watching Memories of Phantasm, and I actually even wrote an extensive review for it here at the Shrine. Next on my list, perhaps after a detour towards Amagami, shall be Hifuu Activity Club Record, simply because I want to see the interaction between Maribel and Renko, and the way it is depicted (I have already seen a couple short clips, and it seems to be quite sweet) My stance towards the way I interpret the characters has changed quite a bit; I have had a period in which I was more of a purist, then I started switching towards a more relaxed attitude. Now, I still prefer some of the canon depictions, while for some characters I tend to accept adding a bit of fanon as well, especially when I consider it to make sense/fir the character in question, still making the difference however (like having it clear in my mind that "this is ZUN canon" or "this is fan canon") I may have actually made a few bad decisions and stir up the lack of satisfaction of the Touhou community, especially in moments like that when I brought up the whole issue of the mountains of NSFW materials we have and the turning of the Touhou characters into mere "waifus to fap to" also in the meantime, I have become a member of this community; in the large scale, it may further bring me some hate due to the sheer association with the group and what Moriya Shrine is, and will always be known for - be the "pirate bay of Touhou" I may have also expanded a little bit into watching some of the...less than safe for work art of Touhou, but that one came mostly by extension since I am using Danbooru so much as my main search engine for Touhou art. It was a shock at the beginning (like for anyone who sees their favorite series being turned into something lewd, the first reaction is.. hard to describe), but in time, I have grown rather desensitized about it. For a better understanding of the situation: And this, kids, is a little bit more of a darker side of mine And for the final question... What really makes one a Touhou fan? Is there really such a thing as a wrong way to enjoy Touhou? Is there something that really makes you say "yeah, that guy is a real fan" or "no, he is not"? The discussion has always been going one way or another. At the beginning, I have had the bad experience of meeting people like BlankGuy... The ever-known "if you are only in for the girls, you are not a real Touhou fan; go play some waifu gacha instead" (unfortunately, the more relevant image was lost to time and files no longer embedding/working). On a surprising twist of fate, he seems to be having a change of heart after everything he did. Could this be genuine? I really hope so. However, I have seen that before with XG3E as well, and immediately afterwards, he ended going back to the customs of milking the "Touhou mommy" format he created/made popular. But, like the very naive person I am, I would really like to believe this is actually a change for the better, and that I could give him a second chance. (also oh no, he knows about some of my threads from the past. If things really have changed, I would like to apologize. It is just that some of the early claims really left a poor taste for some of the people) Good luck to him, and hope next time I will mention the name of BlankGuy, it will be in a positive context ... then there is this image talking about how the players of a specific Touhou fan game are not real Touhou fans (for context, LostWord player = fake Touhou fan)... ... and we are ending it with TheOVJM and his take on the same category of Touhou fans (and for a bonus already mentioned in the Google Doc thread) Anyway, some however say that anyone is welcome in the community, and as long as they enjoy any aspect regarding Touhou, you are part of the group. Some like the art, others enjoy playing the games or even like going for a challenge. Others have been attracted by the fan-games, or just love reading the official or fan-written manga. And some are just here for the porn. Given how vast Touhou is, there is something to satisfy everyone. Therefore, why are we so bothered calling people "primaries" and "secondaries" (terms which are still unironically used now, at the end of 2022)? Probably the best take I have heard until now in regards to the question has been that of the rising star in terms of Touhou lore content, GensouChronicle. Seriously, all my respect for the guy, he is doing such a great job covering a variety of topics, and I even made some references to him through the Memories of Phantasm review (spoiler: everyone is an S tier; in his eyes, everyone can be a Touhou fan) As a bonus, on a needlessly sensitive issue for the fandom, and a reason brought by some for branding people as real or fake fans (that of the Fumo and their recent rise in popularity), GensouChronicle had the following to say:

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).

It's been way too long from my previous post, so I think I should increase the pace. Therefore, I might be doing a double-feature today depending on how much content there is: Character introduction: Noriko Kurosawa General information (curtesy to the Amagami wiki): Noriko Kurosawa (黒沢 典子 Kurosawa Noriko) is a minor character of Amagami SS+ plus. Appearance: Noriko has short dark brown hair, brown eyes and an average size for her age. Personality: Not much is known about Noriko, but it is shown that she will do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She is shown to also be quite manipulative as she managed to get votes by pulling strings and using her fathers influence. She has some sort of rivalry with Tsukasa Ayatsuji as shown in the student council president election as she wanted Junichi Tachibana to be her vice president the same as Tsukasa. It is suggested that she has a crush on Junichi as she confessed and almost kissed him, but it is unclear if it was genuine love or just to get at Tsukasa. It is revealed that she actually likes Junichi to the point where she broadly reveals that she will use any methods to steal him away from Tsukasa, regardless whether it is morally correct or not. Age: 17-18 (new section) Role in the anime: Noriko played an important role in Tsukasa Ayatsuji's arc where she joined the presidential election for the student council and became a big rival for Tsukasa. She also assigned Junichi Tachibana as her vice president the same as Tsukasa who is dating Junichi. After losing many votes and losing to Tsukasa, she attempted a last ditch effort to raise initial votes by planning out a trap in which she confesses to Junichi an attempts to kiss him in front of Tsukasa to cause tension between their relationship. However, she saw through her trap and dragged Junichi away giving him a scolding for falling for it. After losing the election, Noriko is seen with her group of friends sulking and then shouting out the window that she will take Junichi from Tsukasa. And now for the art gallery: Illustration by woori (source: Pixiv - link does not work) Illustration by wiori (source: Pixiv - another illustration with restricted access) Illustration by takemi kaoru (source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/29626627) Illustration by wiori (source: Pixiv - restricted access image) Illustration by wiori (source: Pixiv - restricted access image) Illustration by wiori (source: Pixiv - I think this account may be completely restricted) Illustration by wiori (source: Pixiv) lllustation by wiori (source: Pixiv) Illustration by santa (source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/24393402) Character introduction: Kisato Romeo [we were supposed to have one more character in here; however, he seems to be such a cryptid that not even Google wants to show me anything related to him] End thoughts Looks like we are done with the characters list given by Danbooru. I did have to scratch the barrel quite a bit for now, and there have been some shortcomings with the final two characters. One may wonder: where have I been recently? It's very simple - I arrived home very tired last Wednesday from my long trip (so did not have the time to write anything), then I have spent 4 days on the whole issue about writing the Touhou Memories of Phantasm review after rewatching the whole anime, then Christmas came. Anyway, there is just one thing on which I would normally end this. We have gone through everyone revolving around the protagonist, yet have not touched the subject of the protagonist himself, Junichi Tachibana. Once I cover Junichi, I really wonder if I should stop here or keep writing. If I were to continue the character introductions, I would go into the two related works that still have some connection to Amagami: Kimi Kiss (another dating sim by Enterbrain; spiritual predecessor of Amagami) and Seiren (Original anime set in the same universe, nine years after Amagami SS). Both of these can turn into their own rabbit wholes, better to be kept in here however.