SasaMisa

Eulogous is definitely on the right track, you know, simply because there are so many different genres of fangames. Indeed, I often joke to my best mate that for every game, there's undoubtedly a Touhou version of it, and just by virtue of that alone, it will be 100% better than the original was. (#^_^#)

Definitely support the Meiling Appreciation Fan Club that seems to be gathering steam in this thread (I know my mate Chris would be totally onboard with it, so I get two tries okay), but Sakuya... can't say I ever went through a phase with her myself, Tenkko. Granted, her Stage 5 theme is awesome; easily the best tune in EoSD in my humble opinion. However, right from the get go, I took an instant dislike to her in Wandering Souls, not least because she appeared to have that big sister of the group vibe going on. I suppose it didn't help much that she was way underpowered compared to Reimu & Marisa either, something even Estheone admitted when I eventually pointed it out to him. (=^_^=) (It says わくわく / waku-waku on that Meiling GIF by the way, indicating she's trembling with excitement.)

Didn't we already have a couple of threads about this already? I recall the character hate one especially, because I said Komachi first of all, though my opinion of her has changed considerably from the time I originally played Wandering Souls and rage quitted over that damn annoying boat move of hers. Amusingly as well, despite both her & Aya not being among my favourites, both their theme tunes are - go figure. (^_^;)

That was in a very short period though, under three years, say, and I've probably put an equal measure of hours into Dungeon Master as well. Oh, and unless you're a super fan with a lot of time, money, effort and above all, space, maintaining and running old machines is way too much hassle. Just download WinUAE and play the games you want in emulation instead. (^_^) As for Metroidvanias: I was very tempted to play Ender Lilies recently upon seeing a thumbnail of it on StoneofTriumph's channel that initially had me thinking it was a Lily White game (don't laugh, the way she glows in all that desolation did make it appear to be her until you took a closer look). In any case, although the incredibly cutesy character definitely appeals to my sensibilities, the gameplay does not. Constant backtracking is not my idea of fun and it quickly got on my nerves in Dracula X. The fact you can't actually die in the game is kind of off-putting for me as well since there are no real consequence to failure other than a loss of time. (-_-) Wound up watching his playthrough in the end and giving The Vagrant a try instead, which turned out to be a much faster, more strategically orientated game with a lot less pointless bloody backtracking overall. Finished it on the hardest level of difficulty with no restarts whatsoever, which even impressed the original programmers when I told them I'd finally done it as it isn't one of the official achievements. (=^_^=)

Ah, I believe I already mentioned this in the Videogame Difficulty thread: Captive by Tony Crowther on the Amiga, although I did play the Atari ST version first. It was basically his homage to FTL's Dungeon Master, a game that really requires no introduction whatsoever to anybody my age. Heh, it's no exaggeration either to say that I've sunk more playtime into Captive than any other game I have ever played, undoubtedly more than 10,000 hours at this point. (#^_^#) For anyone that's interested, I did a fairly fast runthrough of the first mission a few years back for my channel:-

Heh, slowly turning to the dark side, are we, CVN? Well, it happens to all of us sooner or later, once you get past that period of ambivalence. (^o^) As to your question though, I can obviously only answer from my own perspective. Being a bona fide 二次コン/nijicon (someone who prefers 2D girls to 3D ones basically), I can tell you for me, it's absolutely different when it's a character you really like and care about. I believe we went into the reason why real porn often ends up being an empty and disappointing experience, simply because you have no connection whatsoever to the person on screen. Sure, you get the release, but you don't get any emotional satisfaction out of it, much like with casual flings in fact. Indeed, there is a world of difference between 'having sex' and 'making love', not that you can get so many people to admit such. (T_T) I suspected I was this way when I first clapped eyes on Flora from Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors around my late teens, although I obviously had no idea of the Japanese concept at the time. Truth be told, I've always found real girls unremarkable, but unlike my kid brother, who recently came out and admitted that he is asexual, I do have an extremely strong preference toward the female form, just often not the girl who is attached to it. I didn't truly accept it until I tried dating an actual Japanese girl in my late 20s, quickly realising I preferred the company of fictional ones. Tried again with an English girl in my early 30s mainly just to prove a point, and I've been alone ever since, not to mention infinitely happier overall. (=^_^=) I won't bore you with the long psychological history of why I ended up the way I did, but suffice it to say, an amoral cousin (called "Karen", funnily enough, before the word was even a thing); many bad female role models in my family; horrible girls at school, college, work, etc. undoubtedly played a large part. For sure, I am almost willing to bet that other nijicons would have a very similar tale to tell. It's also undoubtedly why I prefer much more chaste feminine characters, at least on the surface, since it's patently obvious my emotional development in regards to the opposite sex is stunted as hell. (^_^;)

I wasn't aware of this game on Steam, though I did buy Marisa's Marvelous Magic Shop a while back on dlsite... heh, except I never did get round to playing the thing. Even bought both versions, the Japanese original and the English/Chinese translated one, to add insult to injury. (^u^;)

Well, to be fair, CVN, like I said last night, I think most people undoubtedly get into Touhou through the music and the fangames - I certainly did with Wandering Souls, which was an extremely impressive combination of the two for sure. Granted, some people will come in because of the artwork, and yes, even material of an adult nature, but I highly doubt it's as high as 99%, probably not even a fraction of that. (^_^) I mean, 'Bousou-Get!' may have been the very first real Touhou inspired work I ever came in contact with, yet truth be told, beyond knowing it features Reisen & Eirin, I couldn't tell you much else about it since I've never actually read it. No, it was over 5 years after that before Estheone's game turned my head enough to get me into the series, so it just goes to show you how little influence H material really had on me back then. (^u^) Hmm, and that thread you cite regarding the Nature of Gensokyo looks like pretty heavy going too, but I'll check it out when I have a moment. (^_~)

Heh, ScarletScythe's not wrong there, you know, as I did freely admit when I initially joined this forum that my first real exposure to Touhou Project was indeed a Reisen dojinshi called Bousou-Get! (^w^) Anyway, you make some very interesting points, CVN, which I'll address in the newer thread now. For this one here, I'll just say that, at the end of the day, I don't believe this is something you are ever going to reason out, not until you experience it yourself. I mean, I had a counsellor in the past who tried to apply his fancy college-course logic to me and my whacky interests and we went in utter circles for almost 9 months in total... and it was only supposed to be for 6. I ultimately cancelled the sessons because we simply weren't getting anywhere. (-_-) It's the old iceberg phenomenon basically, as in only seeing 1/8 of what Japanese culture is really all about. Helen McCarthy went over this when asked about H material and she said what I always do: it's a cultural thing and you are not going to understand it. The Japanese themselves struggle with comprehending how people can be hikikomori, or marry characters like Nene and Miku, or walk around in public with an anime dakimakura instead of a real girlfriend. Nijicon really is inexplicable to the average person, making me recall what Angelica once said in Rugrats, "If you have to ask, you'll never know." I don't think there's much else I can say on the subject really. (^_^) -------------------- Now come on guys, I was kidding about Eiki as well - "Danzai!" and all that. For sure, we all understand these characters were horrific abominations originally in common fokelore, with her being akin to the Three Fates of Greek mythology. I mean, have you seen what a monstrosity a rokurokubi really is and would you say Sekibanki is in any way representative of that? Only the Japanese could turn something so unpalatable and frightening into, as Stevo the Human rightly pointed out, a game where lolis shoot each other in the face with lasers. (=^_^=)

D'ah, this topic is going way too deep into things for my tastes and I've just got better things to do than waste time discussing what amounts to little more than fap material at the end of the day. Porn has always existed and will continue to exist: it's only its form that changes with time. For my part, it's not difficult at all to understand why people prefer anime/manga characters to the real thing, especially in Japan, where it is taken quite a bit more seriously (adult manga/dojinshi are the epitome of erotica as far as I'm concerned, always have been). I mean, to cite an example, look at the difference between those cute meganekko/iinchou portrayals and Western bespectacled feminists... my god, the contrast couldn't be any more striking. (>_<) Incidentally, I will state that I've never been a fan of live-action porn; always found it obvious and vulgar, much like real women in general. Japanese AV is a little better, but still not a patch on the incredibly attractive characters these artists all create, including the more serious Western ones now (Rule34 used to be seen as little more than a joke by many). In addition, the various governmental/non-governmental organisations of the world have finally woken up to the obvious fact that the style of anime is clearly, overtly sexual, even when it's not trying to be that way at all. It's what you get when you combine the cuteness of Disney with an incredibly idealised version of the female form. I seem to recall someone saying this about Tenchi Muyo in the past, in that he wasn't sure whether he should be masturbating to it or not. (^_^;) Well, I'll leave it there anyway, though to lighten the mood somewhat, I'd just like to say that I'd be able to bribe Eiki with several big-titted images of Komachi, so I'll probably be fine in the afterlife, if there is one of course. (^u^)

Nah, you didn't anger me at all, CVN. I'm just kind of tapped out over the whole fictional abuse charade. As I declared in the general chat, I used to run my own H-manga/dojinshi site, so I've seen way too much of people getting all het up over what amounts to little more than fantasy at the end of the day. For sure, I was extremely uplifted when I read about Taro Yamada & Ken Akamatsu making a stand in Japan against the encroachment of this nonsense from the West, although I don't see that happening in my country anytime soon. No, we will continue to persecute people for having the wrong kind of thoughts while turning a blind eye to actual abuse because that's the British way. (-_-) Incidentally, I sort of know how things are in Romania from Vee's channel since he is always commenting on the absurdity that is American politics these days and comparing it to the way things are where he lives, often humorously citing what his grandmother would say. I'm actually apolitical myself - never voted my entire life and don't care about such things - and Agnostic, despite being designated Church of England when I was born if it means anything (I did go to Sunday School when I was little; even still have the Bible they gave each of us). Yeah, and ukiyoe woodblock prints clearly show Japan has never had a problem with nudity or sex. A lot of Americans in particular seem to think 'hentai' as they call it, a word that is never used to described such things natively (it literally means 'pervert'), is something they came up with quite recently. Western feminists also believe Japanese women are oppressed and suffer abuse from such material, which is utter nonsense because some of the best stuff I've ever seen is by women. I mean, Comiket itself was practically floated by them early on for heaven's sake! (*_*) Note: Shinto shrine maidens were the ancient equivalent of kanbanmusume, designed to attract new worshippers to the faith. In many ways, Reimu's seeming obsession with donations isn't so far from the truth, even though ZUN chooses not to dwell on the exact method that was used to get said donations. Getting into Buddhism a little more then, one thing that modern-day socialists don't understand is that nirvana is a personal journey to spiritual enlightenment, not a perfect society or utopia. Indeed, because it's a personal thing, nirvana can never be shared with anybody. Like I often say to my mate, Chris: my idea of heaven would be his idea of hell since the things we appreciate most in life are almost completely anathema to one another. Heh, me being a blatant nijicon into the loli, preferring the sort of scenarios you would find in an Enid Blyton storybook definitely wouldn't suit his appreciation for beer, heavy metal, and much more buxom ladies, I can tell you. (=^_^=) In closing, I would add that Nitori from Hopeless Masquerade perfectly depicts my attitude to life, which is precisely why she's my favourite character from said game. Me being a practical engineer and scientist, and pretty easygoing for the most part, I choose to believe most issues can be solved logically, even though that isn't always the case unfortunately. Many of the guys here have touched on the reasons this stuff exists (Japan being Japan basically, nonchalent to a fault) and have undoubtedly gone through what I did with Sailor Moon to varying degrees once they realised the original creators didn't entirely share their Western sensibilities. Not sure that totally explains why so many people are enamored with the girls from Touhou Project, but it works for me at any rate.

No, no, no!!! Not this damn crap again!! (T_T) How it is in Japan is exactly the way it bloody should be. People who obsess over the rights of fictional characters have lost their grip on reality and I for one am not going to get drawn into that argument again because it always devolves to hysterics. Lolis aren't people, they don't suffer abuse - stop listening to feminist lies and dogma! As for H material in general, we all go through an ambivalent phase: that's part of growing up and experiencing new things. Even I did with Sailor Moon when I was younger, deleting everything and not looking at a single image for around 3 months until I realised just how ridiculous it was. The Japanese don't care what Westerners think because they don't see adult material in quite the same way we do. It's merely okazu to them, masturbatory material... and yes, there's just as much of it for women as well, take it from me, so this is not entirely a male-centric thing either. (>_<) Christianity has taught us to view everything as a sin, yet Buddhism & Shintoism teaches one to embrace life's pleasures (you do know what shrine maidens like Reimu were originally for, I take it?). The Japanese also utterly embrace the philosophy of keeping public and private life totally separate, something Westerners seem to have no end of trouble doing, especially nowadays. Wear a suit & tie during the day and toil at the office; spend your off hours drinking lots of sake and banging young women in an image club who dress up as anime characters for you. It's a totally different world, that's all I can say. The way I see it, CVN, you have two choices: follow your own advice and chill out where this material is concerned, ignoring what you don't like and enjoying what you do, or run for office and attempt, no doubt unsuccessfully, to get it all banned. Personally, I'd recommend the former because the latter will deaden your soul, like it does with every prodnose who believes their life is the yardstick by which everyone else should be judged. Even Eiki wouldn't ban porn, you know, even if it was of her. (-_-) ETA: Oh, and I actually bought that game incidentally; it's by the same circle as Youmu Konpaku & Dungeon Of Lewd Creatures. Whatever you may personally think about the content of those titles, I've actually talked to the creator and he comes across as a decent, hardworking individual who sincerely cares about his productions. No-one is forcing you to buy or play them - you are as free to dislike them as I am to enjoy them. Let's just leave it at that, shall we.

Wandering Souls was the first Touhou game I ever played in late 2013, which then led to my mate showing me EoSD on his MAMEcade (it was also the first one I completed on Normal too). It is funny me using that initialism now so freely because back then, I had no idea at all what they represented when the titles of the tunes flashed up at the beginning of each section of that particular game, such as "PoFV - Spring Lane ~ Colorful Path" for example. Then again, you are looking at someone who had no idea a certain shrine maiden was the long-running protagonist of the series either. (^_^;)