DB Scans
joined Jun 26, 2017
At least Touhou is not as bad as Pokémon is. The temporal inconsistencies of the amount Ash has done, even though he regularly meets or travels with other 10 year old who just started out and done nothing. It is mind boggling.
Touhou has actually been pretty consistent on how much time has passed. Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red and Symposium of Post-mysticism have dated News Paper Articles and Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia speaks about current events. There are 2 very interesting dates. A 2003 article about Remilia describes the Scarlet Mist incident as recent, the game EoSD was released in 2002. Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia does not give dates but speaks about the recent Lunar Invasion (LoLK 2015) and mentions of the recent election of Trump (2016).
This and many, many other articles show that Gensokyo is moving on the same basic timescale as the real world. We don't know the main characters age for certain but that means that if Reimu and Marisa were at their youngest 14-16 during EoSD, they would be 28-30 right now. I don't think their canon appearance is too for off how they would look. Sanae was a Highschooler when she arrived in Gensokyo around 2007. So 15-16, that puts her around 25-26. Heida no Akyuu we can get the closest to locking down a canon age, an article from Perfect Memento in Strict Sense gives her birth as August, 1994, so she is roughly 23. Akyuu we see age visibly, her early appearances are as a child to her current young adult appearance in Forbidden Scrollery.
Despite that, you might say they look a little young for their age, but that does have some in universe explanation. Gensokyo humans are described by Akyuu as being a step above outsiders physically on average for instance. The main human characters are all East Asian, they tend to look younger for a bit longer (not trying to be controversial). Also their pre-modern protein lite diets should make them I believe about 6" shorter on average than outsiders.
The big problem is the art, ZUN is a terrible artist himself and draws low detail characters for the main series shooters. The official fighting games and different books / manga are done by a diverse group of artist with different styles that ZUN contracts too. That means it is hard to stay consistent on small details. I guess we'll see how ZUN take age into account, time has been passing and there has been signs of aging but with the main human cast entering over the next 10 years of Touhou.
last edited at Feb 3, 2018 10:10PM
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