Y-Yakumi Sarai... cowers in fear

Hm, mid-tier Zounose, I'd say. A fairly decent concept (how human-youkai relationships have changed), but wrapped up in a lot of nonsense (food) that distracts from the main point

Well, gensokyo was built so that youkai who were ceasing to exist in the outside world could continue to exist. So yea, humans are just food in gensokyo. Both literally i guess and in the sense that their belief/fear can sustain the youkai. lol.

Interesting story, still beggar's chicken is similar in concept with Hangi only that's bigger.
Well at least Youkai can cook.

last edited at Apr 2, 2018 5:11AM

Ghoul Pals

A fairly decent concept (how human-youkai relationships have changed), but wrapped up in a lot of nonsense (food) that distracts from the main point

Food recipe stuff not thematically relevant but darn they're drawn well. They look delicious and are described in mouth-watering detail so I'll accept it. Also upon first read at least, the way those scenes are carried out add an element of uncertainty as to whether it is human meat or not. Definitely carefully prepared presentation.

Yukari's lines about how it's the fear that adds the flavor was perfectly placed. Quite a dramatic lead-up to strike the point that it's the end of an era.

I find it amusing that Yakumi laid the story out like a typical Touhou game with six stages. They also included the increasing story relevance and importance of characters present in the games which I liked. Decent framing narrative, showing the old man's view after each "boss".

One thing I wasn't sure about was whether Orin should have gotten to the soul first, because unless the exterminator had already been judged for hell in such a short time, he shouldn't have been her domain. Should have been the shinigami's. Also felt like Zounose used some pretty random characters who weren't all the most appropriate. Meiling and the DDC trio stick out the most. But, thinking about how they've presented Meiling in past doujins, I guess it's not that strange. And Sekibanki is an interesting case of human-youkai relations.

I really appreciate how Zounose always keeps Touhou themes in mind. They're not always what ZUN focuses on most, but they're natural extensions of canon, exploring how Gensokyo operates.

Really good! creepy and deep but really good!

Yeah sometimes I forget this side of Touhou. Gensokyo, the dark land of fantasy where the youkai still roam, preying on humans.

Though there is evidence of change, of hope that that Gensokyo is slowly becoming a thing of the past.

last edited at Apr 2, 2018 10:11PM

Beggar's chicken wrapped up in mud? That's super old school.

One thing I wasn't sure about was whether Orin should have gotten to the soul first, because unless the exterminator had already been judged for hell in such a short time, he shouldn't have been her domain.

She might've stolen the soul. She does that with bodies as well, though in this case it seems everyone else voluntarily left the bones for her.

The youkai all using modern techniques to cook human meat and ignoring him unless attacked first is a nice contrast from the hyper-traditionalist "kill-em-all" mindset of the exterminator. The only youkai that seems to even match up to what he expected of them is Rumia, who just straight up attacked him. Every other youkai seemed to have just been standing around minding their own business when he jumped them. From his point of view, he might've felt he got pitied by Yukari. I feel he might've gone on his little suicidal crusade to try to find evidence to validate his mindset. It's a little sad for the times, even the youkai, to pass by you and make you feel irrelevant.

Mmm mmm mmm...

Just like mama used to make.

The youkai all using modern techniques to cook human meat and ignoring him unless attacked first is a nice contrast from the hyper-traditionalist "kill-em-all" mindset of the exterminator. The only youkai that seems to even match up to what he expected of them is Rumia, who just straight up attacked him.

Got to love Rumia's razor shark teeth.

Rumia's entrance was ironic because of his traditionalist mindset. All that time he'd been wandering around, fighting random youkai, trying to defeat them, and they all beat him and take a portion of his flesh as a prize. They leave him alive instead of killing him as they might have before. And then Rumia shows up, and he's completely caught off-guard, losing the worst to a bottom-tier youkai. His ideals which have sustained him for so long are now so useless he only stands a chance against the more 'civilized' youkai, who are willing to pity him. What a humiliating fall.

That's part of the point for this guy though. "Humans still resist. Look, even I'll keep on until my last breath..." His single-minded nature, unable and unwilling to let go of the border between humans and youkai. It's what leads to him being beaten up so terribly, because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy where he attacks youkai because he thinks they're bad and of course they attack him back, showing they're bad, but it also earns him a type of respect from them, because his fear is their ideal.

Now that he's gone, the youkai are weaker, and for better or worse, they've all accepted it.

From a writing standpoint, Zounose's capturing of finality is perfect.

I have to say though, I'm a bit creeped out by Marisa's total nonchalance. Even if it's more Reimu's job to uphold human ideals, I would have still thought Marisa would be more connected to humans than she is here. I think it's probably just Zounose's interpretation of her, because she's sort of the same in Magic of Isolation, where she is a magician before a human, when viewed from the outside.

last edited at Apr 3, 2018 2:40PM

Marisa's nonchalant about everything. Plus she hangs out with youkai all the time partly as a result of not wanting to live in the human village in the first place. I think she makes a good observer, if that's even the right way to put her role here.

Marisa's nonchalant about everything. Plus she hangs out with youkai all the time partly as a result of not wanting to live in the human village in the first place. I think she makes a good observer, if that's even the right way to put her role here.

I think I was just expecting more of a reaction to a human being devoured piece by piece, regardless of what sort of reaction that is. She's surprisingly passive here and I envision her as being a bit more bombastic and proactively taking action, because she's very straightforward and simple in that way. That's her defining trait in practically all of the character profiles, on the same level as having a "mania for collecting things". The way she was presented in Magic of Isolation rubbed me a bit in the wrong way for the same reason.

The reason she doesn't live in the human village is because of a fallout with her family, so it's not directly about not wanting to be around humans/preferring to be with youkai. She's not like Reimu either, who treats everybody the same. I would actually associate hanging out with youkai more with Reimu rather than Marisa, because that's a canon element where youkai seem to be attracted to Reimu. And the person Marisa actively seeks to and does hang out with the most is Reimu, a human.

In addition I think Marisa does give some preferential treatment to the idea of being human, with her insistence on being an ordinary magician. She might not particularly care about this random old man, just as she wouldn't care about any random youkai, but I would just expect more of a reaction of any sort, even if it was, "ah that's sort of gross" or "guess it was his time".

That's mostly Zounose's take on it. Though there are elements of that sort of odd morality here and there in canon, particularly in Wild and Horned Hermit. Humans and Youkai are shown to be pretty anti-thetical to one another in canon, and Gensokyo's existence is predicated on their mutual antagonism. Zounose, however, showcases the more traditional youkai-ish traits pretty blithely. In canon Yukari abducts people from the Outside, who are "free game" for the human-eating Youkai, and the humans pretty much don't give a shit. This is one of those things that Zounose has latched onto and basically never let go. Probably as a sort of authorial protest to "super happy-times Gensokyo, even though they're populated by unrepentant cannibals and an equally apathetic human population".

last edited at Apr 3, 2018 9:16PM

I won't disagree that there is odd morality at times. It sort of goes along with the 'everybody's weird in Touhou' rule that seems to exist because common sense doesn't exist in Gensokyo.

In canon Yukari abducts people from the Outside, who are "free game" for the human-eating Youkai, and the humans pretty much don't give a shit.

The vampire entry of Perfect Memento in Perfect Sense states in a footnote that those abducted people are "those whose deaths are of no consequence (suicidal, etc.)." I'm not sure I agree with what counts as people of no consequence, but it's the rationale for why this practice is okay; they're essentially people who are already marked for death, regardless of what Yukari does. Also, either because of the vampire contract or the spell card rules, youkai are actually not allowed to eat natives anymore, and I think the natives don't see outsiders as being the same as them.

Humans and Youkai are shown to be pretty anti-thetical to one another in canon, and Gensokyo's existence is predicated on their mutual antagonism.

They are? I would like to see examples of that, because everything I've seen indicates while their very natures might be different, they are far more cooperative now than ever, after the implementation of the spellcard rules. And while their natures are still different, they have become more and more like each other in Gensokyo. The PCB prologue hints at that, and it might be stated more explicitly elsewhere too.

About the second part, Gensokyo was separated from the Outside World because youkai were being forgotten by humans who put their faith not in gods or the supernatural but in science and rational thinking. The beginning of Gensokyo started less through mutual antagonism, and more as a desperate bid for survival. I will concede though that youkai need to eat humans/human fear to survive, and that necessity is fulfilled by antagonism, fighting each other, even if it's through nonlethal danmaku.

So it's not a perfectly happy peaceful world by any measure, but it is and has been described essentially as an utopia for the time being. Zounose likes to play up the human/youkai tension, which does still exist, but I think ZUN has focused just as much if not more on the Lunarians, on gods and faith, and the border between fantasy and reality.

last edited at Apr 3, 2018 10:33PM

Shiet, creepy... >.< But quite imaginative I must admit. :)

Can I just say, what an absolute badass that dude was, even after losing his hands and feet, challenging Yukari fucking Yakumo to a fight