That being said, I'm still surprised Youmu lost, but it shows that much like the Touhou itself, there many more games to play in the future.

Youmu actually did win. Remember that each of the Four Senses have to be called "-sama" by everyone, and at the end, Yuyuko called Youmu "Youmu-sama".

She lost, but won Yuyuko's recognition. Barring a complete mistranslation, I see no way to interpret Remilia and Patchouli's conversation as Remilia ultimately losing.

No, she won. Or else what is the last panel supposed to mean or imply, especially since the manga's author talked about the significance of the last panel and how it was planned ever since the series started, in response to someone else talking about the last panel revealing the winner of the tournament? Not to mention that Yuyuko is the very last person that could call Youmu "-sama" in normal circumstances. In an earlier post I also brought up how with that in mind, it was likely that Patchouli was talking about an alternative outcome and way that Remilia could have won rather than what had happened in reality.

Patchouli's conversation with Remilia was an implication, but the last panel is pretty much the direct confirmation that it was actually Youmu that won.

Literally what about Patchouli's dialog sounds like a hypothetical? Yuyuko using -sama to show that she considers Youmu the winner regardless of the actual result is waaaay less of a stretch. And if that's not typical of her, yeah, that's the point. Youmu proved herself by getting as far as she did.

Saying that someone is skilled enough to do something is not a synonym for saying that they in fact did it. "Only you could have pulled such a move" is not a synonym for "You did pull that move". Especially since she used words like "were you able to" and "could".

That interpretation about Yuyuko using -sama for that reason, in this context, has no basis on facts and does not remotely have weight compared to the fact that at bare minimum, the last panel heavily implies that Youmu won the tournament considering the author themselves talked about the significance of the last panel in response to a reader saying that the last panel confirmed the tournament winner. And it checks out with the whole chapter being vague and "hiding" the results of the tournament until then. Not to mention it also checks out with Youmu losing the motivation to play well considering winning the tournament in order to get praised by Yuyuko was the only reason she participated & she was uninterested otherwise. No part of this is a stretch.

last edited at Sep 29, 2024 12:20AM