Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating

[Goomba98]

That's because she wanted excitement, not pain, right?

[Sagus]

That's because she wanted excitement, not pain, right?

Yes. Fandom likes to do silly things though, so people used some of her more unfortunate phrasing ("Yes, get angry! Because if you don't punish me, Gensokyo shall be no more!") to create the whole masochist thing.

[Clarste]

She wanted to be the final boss though, so she was going into the whole thing aware that she'd get beat up. I don't like the "masochist" interpretation all that much, but it does make some sense.

[TresserT]

She's not *actually* a masochist, but the fandom takes thinns and exaggerates them. Like with Sakuya being flat in PCB but suddenly having breasts in IaMP (I think it was IaMP). Obviously it's cause different artists do different things, but it turned into a meme. Or Reimu being dirt poor- yeah in canon she's sometines greedy and sometimes wanting for money, but the fandom took it to the extreme to make her so poor she eats dirt.

Tenshi wanting to get beat up is canon, so the fandom took it to the extreme and it turned into a joke.

[Tiamat]

IIRC, from what Tenshi says in her own storyline, i's notable that until Tenshi's storyline, Tenshi was losing her fights on purpose too (at least according to Tenshi, when she's explaining why everyone beat her before but suddenly she's now able to beat everyone else all in a row).  This was in part due to her not being allowed to do TOO much damage or else she'd be breaking heaven's laws.

(though I think the aftermath of her fight with Yukari as shown by Reisen's storyline, the one time she probably did genuinely lose and actually is shown to be in pain, she doesn't seem very happy about it)

A lot of the fandom really does have some roots in canon, which is where they got it in the first place. It just tends to overexaggerate things.

[Clarste]

ZUN has an interesting desire to write fighting game stories where it makes sense that the final boss loses to like a dozen different people in a row. He does the same thing with both Kokoro and Sumireko, where it's canon that they lose every single fight until their own route. Although in their cases the rather simple explanation is just that they're weak at that point in the story.

[Tiamat]

Yea, by the time of Kokoro's storyline, she's "complete" (too complete, even), and for Sumireko, she's.... er... I forget.  Fully materialized in Gensokyo?

(in Suika Ibuki's case, everyones' storyline is a separate alternate universe from the others so canon-wise she wasn't a punching bag to everyone in a row.  Just Reimu.)

I did think it a nice touch that ZUN actually takes into account a being's power in his stories, and even the games considering his reasoning why the Watatsuki sisters aren't in them (...power comparisons which ironically we're not allowed to discuss specifics in detail on the forum because apparently people can't be trusted to debate factually, intellectually, and responsibly on such matters *eyeroll*)

[the old guy]

If the Lunarians are the heavenly gods of Shinto (Which they are), does that mean they need faith like any other deity? Or are they just a special case?

[Drake]

I think they get a free pass by being fundamentally cemented in Shinto.

[the old guy]

I think they get a free pass by being fundamentally cemented in Shinto.

That's what I thought, thanks!

I guess the major deities of other pantheons are still out there somewhere. Probably pretty different from how they originally were, considering the current state of gensokyo's deities, like Kanako being a former war goddess turned goddess of progress. For all we know Anubis could now be the god of furries.

[PK]

I always thought the big gods out there could make it with no need of faith, not because they are generally known, but because a good number of mythologies have the gods creating humans and the Earth, or at least being older than humanity as a whole.

[Electroll]

Was reading Yuyuko's profile from PCB and had some doubts in this paragraph.

The reason Yuyuko can neither reincarnate nor vanish is because of the seal on the Saigyou Ayakashi. Once the boundary is breached, the time that was frozen will continue to flow, resulting in her death again. Reviving the corpse will destroy Yuyuko's ghost, so it's no wonder that the near-success of the revival ended in inevitable failure.

If the youkai tree is unsealed, time will continue flowing and Yuyuko will die again? But isn't Yuyuko a ghost? How can she die again?

And reviving the corpse will destroy Yuyuko's ghost. Does that mean that she will get revived and exist as human Yuyuko or will her ghost just get destroyed and she is gone for good?

[Drake]

It's a kind of old translation. I'll get to it in the morning or something.

Basically the gist is that it's impossible for Yuyuko to break the seal on the Saigyou Ayakashi due to it being sealed partially with her corpse. If she was revived by breaking the seal, her existence as a ghost would disappear, which is why she was unable to complete it herself. She can't pass on to reincarnate (e.g. through a burial ceremony) because her body is in the seal, and you can't break the seal to get her body... without reviving her.

[ExPorygon]

Hi, sorry if this has been asked before. I read somewhere that the spell card rules were established just before EoSD and that the Scarlet Mist Incident was in fact the first time that they were used.

Is this statement supported by canon sources? Is there any canon information regarding the approximate time the spell card rules were established?

[PK]

It's said in Reimu's PMiSS article, under the "Vampire Incident" section.

[ExPorygon]

It's said in Reimu's PMiSS article, under the "Vampire Incident" section.

Ah thanks, that clears it up.

[CrystalCreation]

Not necessarily a Touhou question but why are mangas always drawn in this cheap looking black and white artstyle.  Are the production costs for colored mangas too high? But even mangas you?d expect to have a high budget don?t have color. Or is it a matter of printing cost? But then why don?t they just focus on publishing digitally?

[Drake]

Uhhhhhh...? I'm not sure how to answer this. Are these the first manga you've read? Like uh, yes. Printing color is expensive, printing on paper that allows color to be printed is expensive, and this isn't really a problem. If they were more expensive to make then obviously they'd be sold at a higher price as well. I'm definitely not sure how you get "cheap-looking" out of black-and-white halftone.

[MANoBadAssGar Jr.]

I remember when i was a kid, there was a Digimon Adventures manga, full color
but actually it's a screenshots of the animes printed on paper, not typical hand drawn. If i already know swearing at the time, i would probably have gone "what the shit!?"
I was pure & cute at the time (feel free to puke)
the paper used are.........seems to be photo paper
seems like the manga would be rather durable under extreme condition compared to the rest of it's brethern, what i mean by that is using the book primarily as a utility to hit someone physically. in the head would be a blast

edit : really quick search on google just now, i can't seem to find anything as proof to it's existence. Now i'm convinced that's was an illegal local product, some form of piracy. You probably can't even call that a manga.

by the way, it seems you can discuss this in the cafe section. i'm a bit "curious" myself

n.b. you can't actully order drinks in there tho

[Shadowlupus]

I want a confirmation about Reimu's Fantasy Nature.

Thai wiki basically says that this spell works like this: Reimu does not float away from reality to avoid enemy attacks nor she becomes invincible. She simply flys up in the air so high that opponent's attacks can't reach her.

While 無敵 literally means invincible and it is used in shooting games to describe a brief invinciblity state of a character after having been hit, it does not mean like that in this context. It simply means as above.

If Reimu is invincible why would she have to float upwards?

...That's the gist of it.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Imperishable_Night/Spell_Cards/Last_Word

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/The_Grimoire_of_Marisa/Reimu_Hakurei%27s_Spell_Cards

Can anyone confirm this? By the way, don't look at English script for references cuz I have edited them a year ago. My mistake.

[PK]

Dunno, by english translation GoM seems pretty explicit in saying how it works: she closes her eyes, then goes into an "opaque invisible" state and becomes impossible to hit while also shooting automatically. Nothing 'bout flying away out of reach.

[Drake]

Hey this was an example I was supposed to fix but never got around to.

As you've already guessed, it makes no sense for Reimu to uh fly really high. It doesn't reflect anything about the actual in-game attack at all, nor does it match with GoM. To begin with, why would Reimu become any harder to hit by flying up anyways? Everyone can fly. The term 無敵 wouldn't even be used in such a context; you'd probably say something else.

Claiming that she only flies up really high, from what I can guess, is mostly an attempt to detract powerlevel arguments and craft up a scenario in which the translation doesn't actually mean they're that broken. I can in some ways appreciate the sentiment by whoever was thinking that way, but they let that mentality color how they read the text to the point where they basically just translated poorly. I can't condone that.

For comparison, there's the now-infamous passage in SDV due to which people conclude that Eiki has super powerlevels. This is only supported by a very literal translation that doesn't take into account any context or the characters involved. I try to take care to kill this belief that Eiki is ""stronger"" than other very powerful characters because that isn't what's supported by the text. However, something like the LoLK interview where ZUN states that Hecatia is beyond what we've seen in the series already: that's totally okay. She just is. Instead of trying to manipulate translations to change this powerlevels narrative, people should instead just discourage the discussion altogether because it's stupid and pointless and fundamentally undermines core elements of the series.

[Shadowlupus]

Ah, I see. Thanks.

...And three years ago and still now, they accused us of misinterpretation and spreading false information when they are the ones, Oh the irony and hypocrisy!


However, at least Thai wiki is right about "Eiki is stronger" thing, they translate that as "cannot oppose/defy" as in cannot win in an argument. And they also agree that Hecatia is the strongest in Touhou universe, for now.


I have three last comments I want to share/confirm. It was posted a month ago on their Facebook group:


1. It's not sure whether Remilia really flies around the Moon in SSiB manga because she was bragging at that time so "Remilia can fly around the Moon in a short time" shouldn't be used as a reference in her profile in our wiki.


2. "Remilia's ability is not what she can control with conscious volition. To simply explain, Remilia is like "the thing beyond fate" so meeting her may result in an alteration of your original fate such as; Remilia talks with you, as a result, you go to work late. Remilia cannot control people's life or death as she wish."

For reference, this is an excerpt from PMISS Remilia's profile Thai translated.

"The ability to manipulate fate can lead to an alteration of the fate of those near her, whether she realizes it or not. It is said that if she greets you (with voice), your way of life can be changed greatly. it seems that at first she may be more likely to find rare things."

and this is ours, by the way, I didn't do any editing.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Remilia_Scarlet


3. I may have said this a year ago, with almost the exact same day but I figured that the example I gave that time was not good so I came up with better ones.

Thai admin said that adding ! when there isn't one completely changes character's tone. For instance;

Marisa said some ridiculous thing like Reimu should give up her works and sell her shrine, Reimu responding "Are you crazy?" and "Are you crazy!?" are two different things; The former is just Reimu feeling incredulous and disheartened, sighing but the latter is an angry shout.


Does any of that make sense? Thanks in advance!

[Drake]

1. Absolutely. Remilia is completely the type of person to say "I just flew around the moon, but I did it so fast you probably couldn't see me", while not actually moving at all.

2. Assuming that her ability exists, it would still be too much to say that she can't control it, but rather it's unknown whether she can or not. 「本人は意識してかしないでか、」 is pretty clear on "whether she's doing it consciously or not", not "she doesn't do it consciously".

That being said, personally I'm not even convinced Remilia's ability is real, for reasons the same as the above. Especially if you read her PMiSS article, it's very specific on using language that is purposefully vague and non-committal. Whether she does it on purpose, to what extent it may or may not affect you, being more "likely" for "something" to happen, that there's no way of knowing whether it occurs or not, etc. It's the pinnacle of being able to claim you have an amazing power while also having it be impossible to disprove since you can claim anything was twisting fate after-the-fact. The specific example you gave of "Remilia talks with you, as a result, you go to work late" is especially funny to me because it's exactly an example where it's vapidly true: she talks with you and distracts you long enough that you're late. Anyone can do it, but she can say she manipulated your fate. Like duh.

3. It depends on a few things, but I'd agree that ?! instead of ? can suggest a different tone. In manga, character expression, fonts, dialogue box shapes, etc are also important cues, beyond the literal vocabulary and wording used. ZUN is pretty good at explicitly adding exclamation marks in dialogue and otherwise establishing the mood through dialogue boxes and font choices (assuming those are his decision, which is likely), so I don't really think this would be a problem besides some edge cases.

[Shadowlupus]

Thanks for the answers! For the second one, I thought as much that the example they give was hilariously obvious.

Wow,...that means Thai folks soil our community and wiki's reputation for almost absolutely nothing! 90% of the insults (some were legitimate criticisms) are now attributed to their own false interpretations, language elitism and blaming us for it! That's how Thai community rolls, people.

Anyways, thanks for clarifications as always!

[Electroll]

It's a kind of old translation. I'll get to it in the morning or something.

Basically the gist is that it's impossible for Yuyuko to break the seal on the Saigyou Ayakashi due to it being sealed partially with her corpse. If she was revived by breaking the seal, her existence as a ghost would disappear, which is why she was unable to complete it herself. She can't pass on to reincarnate (e.g. through a burial ceremony) because her body is in the seal, and you can't break the seal to get her body... without reviving her.

Let say, if someone like Yukari goes and unseal the barrier, will Yuyuko be revived as human form and the youkai tree being back? Or will Yuyuko's ghost just disappear and Yuyuko's corpse just lie there dead?

[Drake]

I don't think there's enough detail in the setting to say. Like a lot of things written in that era, there's only just enough explained to lay a foundation for the setting, but not really enough that you can start looking into it that deeply. If anything, the level of detail needed to answer that would have been put in the BAiJR~PMiSS era works, but I don't think we can glean enough to say much.

[TresserT]

What's the relationship between youkai and human fear? Are they like gods, in that they need humans to constantly fear them in order to continue existing? Or do they just need fear to come into existence, then once they exist they can exist independently? Or am I off the mark altogether?

[Drake]

Hm, rather than me explaining it, read the latest chapter of Forbidden Scrollery that came out just two days ago and was translated just today? lol
http://bato.to/reader#467c942d4eca2a8a

[Lt Colonel Summers]

Spoiler:

Yukari personally going to meet Kosuzu...

Interesting...