/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>17009632
>Touhou
>Dark

Come on I'm not sure if you're trolling, a crossboarder or both.

>>17009683
Seriously, you can't tell me that some of the themes in here aren't pretty dark.

Flandre Scarlet got stuck in the basement for like, 400 some years. That's hellish.
There's like, a shitload of insanity. Hecatia is a hell goddess, yeah, she's not too dark herself, but seriously? A Hell goddess? That's still kinda dark.

The style in which it's portrayed is hella defusing though, it really takes away from the potential edge. It's very cutesy; all the fanworks are very cutesy, everything about the aesthetic is cutesy, but the underlying everything has some crazy dark implications. Have this adorable Youmu, though.

That's like calling Umineko dark just because people die in it.

>>17009712
Eh, not really the same. Though, now that I consider it, it's likely because the source material is very dark. Eastern mythology is pretty wildly dark and out there.

Seriously, though, I mean, everyone is some kind of demon, or ghost. Maybe it's a cultural thing, maybe in Nipland they don't see demons and ghosts as dark?
And demons and ghosts are never dark if you make them look like pretty girls.

I just can't help but get a dark vibe when I really read into it. Yuyuko committed suicide, and she has the power to just straight up make people die. She tried to become a fucking lich, dude.

Because pshh... get used to it... kid.

>Is there something deeper to it that I'm missing?
On the contrary, you have overanalyzed it already. Don't let the Grimsoukyou fanfic types lead you down that path.

>>17009853
get proved faglord

>>17009853
>>17009889
Listen, I'm not arguing that it's GRIMDARK or something, just that it's much darker than it's outward aesthetic would have one believe. That screencap is valid in the point about the in-game dialogue; there's some pretty fucked up shit in Touhou that you don't even need to read between the lines for.

>>17009899
Read the Fairy Mangas and learn something.

>>17009889
1) True!
2) Opinions
3) All the in-game dialogue is bantz
4) Not particularly relevant, since while Touhou is based mostly in Japanese mythology, it's still its own world in the end.

>>17009938
I'm not denying that a lot of the world is cute and innocent, my dude.
All I'm saying is that there's some crazy dark stuff and that the aesthetic doesn't always match.
Fairies are cute and innocent, of course.
Liches, suicide, Hell, undeath... not really cute and innocent.
Mokou and Kaguya got together and fucking murdered each other for 300 years straight. Like, holy shit. What is that all about?

There's certainly darkness in Touhou, but it's never the focus.
Just imagine it as a painting, it's a nice cute picture.
It's just the frames are the bones of the ancient dead, only because things used to be done that way.

I don't know about Forbidden Scrollery though, we're rapidly running out of paint and may have to substitute it with human blood.

Why are some people so upset at the idea that slightly less than cute stuff happens sometimes in touhou?

>>17010684
Nobody is. Make your strawmen less obvious if you want to have a serious discussion.

>>17010801
I am being serious you pretentious fuck.

>>17010618
>>17010684
I think maybe it's one of the beautiful things about this series, that you can feel it in so many different ways.
There are some people who believe Gensokyo is happy and good, and all the bad things that happen are just shenanigans.
Then you have people who go for the dark fantasy, hardcore mythology aspect and see it as a much more grim series.

And the wonder of it is that the art is so pretty and cute and anime-ish, but the stories themselves, if they didn't have that art on top of them, would be extremely dark.
I think that's beautiful, honestly. It may be why the fanbase is so large.

>>17010684
Because that interpretation is popular, and therefore bad.

>>17009742
On the flipside you have youkai that lick toilets or steal lifeballs from human butts.

The Japanese occasionally had a sense of humor at the time they were creating the folklore and myth and I think ZUN does as well.

The serious backstories and dark undertones are just fodder for danmaku, banter and drinking parties.
Conceptualizations of evil and fears and otherworldly nature that have persisted since man crawled out of the muck are deconstructed and given form as outwardly non-threatening little girls.

It's black humor in a way, taking serious things like death, disease and everything grim and making it funny.

>>17009632
>why is the aesthetic so... adorable?
juxtaposition makes everything better

>>17010981
Then you get ones who are becoming waifus and marrying humans and having half human kids.

>>17009632
The darker elements of Touhou are not readily apparent in the canon works, and are usually implied rather than explicitly shown. Touhou's artstyle reflects the more apparent lighthearted feeling of Touhou, which only serves to disguise the darker themes underneath. Perhaps, a cute aesthetic serves to juxtapose the darker elements, playing into one of the biggest themes in the Touhou series, the contrast between opposites, the borders between them, and how they intermingle.

Or ZUN just really fucking loves cute things, whatever.

>>17009632
>why is the aesthetic so... adorable?

Because all the yokais, monsters, and abominations have been turned into cute girls in pretty dresses, not that hard to figure out.

>>17014692
No one thinks you're funny

>>17014770
I don't think he was making a joke.

>>17009632
That's how they get outsiders like you.

>>17009632
Besides SA that really has a sad plot around Satori/Koishi and LoLK that is a fucking space opera. Touhou is pretty much just cute girls throwing rainbows at each other because one of them is doing bad things.

Don't let the fanficfags tell you otherwise.

>>17015464
Nothing bad ever happens in Gensokyo!

>>17009632
Just because bad things sometimes happen in the setting doesn't make it "dark". Touhou isn't really any darker than the average book of children's stories.

>>17015840
Youkai eat fear though. The food comes from the village, and if the humans start getting ideas like "youkai ain't shit", they're gonna starve.

>>17015867
Youkai eat humans as well. This is discussed multiple times throughout the series. There is very little to even speculate on in that regard. The only thing worth questioning is if they actually need to eat humans.

And it's not like that's the only dark element in the series, we've got murder, suicide, soul eating monsters and conspiracies. Hell, the entire original story that came with the first print of DiPP was explicitly dark as hell, featuring several protagonists in what can only be assumed to be a modern Gensokyo being eaten or killed one by one.

>>17015907
>Youkai eat humans as well.
*Youkai will eat humans as well.
This is different from "do eat humans" or "has eaten humans in the last 100 years."

>>17015907
>And it's not like that's the only dark element in the series, we've got murder, suicide, soul eating monsters and conspiracies.

Also that's not dark.

>>17015987
>Killing people isn't dark
You've got a really fucked up perception of what is and isn't dark, anon. You don't have to be muh 40k grimdork to explore dark themes like, once again, death.

>>17015982
That's because the series rarely explicitly states that sort of thing, because that's not really the point.

Also I'm pretty sure you missed the point of the manga bit that was posted. The goal that the two were discussing was about humans from the outside, not humans from inside Gensokyo. They're discussing the Zashiki Warashi that had left for the outside world, remember?

>>17016012
I guess Mario is dark because you kill lots of goombas.

>>17016045
I mean if you want to get technical most games seem to imply that you just injure Goombas and the other enemies you defeat at most.

Also it's death within a different context, within a different setting, happening to non-human beings. Death in Touhou is typically treated as a serious thing, while death in the Mario games might as well not even exist. The only character I can even think of who explicitly died is Bowser, and he got magicked back to life shortly after.

>>17016045
>human = goomba

what did /jp/ mean by this

>>17016114
That the majority of Touhou fans are dumb weebs?
I'm sorry, dumb weeb is a redundant statement, isn't it?

>>17009697
>Flandre Scarlet got stuck in the basement for like, 400 some years. That's hellish.
no she didn't. she's allowed to move freely around her massive mansion.
> Hecatia is a hell goddess, yeah, she's not too dark herself, but seriously? A Hell goddess? That's still kinda dark.
It's not christian hell so not really.

secondary crossboarder confirmed.

look it ain't that hard, myth and legend is full of fucked up stuff but cute girls are popular. therefore if you want to make a story about folklore and have it be popular, you make all the stuff about youkai eating people or whatever framed by cute people

There's a fair bit of fucked up shit that happens yes, but the thing with touhou is that despite the darker stuff that happens, it's not a dark setting- combat is done non-lethally and yesterdays villains often end up as tomorrows friends. Its one where you can reason with people to solve things without violence. It's one where in general, things will work out for the better and people are usually good people- the hell goddess is arguably one of the most benevolent people in setting. The judge of the afterlife goes out to help people change their ways while they still can. You're always able to have a friendly chat with a new face in the human village.

Dark shit happens, but it's not a dark setting, people are still good and the tone of life in general is a bright one.

>>17016145
Not him, and while you're right on the Hecatia thing (since she's just a really high goddess), there's some truth in the Flandre thing.
>I've been sleeping in the basement.
>For about 495 years.
and
>I haven't gone out even once in the past 495 years.

>>17011994
>Or ZUN just really fucking loves cute things
Rule 15, anon. Everyone likes their corruption.

>>17017381
The anon that you're replying to is an idiot, but Flandre stays in the mansion on her own free will. The darkest thing you could file that under is emotional abuse, and that's only if you consider Remilia asking Flandre to not leave the basement as emotional abuse.

>>17009632
maybe a some kind of gap moe

>>17009697
>Flandre
maybe she just is a lazy vampire with the mind of a child

>>17009697
>heca
if we remited to the myth she is also the god of magic too

>>17009712
seacats are edgy in the sense of how something are show to the spectator (who is also a goat) like the corpses stuffed with candy

>>17009899
anon, to be fair this era is the least violent and fucked up of all times, back then these kind of shit are the bread of every days and gensokyo is frozen in 1885

>>17016114
>human = brick
even better

>>17009899
By that logic every single kids fairy tale is dark.

>>17023270
This is exactly the point we're trying to make.

>>17023270
A lot of them are.
Humpty Dumpty does not once refer to the titular character as an egg. It's just a nusery rhyme about a kid falling off a wall and dying. Not to mention things like Snow White, which features torture, and Cinderella, which features self-mutilation

>>17024483
>>17023272
So do you think Gochiusa is also dark because Chino's mom is dead?

>>17016405
Honestly I think of it in the exact opposite way. The setting is dark as hell. Survival at all costs for both man and youkai, people on both sides kept ignorant to the truth of their world, and laws set into the very fabric of reality to enforce the status quo.
But it's the people and their actions that break through the darkness. Fairies go play light-hearted pranks. Kappas are known for building machines before they are for preying on asses. Even the person that can blow up anything would rather just stay home and pretend to be a mahou shoujo.
There are exceptions, of course, but for every Mokou or Y!Kosuzu, you have five girls who are cute and bright. Even death, the primal darkness, is lightened by Yuyuko, Komachi, and Orin.

>>17024734
>lightened by Yuyuko
>tried to become a lich as said earlier in this thread
>tried to become a lich by draining Gensokyo's collective life force
>"If I ate Mokou, she'd be stuck in limbo and basically damned for eternity since she can never die"

>>17025028
Too green.

Modern Gensokyo isn't dark at all and you must have some kind of brain tumor if you actually think that. Or just a secondary I suppose.

>>17025285
It's pretty dark for ordinary outsider.

>>17025028
Yuyuko just wanted to rez someone, and had no idea it was herself to begin with. Quit being a grimderp.
Also, that's kind of what Mokou's state already is.

So how will HSiFS turn out to be dark? It seems light-hearted but I'm expecting a curveball.

>>17025422
suzy will show up

>>17025433
Suzy?

>>17025472

>>17025472
Not him but I'm guessing he meant Kosuzu. I'm also guessing he's wrong, as that would be completely out of nowhere considering how the demo played.

>>17025500
I suppose, though I'd honestly like another human main-antagonist of sorts, damn I miss Yumemi.

>>17009632

By your dumb logic, Gegege no Kitaro is dark as fuck - I mean, it's got ghosts and demons and a kid born in a graveyard! Bunnicula is pretty dark too - the bunny's a vampire!

You see it as dark only because you're likely a millennial ot thereabout, and therefore obsessed with 'everything as to be dark and edgy to have some cultural value' shill. I mean, have you even looked at the graphics, listened to the music and the inane dialogue? There is nothing dark about Touhou, not one thing.

>>17025524
It would be pretty nice, now that I think about it, but I doubt 2hu 16 is gonna be the game to give us that. Besides which, I don't think Kosuzu will appear in a main game at all; ZUN seems to be satisfied with leaving her in FS.

>>17025562
I could see Kosuzu in one of the spinoff fighters but not a main game. It'd just be nice to have another human boss sometime, Rika was pretty memorable in SoEW for going from a stage 1 boss to the Ex boss in the same game just by switching mechs, I loved stuff like that.

>>17025578
It's a shame that Engineer Madotsuki will never return.

>>17025582
The little slugger'll always be in our hearts at least. I'd kill for her or Yumemi to return.

>>17024565
Not them and I'm not part of this debate, but you do realize you're comparing a dead mom whom is most likely only rarely mentioned to
>a kid falling off a wall and dying
>torture
>self-mutilation
, right?

>>17024734
>Even the person that can blow up anything would rather just stay home and pretend to be a mahou shoujo.
Who?

>>17023251
Remember the original manual for SMB1 for the NES Had it being the bricks WERE people who were turned to that by Bowser.

>>17025433
Nah that'd undercut FS too sharply.

If the last chapter was akin to the GREAT FAIRY WARS SPECIAL that we had before it came out would be one thing but the last issue was in standard numbering and not a special so that plot will be resolved in Forbidden Scrollery itself.

>>17025780
Flandre, naturally. Both ZUN and Akyuu state she's a shut-in. The magical girl stuff is from the EoSD notes.

>>17025871
No it wasn't

I don't think I'd ever call Touhou dark even if it does allude vaguely to sinister things. We're never made to feel the presence of death, violence, or any real suffering in-game - just non-fatal laser fights and cutesy poo "I'm gunna eat you!!!!!" dialogue

>>17025893
But she really is mahou shoujo vampire.

>>17025893
what notes

Touhou occasionally has dark themes. However, Touhou as a whole is not dark.

>>17026283
>allude
>vaguely

>>17009632
When will humans remove the shackles that have been placed on them?

>>17025535
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sb-jztmdN8 The music is weirdly the darkest part of Touhou

>>17015840
never read any manga, what is this anon?

>>17009632
look at it from THEIR point of view...
how foreign do you u think 4chan's innocence might be kawaii AND disturbing at the same time to them?
They share many characteristics with humans. 23 [modified] chromosomes.
No doubt you've heard that we have descended from ancient aliens. Touhous obv. haven't become an episode cause it's TOO far out, even though millions of Otakus BELIEVE

>>17034319
Oh, btw, how does any of us know that all that manga that Meiling and the others in la-la land isn't based on imaginary HUMANS with strange powers
[strange to them, anyways]?

>>17034336
all that manga that Meiling and the others READ*
oops

>>17034319
>>17034336
>>17034347
Are you okay, man?

>>17009632
It's not that dark, but it's a good balance. The first boss you'll run into will always be a cute girl that looks like an innocent doll, but seconds later she will start talking shit about eating you, or you eating her, only for reimu and marisa to not take her seriously at all. So from the start you get the idea that there might be something wierd going on but it's always treated as dark humour and doesn't really feel threatening.
>but why did ZUN choose to present it in this manner?
Well I guess it's fun, and it needs to be since it's a game. The moe artstyle and general mood of a magical girl series, but with themes and action of myth, fairy tales and religion (which half of the time are pretty dark and macabre) to spice things up. Although to be fair, even before stuff like madoka, plenty of magical girls series could get pretty serious too, from time to time.

If anything touhou is missing the sexual part that plagues folklore and religion (magical girls too), but I guess ZUN left the fans in charge of that part.

>>17015860
Well after disney not many bad things happen in children stories, and the original versions are considered darker now. Like the little mermaid dying of sorrow is a bad end, and the wolf eating the grandma or the pied piper drowning the kids is too much for children.

>>17025285
>Modern Gensokyo isn't dark at all
Yeah it's not like Seiga is throwing dead babies at you the first moment you meet her. Nothing dark about Kisume, Yamame, Orin and Murasa in SoPM either, or that youkai body-snatcher decapitating horses in FS. How about the shinigami being allowed to throw the desceaed into the river among the monsters. Or Komachi, Yuka and Eiki in pofv constantly talking about the sinners underneath the cherry blossom trying to possess the lively, or about committing suicide and dying to poison, or the implication of people dying en masse outside the barrier? What about Moku and her situation being despairingly depressing? Or the general oppressive image FS and WaHH have been painting?

>you must have some kind of brain tumor if you actually think that. Or just a secondary I suppose.
How hypocritical.

>>17034947
Yeah but the grimness of those examples is never really felt

>>17009632
What

>>17025028
You're not very bright, are you?

>>17025028
I think this is the part you meant to post.
And yeah, it's pretty fucked.

>>17036017
>"Lady Yuyuko can invoke death in humans."
>not dark
You're not very bright, are you?

Whats with all these rainbow babies here? Mention of deaths, and that in banter too, doesnt make it dark. Have you ever not read or watched anything that isnt cute little anime girls bumbling around?
I fail to see how any of this >>17037013
>>17036991
>>17034947
is dark.
No one is dying or suffering, they are just talking about what might happen, and that takes a tiny part of the dailogue.

>>17037013
This is your standard for darkness? A painless death? When there's so much about Touhou that is way darker?
Hell, I don't even have to leave the subject of Yuyuko, since her ability to control the dead spirits seems much worse.