/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I don't know or care about any character newer than touhou 10

>>43494591
Yeah. I just need some pills every so often.

no, touhous have only ever been mean to me

>>43494591
Yes. I get to talk to Reisen when I don't take my pills. She is very courteous and comforting to be around. She got me into tea drinking and I'm not talking about the bagged shit.

>>43494591
To me? Yes

I still like the touhou

>>43494591
>>43496093
Let's all drink tea anons, thanks to Touhou for getting me into European culture and 500 year old children

Touhou is dead. Glowniggers killed it.

>>43496907
Ok let's drink

>>43497077
Glowies? What did they do?

>>43496907
>European culture
But most of them drink coffee?
It's only really Britain and the slav countries that drink all that much tea, although when I was in Germany I was able to get decent tea fine enough, it's not really all that common.
Which is fine, they can have their filtered mudwater and I can have my pure and clean beverage.

Touhou is kind to me. Worryingly kind, like the "I'll be polite so this guy goes away quickly" type of kind, or the "I gotta be extra nice to my husband so he doesn't figure out I'm cheating on him" kind.
I should start acting out so they'll be mean to me, like a normal! I won't wash my dishes! I'll forget to take the trash out! I'll leave the milk jug just barely filled and keep it in the fridge!

>>43500463
What

>>43500476
I won't return my shopping carts!
I won't tip the waiters!
I WILL throw my trash on the side of the road!
I WON'T seed my torrents!
I'll ask for minor, but inconvenient amounts of cash and constantly blow off paying it back!
Is your kindness real? Can you still be nice to me under these circumstances? HUH? HUH?

>>43500532
I think you're a masochist

>>43494591
I don't really find the new games fun, I hope for the best with 19, but the demo is buggy and not fun. I really enjoyed 4 through 8 and some of the later ones like UFO.

>>43500319
the scarlet mansion is european...?

>>43501622
I just find it weird when (Presumeably) ameicans "discover" european customs and freak out about regional shit when you can find most of that stuff over there by european colonial descendants.
I mean, i'm not american, but you can find european stuff over there just fine because that's the overwhelmingly dominant source of american culture, just mixed up a bunch.
Hell, american food from ~100 years ago is pretty much what my grandparents ate, just with notably more meat since they were poorish farmers. It's not really about europe having a different culture (although it does, just much less than is portrayed) as it is just looking for the heritage stuff that gets overlooked in the states because surprise surprise it's fallen out of fashion, wheras in europe because 90% of people's ancestors have lived in the same country for over 500 years more or less, the mixing of cultures hasn't happened and people's regional practices are still there because there hasn't been anything to replace it, stuff like eating a certain breakfast is overlooked by people who view that as normal, wheras a tourist/foreigner would notice that it's different and find it novel.


This turned into a rant, but my point is in there somewhere I think.

>>43494591
The only timeless thing about touhou is the music, but I do admit that the characters and setting in general is getting old and boring, i've moved on.

>>43500649
Somehow that dry response is worse than a brazenly harsh insult would have been.
I'll quit, I'm not looking for some weird erp, I was just poorly trying to bait someone wittier than me into saying something funny.

For something actually on-topic, I thought 18 was okay, but I was really hoping the rng rougelite mechanics were a one-time deal. I think ZUN recognizes, probably better than anyone, how stale the game's formula is by now, and is trying to combat that.
I'm very glad he's finally accepting outside help with sprites and stuff with 19, and it has the potential to be a good game. It just seriously needs more time in the oven, and I'm afraid it won't get what it needs cause he'll try to rush it into completion to sell it at a convention.

>>43501832
funny, for me it is the exact opposite

>>43496907
*Serves tea with aphrodisiac*

As long as ZUN doesnt make yuri ships canon, and i can still ship myself with my 2hu wives, its all good.

>>43502152
>tfw you will never have a reitaisai sign handpainted and signed by ZUN.
Why even live?

>>43494591
Yes.

>>43501832
I thought the same like 3 years ago and now I'm back to being a full blown 2hu autist.

Touhou is still good to me. The only official stuff I like is the music and playing the games, though.

My brain basically shuts off at any the story/lore stuff. It feels really dry, and to really get anything out of the lore I feel like I need a college degree in Eastern religion history. I don't go to Touhou for narrative, so I don't bother with any text/manga works either (sans a very small handful).
However, I do like video-based doujin work.

>>43502895
Why read so much into the lore though? Its okay to be a brainlet and enjoy things at face value, rather than condem yourself to wiki diving for a few hours each doujin

I'm in Japan and get to go to Touhou events nearly every week. Touhou in this aspect feels very Japanese-centric, in that if you can't go to all these events they have, you miss out on so much. It's made me realize that there really is more to Touhou than just one aspect, like the games or the music. It's everything, the sum of its parts.

>>43502926
Nah nah, I was saying that I skip all that stuff. I gave caring about the lore and print works a try, but I stopped trying to force it a long time ago. If ZUN ever makes me feel something, it's through his game/music design

>>43502968
Ah I see, although I don't know why you avoid the print works. They're a lot of fun and help characterize and explain some things

>>43502895
>>43502926
I think a lot of the reason that people still gravitate toward the original windows trilogy is because of this.
From MoF onward, the series became more and more saturated with very specifically Japanese myths and legends.
Let's take for example, Kogasa.

Kogasa is a karakasa obake youkai.
>What's a karakasa obake?
A Tsukumogami.
>What's that?
A tool that has been possessed.
>Oh, we have those in the west (kinda).
Not exactly, since they are possessed by a minor god who is angry at having been disposed of improperly, after a century of existence.
>... So it's a sentient umbrella that has a grudge?

Juxtapose this with say Yuyuko.

Yuyuko is an anthropomorphic ghost in charge of the netherworld.
>What's the netherworld?
Kinda like the afterlife, but for artists and poets.
>Oh, okay.

You see? Even one of the more "japanese" antagonists from the trilogy is pretty explainable without having to actually mention japanese mythology. I could do the same for Kaguya, and even Eirin to an extent. Not to mention the SDM is just straight up European, and given that Europe has had a massive influence on Jap pop culture, something like a vampire is immediately understandable enough to a Jap audience so they don't get left out either.

From 11 onwards especially, there hasn't been a whole lot in the way of really popular characters, since most of them are directly taken from Japanese/Eastern myth. LoLK is somewhat of an exception, but it builds a whole lot off of IN, and Junko is a pretty easily understood character in her motivations. Rabbits on the moon is kinda a non-sequitur, but suspension of disbelief does a good enough job of covering it for it to be as believeable as anything else, and there isn't all that much of a reason in the first place for it.

Additionaly, the 1st trilogy had some of the more outlandish stories.
>Red mist? Mansion appearing on the lake? Well, better go beat them up!
>Spring is like a whole month or two late? Got nothing better to do? Well, go beat people up until you find out! Oh, spring is literally being stolen? Well, go beat up the culprit!
>Moon is funny and my friend is bugging me to go with her and find who did it? Sure, why not! Let's beat people up until we do!

Compared to;
>My shrine is losing faith. There's a new one on the mountain. Guess I'll go beat them up!
It's a little too reasonable almost.
>UFO's appear in Gensokyo? Follow it and beat up people along the way!
Better, but it takes until the extra stage to find out what the UFO's even are.
>Spirits everywhere? Beat people up!
...What? How did you even find who did it? Yuyuko told you? I guess that works?
>Tsukumogami! Youkai are acting uppity!
Don't they always? And what the fuck is a Tsukumogami?

Etc.
And also there's just general character bloat, there just isn't all that much room for anyone that important anymore.
Most of why gensokyo is the way it is is explained. This fundamentally contradicts how it is supposed to be.
The whole existence of Youkai in lore is based on the unknown. But we pretty much know everything, and new content is *new* and self-contained.
There isn't that same level of disbelief suspension as there was before. Sure, you still end up finding everything out, but the formula has been boiled down too much.
Back in 2002, it was an excuse to get the story moving. Nowadays the story is the story. Half the time if no one did anything, everything would just fix itself eventually anyway.
Instead of vanquishing your enemies and foiling their plans totally, you are just sorta... there. Whatever was going to happen, happens anyway, and the heroines don't end up doing all that much in the grand scheme of things.

Now, if ZUN brought Mima back and had her attempt something comically evil, THAT'd freshen things back up a little.
He's fallen a little into the trap of making everyone likeable, when really they should all be assholes to each other, but understandably so.
I legitimately don't know what Miko does. I know the original trio usually just sit around and do nothing all day, but they are all really lazy and don't care all that much.
I don't even know what the 5th boss of TD was. I think it might have been Futo?
She is an asshat, granted, but not in a really charismatic way. She's just a bossy girl who preaches all day. Pretty much just Byakuren but they hate each other.
Their fighting is never really touched upon beyond just stating it and a few bits in the mangas.

My point is, is that the first three games were outlandish enough to get you strung along more.
They have good, unique characters, they are likeable without being Mary Sue's, even though their flaws are obvious and ever-present, and they all interact with each other well.
The newhu's don't have that as much. Not entirely absent, but they definitely lack a certain charm and mystery that used to be there.

>>43502991

i have to have a handle on the lore to care about the characters existing in a narrative -> i don't care about the lore -> i don't have fun reading the print works. it sucks a bit, but i can't get into them (and the more text-heavy works are even less fun bc well. attention span.)

>>43503171

good reply. also i'm glad you brought up miko. i like her at face value a lot, because she's got a cool design and a badass theme, but it's a bit of a bummer when i realize i won't fully get her the same way the japanese fans do. and i can research taoism, sure, but the idea of "every character and idea by now requires a seminar to get, unlike a japanese fan who will understand it much more easily" just makes it feel a lot less "fun." the idea of "not having the -same- fun" is part of what makes it unfun.

not that i dislike all games that involve heavy references to japanese culture. persona 4 heavily references mythology, but it also has a narrative and character arcs that can resonate with you without knowing the japanese creation myths, instead of feeling like "everything", and then usually presented in the dryest wiki formats of all time. and even the touhou plots i understand usually don't resonate with me on a personal level, so even if i understand the lore, it isn't going to make me "enjoy the story" more.

(long rambly lore and dense power explanations is also why i don't care for a lot of type-moon works, but that's getting offtopic lol)