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Which religion is the best?
This poll is closed.
Shintoism 59 9.58%
Buddhism 77 12.50%
Taoism 66 10.71%
FEAR CLOWNPIECE 414 67.21%
Total: 616 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
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Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

ElMaligno posted:

It was apparently announced here or at least that was the vast majority of people link to, as I don't understand a lick of japanese.
Yeah, that's definitely what it says. None of those tweets are directly from him though, but I guess he said it in that video closest to the bottom. I don't have time to watch the whole thing though, gotta go to work soon.

Also Touhou on Hachima's blog is always interesting because though he seems to like it, most of his readers (who are 2ch Games Industry and Hardware "GeHa" board people, not doujin game people) either know nothing about it or hate it.

In summary, Yamame is everyone's idol.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Mar 25, 2013

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Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
I wonder what he's going to say? Up until now, hasn't he regarded the entire outside world as merely an amusing novelty?

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Namtab posted:

"Please pay for my games", guessing by how most touhou fans operate.
Well, he also deliberately rejects the main way that people buy PC games in the West right now, by digital distro. Maybe he can meet halfway on this?

edit: whether he wants it to or not, the question is gonna come up many, many times in Atlanta I think.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
It seems to be Marisa day on Pixiv or something. This picture by Neko is pretty sweet.



Also I want to find more pictures of touhous with their silly hats converted into normal hats while still maintaining that color scheme and such.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
I only play easy. I haven't yet beaten stage 4 on a Touhou game on normal, even with all the continues in the world. Easy is my normal.

edit: wait I take that back, just once I beat Aya on normal and got immediately clobbered on stage 5.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Mar 28, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Aliginge posted:

I forget whether this was staged but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_aQiKoe-RI

Unreasonable Mechanism awaits smuggos
Well, it's staged in the sense that there's just this video that the creator (Yuke) uploaded himself, but I have this memory like he released at least some of his previous creations as actual games.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Cernunnos posted:

Edit: Marisa appears to be speaking in a dialect that Google Translate doesn't quite understand though.
Maybe she speaks Lappish, that would be loving awesome.

edit: Sami, rather. I guess Lappish is not the preferred nomenclature anymore.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Mar 30, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
It's already April Fool's Day in Japan so expect to see a lot of fake game announcements and stuff. The first one I saw is a remake of Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream.

edit: also that new "Zwatch" player is an April Fool's joke too...I hope.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Mar 31, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

HGH posted:

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about. The video player seems exactly the same as it used to be, unless you're talking about an actual game player.
For me, when I tried to play a video today it covered the video with a dialog box that said "do you want to switch to Zwatch?", if you didn't see that, be grateful.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Raenir Salazar posted:

Anyone else have video's where the song also juxtaposes a narrative in the background? I have Laugh Maker, Locked Girl, Chiisana koi no Uta.
I dunno if you meant to say "juxtopose" since that would mean a video with a contrasting meaning to the song, but in case that's what you did mean...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZENcO7tyy0

I couldn't find a translated version but rest assured that the song is not about a giant robot battle between Sanae and Alice.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Apr 2, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

TOO SCSI FOR MY CAT posted:

touhou music video challenge: find ones without crying, abandonment, or unrequited love

There's not a more emo group of artists on this earth than touhou PV animators.
To be fair though, unrequited love is like the #1 theme for music everywhere. As part of my studies I listened to music from minority languages all around the world, they were almost always on that subject. The video I posted above, that's what the song is about as well.

As for the challenge, I'd say it's too easy, my entire music bookmark list on Nico is full of those. But I have gathered over time that those are not the Touhou music videos people in this thread like. You guys seem to like serious ones, so of course they are all weepy and sad.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Apr 2, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
I guess I'll post this one for the new thread then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pliipmyHZQ

edit: most of the videos on my list aren't Touhou music so I guess they don't count.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Apr 2, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
On April 1st D-2 put up this video I assume as a joke, but it is less a joke and more awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1GFLsWPjjQ

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
What does the enemy AI do on PoFV Lunatic? Just stop being hit by bullets entirely?

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
For Reitaisai, Pixiv is having a picture contest, based on # of views broken down by game. The only remaining three are (from left to right) the main characters, EOSD, and PCB. My favorites have all already been eliminated...

edit: well, Koakuma is still good. She's by far the best touhou without a name.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Apr 5, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

JosephWongKS posted:

Koakuma is pretty cool, but "best touhou without a name" isn't too much of an accomplishment given that there's only one other competitor for the title.
Congratulations, you got the joke.

Seriously though I always liked Koa's design, very understated compared to most of the others. Though, other than the color scheme I guess it's mostly the work of fan artists and not Zun. Also there's the thing of her being a little devil and yet usually portrayed as one of the most reasonable and hardworking touhous (leaving aside the Koidoki interpretation I posted above).

edit: according to Carbon-shi (the Tohome Alone guy who is now doing all kinds of awesome stuff) she really likes action movies, especially Commando.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBp0dU3nsAk&t=403s

edit: it's Japanese heavy like whoa but I just love the art style on this video starring Koa, by Osakabe. She has a master plan to use her new stupid joke on Patchouli.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Apr 5, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

KataraniSword posted:

It's the first Touhou game that matters. :colbert:
Why do you have to make them so sad? You're like Sanae in this picture:



Speaking of which, Maku hasn't put out anything new recently, his latest picture is from last year. It's too bad, he draws the silliest things.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
They could be screwing with us all and any of those characters could be in the game as player characters too. It wouldn't be too hard to just take that sprite out of the background when someone is using one of those characters, I think.

I'm still hoping for Yuugi, what the hell good is she if she's not gonna be a fg character? And she has to carry that booze bowl in her hand at all times, of course.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Apr 13, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
As a soldier of fortune (or of looting), a religious war seems like a really good thing to get involved in to me. Both sides aren't going to let up, and you can make a killing, literally and figuratively.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

a cartoon duck posted:

There's pretty good odds Byakuren is gonna be a playable character, and she already covers the strong, physical slot that Yuugi would, being a muscle mage and all. Her bio in UFO says she uses her magic to give her super strength, plus apparently Bhuddism buffs your melee power, so Yuugi's niche is basically covered already.
Yeah, you're probably right.

HIJIRIN BUSTER!!



edit: that artist (Nekobatake) really REALLY likes Byakuren and Miko. Also he always draws Byakuren with her eyes narrowed or closed, it even has its own tag and encyclopeda entry.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Apr 13, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
Her crouching heavy punch has to be extending that mist arm of hers like Dhalsim.

edit: by the way, does anyone watch Chen Chen Mini Touhou? It's always happy but the latest one especially so, it has almost no language so I think anyone can enjoy it.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Apr 14, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Ammat The Ankh posted:

I think the more important question is which Touhou would be the annoying atheist who goes around and snidely remarks on all of the religions?
Honestly that still seems like Reimu to me. What the hell religion does she have anyway? Her shrine doesn't enshrine a god or anything right? It's just where she lives and maintains the barrier from. All she does is go around smashing other people's organizations.

edit: speaking of Reimu, this came up today, it's pretty nice.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Apr 14, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

BlitzBlast posted:

She's a Shintoist. Not a very devout one, especially compared to Sanae, but that doesn't mean she isn't one. See: her clothes, her position, and her powers.

And her shrine does have a god, she just doesn't know its name. Or give a drat about it. It is apparently annoyed at this, but seeing how she hasn't been evicted after 13 games of neglect it probably doesn't care that much.
So she has the outward trappings of a religion but no real spirituality. Zun's parable for real life in Japan, I assume?

Once I asked a Japanese friend who they pray to when they pray at shrines at New Year's and such. She said "I dunno...anyone is okay, I guess?"

edit: Shinto wasn't very unified at the time Gensokyo was closed away, either. It was codified and centralized and made into the state religion starting in the Meiji period. Before then it was not only all over the place but also mixed with Buddhism and stuff. It took late Edo period researchers a loooong time to sift through it all and figure out what of ancient animistic practices should be called Shinto and what shouldn't.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Apr 14, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
I guess no one has translated the 7th Touhou M-1 Grand Prix yet, but Kanako and Sanae's role in the game sounds like it's going to be like this sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUY3pUuKbEU

"Is it okay to believe in that (Toyosatomimi) Miko, who is bathed in power, money and violence!?"

a cartoon duck posted:

There's also the fact that most of Wild and Horned Hermit is Reimu coming up with hare-brained schemes to get more followers.

Hell, Oriental Sacred Place ended with Marisa remarking how Reimu's habit of befriending and using fairies and youkai makes her pretty hermit-like, so ZUN's been working towards the whole faith-mechanics in Hopeless Masquerade for a while now. It's pretty silly to suggest there's nothing spiritual about Reimu when her spirituality has been a central theme in several of ZUN's works now.
Faith in HER, or in the god she represents but never tells anyone about? That's what I don't understand. Asking people to just have faith in her (and give her donations) isn't much of a religion.

edit: or is that part of Zun's take on modern religion too?

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Apr 14, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

a cartoon duck posted:

Reimu ain't give a gently caress about people having faith in her. When Sanae talks about shrine maidens being able to ascend into godhood from faith and how Reimu should be prepared for that, Reimu basically just retorts that she doesn't care about becoming a god.

The whole point of Reimu's faith and spirituality is that it's confusing and that she herself is basically confused about it, that's why Hopeless Masquerade has this whole flexible faith system, where your faith changes depending on the skills, items and spell cards you equip, and why Reimu is a pretty fitting central character in a game like HM.
Ah, it makes sense when you put it that way.

Namtab posted:

She wants them to
a.) Have faith in the Shinto religion, which is one of many gods. Just because Reimu's shrine has a specific god doesn't mean Reimu specifically wants them to worship her god.
b.) Use her shrine as opposed to Sanae's, in order to increase the level of donations.

So yeah, there is an element of self interest, but to suggest that Reimu isn't spiritual is wrong.
As for a), my point is that at the time that Gensokyo was closed away, Shinto wasn't really a thing yet, every shrine or group of shrines was in it for themselves, based on the gods that were enshrined there. It's really not so different now either, the shrines in the town I lived in were mostly to Hachiman, for example. That's why it's strange if she's like "whatever's good as long as it's Shinto (but not Moriya)".

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Apr 14, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Namtab posted:

Gensokyo has modern things come over all the time, why can't it have modern shinto?
It just seemed out of character for Reimu to be trying to modernize like that, but then I haven't read most of the official fiction you are talking about.

Up until today and reading your posts, I assumed that Reimu simply didn't know what her shrine was about, due to a break in oral transmission from her predecessors or something (which as a linguist I can tell you has happened countless times), and was just going through the motions of being a miko. I assumed her conflict with Moriya was purely a personal/money conflict.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

ElMaligno posted:

According to wikipedia...
Shinto (or Koshinto) existed in Japan since the 8th century.
Modern Shinto began when it became the state religion of japan during the Meiji period in 1868.
Gensokyo (or to be more precise the Great Hakurei border) was apparently created in 1885.

However the year Gensokyo was created is really debatable, they use the sixty year cycle as a means to pinpoint its beginning. So if this is true the Gensokyo region was only exposed to "modern" for a handful of years. But the barrier has probably existed for a couple more centuries than the Touhou wiki assumes, oh well...
The thing is, the name Shinto (including Koshinto "old Shinto") came about in the late Edo period to prepare Japan to be a modern country, they felt they needed a state religion to promote national unity and be taken seriously by other countries. They sifted through the various folk beliefs in Japan and chose the ones that best defined Japan as a country, and also that supported the concept of the emperor, since not all of them did. And of course, they claimed that's the way it always was, since who can refute it? They were the first ones to investigate Japanese indigenous beliefs in an organized way.

At least, that's how my (rather counter-nationalist) Japanese history prof explained it to me.

edit: Anyway this is getting all serious and dumb so here's a picture by Bion of Reimu riding a moped in the air.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Apr 15, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

ElMaligno posted:

With that said let me tell you about all about touhou and motorcycles:
Post of the thread right here.

edit: While we're at it,



Probably not a real motorcycle so I guess I'm a philistine though.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Apr 15, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
I had to look up the artist using iqdb.org but drat, the artist of those first two (Masuta) loves touhous being all happy on motorcycles and other motor vehicles.



Aww....wait, why is there a car in the loving library? How did it get in? Also one of the tags says find the Marisa! I already found her.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Apr 15, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

TOO SCSI FOR MY CAT posted:

All those posts, and not one with that ZUN-art guy who does nothing but touhou characters with motorcycles?



I love how he must have spent hours getting that wheel exactly right, but just sort of Napoleon Dynamite'd the rider.
If you're trying to get us to check out a particular artist, a link to the source would help.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
Just so everyone knows, every picture I post is linked to Pixiv through the picture itself, but to get there you probably need to right click on it and follow the link that way, since as of the latest forum code, left clicking causes it to bring the picture up to full size.

Oh, yesterday while I was looking for pictures that might suggest how Hijiri will play with her super strength in the new fg, I found this.



"Higher mom, higher! Higher!! Okay, maybe that's too high..."

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Apr 15, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
The latest askundonge is pretty cool, on a theme that comes up in this thread often.

http://askudonge.tumblr.com/post/47830226919

Yamame the southern belle...

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Aliginge posted:

Yamame does seem to have a bit of a southern drawl in other works too...

http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1396843?pool_id=2420
Well, in the translation. I never agreed with translating western Japanese dialects into southern American dialects. The cultural analogy just doesn't work out at all.

I thought it was just about her dress, but then I have never read Ganbare Kogasa in translation.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
I don't think Osaka Japanese even comes close to matching with anything in America, sociologically or historically. America overall is just too different from Japan in that area.

Now, if you investigated BRITISH accents, you could find one that kinda sorta matched I bet. But no one ever does that in anime translations...

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Apr 16, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
There's a new Bomber Grape comic here, has it been translated yet? Frankly I'm really confused, something about Tenshi really getting after Iku about whether she is looking for a husband, does it link into some previous conversation they had in his comics?

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug
Well in this one, Tenshi is like "Are you looking to get married?" and Iku is like "No!...well, I mean, a little bit" and then Tenshi is like "What, has your pride gotten in the way? You can't admit that you want to meet someone? You can't admit that you don't want to be alone?" and after a while she starts crying and Tenshi says she was just joking and apologizes.

It almost seems like something that might be coming from Bomber Grape's personal life. It wouldn't be the first time his comics had kinda seemed like that, but only a tiny bit at the end starring Kaguya.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Aliginge posted:

British Touhous :stare:

Now Reimu, wearing red, white and being poor as poo poo would clearly have to come from Liverpool, support Liverpool FC, Sing You'll Never Walk Alone all the time (Justice for Hillsbrough) and have an awful scouse accent. Marisa would be a classy geordie-speakan Newcastle lass, like (Black White like the football team). Yukari, Ran and Chen are clearly Bullingdon club Tory politicans currently running government, Suika is a tracksuited white-lighting-chugging chav, Yuugi is Yorkshire-born-and-bred goddess of the saturday night pissup/fight dahn t'pub while Yuuka is a down to earf Landan lass straight out of an episode of Eastenders who'll knock yer fookin teef aaht if you say anyfink abaat ma Wriggle.

Oh and Aya is both a page 3 photographer, tabloid writer for the Sun and Diana conspiracy theorist, while Okuu is the entire Trident Nuclear defence system

:britain:
See, this is what the choice of dialects for translation does, it makes people consider some characterizations and not others. Since it seems that 99% of anime stuff is translated into English by Americans, for Americans, it's leaving out a whole crazy world of stuff like this.

edit: Speaking of weird characterizations by non-Americans...



Setz: Charismatic as always.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Apr 16, 2013

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Namtab posted:

But like most of those things he says are primarily based on characterisation as opposed to voice. Having Reimu be a white lightning chugging chav is changing Reimu entirely to make her into a Brit so you can do your own thing with her, whereas giving a western translation of a Touhou speaking an Osakan accent a US Southern accent is just emphasising the fact that she's speaking the same language as everyone else, albeit with a different accent. It's exactly the same as if you gave Reimilia an upper class accent, or had Cirno played by a literal 5 year old.

Basically one is a valid technique to use to translate something into one language to another (although making Osaka = Southern is kinda cliché, theres a reason it's used), while maintaining the "feel" of the original, and the other is just you making your own touhou stuff.

Geordie and Scouse, East Coast USA and West Coast USA, Tokyo japanese and Osakan japanese are just different accents, and nothing more.
What I'm saying is that dialects are linked into different cultures/social groups whether you want them to or not, so why not either think about them carefully and what they mean, or have some fun with it, instead of just going with the cliches over and over again?

Besides, by "speaking the same language as everyone else", you really mean American English, right?

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Namtab posted:

No, I mean Japanese in the case of the original, or English in the case of a translation. Someone speaking in an Osakan dialect in a Japanese thing is still speaking the same language (Japanese) as everyone else, but in a different way It's not like the equivalent of me speaking British English and my mate speaking French. Same in a US setting with Northern/Southen dialect. Same in British English with a Scottish/English dialect. Just because Osakan mannerism don't actually parse well with Southern US mannerisms what with the two groups being from different countries and all doesn't make it a valid translation technique. It's a tool to get the point across that these people are from different parts of the same country.

So yeah, quite frankly you're right in that they go with the same cliche over and over again, but the reason for that is that it is cliche. If you have every character speaking in one kind of accent and then a clearly different, but still recognisable as being from that country, accent comes along then you know what that means. With the US being the primary source of translations into English it's only natural that the Southern accent be used.

Saying "but why use a Southern US accent when the person what from Osaka that doesn't parse" is kinda dumb when you have a thing where people take bento boxes to school and go to arcades unironically. If you really want to go the whole hog with making things match you may as well start calling onigiri "doughnuts".
Sorry, I'm really not following your logic at all. When did I say anything about French, or about translating to English from different countries, or anything like that? And what does it have to do with bento boxes or whatever? Maybe it's just too early in the morning for me, I dunno...

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Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Namtab posted:

Then what the hell did you mean by


because that's the point I was primarily arguing against.

Unless you're implying I speak American English, in which case look this way (and up a bit)
<-------

And the rest of my point was a continuing argument against your original point that translating Osakan japanese into Southern US wasn't culturally appropriate, which is where the bit about the bento boxes came from, for example. You went from originally saying "I don't get it" and then when told about the reason behind the cliché were all like "Man, why can't they just have more fun instead of sticking to cliché", which I also answered just now.


Now let's just talk about how much Imperishable Night owns (because it's literally my fave touhou game)
Yeah, I guess I'm just confused. Also from your avatar I thought you were saying "English scum!" to someone else, not directed at you. But it's red, so I guess that means it is directed at you. Yep, too early in the morning for my brain (here in Hawaii it just passed 8am).

And yeah, IN rules, but the thing is that I want to use Reimu, but I also want to fight AGAINST Reimu in stage 4, I find that fight so much more fun than against Marisa.

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