Welcome, fellow Fuwamembers, to the FuwaRecognition thread. Starting this March, we’ll be highlighting some of the best contributions made by our members each month. From snazzy blog articles to delicious forum threads, and perhaps even a few things more on the shitpost part of the spectrum, we'll keep an eye out for the cream of the crop. And then we'll gather them here. Just for you.
*holds up giant APPLAUSE sign*
A-hem, so this is the first time we're doing this and it might be a bit rough; next time will be at the end of March. Anyways; without further ado, let's get to our highlights.
By @Zakamutt.
Threads
Our first highlight on threads comes from two Ask Me Anything topics posted in the span of this month: from our dear provisional Tay, @Kaguya, and from the anti-moege task force founder himself, the saltlord himself @VirginSmasher.
It’s now Kags’ fifth year on these dear forums, and members of new ’n old had a lot of questions, climbing over to 50 comments, almost unheard of in this day and age of lacklustre forum interaction. Even after the glory days of lolis long passed, Kaguya still swears close to his heart how they indeed are the master-race that rule over this weeb-dom, mostly in nukige form. Charming.
@VirginSmasher’s AMA, on the other hand, is mostly an appreciation of past glory and his good friends, met before he died out, but he also remembered some newer members who are already becoming an integral part of these forums of today. Quite a lot of internal banter and jokes flew here and there, but it is quite touching to see even older members returning from long breaks of apparent irremovable death.
As you might have seen, we have a new EVN on the horizon, or rather, KickStarter: One Last Crane, developed by @Blissful-Works This visual novel is being developed by an Indonesian team with some members over at Tokyo, Japan, and it has a an odd goal amount of 10,052 dollars, though this is due the publicization of the project being handled from Japan, which also makes the whole project page ask all money in yens. A risky play, let’s see if it pays out for them.
The novel is planned on being released for four languages: English, Japanese, Chinese, and Indonesian. Quite the amount for still quite a small goal, but we’ll have to see how it pans out in the end, at least they are in no shortage of ambition.
While the art-style itself is quite generic, it does look modern and does its job as presentation well enough, not to mention that the KickStarter page itself is quite stylish, but only time will tell how it’ll go over. All we can do is wait.
@EastCoastDrifter has done something unique on the forums that no one would even think of. He loves space, and he has extended his love to the members of the Fuwanovel community by creating a Fuwanovel Solar System. Using a program called Space Engine, Drifter has taken the liberty to name all planets in this system after very prominent Fuwamembers. It’s a great tribute to the community and you should really check it out. Furthermore, Drifter says he’s not done, and has plans to create more Fuwa solar systems to feature more members in the future. If you want a planet named after you, feel free to post in the linked thread or contact Drifter personally.
By @Arcadeotic and @EastCoastDrifter.
Blogs
Hi I'm Zaka and I'm the only one that cares about blogs on the team. Maybe. I didn't actually ask the other guys. Shit. So uhh, here's my recs...
@Clephas writes accessibly about (for the most part) untranslated Japanese visual novels. This time, we have some posts about the recently released third VN in the Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru series, of which the first actually has a translation by MangaGamer. Unfortunately, the second is where people think it actually got good. We start with a more general note on the series, then move on to a review of Otoboku 3 itself.
While Clephas has been writing for quite a while, @MaggieROBOT is a bit newer to the scene. She focuses on Otome and BL VNs, and for this post we'd like to show you her post on an upcoming BL visual novel (fresh from the pot, baby. That thing is probably the first blog post to come right after this one. Oh yeah. That's how we roll. - Kaguya) as well as her review of the robot-romance Otome VN Sakuya. Go ahead and look for her post complaining about a trap in a moege not having a route if you like things on the more humorous side of the spectrum
Just For Fun!
During the process of writing this post.
Well you know I’m all about that nepotism baby. That's right, this is just for you. Rising 1.8% female readership (thanks Maggie) local GM and blog post connoisseur Kaguya here. To close the blog review section up, we’ll be highlighting the post where I wonderfully delve into the mind of writer Setoguchi Ren’ya, explaining his past and his involvements with the little-known work The Shawshank Redemption as well as how that work affected the VN industry, finishing things with a bang as I explain his history and the hidden messages within Swan Song.
And finishing things off in a suitable grand scale, much like a writer who traps himself into writing continuously larger powerlevels until his shounen manga gets to a point where it doesn't even resemble the original, we will be looking at two posts made by Fuwanovel's current closest figure to Jesus, @Kiriririri (Who unlike our creator, did revive. How about that?)
He died for our sins as he bravely made two deep posts about the current state of the VN community that were completely hidden by the evil staff... Until now. Gaze upon them and marvel, this is the true work of a genius!!
February is over. We bled. We sweat. Friendships were broken and renewed, and old members revived from their graves and mingled with the new pringles to take us where we are now. And the community persists, as glorious as ever.
March is here. And in this rewind, I declare FebruaryFuwa absolutely Fabulous!
So, Kaguya. The final boss of Touhou 8, Imperishable Night, and also the character my whole profile is based on, and my favorite touhou character, all in all.
A long time ago, a bamboo cutter found a baby girl while working.
She was unlike all other babies he had ever seen, being really small, and much more fragile.
While he was a simple bamboo cutter, and didn't have much to provide, after some thought, he decided to adopt her.
And so he took the baby, and he and his wife continued to live their lives normally.
However, after adopting the baby, the man was blessed with fortune. Mysteriously finding gold while working, amongst other things. Everything in his life was working out more than perfectly, to ridiculous levels, and they became a very wealthy family over the years.
During that time, the girl grew up, with unnatural health and beauty.
The girl's beauty was unlike anything ever seen before on earth, and word of Princess Kaguya spread accross the land with shocking speed.
And so, tens, if not hundreds of men came to see the rumored princess. All of them proposed to her, and she refused all of them.
Even after being refused several times, however, 5 nobles would absolutely not give up on marrying her. Kaguya was conflicted, and decided to set them for a trial. She then set 5 impossible requests to bring her different treasures; She would marry the man who managed to bring her one of the treasures first.
The first request was to bring her the stone begging bowl of Buddha. The second was to take a jeweled branch from Mount Hourai. The third was to find the robe of the fire-rat of China. The fourth was to retrieve a colored jewel from a dragon's neck. The final task was to find the legendary Cowry treasure of the swallows.
Upon facing these requests, 2 of the nobles gave up, one tried to swindle her with a fake treasure and one decided to propose to her without any treasure.
One man, however, decided to seek the treasure to the very end, and tragically died in a storm, before he could even reach his destination.
With all of them rejected, word of the princess reched the emperor of Japan, who arranged a meeting with her.
Upon seeing her beauty, he too, could not help but propose to her, which she also rejected, wishing only to live with her family in peace.
Unlike the nobles, however, the emperor kept contact with her, and they would trade letters as friends for a long time to come.
With the passage of time, however, Kaguya began to act weirdly. She would be seen sobbing at night, and acting troubled and depressed.
It would later be revealed that she recovered her memories, and that she wasn't human, but rather a being from a species that lived in the moon, exiled to the earth temporarily as a way to pay for her crime of developing and using a drug that brough her immortality, thus leaving her unclean to the eyes of the lunarians.
That penitence, however, was about to end, and soon she would have to return to the moon.
Not wishing to return, she then decided to hide, and run away.
As a last apology, she made and left one drink of the potion of immortality, asking it to be delivered to her closest friend, the emperor of Japan.
And that would be the end of it, if not for Mokou.
Mokou is the Extra stage boss of IN, and she's quite an interesting one - She was the daughter of the Fujiwara family; The noble who died while doing his impossible request was her father.
She viewed Kaguya as a figure that's almost a demon - someone who charmed and tricked her father to his death.
She then decided that she would have her vengeance, no matter what. And then she stole the drug of immortality, and took it, determined to make Kaguya pay. The drug was completely beyond her expectations, and she felt tricked yet again, being forced into a curse of never dying, no matter what. Realizing her revenge was pointless, but still determined to have it, it's said that Mokou went on a ramapage for 200 years, burning everything that entered her sight to ashes, be it human or youkai, all the while she felt the pain of the fire in her body, searching Kaguya to make her suffer the same.
And that's the start of their story, basically. Though I haven't covered Reisen, Tewi or Eirin, all who are quite important for Kaguya. There's also a lot to expand on Mokou, but I'll leave that for when I explain Imperishable Night.
For now, cheers!
Sumireko Usami is a human from the outside world dealing in all sorts of psychic powers. She's a highschooler. She's the first president of the Secret Sealing Club, which mainly investigates the existence of other worlds, including Gensokyo and the Moon. It's also the club where two of my most beloved touhou characters (Maribel and Renko) belong to, albeit in a different timeline. She's the perpetrator behind the Urban Legend in Limbo incident- Temporarily using her powers to enter Gensokyo as a shadow and spreading occult balls that, when gathered, teleport the person holding them to the outside world for a short amount of time. She has a haughty personality and looks down on other people as inferior to her- She pretty much created her Secret Sealing Club as an excuse not to get any friends, lol. After the incident she created, it seems like she adquired a certain respect for the inhabitants of Gensokyo, though. Currently, she spends her days in the outside world and uses her astral projection ability to spend her nights in Gensokyo while her body is asleep. Her powers include telekinesis, teleporting, control of fire and water, psychokinesis, levitation and astral projection... Though they're not limited to that. As far as powerlevels go, it's hard to rate her, as is with most fighting game characters. She does manage to defeat Shinmyoumaru Sukuna, the perpetrator behind the Double Dealing Character incident... But most of her other fights seem to end up in ties. She does stand toe to toe with several strong characters, so she should be in the upper tier of touhou powerlevels. She does also have a great theme. And so I leave you with a violing arrangement of that theme, Last Occultism ~ Esotericist of the Present World.
From left to right- Hatate Himekaidou, Aya Shameimaru, Momiji Inubashiri & Nitori Kawashiro. This was originally meant to be a post about Aya- I'm particularly fond of Hatate so I decided to do both of them, though. That, however, proved to be a problem. If I was doing Aya and Hatate, I would never talk about Momiji. Momiji isn't terribly important to the touhouverse, but she's a beloved 4th stage midboss with a lot of fanwork on her, so I decided that I'd cover all 3 of them, since they share the same species. I then went to look for a picture with the 3 of them and found that one, that also has Nitori. Nitori is a popular character that deserves a post of her own... But this was going to be unholy long anyway and I really liked that picture. So today we'll be covering all known residents of the youkai mountain, ignoring the 5 gods (one of them also being a miko) that live there... Though I must say I did entertain the thought of doing a "Mountain of Faith" post at once. Alright, blog logistics aside, let's get right into it!
Aya Shameimaru is one of the most interesting touhou characters out there. She's the protagonist of two games of her own- being the only playable character in the first and the main one in the second- those games being Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler. Aya is a crow tengu (linked to Perfect Momento in Strict Sense article on tengu because this post doesn't need to be any longer than I'm sure it will be). Crow tengu are dreadfully fast- Aya is normally portrayed as the fastest amongst all of them, being often called the fastest being in Gensokyo. She mostly uses that speed for inconsequential matters, flying around and taking pictures of people and running a newspaper on Gensokyo events. Her two games are essentially her running around taking pictures of people shooting at her, lol. She carries 3 items with her at all times- a fan that she uses to manipulate wind, her camera and a small notebook that she uses to write interesting material. Friendly, carefree Bunbunmaru newspaper runner aside, she's also a legitimate tengu who will stop any trespassers climbing the mountain in and above tengu territory- while it's stated that she never used her true abilities in a danmaku fight, she's still a strong opponent that one should not anger- while she's generally going to be flying around writing things for her paper, she has a scary tendency to "accidentally win fights" against considerably strong enemies while trying to take pictures. Fact is, she's the one chosen by the tengu to stop trespassers, even though they're well aware she won't fight seriously. While her standing in tengu society is unkown, she's doubtlessly a powerful being. Aya is one of the most well-known touhou characters and has appeared in 10 different touhou games in one form or another- without counting mentions of her name, in which case she has appeared in every touhou game in the second generation of the touhou era up to Ten Desires.
Inubashiri Momiji is the only known white-wolf tengu (though it is known that several of them live in the mountain). She's Aya's stage midboss, though it is known that they do not get along and fight whenever they meet- possibly because there's a lot of contrast between them. Momiji is faithful and loyal- while she has no in-game phrases, we know from print works that she'll always execute her orders to the letter. She has several fandom personalities and I'm not the best to talk about those, as I'm not particularly fond of her character- the only thing coming to mind being her as a tsundere to Aya. They're also commonly portrayed as good friends in stories where Hatate is involved, since Hatate tends to fill the rival role for Aya. She works as a mountain patrol to the tengu- and while she did fail to stop the protagonist in Mountain of Faith, she did suceed in reporting you to the tengu, since she managed to get Aya to show up before you managed to climb past their territory. Momiji has an amazing eyesight, being able to see a thousand ri ahead of her (about 4000 kilometers) and posseses a great sense of smell. She's also one of the very few touhou characters that fights with a sword- and perhaps the only one who also has a shield. Whenever she has free time, she spends it playing shogi with the kappa who live in the lower parts of the mountain.
Himekaidou Hatate. She's the only other crow tengu known, and the alternate protagonist of Double Spoiler. Like Aya, she's also a reporter. Unlike Aya, she doesn't go around collecting news, instead relying on her spirit photography ability to gather material without having to move. Her occupation as a reporter obviously puts her in direct rivarly with Aya, who also runs a newspaper of her own. Her appearance in double spoiler grants her a lot of dialogue with Aya, time they mostly spend debating about what's the superior method of information gathering and what's the journalistic style that they should use. In fandom, Hatate is often portrayed as a younger tengu without Aya's experience (but still a lot of her recklessness). She seems to admire Momiji, being impressed by her vision and sense of smell. Curiously, however, is that fandom is much more likely to portray her as someone obsessed over Aya- sometimes even to the point of being a yandere- than to explore her relationship with Momiji. In comedic works, she's the embodiment of the annoying paparazzi, someone with a fearful ability for stalking, much to everyone's concern.
Nitori Kawashiro is a kappa- the only named one in the touhou series. As such, she has the ability to control water. Much more interesting than that, however, are her skills as an engineer- she has advanced scientific knowledge that she uses to craft all sorts of gadgets she can use in a fight. Nitori is the personification of greed, fighting for the sake of her stall and the popularity of her gadgets during Hopeless Masquerade, being quick to come up with plots to maximize profits. She's also a very cheerful character who is warm and kind to her group of friends. Despite all that, she's incredibly shy with strangers. Out of all the recently used touhou characters, she's the one who keeps the mad scientist mantle, carrying a backpack will all sorts of tools. This is taken further in fandom, making her the living avatar of SCIENCE when apropriate. From greedy stall owner to mad scientist to shy kappa, she's always an optimistic character. She tries to stop the protagonist in the third stage of Montain of Faith, according to her, for their own sake. She also convinces Marisa to explore the ruins of the Old Hell of Blazing Flames during the events of Subterranean Animism, when she hears that there are tests related to nuclear energy happening down there. If picked, she will guide Marisa through that game, granting bonuses to her, changing Marisa's shoot-type and offering guidance through dialogue.
And that covers all the tengu and kappa! Look forward to a post on the gods! And I leave you with Festival Coloring, a remix of several songs in the Mountain of Faith game at once, by Tumeneco & Get in the Ring- listen to it while waiting for the post on Gods!
If you wonder why I'm covering her now, it's because I realized that before writing about Sanae, Youmu, Sakuya and Reisen I'll have to cover their superiors... And while doing the Scarlet sisters first would make the most sense, Yuyuko is too interesting for me not to write about her first.
Yuyuko is the 1000-years old ghostly master of the Hakugyokurou- the shrine that overlooks the netherworld. As its mistress, she's has absolute authority over the world of the dead, and is amongst the most powerful beings in the touhou universe- with the ability to instantly kill anything that lives. When killed by this ability, humans will bypass judgment and their souls will be sent to the netherworld, regardless of how saintly or evil they were in life. Her soul is unable to enter the cycle of reincarnation, as it- and her body- are currently being used as a seal on a powerful and evil youkai tree, the Saigyouji Ayakashi, that lies in the gardens of the Hakugyokurou. In life, she commited suicide for the sake of sealing that tree. She has forgotten about her exact cause of death... And, ironically, she was the perpetrator behind the events of Perfect Cherry Blossom, where she tried to revive the Ayakashi. Many touhou characters boast a very long lifespan, but even amongst the ones that have lived for thousands of years, she's known to be one of the wisest- and one of the best at hiding that too- she shows a playful, good-humored, whimsical personality, but truthfully, she always knows exactly what's happening, always giving cryptic hints to her servant, the straightfroward katana-wielding half-ghost garderner, Konpaku Youmu, one of the protagonists we'll be covering soon. In serious works, she's used as a cunning, powerful, wise being with a terrifying power that's an unpredictable wild card. She's not human or youkai- and that shouldn't be forgotten. She's a ghost. And if gensokyo were to crumble to dust, well, it wouldn't particularly concern her now, would it? In comedic works, she's a hungry ghost that eats everything, including other characters. Because maymays. And I leave you with a song about Yuyuko from C-Clays. Look forward to the post on Youmu!
Tenshi is the only known Tennin (Celestial, in the english fanbase) of the touhou universe... Celestials can be divided in two categories; The ones who achieved enlightening and entered Nirvana and the ones who gained immortality and ascended to heaven. Incidentally, Celestials aren't truly immortal, they just constantly beat the shinigami who comes for their souls, continually extending their lifespan. Celestials are extremely rare and are generally good people- normally being Hermits (who I'll get to once I'm talking about Miko) who were "promoted" to their position. Tenshi, however, became a tennin because of an arrangement that ascended her entire clan... As a result of living in heaven her whole life, she's an extremely spoiled girl, deeming heavenly life boring and causing the Scarlet Weather Rhapsody incident, creating localized earthquakes and almost destroying Gensokyo out of boredom. While she has no training, she is unbeliavably strong and tough- Being one of the strongest characters in the touhouverse. This, coupled with her delinquent personality brought by a sheltered living environment, makes her an incredibly volatile character. She fights using keystones that control the earth and the sword of hisou, a blade that only celestials can wield, that holds power over the skies and people, able to change the weather of any given area.
You probably realized it, but out of the whole touhou cast, Tenshi isn't a particularly interesting character. She is, however, one of the most relevant ones in a fanwork I'll be posting soon... Which is why I decided to cover her at once.
I leave you with a remix of her stage theme, Flawless Clothing of the Celestials, by Kairo.
Image by Kieta Reimu. The main character of the touhou series and the current miko of the Hakurei shrine, carrying the burdens of managing the Hakurei Border and exterminating dangerous youkai. The personality of touhou characters is generally decided by the fandom, while the characters themselves only have the minimum amount of phrases needed for people to have a line on what they're thinking. This leads to, of course, several differents interpretations of how they are. In the most dark and serious works, Reimu is portrayed as a reluctant hero who is regularly forced into nigh-impossible battles against eldrich-like abominations wearing the face of humans, capable of bending concepts to their will, armored with nothing but her yin-yang floating orbs, flying power and aptitude with magical barriers. She will be portrayed as the only sane, trustable force fighting for the sake of humanity- her only allies being the only person she could call a friend, an unreliable, insane cleptomaniac witch fighting for the sole sake of finding treasures who is essentially a youkai in mind... And a totally green miko from a different shrine more occupied with swindling humans into worshiping her gods than actually protecting anyone. Wild and horned hermit suggests she's bitter about losing her parents (through the quote: "Believe not they will be around for you always: parents and daylight" [which is a modification of some haiku I forgot, by the way]) In comedic works, she's a poor miko going around looking for donations with a bunch of youkai friends who keep spooking humans away from her shrine, preventing her from getting any money. All in all, Reimu is a very well-known figure in the touhouverse that can be used in several different ways, and it would be impossible to cover them all. As the Hakurei miko, she is also arguably the most important character in the whole project- And definitely one of the most interesting ones, too. I leave you with a song about Reimu by Alstroemeria Records - Highly Responsive to Prayers.
So, touhou. It's a bullet hell game series that happens in a feudal-japan-like land named 幻想郷 (Gensokyo- Roughly "Land of illusion"). Gensokyo's is a sealed-off, haunted area of Japan that went missing several millenia ago. It is estimated that the region is sealed off because the youkai that lived there had a reign of terror over japan, and brave human expeditions constantly tried to exorcise and anihilate them. The vicious battles could have lasted from months to decades, but what is known is that they ended with the creation of the Hakurei Shrine there, who made a barrier that completely took the land off the map, and no one can enter, leave or see the place. Ever since the creation of the hakurei barrier, the only gateway to the common world has been the hakurei shrine, isolated amongst several mountains. While leaving to the human world is virtually impossible for any Gensokyo resident (a few extremely rare exceptions aside), it's relatively easy for powerful beings to access other lands which aren't part of Gensokyo, like Higan, Makai, the Netherworld and a few others... Gensokyo's population consists mainly of youkai, but there's a human settlement in the land as well. Most youkai are known to eat humans regularly- they are also all significantly stronger and live much longer, with their lifespans often reaching millenia. To know more about youkai I would suggest reading the Youkai article in Perfect Momento in Strict Sense, which will explain them with some detail. This is somewhat outdated/wrong, but here's a map of Gensokyo, which I will expand on further in another episode of touhou lore, where I examine geographic locations in-depth. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, if you have any.
Marisa Kirisame, the other main protagonist and youkai hunter of the touhou series, together with Reimu.
Marisa is a human witch- unlike the other powerful humans in the series, she's the one that didn't have any special talent like Reimu's spiritual powers and Sakuya's time-manupilation abilities. She's a hard worker- the only one- and the countless hours she spent learning and perfecting her magic allowed her to become an expert in the "blowing the hell out of everything with lasers" school of magic. Most people love Marisa, and they have a reason to. It's hard not to appreciate this cleptomaniac magician, vacant shop owner, burglar and part-time youkai hunter in her adventures lasering everyone around. If Reimu is the to-go "good guy" protagonist in dark settings, Marisa is the one in light-hearted ones (a small book-stealing habit aside). Courageous, fun and always available for a fight, she makes the perfect choice for a "happy-go-lucky" scenario. That's not to say she's not a solid character in darker settings either- in fact, she may fit even better in those, as an egocentric, insane thief with no regards for her life, willing to anger the most powerful beings in the known world, from twisted youkai who lived for millenia to proud gods. She recklessly jumps into magic research and training, knowing that if she becomes more powerful she may become a youkai herself (of the "Magician" species- the most powerful youkai of that type being her only neighbor in the deserted forest they live in). And either way, most people love her. And they should- she's the one most people identify with. It's often said that she has a youkai's mind- but, with Reimu serving as the faith symbol, she's the most humane character out of the entire cast. Her desires and efforts and easily understandable and relateable- which is why she's so loved. And I leave you, once again, with a remix by Alstroemeria records about Marisa:
