#rinnosuke stage theme

[sl33py-g4m3r]

Rinnosuke's Stage Theme: Curious Old Shanghai Tile

I do hope I got the information for this relic correct henceforth

twas incorrect last entry~~

are these “tags” to leave signs should someone find this ? bookmarks perhaps? i doth believe so~~~ let thine “tagging” be correct this day~~

quite unlike any music that I’ve heard before.... so very rapid in pace~~~

does this rinnosuke fellow study relics as well? I would most certainly like to meet him and discuss my findings should the monastery allow it~~~

i quite fancy his appearance~~~

what of this “shanghai” and “mahjong”  do they involve tiles ? the long nights of research continues still it would seem~~~

[lilyblackdrawside]

I like to jab at Reimu’s route and I have a few reasons for that, mainly that I think her stages are weaker overall than Marisa’s but the most important thing is two specific points in the story:

The first is in the second route split on the second disc, in stages 25, 28 and 29. Reimu’s focus on meeting some of PCB’s characters and she ends up recruiting Lily White. It’s all just alright, you get a preview of Suika.

Marisa gets a preview of the second half of the next disc by meeting the Chireiden crew. S25 has Koishi pop up out of nowhere, as she does, in S28 Marisa’s group is at the entrance to the underground and fights with Yamame and Kisume. Marisa finds the buried Seirensen and when she goes to investigate it at the end of the stage is captured by Rin and Utsuho and taken to Satori’s place. The group gives chase, with either Alice, Patchouli or Nitori taking the lead (your choice, whoever you pick also gets her friendship level with Marisa increased)

Then S29 is in the underground, with Marisa stranded at one end and your objective being to get her out to one of the escape points by where you start. If you just want to do that, it’s really easy because you can just outfit Marisa for 10 move and accel her outta there in 3 turns, but if you want to grab everything, it’s a very tightly designed and fairly challenging stage. When you do get out, Marisa goes back after Koishi and gets trapped by a spirit, upon which Mima shows up and gets her outta there. It’s an amazing moment with wonderful music and the entire setup is great.

The next important bit is on disc 3 just before the middle of the Imperishable Night arc. During that part of the game you’re accompanied by Yuuka and Mima, who join at the start of Marisa’s route split.

Stage 39 is where Marisa and Reimu get their upgrades/promotions whatever you want to call it. Marisa had just had an encounter with Tewi in S38 and the group is chasing after her. She then gets herself trapped by Tewi’s underlings and is overwhelmed and beaten down. Alice, Nitori and Patchouli rush in to protect her and that’s just what you have to do:

Guard a zone in the center of the map for a few turns while new enemies have spawned in. If any enemy steps onto the zone, you lose. Then, once you’ve guarded Marisa for long enough, she regains her consciousness and we get a flashback to years back where she was training with Mima, set to a low-energy rendition of Magician’s Melancholy that still gets me to ears. After that is another flashback scene of Marisa, Reimu and Rinnosuke watching a meteor shower. Then Marisa gets back up, takes off in a flash of light, music-overrides the entire stage with her new theme (not even special themes of other characters can take priority over it) and blasts all the surrounding enemies away. The stage objective now is to „use Marisa’s new moves and have her finish the stage“. It’s not difficult anymore either, she has no problem defeating all the enemies by herself. It’s just about her showing off.

Whenever you use one of her new attacks for the first time, a brief conversation plays with one of her friends and rivals who inspired it. And all of her new attacks look so good. Just amazing. Her old animations were getting a bit stale, since she’s been around with the exact same attacks since the start of the game and the animators have just been getting better and better over time, so it’s an all-around amazing moment.

Particular mention has to go to her combination attack with Alice.

She made this one up near the end of the first disc in the spur of the moment when facing the three fairies of light, who work well together and have their own combination attack(s). It was called „Proto Malice Cannon“ then and is a pretty competent move. „Malice Cannon“ is a play on Marisa and Alice and an actual thing in Imperishable Night where you can deal way more damage than you’re supposed to by exploiting certain mechanics with the two.

Now, with her form change Malice Cannon is also updated, but Alice still has the Proto version that pairs with old Marisa so she can’t actually initiate the move (any user of a combination attack can initiate it, as long as all participants are close to each other) and that’s just a really cool detail.

The Proto version was just the two firing side by side at the same time. There was no coordination or any synergie and then the updated one just looks amazing.

In Reimu’s stage Yukari shows up, goes „please wait warmly“, whisks her away for two or so turns and then returns with Reimu in a new outfit and with new moves.

[entamesubs]

Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS Blu-Ray: Episode 4

Google Drive ONLY (for now)

Support us on ko-fi

Blu-Ray episodes will come out one at a time every Friday, until I’m done with the full first season (1-13).

--------------

Please use either MPV or MPC-HC to view the Blu-Ray episodes. I do NOT recommend using VLC.

Please check the post for episodes 1&2 to see why.

--------------

!! This is NOT a final release !!

If there are any corrections you wish to make, please put them through the ask box. This includes any typos, grammar weirdness, or if you have a better way to word a sentence. Once it goes up on Nyaa, the subs will be LOCKED and can no longer be edited. I will consider it the final and best version I can put out.

If you see any mistake at all, please do not hesitate to send me an ask about it.

--------------

Extended Translation Notes

Gakuto’s characterization

RoadRush:

“I am supposed to be stopping their chaos [...] How could I do such a thing?!”

Original Japanese: 「遊我くんたちの暴走を止めるべき立場にありながら [...] 私としたことが…」

The original RR subs make it seem like Gakuto is appalled at the fact that he’s been going along with the crew, but in reality the original Japanese points to Gakuto being appalled at his lack of responsibility (as in Gakuto himself is frustrated that he, himself, has not done anything despite the fact that he should).

The bolded Japanese from above is what I’m highlighting as the key to understanding him here.

立場にあり = someone in (my) position 私としたこと = someone like me

The translation I decided to use instead, and which I felt conveyed his inner turmoil better, was “I’m someone who should be stopping them, and yet... [...] I, of all people...!”

Gakuto is very concerned with his position and duties, which is the main focus for this episode. He is a character who is hyper-aware of his place and what kind of person he should be (that is, someone who strictly follows the rules and enforces them). The conflict he feels here is because of that hyper-awareness, not (primarily) because of the fact that he’s been “having fun” or “swept away” by Yuuga’s antics, it’s that someone like him shouldn’t be “swept away” in the first place.

I hope this makes sense and that this translation gets across his characterization a lot better.

Further Gakuto characterization

RoadRush:

“I have to draw the line somewhere!”

Original Japanese: 「きちんとけじめをつけなければ｡」

This is actually a translation I liked a lot, with “draw the line” being something very clear and also easily got across his newfound determination. It’s the reason I decided to keep the “draw the line” phrase in my final translation.

However, there is one important part of his sentence: けじめ, which I bolded above. It means “distinction”.

My final translation was “I must be decisive and draw the line somewhere!”

Gakuto uses the word “decide” and “decisive” a lot. You’ll see it the most in his summoning chants, where he keeps “deciding” not to stop, or “deciding” to follow a road, or “deciding” to find something new, or that he alone must “decide” his resolve, etc. At this point, being “decisive” is a huge part of his character and who he is as a person. The main theme of Sougetsu Gakuto is being able to lead, to decide, and, as we see in episodes 24, 33, 50, and 57, to be someone worthy of the Sougetsu name and inheritance by making these “decisions” and having the power to do so.

For this reason, I decided (haha) to put in his keyword here and tie this line further to his characterization in future episodes.

“Yametekudastop”

“Does Gakuto actually say this?” No, but he makes a pun just as bad as this one. This is a great pun to convey just how weird his “Yameruler” pun in Japanese is as well.

Thanks English!

トイレには神様がいますからね “Since a kami is always in the restroom, you should...”

This is a fragment of the full sentence, though its implied that Gakuto is trying to say “[I cleaned the restroom with care,] because a kami is in there”. To make this sound more natural in English, my final translation was the sentence you see above in bold, which adds a “you should” for context.

This sentence may seem strange to a lot of people, even more so if you don’t know what exactly a “kami” is. I wanted to elaborate on that in this translation note, and also the reason why I left “kami” untouched.

A “kami” does not uniformly mean a “god” or “deity”. In some contexts, yes, someone can be referring to such a being. In others, a kami can also be seen as a “spirit”, not necessarily of divine origins, who exists in a myriad of spaces for a myriad of reasons.

The “kami” Gakuto says exists in the restroom is not a god in the way English speakers would see it, but a spirit that has found a home there. However, I felt that the word “spirit” did not really encompass the importance of the word kami and why Gakuto was so careful with it, while the words “god” or “deity” placed too much importance on it.

For further context, I’d honestly just recommend the kami wikipedia article, which goes a lot more into detail than I can here. For heavier reading, and if you’re interested in this sort of stuff, I recommend the books Shinto - A Book of Prayers and The Essence of Shinto: Japan's Spiritual Heart.

黒子 (くろこ) Kuroko / “stagehands”

Wow, Kuroko Tetsuya himself from the acclaimed basketball manga and anime, Kuroko no Basuke! Okay I’m joking.

A “kuroko” in Japanese means a “stagehand”, though they have very a specific job in Japanese theatre that is different compared to what you might know of stagehands in Western theatre.

The job of a “kuroko” is to be invisible, which of course is not a literal thing. This simply means they help move things along on the stage, appearing center at times, while still not being perceived by the audience. This is where the “kuro” part of “kuroko” comes from—traditionally, they wear black clothes and cover their faces with a black sheet on stage, so that when they appear, the audience will not focus on them and instead blend them in with the background.

A kuroko does such things like moving scenery and props as a normal stagehand, however they may also play non-human parts in plays sometimes, being something like an animal or spirit when needed (usually with the help of a minor prop, not with a costume). They are the “invisible stagehands”.

Gakuto’s entire aesthetic themeing with Ranze and Rinnosuke is basically kabuki, a form of Japanese theatre that places more emphasis on aesthetics than on story.

A popular genre of kabuki is known as jidaimono, or historical plays, which dramatize a major historic event (like a war), which is how Gakuto’s various “Rulers” tie into this theme. Of note, Yameruler’s defense position animation is very much like how one in kabuki would try to “disappear” off stage (by holding a fan in front of his face), Kimeruler has elements of kabuki makeup in his design (though heavily watered down), and Semeruler’s summoning animation is a very common kabuki pose for combat.

--------------

For people interested in the raw BDMV vs encoded final video comparisons, click here. (Click the image in the center to swap between “raw BD” and “encoded”).

--------------

Credits

Translation, timing: entame Proofreading: angelthinktank (Yona) Encoding: PelvisBass

[clarste]

Okay, so I was driving home today, listening to the FMW soundtrack and crying, as you do, and I felt I absolutely had to explain this one scene from it on my blog. So I will. I have that freedom.

It’s the in the middle of the Imperishable Night arc, so this is the point in the game where all the bigshots start joining your party for the first time. Yukari, Yuyuko, Remilia, etc. I mean, that’s also how it worked in the original IN so it checks out, and it gives the impression that this time it’s really serious and that Eirin is like the most powerful foe you’ve ever faced and it works out really well.

Anyway, Reimu and Marisa are separated, obviously, and one of the bigshots Marisa picks up is Mima, who’s finally come back to Gensokyo after a long trip to Makai, the Holy Land of Magic. And Marisa is super excited to have her mentor back, of course, but this leads to some friction because A) Mima has not been secretly watching over Marisa all this time, she’s just been off doing her own stuff, and B) Mima actually thinks Marisa’s gotten kind of sloppy with her magic and offers to take her to Makai to retrain her from scratch.

Marisa gets super depressed that she’s not good enough for Mima and in the next mission starts at 50% Power (ie: Morale) and kinda sucks. Halfway through the battle she also gets knocked out and her best friends have to protect her (ie: Alice, Nitori, and Patchouli, her SA partners).

While’s she out, Marisa dreams about her childhood: running away from home, studying under Mima, hanging out with Reimu and Rinnosuke, etc. And it’s all sepia toned and there’s this slow, soft piano music. But then it gets to the part where she’s stargazing with Reimu and suddenly the music swells and the color comes back to the scene as she remembers why she loves studying magic. “I’m not doing this to impress Mima, I just wanted to be like the shooting stars I saw that day. I’ll be the brightest light in the sky, if only for one brief moment!”

And then she gets up and all her moves have been upgraded with cool new animations and the bonus condition of the stage changes to “use at least 3 different moves with Marisa” which of course you’d want to do anyway to see them, and with each of her moves she has a different conversation with the person who inspired it. IE: she talks to Yuuka about Final Spark, Patchouli about Non-Directional Laser, Alice about the Malice Cannon (a team attack), and Nitori about Magic Napalm. There’s this whole big thing about “my magic is the accumulation of all my experiences, it’s who I am!”

And then when you beat the stage, she automatically learns her new finisher, which isn’t Final Spark, but Blazing Star. “I AM A SHOOTING STAR!” (which is also the name of her previous theme song, a small oversight). And when she does it cuts away to Rinnosuke back at his shop, who just saw a shooting star in the distance and thinks it reminds him of Marisa. Because heck yeah, Marisa is a goddamned shooting star and she’s amazing.

Here’s a video of all her new attacks.

And then the next stage you fight Reimu like in IN, and she’s been through her own upgrade on her route, except instead of just Reimu it’s a huge brawl with Yukari and Yuyuko and Kanako and Suwako and the Myouren Temple crew (including the boat) and everyone on youkai mountain. And that’s also amazing.

Basically FMW is an amazing game.

[evilisk]

Reading Len’En Profiles Pt 1

Just realized that except for Jun, Shou and Hibaru, I’ve been making judgments on characters purely off the games and also my gut. I’m gonna go through the profiles and see if they can change my mind. This part is for the Evanescent Existence characters.

Yabusame Houlen

Original Opinion: Except for that one line when talking to ‘Tsubakura’ in EE, Yabusame seemed perfectly sensible, if a little boring, as a character. Then EMS comes along and they are consistently portrayed as ‘dumb as Sukune’ in EMS and RMI. I find it hard to like a dumb protagonist, though RMI pairing them with Tsuba made them more tolerable.

Profile Details: 

Apparently Yabu was always meant to be dumb, JynX just didn’t do a good job of showing it in EE

 I find it hilarious that line 1 is “Yabu can be described is plain and boring” but then line 2 is “Yabu is outrageous weirdo”

I did pick up on “Yabu is a cross dimensional thing” but I did not know they were *not* spirited away to Senri in this game... that explains one line during their convo with Tsuru.

New Opinion: Eh, I still don’t like ‘em. Their profile makes it seem like they’re a satellite character to Tsubakura and I don’t really like one of the series protags having that kind of attitude.

= = = 

Tsubakura Enraku

Original Opinion: I had no opinion on Tsuba in EE since you spent almost no time with them. EMS and RMI made me realize I do like Tsubakura... thought not as much as I like Kuroji. My impression of them is “lazy, entertaining jerk’ with strong emphasis on the lazy part. 

Profile Details: 

“Young genius scientist” is not what I was expecting to read in Tsuba’s profile. The “slave to sponsorships” and “suspicious research” makes them sound really shady tbh.

It’s zany that a young genius scientist was Tsuru’s first pick for their successor / substitute.

Why is their power described as ‘controlling ink’ only for ‘ink’ to actually be frigging nanomachines? Why do you write profiles like this JynX?

Enjoying things which are enjoyable is my ability too.

New Opinion: Tsuba is way more interesting than I gave them credit for, though I can’t believe “the greatest prodigy in all of history” is supposed to be one of their titles. Now I can understand Kuroji’s salt.

= = =

Kurohebi

Original Opinion: I have no opinion on Kurohebi (I typically don’t have opinions on Stage 1 bosses even in Touhou) other than ‘the comparisons to Rumia make me very angry’ because Rumia makes me angry. (NOTE: My opinion is that Rumia is a PC98 character who stumbled out of a PC98 game and lucked out into being the Stage 1 Boss of the most popular Touhou game ever)

Profile Details:

So you’re telling me that Kurohebi is this super Frankenstein and is such an ultimate assassin that you can’t detect them by sound or even touch, only by sight, and that they’re actually a “fake assassin” only because they haven’t been given an assassination order yet? What the hell, I love Kurohebi now, why the hell are they only a Stage 1 Boss?!

New Opinion: No seriously, how could you make the character with the coolest backstory the Stage 1 Boss, Jynx?!

= = =

Aoji Shitodo

Original Opinion: I don’t like them for being a wimp, and also for being Absurdly hard for a Stage 2 Boss (seriously, even on Easy, they’re too Hard!) 

Profile Details:

Wow, this profile has nothing! Seriously, it describes their powers and that’s it. There’s only two lines describing their personality, and they’re details you can easily pick out from the game (they’re the youngest Shitodo sibling, and they’re hesitant)

New Opinion: I have the exact same opinion as before, as reading their profile is like adding 0 to an existing number.

= = =

Hooaka Shitodo

Original Opinion: They’re also pretty hard (I hate that spell card where they summon a bullet maze that you have to scale before it fires downwards) but at least they’re on Stage 4 instead of Stage 2. And I guess they have some funny lines too.

Profile Details:

Wait, their species is “Magician”? What? Are we operating on Touhou rules here? (In Touhou, Magician is a subspecies of Youkai)

I’m also not getting a whole lot out of this profile (talk about powers is useless to me). All I’m really getting is that Hooaka can read the mood (literally) and that they’re quite adaptable.

I’ve heard that Hooaka is a lazy bum, so I’m a bit surprised it’s not referenced anywhere. Is Hooaka in Brilliant Pagoda then? Cause they’re sure as hell not in EMS or RMI.

New Opinion: I don’t know what to do with the information that they’re very adaptable. And that they’re species is “Magician”, but I guess I still like ‘em more than Aoji (who, by comparison, is still my least favourite EE character).

= = =

Kuroji Shitodo

Original Opinion: I didn’t really like this character for feeling like discount Seija, but I slowly came around on them. I can’t hate on this dashing and competent scamp in purple who is ready to shakedown everyone and everything. It helps that they’re basically the underdog MC (now if only they’d stop problematically blackmailing poor Snek Kid)

Profile Details:

Continuing the weird bit on Species, we have Kuroji’s species as “Scholar of Prehistory” (though they’re listed as Human in the subsequent description.

Their backstory is sounding a lot like discount Tsubakura tbh...oh, okay, I get it. No wonder they see Tsuba as their rival. 

With how many mentions of Tsuba there is in their profile, it’s no wonder they ended up being a player character in EMS. Because besides Tsubakura themselves, the other two characters that focus on Tsuba on their profile are also the two player characters in *this game*.

I didn’t really pick up on the Historian theme (I don’t have “Historian” in the same mindspace as “Archaeologist”) though in hindsight, their two themes do have “History” in their titles.

I think if I read their profile as I was playing EE, I probably would have liked Kuroji even less (bc of the discount Tsubakura angle)

New Opinion: Kuroji’s still my favourite MC though I empathize with them a little more with this profile.

= = =

“Clause”

Original Opinion: This fella gives me big Rinnosuke vibes. I do not like this fella.

Profile Details: 

Ah I see, so Clause is exactly what they appear to be (they’re that one annoying person you know, who is now so much worse now that they have actual superpowers)

Thank God Wilhelm von Clausewitz etc. isn’t their real name. Now if only some character got to rib ‘Clausewitz’ about this.

“Species: Annoyance” okay yeah, JynX is totally joking around here.

This isn’t in the profile, but the one good point I’ll give to Clause is that even Suzumi gets annoyed by their talk.

New Opinion: So, basically, what you’re saying is, I am totally justified in not liking this fella. Got it. 

= = =

Tsurubami Senri

Original Opinion: Tsuru’s easily the coolest character in this game, but is that any surprise? I mean, they’re one of the two original player characters, they have a cool fight, they have one of the best tracks in the game AND they have the best smack talk too. They even BTFO Suzumi in her own Extra route. They’re basically the complete package.

Profile Details:

I actually know a lot about Tsuru just because they seem to be such an integral part of Len’En’s setting, and most lore bits that you see repeated ad nauseum (e.g. Tsuru is a militant tyrant) seem to be ripped directly from Senri’s profile.

With that said, uh, what the hell does “ability to raise poultry” mean?! Is Tsuru a farmer? Or is this referencing the final two lines where Tsuru can “raise latent potential in others” and then use it for themselves? (If it’s the latter, ‘poultry’ is an incredibly unsettling way of describing that power’)

Wait, are you telling me that Tsuru did all of this so they could go on VACATION?! What the hell. Tsuru really is “tired Reimu”

New Opinion: This character just got a little more interesting. I’m hoping they get to be playable in Brilliant Pagoda or Haze Castle, but in their true form instead of their disguised form.

= = =

On Suzumi

I already mentioned them a bunch of times, but yeah, I sort of get what their deal is, just from in-game conversations and from general popular knowledge of the series (e.g. you can’t not watch a video with her theme without all the commentators losing their shit, talking about how spooky she is).

Since this is about profiles and since I also don’t specifically remember what reveals about Suzumi were in EE, I’ll hold off on writing about her until she gets an in-game profile I can comment on.

= = =

And that’s about it. Aside from Aoji, Clause and Yabusame (who were like my bottom 3 EE characters already), I have a much better appreciation of EE’s cast. I’ll get to doing EMS and RMI’s casts soon.

[enderoftheend]

i havent done a touhou review in a while wew. three in one lets go

legacy of lunatic kingdom. this game is just... why. why would you fucking do this to me. what did i ever deserve. why does this game exist. what were you thinking, zun. a big part of me loves clownpiece for her personality, but an even bigger part of me thinks shes a clownPIECE of SHIT. FUCK HEr. So MuCh. I Can’T. WHY.....

why is the hardest boss in the entire series a fucking stage 5 boss. Not even a final, not even an extra. A STAGE 5. Anyway fuck this game. I only finished legacy mode on Reisen and im NOT attempting this shit anymore. ITS IMPOSSIBLE. anyway uhh im not sure for favourite music, the soundtrack’s pretty alright i guess. but... the only song i really remember is clownpiece’s theme lol. (because ive heard it on repeat so many times. again FUCK CLOWNPIECE.)

6/10 I lost my sanity to this game but there was no Cirno.

hidden star in four seasons

zun, you’re better than this... the mechanics were solid i suppose, nothing too interesting but. the way ZUN handled the story in this one is complete ass. beating the game doesn’t even feel rewarding because it does that stupid thing where you beat the boss but the story decides you somehow didn’t beat the boss in the next cutscene. like what kind of bull... no, i EARNED that victory. Don’t cheap me out of it. come on. No, it decides you ACTUALLY beat the final boss when you defeat the extra boss. who turns out to be the exact same person as the final boss, but in a ‘different form’ or whatever. thus, no longer is the extra stage an ‘extra’, but rather a mandatory part of the story. like, why? can’t i just feel happy that i beat the game the first time around? it never did this in any other game. overall, i certainly hope that ZUN doesn’t continue this structure again. Touhou’s kind of an experimental series but c’mon this was so dumb. Okina’s theme sounds cool though, i picked up a little bit of Necrofantasia in there which I appreciated. also sure hope cirno’s not your favourite character as well because playing as her is kind of ass. favourite character is eternity larvae. FAIRIES FOR THE WIN.

10/10 cirno is a playable character.

bohemian archive in japanese red, in which mokou threatens to cook aya.

honestly this book was so charming. mokou’s section made me grin like an idiot and flandre’s is just so cute i can’t- i want to give her a hug so badly. i now know where the “kyu” thing comes from, too. also i got it right away that it was mokou and kaguya that set the forest on fire... i love the bitter-sweet rivalry those two have. also my first encounter with rinnosuke... he seems pretty mildly mannered and knowledgeable, if not just desperate to sell something. anything. wind god girl sounded soo good in this. i also ended up reading grimoire of marisa. the tracks are mysterious and very witch-y, so they fit and they sound good. i would never have expected marisa to be such a good artist. especially on chen’s section. like, damn.

10/10 had cirno.