that’s a pretty sad gay story

(inspired by a 2:30 AM discord conversation)

So, most people who are into anime to some degree know of Touhou Project, right? Maybe you’re even peripherally into it. The super hard bullet hell series where little girls have epic laser tag fights over things that basically don’t matter, and then everyone has a tea party together after the fighting’s over and become friends.

The interesting thing is, though, that there has never been an instance of everyone having a tea party and making up after Reimu and Marisa fly off and solve the incident. Checking through every ending scene since 1996 (yes, including the PC-98 games in this analysis) the only tea party scene that exists is the ending of Lotus Land Story, between only Reimu and Marisa. What led to this perception, then?

Lion King (1994) Lion King (2019) Cats (2019)

Kimba the White Lion (1965), The Lion King (1994), The Lion King (2019), Cats (2019):

Shakespeare (1564), Kimba the White Lion (1965), The Lion King (1994), The Lion King (2019), Cats (2019):

There are four new Touhou comics on the horizon.

1)  Touhou Suichouka Lotus Eaters’ Sobering

This is the one that was announced first, and it’s coming out next month in late November. This is an official comic being published in Comp Ace, the same magazine that published Forbidden Scrollery and Visionary Fairies in Shrine. This is the one with the recent ad featuring a new character wearing a whale hat.

2) Touhou Chireikiden Cheating Detective Satori

This is the 2nd official comic, and it was released just yesterday. It’s being published online and for free in three different places: Touhou Garakuta, Comic Walker, and Nicovideo Manga. This is part of a new multimedia thing that’s basically a spin-off of the Strange Creators magazine where all these cross reviews and ZUN interviews come from. You can think of it as an official comic attached to Strange Creators.

3) Hungry Marisa’s Pleasant Meal

This is an unofficial doujin comic being published in the same places at the same time as Detective Satori. It’s part of the same Strange Creators multimedia effort, but that doesn’t mean it’s official. Strange Creators has always had a bunch of doujin comics in it, that’s just part of the magazine. Each of these comics starts with a big splash page telling people that it’s not official, in order to reduce confusion (which doesn’t help if you can’t read Japanese, admittedly).

4) The Shinigami Rows Her Boat Again Today