Lawleon's Corner

I was recently going through some things I had boxed up for one move or another many years ago when I came across these enamel pins. I had them stored in a small box, with the pins punched through about 5 index cards to keep them both in place and from bumping into one another, so I gave their home a bit of an upgrade, as pictured.

I was both happy to find them and slightly dazed when I remembered how I came to possess them. So I'm going to write a little about these pins, because other than the blog of the original creator and some ancient image board posts, locating information about these pins is nigh impossible, so I'd like to record my memory of them here.

Strike Witches is best described as a mid 2000's WW2 fighter pilot gijinka show. Instead of having the characters fight each other they combat an alien threat. It's quite clear that KanColle, and then subsequently Azur Lane, took heavy inspiration from this series. It's also rather infamously known as the series where no female characters wear pants, so "fan service heavy" doesn't even begin to cover it.

The original designer Humikane Shimada has been heavily involved in the series from the very start, and he's been the go to illustrator for just about everything that could be considered a cross over between anime girls and military hardware ever since. One of the things I do appreciate about the world design is that every country, every squadron, and even each witch will have their own symbols and sigils. The pins above are the country air force insignias of all countries represented by the members of the original 501st Joint Fighter Wing. From right to left, and then top to bottom, Liberion, Brittania, Gallia, Orussia, Suomus, Orussia (again), Romagna, Karlsland, and Fuso. Now that I've covered what these pins are and what they represent, I can go over their creation. Back in 2010 some official enamel pins were produced by Kadokawa, and sold for 1000 Yen each. These are absolutely not those pins. Whether it was due to the poor purchasing infrastructure at the time, the cost of buying and shipping a full set of these being over $100, or possibly minimal online documentation regarding them, any fans that might have wanted them probably missed out on them. An anime image board user that went by Mikan decided to take matters into their own hands and decided to have a design it yourself enamel pin making website create similar pins, however companies like that really only operate in bulk. Therefore, Mikan went around to some various image boards advertising the pins and I was one of the people crazy enough to send a guy selling something on 4chan my address, phone number, and something like $40. So imagine my surprise when a few months later I get a call confirming my address and the pins actually showed up not long after that. From what I remember, Mikan definitely lost money on the project, and a fellow named Patch-kun started a subsequent project not long after to create iron-on patches for the insignias of the 8 known joint fighter wings. Instead of paypal and image boards they went through kickstarter. If you'd like to see how that turned out, you can click the link, but prepare to be disappointed. There were a few other projects like that around that time, but the way the patches ended put a stop to the mass production of fan-made goods in this manner, for a time at least.

Still, I will say, the pins I received are excellent. The glitter effect is pretty great and they're very subtle references to a source material that most would be hesitant to share. Coming from a time where anime merch will often just have a character's face, or full body on it these pins are much closer to ideal merchandise than most of the crap pettled by anime goods distributors both then and today.

Still, on the topic of Strike Witches, I'm honestly surprised at how poorly the mobile game performed considering gijinka-ing things typically a secret sauce for thing like this, but bullet hell games typically don't function well on tiny touch screens unless you de-emphasize the consequences of getting hit like Azur Lane does. Either way, I'm no closer to any Grete Gollob merch and idk if Humikane has given up or is trying to bankroll any future projects by drawing a metric ton of SW, GuP, and Frame Arms Girls hentai on fantia, but while he makes absolute bank I can't help but feel like the series is in a state worse than death.

[Clear file, the only thing I was missing was the Level 3 Bombs.]

I'll just say up top, EoW was a great Zelda game. I'm glad Nintendo was finally willing to make Zelda the playable character. I think the strongest positive that came of the protagonist swap was the mix-up on the general narrative. Having actual connections to the King, Impa, the retainers, soldiers, and citizens of Hyrule Castle Town was enjoyable. These are the NPCs that are most often in peril alongside the princess generally to raise the narrative stakes. A decent job was done incorporating them into the story and weaving them into a few side quests once you do rescue them. It's also fun to speak with NPCs who have interacted with Link prior to the events of the story and hear them speak about the swordsman who traveled around the villages clearing out monsters and helping the townsfolk. Which is a fun contrast with how NPCs talk about how great and wonderful a princess Zelda is when you play as Link in the other games.

The gameplay difference from the protagonist swap takes the form of the Echoes mechanic. After encountering an item or defeating an enemy you can learn it's/their echo and summon those echoes to assist you in puzzling or combat. There are a lot of echoes to learn, somewhere around 130 total with varying degrees of usefulness. If you've played BotW or TotK you can see some UI similarities in the images above. Both types of echo selection UI have their uses in game and learning when to use each type will make for a better experience. Technically, it's more about avoiding the annoyances with each UI type. The catalog menu is great for seeing a bunch of stuff all at once and finding a new echo or an echo you haven't used in a while, but you'll never be able to muscle memory anywhere since the order of the catalog is always changing as you pick up new echoes. The quick swap is great for when you're using the same 5 or 6 NPC/Items to solve a series of like puzzles or combat encounters, but locating an echo for a new puzzle or enemy type is incredibly cumbersome. It's best to use both UIs, you just need to learn when the situation calls for it. EoW also features a "Link mode" for Zelda called Swordfighter Form. You can only be in Swordfighter form for a limited time and it can be difficult to regain meter if you're not in the Still World or have plenty of Smoothies. Swordfighter form is powerful, incredibly so if you level it up, but the game does a good job of gating how much of it you have throughout the story until the actual endgame, so you still do need to mostly rely on the Echoes mechanic throughout the main dungeons. I think the biggest problem with the Echoes mechanic has more to do with the sheer volume of items at your disposal. There are a few puzzles that you'll encounter than can be difficult to solve due to how some echoes will interact (or won't interact) with the environment. You might have 3 different ideas and try out 15 different echoes to implement those ideas, but they just don't work. Then you try the flying tile out of frustration and surprise, it works underwater. [Always try the flying tile.] These moments are few and far between, but they can be incredibly frustrating for someone who is playing blind.

There are a handful of mini-games and activities to dive into in EoW, Acorn Gathering, Mango Rush, Slumber Training, and Flag Racing. Be wary of two of these for two different reasons. Flag Racing is a horseback race where you run around and touch the flags on the course. There are three courses with a clear time and a mastery time each. Mastery time will give better rewards, but they can be quite difficult. I think the Short and Long course mastery times were the most frustrating part of this game for me. Any error. on the short course especially, will cost you the clear time. There is no quick retry and each try costs 10 Rupees each, make sure to come with a decent amount of money. Slumber Training is a series of timed enemy gauntlets. Each dungeon you clear will add more courses to the mini-game. The game generally does a good job of limiting your access to Swordfighter form, however completely clearing this mini-game will reward you with three "time extension" accessories for swordfighter form that can be worn simultaneously, greatly extending the time you can use it. Just be careful as these accessories in conjunction can trivialize pretty much any late game combat encounter.

My final honest thoughts can be summed up as "Damn, it sure is nice to play a new traditional Zelda game for the first time in over a decade." Yeah, that's how long it's been. A Link Between Worlds was November 13th 2013. (I'm not counting Tri Force Heroes since it had a heavy focus on multi-player.) I finished BotW with all 120 Spirit Orbs, but couldn't stomach more than 10 hours of TotK. I found myself occasionally thinking about TotK and why I disliked it as much as I did, I was honestly afraid that the future of Zelda games was going to be 6 to 7 year stretches between releases for big open world games that feel wide, but are miserably shallow. Imo, TotK was a sloppy asset flip. A copy that didn't spend any time thinking about why BotW made the choices that it did. TotK stole BotW story presentation, but didn't think about why it worked in BotW. TotK stole BotW's NPC and then overwrote their memories. TotK stole BotW's weapon durability for no reason, stole it's horses for no reason, stole it's paraglider for no reason, stole it's garbage UI for no reason, stole it's shrines and progression for no reason. TotK's heavy emphasis on what I can only describe as manipulating 3D objects on a 2D screen felt like a chore to me. When I attempt to solve a puzzle I want to be able to instantly try my solution. I want to be able to receive that feedback on the screen. Did I do it right? Was I close to the solution? Should I try that again from a different spot, maybe different order? I don't want to be dropped into a box and given a bunch or car parts. There's no puzzle there, just a waste of 2~5 minutes building a janky vehicle so I can attempt a solution. Echoes of Wisdom feels like someone over there is trying. They're trying to claw back so much of what was lost in the big jump from 3DS to the Switch. They're attempting to keep the ideas that did work and use them with intent rather than just jangling keys. I genuinely hope this game sells well, not just because it's more traditional, not just because playable Zelda. I hope it performs well because I want to see more Zelda games. I don't want 7 year gaps between big shallow sandboxes that just steal proper nouns while abandoning the gameplay that made the series what it is.

After many years of hunting I was finally able to complete my FuniFuni collection! I almost never see these plushies discussed in comparison to Fumos so I thought I'd talk about what I understand about them since the Circle that made them, Phantasm Screen, seems to be completely defunct. The initial run of Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae first showed up in July 2009 and the most "recent" additions, Satori, Orin, Remilia, and Flandre first showed up in August 2010. The only record of legitimate online sales of these plushies I can find is an old entry on Melonbooks for the hanging strap version of Orin from 2010. Some evidence suggests they were sold on Toranoana and at IRL events as well. They were most likely distributed at a few more events and probably at IRL bookstore/doujin shops after the final set was made before the Circle closed up shop. I would reasonably expect that all of these plushies are roughly a decade old, and no more new ones have been made since then. As time has passed it has obviously become more difficult to find online auctions for some of these, you can still find auctions for Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae somewhat often, but the plushies released later don't show up as often since there were fewer distributions of them. The full sized version of Satori was particularly difficult for me to locate, I think I won the only auction for the full sized Satori plush I had seen in 5 years? (For the absurd price of $12 plus shipping.)

These plushies are smaller in comparison to Fumos.

In my opinion the Funis are generally a bit more detailed than Fumos. More fabric types are used, with a lot of the frills Touhou outfits are known for are made of lace on the Funis versus the satin ribbons that Fumos use.

Additionally, if you'll forgive me for talking about plushie tooshie, Fumos generally stick with the exact same basic design for the area where the plushie sits, but Funis are willing to go into detail even down to the footwear. The bloomers are modeled like actual clothing, and look at Satori's socks and house slippers!

Let's talk about tags. In a world with bootleg Fumos, the presence or absence of a visible tag was probably the first thing people attempting to obtain one were taught to look for. Scalpers are not trying to duplicate Funis for fat stacks of cash so whether or not a Funi has a tag is more of a personal preference, or for a feeling of reassurance. I was able to obtain 12/13 of my Funis with tags, pictured below. (Did you think I was going to let the absence of a tag prevent me from buying the only Satori I had seen in like 7 years?)

So, a vengeful spirit huh? It feels like this type of ghost has been brought up quite regularly in Touhou ever since the geyser opened up a pathway to Former Hell during the events of Subterranean Animism. So far in windows canon their only confirmed appearance has been their use in Rin's spellcards, but they've been spoken or written about about in most print works by characters like Kasen and Akyuu who are some of our best in universe information sources. Vengeful spirits are ghosts that are capable of possessing others. While this trait isn't particularly harmful to humans, it can be fatal or quite disastrous to youkai if it causes them to take actions that go against how they are perceived by humans. However, observing the actions of the antagonist of Cheating Detective Satori leads me to believe that this vengeful spirit has no desire to do any lasting harm to those who she possesses. Thus far this vengeful spirit only seems interested in robbing the energy from some rather high profile targets, but her true motive or grudge remains to be discovered.

TIMELINE Let's take a look at the timeline in regards to the true culprit thus far:

(A known vengeful spirit escapes form Former Hell) (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 4) The vengeful spirit finds its way into Marisa and then subsequently Marisa brings it into the SDM* (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 17) (The vengeful spirit moves into Sakuya) (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 5) The possessed Sakuya makes coffee for Patchouli, Patchouli drinks the coffee and is subsequently possessed and drained of energy by the vengeful spirit (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 5) The possessed Patchouli comes to and finds an opportunity to tamper with Meiling's tea set (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 2) Meiling made some tea for herself which allowed the vengeful spirit to swap from Patchouli to Meiling and drain her of energy (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 3) (Marisa is the second individual to find the unconscious Meiling, this allows the vengeful spirit to possess Marisa and escape) (Completely inferred) The possessed Marisa makes her way to Hakugyokurou bearing a gift (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 14) (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 16) The possessed Marisa uses this alcoholic present to swap from Marisa to Yuyuko and drain her of energy (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 16)

DIVERGENCE PATH A - 90% (The vengeful spirit repossesses Marisa and makes it's way out of the Netherworld) (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 17) The possessed Marisa flees into the Forest of Magic when Satori arrives at the Hakurei Shrine (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 15) Satori senses the vengeful spirit hiding within the Forest of Magic (CDS Chap. 7, Pg. 13) Arriving at Alice's house, the spirit finds a way to have Alice drink tea so that the vengeful spirit can drain Alice of her energy (CDS Chap. 7, Pg. 16 & 17)

PATH B - 10% The vengeful spirit flees into the greater Netherworld and hides among the other spirits (CDS Chap. 7, Pg. 9) Yukari uses her shikigami, Ran and Chen, to locate and surround the vengeful spirit (CDS Chap. 7, Pg. 10)

*  Speculation by Satori () Inferred events

I am placing more weight onto PATH A due to most these events being said, or learned via Satori's ability. Events in PATH B are coming from Team Yukari, and thus could be the result of inaccurate instructions issued to her shikigami.

To note, I have tried to back up the events in the timeline with statements from Satori herself, or learned via Satori's power. Thus far Marisa(the main vessel for the vengeful spirit) and Satori have yet to be together in the same room, when this finally occurs I assume that a large amount of information will be revealed.

FINDINGS In regards to the vengeful spirit there are three critical things we've learned. A) When possessing a youkai the vengeful spirit must do so via liquid ingestion (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 7) B) The vengeful spirit can leave it's current target at anytime (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 12) C) The vengeful spirit can hide within humans without controlling them (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 17)

ASSUMPTIONS One thing that we are being led to believe, but have yet to be shown directly, is that the vengeful spirit can possess humans without using a liquid medium. The assumed possession of Marisa initially, the assumed swap from Marisa to Sakuya, and the assumed swap from Meiling back into Marisa are not shown. (Once again, Marisa is involved in all three of these assumed events.) Due to the harmful nature of vengeful spirits towards youkai a condition needs to be met to circumvent a possible natural defense. A human isn't in danger of having their existence disturbed in the same way a youkai would be, so the defense might not be present in humans.

NOTES AND SPECULATIONS First, if you weren’t already aware, Satori’s title in both Subterranean Animism and Symposium of Post-mysticism is “The Girl Even the Vengeful Spirits Fear“ so it looks like she’s going to finally show us how she got that title.

I originally wanted to write some analysis of CDS framed around the idea of ZUN using the fanon interpretation of Meiling being lazy as a massive misdirection in the first arc. Meiling in canon isn't just a lazy gatekeeper who naps frequently. She exercises in the morning, guards the gate, makes rounds around SDM, and does most of the gardening. When she slacks off she reads tengu published manga, and chats with those who come by the SDM giving off a rather positive impression of "that house filled with devils." While there are canon references to her napping on the job, that is not all that she is. Reducing her character to such a one note existence is quite sad in my opinion. So I thought it quite strange that Meiling was told by Rin that the detective can read minds (CDS Chap. 1, Pg. 20) and yet shows a shocked reaction when Reimu talks about Satori's power (CDS Chap. 2, Pg. 5) like she wasn't already informed.

However, considering that Patchouli is the first to "find" Meiling passed out in the flowers (yet doesn't even try to help her) (CDS Chap. 4.5, Pg. 3) it's most likely that Patchouli stops being possessed at this time, meaning any weirdness with Meiling is just due to Meiling being weird.

Even if that is the case there is one Meiling interaction I would like to point out. (CDS Chap. 2, Pg. 12-15) When Meiling brings down food for Sakuya and Flan, Sakuya remarks, "This soup is missing the shaved truffles.", "If you forget them, the mistress [Flan] will be mad." To which Meiling slams the door.

Flan goes on to state two pages later that she hates truffles. I wonder if this is an indicator of their speculated friendship that often appears in fanon works. Meiling knows that Flan doesn't like truffles so she has her soup made without them. Then again, the next time we see Flan she's gleefully choking the unconscious Meiling so who can say for sure. This is Touhou after all, and these are the two least developed SDM characters with actual names.

Now, for a bit of plot speculation. ZUN does like to hint at general trends and plots in his print works. Upcoming and past incidents are shown in minor manga plots quite regularly and we happen to have had quite a few incidents where the magical/spiritual/natural energy in Gensoukyou is manipulated, along with the most recent game involving animal spirits possessing our protagonists. This time we're dealing with a vengeful spirit, a soul with a longstanding grudge. Currently her motives and identity are a mystery, but she seems to want the magical energy present within powerful individuals residing in Gensoukyou for something. We haven't had many interactions with the vengeful spirit herself, and the exact point in time that she leaves Patchouli is up for debate, but it's not a good idea to trust Patchouli in general as a source of any factual information, the only times I'm willing to reference the things Patchouli says and remembers in the timeline is due to the presence of Satori. The only other time that a known possessed individual is spoken to is the conversation between Reimu and Marisa in chapter 6, however, immediately after Marisa bails it is revealed that the vengeful spirit has multiple modes of operation. (CDS Chap. 6, Pg. 17) "However we don't know if she's [Marisa] being controlled by it or not. Be careful not to get yourself possessed..." - Satori. The vengeful spirit might not have been in control for the conversation between Reimu and Marisa, but it will have knowledge of the conversation. It's my belief that the only time we've heard the vengeful spirit speak is after Patchouli wakes up at the end of chapter 2 through chapter 3. At some point after chapter 3 during chapter 3.5 the vengeful spirit switches to Meiling. During this time Patchouli steers the conversation she's apart of towards blaming Sakuya, in fact the first thing possessed Patchouli asks when she wakes up is "What happened", to which Remilia reveals to her everything allowing the vengeful spirit to mislead the cast.

There are still a few too many questions to rule anything conclusive, but one thing I want to know is if the vengeful spirit can hold off draining a magical existence of their energy upon first contact or if that's just a set rule. Satori has confirmed with Meiling that the spirit can just leave whether the victim is conscious or not. Satori has also confirmed that the spirit can hide within a human target without rendering them unconscious. Can those attributes be combined? To possess a magical entity and control them before draining them of energy?

The thing I'm most looking forward to is having Satori and Marisa in the same room. I feel like quite a bit will be revealed if Satori has the opportunity to read Marisa's mind.

DUMB FINAL THOUGHTS Alice hasn't had any speaking lines in over a decade, is ZUN going to continue that trend by having her be the mouthpiece of the vengeful spirit instead of being able to speak her own thoughts? If the magic circle in Alice's book is being used to generate heat for her stove-top why is the same magic circle on the floor of the SDM atrium? Is Youmu purposely avoiding learning anything about vengeful spirits because she's afraid of ghosts? DID SATORI DRINK THAT GLASS OF WATER FROM RIN AND GET POSSESSED AT THE END OF CHAPTER 7???

Well, without further ado let’s start by addressing the criticisms.

Criticisms

Just to begin with, this is a rather minor one, but it was the cause of 95% of my unease before buying this book, the synopsis on the back cover. There is a specific word choice on the back cover of the book that had me quite worried. “Demonic books…” was the root of my negative expectations for this book. The youma books are center stage as a plot point throughout Forbidden Scrollery, so I was quite concerned that youkai was going to be translated as Demon, and youma was going to be translated as Demonic.

I am happy to report that “Youkai” and “Youma” are left as I spelled them. Yes you read that right “Y O U K A I”. It’s not spelled yokai, it is spelled in the book properly as youkai. Well, I’ll get in to that more specifically in the praise section of this review, but the back cover synopsis was a source of a great deal of unease in the months before the release, it was the synopsis for the series listed on all book retailers, and it was the only translated text available to read for quite some time. After that slow pitch, let’s get into the single worst Translation in this book, Akyu Hiedano.

I don’t get it, I just don’t. I don’t know how this translation was decided upon. You were even so careful to even spell youkai correctly, with the long o sound. The most egregious error must be Akyu. Her given name is Akyuu, with a long u sound. Akyu is incorrect, this spelling is more incorrect than where the “no” was placed. Speaking of the “no” in Hieda no Akyuu, there was quite a bit of discussion around it when this translation was first discovered. I decided not to say anything about it until I had the book in my hand, but now that I do have the book I can see that the translation answers this debate in the form of a TL note.

Spelled right there properly on the front gate to her house, Hieda.

The “no” in and of itself is there to make Akyuu sound important. The no is also not in a proper reading of the kanji making up Akyuu’s family name, it’s present, but it’s to add that societal weight to her name. This inconsistency in the translation makes it seem as if in Chapter 2 Kosuzu walks into the Hieda household to find “Akyu Hiedano” sitting around looking at books inside. I know that this is addressed in the first line on the next page with Kosuzu stating, “Your mansion is always so over-dramatic.”, but it needs to be said. This just doesn’t flow well in English. If the translation of Hiedano is to be kept, please be consistent translating all future instances of Hieda to Hiedano, though I hope this choice is reconsidered. Personally I’d like to see it translated as Akyuu Hieda. I feel that it is shown in Forbidden Scrollery that Akyuu is quite important and comes from a well-to-do household, therefore leaving the no out is an acceptable translation to me, since that societal weight is shown in a different way. Moving forward, there are a few other names this translation choice will change, Hata no Kokoro or Fujiwara no Mokou, should be translated as Kokoro Hata, and Mokou Fujiwara respectively. I do hope someone at Yen Press reads this or perhaps other fan reviews and reconsiders the overall translation of Akyuu’s name, it’s the only really noticeable blemish on this fantastic translation. Other than that, there are 2 instances where I feel that the translation is a bit off. The first occurs in the first chapter right here:

“But I have to say, my favorite book…” “…is this one!” You can see in the line prior Kosuzu is referring to all Imported Books from outside Gensoukyou, however in the next bit she refers to her favorite books, youma books in general. The subject should be plural, reading like this, “But I have to say, my favorite books…” “…are these!”

The second is here:

“…If you must use the picture scroll…” “…try to use it about once a month.” “You may end up summoning a terrible youkai someday.” The entire tone and meaning of these lines is off. Here Mamizou is coercing Kosuzu in a round about way, asking her to read the scroll once a month in order to avoid summoning a “terrible youkai”. In all actuality, she wants to buy the scroll to produce baby tsukumogami so she can empower them during a tanuki banquet. This is her way of forcing a compromise between between her will and Reimu’s will with Kosuzu as the middleman. Kosuzu keeps the scroll under Reimu’s orders, but once a month Mamizou gets her way and has the opportunity to increase the strength of the Tanuki. I don’t have my Japanese copy in front of me, but if I was to re-translate this panel it would be, “It should be okay to read that scroll about once a month. If you don’t, you may end up summoning a truly terrifying youkai someday.” This tone appeals to Kosuzu, she wants to read the youma books in the first place since she’s drawn to the danger of them. If she can read this book that Reimu has designated “off limits” once a month and stop a disaster from happening she’ll do so religiously. Final complaint and it’s a short one. The font choice for the out of bubble, or side speech text was a poor choice. I’m sorry, but I have excellent vision and some of it takes a double take before I can decipher what’s written.

These pictures are zoomed in in comparison to a normal reading position, and those y’s in particular are awful. Whew, personally I think most of that is minor grievances. It’s long, but I do feel the need to express why I feel that these are complaints. Onto praises! Praises Firstly, I noted this earlier. They spelled youkai correctly and used youma books for the official TL, yay! I’m not sure is any of you have played any of the Play Doujin! releases that have been translated into English officially, but they spell youkai as yokai, and it really gets on my nerves considering how often the word is used. They didn’t go all the way and spell Gensokyo properly as Gensoukyou, but getting that changed across the fandom is basically asking for a miracle at this point. Second, there is a pun in chapter 2 that was translated beautifully.