#makai

Ichiban Kuji Yu Yu Hakusho: The Gate to the Demon World Arc

Sensui & Itsuki will get their first MASTERLISE figures!

■ Release Date: Scheduled for late September 2026

■ Official Site: 1kuji

First off, looks like we've got another three Aerospace fighters revealed! I'm not certain as to what they are though.

The terrain used in these shots are apparently from something called Lorescape.

Next are some nice display pieces of Morgan Kell's Archer and Yorinaga Kurita's Warhammer.

And some other miscellaneous shots

(c) Devil May Cry (Netflix)

Fanarts by @melachanart

*The Last goodbye* 1/??

The first season of Devil May Cry definitely…divided the fandom, for lack of a phrase. I myself was enjoying it immensely until the last few dystopian minutes of the finale. I don’t doubt that Adi Shankar genuinely over the games, but I will definitely call some of his creative decisions into question. That said, not everything in the show was bad as people who dislike it make it seem — there were actually some pretty good things about it.

Aside from being underpowered (which is still realistic as this was the youngest we’ve ever seen him), Dante was pretty spot-on. He was a massive goofball and didn’t try super hard to be edgy like the reboot games everyone hated. The show also expanded on Lady’s otherwise-unelaborated backstory and gave Arkham a more tragic motivation for becoming the monster he was. Enzo was an amazing addition to the narrative as a found family figure for Dante, and the show filled in the gaps for the White Rabbit when the DMC manga didn’t really get to do much with his origins. Not to mention no romantic subplots, which I think we can ALL be happy about as a forced romance between Dante and Lady would suck.

The actor performances (RIP Kevin Conroy) were amazing if nothing else, and it was great to hear JYB take Dante and run with him like he wanted to do way back when the first game came out. The animation was GORGEOUS and the fight scenes were straight hands with little dialogue. And the soundtrack? Absolutely stellar to the point where even my friends who don’t like Devil May Cry have Afterlife on repeat.

Looking back on the show several months later, I think if there were a few key changes made and the season ended on a much more hopeful note — specifically with Lady letting Dante go and starting to turn away from Darkcom — the first season might’ve had a better reception.

Now the second season’s trailer has been leaked and we are divided even further. Our fears appear to be confirmed as Dante willingly teams up with Darkcom to take down Vergil, potentially with a forced romance between him and Lady. Everyone I know who isn’t excited is pissed off to high heaven and low hell. But as much as I want to join in with the rage, I don’t think that’s the case.

Because if you pay attention to the dialogue in the trailer, it doesn’t seem like Dante is working with Darkcom out of the goodness of his heart at all. In fact, it sounds like it’s the opposite. His tone with Lady is bitter and cold. He’s spiteful with his words and asks, verbatim, “what’s the catch” for Lady insisting she wants to help him. The only time Dante doesn’t look insanely pissed in Lady’s presence is when he’s looking at his coat and testing out Ebony and Ivory — and he isn’t even looking at her. In fact, the only time Dante doesn’t seem pissed in general is when he’s killing demons and reuniting with Vergil. It feels like the only reason he’s going along with Lady in the first place is to find the brother he thought was dead.

Moreover, and this is just me, the entire “bring the family back together” plot reeks of Baines’s characteristic deception. If it turns out he is backing this and it’s not Lady going rogue (which I really hope she is) with other in-house dissenters, we shouldn’t be shocked that Darkcom wants to “help” Dante find Vergil. We saw how Vergil absolutely soloed that squad. He’s too much for Darkcom to handle on their own. If Baines and Arius are backing this reunion, they’re likely doing it to get rid of the Spardas in one fell swoop. Because Dante alone presents a MASSIVE threat to their operations, and this is far from the first instance where Big Amoral Business Inc and the shady federal government have teamed up to eliminate a mutual enemy. We all saw how quickly Baines turns on people who don’t blindly obey him and think for themselves.

It feels like I’m rambling and I am. But I want to remind everyone, in fact, I think it’s needed at this juncture. So here’s the TLDR.

We don’t know everything about Season 2 yet. We have one leaked trailer, and people are already upset. We shouldn’t get excited or pissed off until we see the full season next year and get the full story. Adi Shankar made it clear that he wants tell a multi-season story, and Season 1 was just the introduction to it. And look at his track record — he’s nothing if not consistent with the stories he’s told. Just ask Castlevania.

Once again, y’all feel free to have at it in reblogs and comments. I won’t be disabling either because censoring a discussion is just as bad as not speaking to begin with. Just please keep it civil and don’t send death threats like last time.

Happy Pride 2025 🏳️‍🌈

First of all, I know there's always some speculation about ZUN either planning to reintroduce some long-lost but very popular PC-98 character in the Windows era or having already done that via creating a character with similar vibes:

Mima coming back through Nina Watari in Touhou 20 (similar names, though I'm 90% sure this one is a joke).

Shinki coming back as Byakuren in Touhou 12 (both having been in Makai and Byakuren's "Devil's Recitation" looking very familiar).

Yumemi Okazaki being reinvented as Sumireko Usami (similar character tropes at play, and also both wearing a cool cape).

Rikako Asakura from Touhou 3, Orange from Touhou 4 and Yumeko from Touhou 5 being reinvented for Touhou 6 as Patchouli Knowledge, Hong Meiling and Sakuya Izayoi respectively.

Elly in Touhou 4 being a "Komachi Onozuka prototype".

Shinki coming back as Hecatia Lapislazuli in Touhou 15 (yes, I heard that one somewhere as well).

... and probably many others I didn't even think about.

But now I came up with a different one that I'm surprised nobody else has thought about before:

What if Shinki has already been reintroduced in the Windows era...

... in 2019...

... in the form of Keiki Haniyasushin, the final boss of Touhou 17?

Here's the list of details about both characters that made me think about this:

Both are gods whose main power is to create things and people. Keiki made the army of haniwa statues, which still don't have spirits in them (hence why the animal spirits couldn't harm them). Shinki created everything and everyone in Makai, including (the PC-98 version of) Alice Margatroid; in turn, Alice makes dolls/puppets, who are not autonomous yet, but she still tries to create a fully autonomous doll.

Keiki created her lieutenant in the haniwa army, Mayumi Joutouguu. Shinki made the same with Yumeko.

Keiki was summoned by the human/primate spirits in the Animal Realm, so she had to be born somewhere else. Shinki was the one who created Makai in the first place, and her birth-world is still unknown.

Keiki operated from the Animal Realm, described in the Touhou universe as a region of Hell. Makai is translated as "demon world/realm" and described as "populated by demons", thus being a form of Hell. (This is something that heavily depends on personal interpretation and exactly how nitpicky you want to get about correct language, so take it with a grain of salt: as a reference to a concept from real-world mythology and religion, Touhou's Animal Realm and it being defined as a region of Hell is kinda inaccurate because its inspiration, the Buddhist animal realm, is defined as something separate from Naraka, the actual Buddhist Hell; likewise, it could be argued that equating Makai with Hell or calling it a part of Hell is inaccurate since the kanji of Makai could be translated as "world of magic" or "mystic realm", Hell could be defined strictly as a world where dead people go after being judged and that'd make Makai something different from Hell, demons could be found in other dimensions and not everyone in Makai is a demon, and Touhou 1 has separate routes for Makai and Hell)