Main Page » Old Touhou stuff » Touhou Reviews »

Review: New Moon by DEMOUR402 and Yukkuri Balloon by Deep Slow

Created:

Always use secure-HTTP / Unsecure HTTP / Permanent Link

Spoilers/plot synopsis: on/off

Originally posted elsewhere in July 2008

So, New Moon is a doujin staring Reimu and Marisa. Note that this will probably be more than a bit confusing if you have spoilers turned off, because the ending forms the bulk of my criticisms.

Anyway, my verdict: dwama. And rather confused dwama at that ...

See, the premise is: REIMU IS DYING. It opens in medias res with Marisa kneeling and sobbing in front of a gravestone that says "Hakurei Family." Then it cuts back to when Marisa first discovers Reimu's illness. Things go downhill from there, really ...

The main problem is that it intersperses the "dwama" with jokes. Don't ask me why the hell I was drawn to reading it — maybe I'm trying to desensitize myself to this kind of thing (which won't work cuz I'm way too sensitive) — but if you're here for the soap operatics, I'm assuming the jokes would probably interfere with the full enjoyment. It's like ... you're in suspense about whether it will be funny or SERIOUS. It doesn't work as comedy relief, either, because it's fairly random and the jokes aren't all that good. You're not in the mindset either to expect or to appreciate jokes.

Apparently, it was written while one of the Touhuo games was in production (it doesn't say which, but it had to have been after Shoot the Bullet, which was named in the afterword, so probably Mountain of Faith), and there was "a rumor of a possible character reset." Uh, okay, that totally means that they're just going to kill off the existing main characters. I give it a ⑨ out of ... mmm, 20, since at least they tried.

Yukkuri Balloon is another Touhou doujin, this one based around the "Yukkuri Shiteitte ne!" meme. Plot: Marisa goes around, and finds that some people have been turned into yukkuris, and nobody except her notices. I'll just say this: if you're creeped out by the "yukkuris", this is a great horror story. If you don't mind them as much, it works just fine as parody of horror.

6 Comments (auto-closed) (rss feed)

Tewi Inonymous

Ok first off, where did reimu's foot come from? Did she miraculously NOT die just from being reimu?
Seriously? An Omniscient council of vagueness in touhou? We have two people who can pull off omniscient vagueness, yukari and yuyuko. And...there yukari and yuyuko.
Also as a fan of drunken loli onis, where is our favorite drunken loli oni when not being part of the omniscient council of vagueness? Seeing as she lives with reimu and all.
Finally....Would dying even matter for reimu? She knows the grim reaper, the judge of souls, and the princess of the dead. I'm sure at some point she can get a "ghost guarding the hakurei border" job. Also, eirin capable of making an elixer granting the ability to REVIVE FROM DEATH, how can she not cure something.

Verdict: Feed the writer to yuyuko.

As for yukkuri's......the creepiest thing about them is how much shit there is for them.

person

@Anon

"eirin capable of making an elixer granting the ability to REVIVE FROM DEATH"

No, she couldn't. The Hourai Elixir grants immortality to those who drink it - ie they must be alive when they take it.

Eirin was all "Medicine prolongs people's lives, right? But what good does it do if the patient's life has come to an end? I can say the same thing about the Hourai Elixir."

Solarn

Not having read the doujin in question (and having no urge to read it any time soon), I must still ask whether if it's possible that the "Reimu" in the epilogue is in fact the Hakurei successor and that "Reimu"'s personality somehow got transferred to her and she has no idea that there was a previous "Reimu", thus the gravestone and her reaction to it? And that would even explain Marisa's question, assuming that the "Reimu" of the rest of the doujin (which I assume would be the one in the games) liked green tea, she asks it to find out if the new "Reimu" has any memory of her predecessor at all. But she still isn't the same "Reimu", so Marisa is still mourning the one she knew.

... WHY AM I TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF BAD DOUJINSHI? HAVE I NO LIFE? *runs outside*

Dyne

While this one is indeed confusing, I keep returning to it because I love the art.

Shinku Tsuiki

I think it was because Marisa just felt like making a joke!! But it kinda made me remember Alice-dere.
...WAIT! I KNOW! She died and then, when Sikieiki judge her, she revived!! and she had no memories of being sick for some reason...? I dunno, something like that...

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

I think, as with TPSS, the best explanation is "it was a bad doujin."