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Touhou Nekokayou #96: Touhou Saisoutensoku #3: Crisis of Faith

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Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red #96

Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red #96a

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Characters: Reimu Hakurei, Sanae Kotiya, Suwako Moriya, Marisa Kirisame, Rin Satsuki

東方再想天則 〜 Rethinking the Natural Law (Touhou 12.3i) begins here.

One of the cool things about Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Touhou 12.3 is that in Story Mode, rather than doing an inconsistent "Eh, the story is that of whichever character you picked" thing, everyone's Story Modes happened, and you can kinda trace the chronology. Of course, this shifts it over to "Eh, the winner is whichever character you picked," but you win some, you lose some.1

This also means that the Touhou Saisoutensoku storyline won't quite be entirely in chronological order, either.

Reimu's comment in panel 5 is a reference to the fact that first we had Catness, then we had Redefined Fantastic Object: Chapter 1 (which also just got released), and now this.

I really ought to keep a better handle on the pacing here. Of course, this is just a race to get to comic #100 in just seven installments ... I suppose it will work better after this. Outside Sakuya and Meiling's tangent, anyway. In any event, the chronology has been further borked — note how Sanae never fights Meiling or Utsuho, and she is going out with Reimu instead of Reimu attacking her after falling down an open manhole elevator-entrance and assuming it's a pit-trap. In fact, there aren't any actual fights in this comic. Ah well, it still manages to cover most of the important events, for a given value of "important."

I had to salvage the "Codec" screen from one of the images I'd made ages ago — yet another "teach me to refrain from making offsite backups," hah.

I spent as much time working on panel 4 as on the first three combined. However, most of my efforts this evening were spent on making Hisou Tensoku. If you want to use him, feel free to give me credit. Sorry, you only get his head and shoulders now, and it's optimized for characters at 60% size; but then, that's all that appears in the endings, anyway, apart from his arms. Oh, and I vertically expanded the background a bit; my favorite bit was making Hisou Tensoku "scroll" at a different rate from the background (3.5 times faster) within the comic.

Well, I guess that's it for now. I suppose all that's left is the question of, um, what the hell Reimu and Rin were talking about there, both about their past together and the culprit behind ... um ... actually, what did happen besides that aperture almost grabbing Sanae? We've got the (canon) explanation for Hisou Tensoku's presence, and we only have Rin's word for anything else. How do we even know there is anyone else in on this? — oh, right, the silhouette, yeah.

Transcript

  1. (Sanae is lying on her back on the ground, next to the lake where she fought Cirno, looking a bit battered. Reimu flies over.)
    Sanae: Whee, heheh ... ow ...
    Reimu: Sanae!? What happened? Are you all right?
  2. (Sanae starts to get up.)
    Sanae: Oh, hi, Reimu ... y'know what's more embarassing than getting beaten in a duel by that ice fairy?
    Reimu: Uh ... no, what?
  3. (Reimu gives Sanae room to pick up her stick.)
    Sanae: I HAVE NO IDEA! Eheheheh ...
    Reimu: (sweatdrop) Um ... okay. Uh ... so, what brings you down here, anyway?
  4. (Sanae points at the big shadow looming over them.)
    SFX: LOOOOOOM
    Sanae: Um, that.
    Reimu: Aha, um, yeah ...
  5. Sanae: Lady Kanako said it was just a Brocken Spectre (an illusion in the fog that makes shadows look huge), but I knew it wasn't that, so I went to investigate!
    Reimu: Yeesh, one Incident after another ... Oh well, what else was I gonna do this afternoon?
  6. (They fly over to the crater-area.)
    Sanae: Hmm ... I thought I saw it around here, by the entrance to the Geyser Underground Center, but it's gone now ...
    Reimu: Yeah, Something that big has no business just disappearing like that!
    Sanae: Let's try looking underground ...
  7. (Sanae and Reimu, standing on the descending yin-yang elevator.)
    Sanae: Yeah, we had this elevator installed to make it easier to get at the Geyser Underground Center and the "Subterranean Sun" reactor.
    Reimu: It feels like there's something wrong with that ...
    Reimu: (aside) Nice setup, though.
  8. Narration Box: After disembarking ...
    (They arrive at the reactor core.)
    Reimu: Wait, what the heck?
    Sanae: (alarmed) This wasn't here the last time I came down here ...
  9. (They look around a bit.)
    Reimu: I can see damn sunlight from this tunnel ... Really far away up there, but ...
    Sanae: This place is huge ... It might even be big enough to be ...
  10. Sanae: (gesticulating dramatically) ... THE STAGING HANGAR FOR A GIANT ROBOT!
    Reimu: what.
  11. Sanae: Well, think about it. That's what it kinda looked like, and they only exist in anime in the Outside World! With the Kappas' industrial revolution, who's to say they can't exist in Gensokyo?
    Reimu: Now that you mention it, that actually makes sense ...
  12. (The room begins to shake.)
    SFX: RUMBLE
    Reimu: Wha!?
    Sanae: What's that!?
  13. (White explodeyness.)
    SFX: KER-SLAMUEL
  14. Text: ......
  15. (Darkness.)
    Suwako: Hey, get up, you two!
  16. (Back in the core. Suwako is standing by Sanae, helping her up; Reimu is still on her back.)
    Suwako: C'mon, up and at 'em!
    Sanae: Uh...? Lady Suwako?
    Reimu: Ugh ...
  17. (Suwako helps Reimu up.)
    Suwako: It's a surprise to see you two here! Well, not a surprise to see you together, but ...
    Sanae: Well, uh, what is this place?
    Reimu: (aside) Mmph. Stupid fricking explosions ...
  18. Suwako: You could call this the docking bay of our creation, Hisou Tensoku!
    Sanae: Docking bay? You mean that big shadow *is* a giant robot?
    Suwako: Hah! No, it's basically just a steam-powered doll, it's just an advertisement-thing. (aside) I was just gonna bring it down here to fix it, something was weird with it ...
  19. (Reimu smacks her forehead.)
    Sanae: Uh-huh. And what made you decide that doing something this big without telling anyone, which is what got all of us in big trouble with the Geyser Incident, was the best way to go about it?
    Suwako: Hey, what, you better not be acting lke I'm an Incident-causer!
    SFX: smack
    SFX: Breebeep breebeep!
  20. (Reimu and Marisa on a CODEC call. The frequency is 1666.67.)
    Reimu: This can wait, yes? Sanae and I are about to fight Suwako for causing an Incident.
    Marisa: Hi, Reimu ... Uh, well ... you know that Hisou Tensoku thing that was in the news?
  21. Reimu: (sweatdrop) Um ... yes.
    Marisa: (nervous) Well, uh, that ice fairy and the nuke-crow are fighting ... something on top of it. I, uh, really think you should go look ...
  22. (At the core, Reimu takes off.)
    Reimu: C'mon, Sanae, we gotta go. The ice-fairy and the hell-raven are fighting someone on that robot-thing, and something about it has *Marisa* rattled.
    Sanae: What!?
    Suwako: Uh-oh ...
  23. (Rin Satsuki stands on top of the shoulder-part of the Hisou Tensoku robot, at the bottom of a very long panel.)
  24. (Reimu and Sanae fly over. Reimu is shocked at the sight of Rin.)
    Reimu: Hm, no sign -- YOU!?
    Rin: Hello, Reimu. It's been a long time, hasn't it?
  25. Reimu: I'd say that's the least of the problems here.
    Sanae: Huh? Who's this, Reimu?
    Rin: Oh, pardon me. My name is Rin Satsuki. I was a friend of Reimu's, about nine years ago.
  26. (A dark square-shaped portal opens behind Sanae, who barely dodges in time.)
    SFX: ZUN
    Rin: And -- LOOK OUT!
    Reimu: Whoa!
    Sanae: Yikes!
  27. (The three of them stare at it.)
    Reimu: Rin ... what the hell is that?
    Rin: That is an aperture into a boundary. Reimu, There's a time-travelling youkai messing around. Through that aperture you will find answers -- or more interesting questions.
  28. (Sanae jumps into the aperture.)
    Reimu: More interesting than "How are you still alive"? -- Hey!
    Sanae: I'm going!
    Rin: Well ... I guess we'll see.

1One way Touhou Hisoutensoku in particular is awesome is the themesong, which is interesting just by virtue of being different from the usual Touhou fare — instead of sounding like the cheerful themesong of a game about a shrine maiden flying around with fairies, as with the entire rest of the series from Perfect Cherry Blossom, it sounds like the themesong of a game about steampunk giant robots. (Which, um, it is.)

All Touhou characters are © Team Shanghai Alice and/or ZUN; create.swf is ⑨ KirbyM with help from Thefre. "Sakura petals" brush in main/4koma logo was made by Kisara Girl. "Falling leaves" brush in 60-Years logo came with Photoshop.

16 Comments (auto-closed) (rss feed)

Dan-heron

concussion Sanae, otaku Sanae, logical Sanae. She's such a versatile girl.

Well, seems things are about to get serious... and instead of killing off Yukari or Mima, you brought somebody back to life! That's new.

BTW: Huge strip is niiice

Mikan

Moriya conspiracy! Nop

Sanae has mutiple Personalities~

CapedLuigisYoshi

A time travelling youkai? Assuming it's not an OC, this gives three options:

1) Yukari. She was shown in Comic 46 to have that ability (even though that comic happens after this), and she's known to fool around. However, the portal thingy looks nothing like her gaps. Plausibility Rating: 7

2) Rin. While it's slightly more likely that she's a nurse, given her Touhou Wiki profile, she seems to have a plan (KEIKAKU DOORIN!), so this could be her doing. Plausibility Rating: 3

3) Meimu. While it's more likely that she'll just have abilities similar to Reimu's, she has no canon basis and therefore... actually, I have no idea if any fanon has been stated about her. I don't know squat about Meimu. Plausibility Rating: 2

sRc

from what I understand about Meimu, she basically has a combination of both Reimu's and Yukari's powers together

Tewi Inonymous

"Combination of both Reimu's and Yukari's powers together"

Unless she's as lazy as reimu and yukari combined, i suggest we nuke her from orbit. Just to be sure.

CapedLuigisYoshi

Aw carp, if what sRc said is accurate, that boosts Meimu's Plausibility Rating up to 5.

And in that case, I second Tewi. Nuke the abberation!

copycatzero

Muffin gave the hint last time about "the character in the sillhoutte isn't Cirno"... by pure coincidence I happened to see what Meimu looks like in create.swf yesterday, so, yeah, looks like it's Meimu (unless Muffin is pulling a fast one on us).

By the way, anyone been having trouble loading these last couple comics? I swear I had to reload the page six or seven times before I could see Part 2, and I had to reload this one twice.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Hmm ... Let's see what happens if I split them into multiple image-files. (Of course, shortly after part 2 came out, the server was apparently having issues, but ...)

copycatzero

They all loaded fine today. Whether that was because you split them or because there was a server fart on the previous attempts, no idea.

KennyMan666

The foreheadsmack really looks terrible. I feel for you. I'm running a silly choose-your-own-create.swf-adventure on a forum, and I've tried doing stuff similar to forehead-touching in that... there's just no way to make it look good. At all.

Also, fuck yeah mecha. We better see some kind of GATTAI before this storyline is over.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Yeah, I was considering mentioning that it was the worst forehead-smacking ever in the transcript. I had to create a second Reimu, scaled up (create.swf-level of chibis = their heads are bigger than the lenght of their arms), with a hairstyle that wouldn't get away, and beh.

And, sorry, Hisou Tensoku's the only mecha here, there's nothing for it to gattai with. We've already got a gattai, anyway.

Derlunia

Does this mean that Hisou Tensoku is REX and Cirno is Gray Fox?!

CapedLuigisYoshi

Hmm, no update on Sunday or Monday... Is the rewriting a lot of work or is MGS just that distracting?

(Of course, now that I've said it, the comic will probably go up within the next hour or two, showing me up again.)

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Make it two. ;3

Morgan

What hit them in panel 13? o.O;;;;

I sort of assumed in SWR that everyone (or a lot of everyone) went and fought with Tenshi, but it took the last one (probably Iku) to convince her to actually stop. Then they had a *really* big party. Or something like that. (It's been a while since I played SWR.)

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

The impact from Hisou Tensoku's landing shook everything up.