New chapter 4 part 2 and probably the end of the SDM case arc, yay
The culprit indeed acted under the influence of a bad spirit from down there, but somehow I didn't expect that it could possess different persons at it please, haha
Surprisingly, this manga, which didn't seem to be something that would bring a lot to the lore, add something to vengeful spirits. Changing the person it possess by means of beverage ? Interesting. Probably something that falls into ZUN's grand plan of including further booze into his work somewhere down the line, but otherwise, giving this particular vengeful spirit a particular gimmick. I wonder if such gimmick is exclusive to her : can others vengeful spirits have their own way, their own set of conditions for possessing people ? Pretty intersting imo.
Something could also be said about what this adds regarding youkai and their power, specifically their life force : there has always been this thing about the Youkai needing fear or other kind of feeling related thing to subsist, but this is kinda new. Magical power and youkai's importance can more or less be attributed to why Yukari put the border between fantasy and reality, which empowers youkai, and the spell card rules, which allow youkai to use their power in order not to lose it : this makes it very clear that youkai need more than fear, i guess.
And still speaking about non human species and their powers, since we seem to be entering a Hakugyoukurou arc, I'm VERY curious about the thing with Yuyuko : she is a GHOST, not a rando with a flesh body : since what happened to her really look like what happened in the SDM arc, did the vengeful spirit ate (such irony) her magic power ? Is the vengeful spirit going to be able to possess her ? And why would Yuyuko, a GHOST, PRESUMABLY suffer the same symptoms as the YOUKAI who got their power consumed ? among others ...
As far as I'm concerned, the latest chapter 4 part 2 made this series more intersting than I initially thought it would be (I confess, I was pretty underwhelmed by the first chapter tbh)
I've also more or less said this, and this is getting more obvious with the coming Hakugyoukurou arc, but this manga is one hell of an occasion for ZUN to reexplore the setting of locations introduced in the super old works, AND to give some screentime and characterization to the old cast : this is like the most cynical depiction of SDM character relationship I've seen in a while, plus some unusual side that we don't really see very often : cold Meiling, ICE COLD Patchouli, concerned Remilia (?!) This makes me curious as to how PCB cast is gonna be illustrated.
On the other side, this vengeful spirit-chan seems to be one of the few pure villain type of character of this series. That's very unusual, I wanna see what could her motivations be : why is she called eternal criminal ? What is she doing all of this for ? Is there any particular reason she goes after magical power instead of properly possessing people ? I hope she's not gonna be some kind a flat kind of character that was just introduced only to allow the plot to exist, only to be fortune tellered by the end of the manga.
At any rate, this is probably the last time we're gonna see Flandre talk until the next time, AND we're finally going to see Alice get some spotlight in the next arc, so there's that too
Is there a way to know when all of this happens? I personally think the whole story comes (and will end) before Lotus Eaters' chronological start, but i wonder if there is an actual way to determine the chronology, like some reference or whatever.
3/ Satori circumstances, namely her being so weak on the surface plus her being able to see the "remnants" of thoughts or something ? Maybe Koishi's super strength and endurance is that aside from her not being conscious of her tiredness, she doesn't need to deal with the problem Satori facesWell, it makes sense; Koishi's Third Eye is closed, so she wouldn't even notice things like this. Meanwhile it seems Satori gets ill from overexposure to them.
Hmm, chapter 7 is out, it seems
4/ Alice's house being ... relatively creepy ? She's got a doll doing reading for her, like, how is that even supposed to work ?! Also are those candle bearing *silent* dolls supposed to be normally singing ?! But whatever, now Alice's gonna receive a speaking role, after probably a literal decade or something. I also like how a simple pincushion tied on her wrist makes for some kind of couturier getup
Are you sure it's "Fool Detective"? The wiki says it's "Foul Detective". Or is the wiki wrong here?
Foul : adverb, contrary to the rules; unfairly
It's gotta be "foul" detective in the sense where it's similar to the previous "cheating" detective, since "fool" detective would have Satori be an absolute buffoon
So yeah, one letter change might indeed be warranted
Also wouldn't it be funny if the PCB arc end up without Alice and Ran not saying anything
Like they just got introduced with a title and that's it
If that were the case, it wouldn't be the first time it happened (FS Kokoro).Ah, I meant them talking in the series in general, not just in the manga. Kokoro was pretty new around the time, she got to talk a fair bit in HM, and still got to talk later in ULiL, AoCF and even do something in AFiEU. Even got to stare in a FS 4koma. By comparison Alice and Ran haven't said anything at all for about a literal decade. If next arc is gonna be with IN cast, then it'll be a sad day if Alice just sleeps through the whole PCB cast arc and Ran just get a one time appearance.
It sounds like they have been sealed in Former Hell for a long time, considering Satori is treating their escape as an urgent matter, to say nothing of the fact that she originally hailed from the current hell.Reimu says in the latest chapter 10 that the Eternal Criminal deliberately following the order of incident is probably in order to show Reimu that she has been watching her all that time. Mima or not, the Eternal Criminal could observe her one way or another, else she wouldn't necessarily attack in that particular order and target people who were involved in these incidents. I think here the motive to get back at these people in particular should be of importance later on. It just seem weird that we'd have some completely new and unrelated girl have some kind of personnal reason to target characters we know, especially we haven't been told some kind of grudge anyone could hold towards ALL of these victims. Probably another way of getting back at Reimu for the next reason :
Also, considering all Satori knows, I think she would tell Reimu if she knew the one after her personally.[/ispoiler]Actually she kinda did, in her conversation with Yuyuko, who already guessed that the Eternal Criminal had a grudge against Youkai AND the Hakurei Shrine. This latest chapter 10 has Yukari telling Reimu about the Vengeful Spirit's true nature and motive too, but like Yuyuko, she doesn't seem to refer to its exact identity.
https://twitter.com/thgairai/status/1431869577525297163
A bit late, but it has been announced thatthe Mima mangathe Detective Satori manga is set to resume serialization.
Not much detail is known aside from there being a new artist handling the art, and we're gonna have to wait for the end of next month (september) for updates on who that artist is gonna be and when the serialization will restart for real.
So yeah, it's been like what, 5 - 6 months of wait or something ? At any rate, I hope things are gonna go well and the new person isn't gonna get crapped on too hard over their artstyle, and also get ZUN to confirm for real if the Eternal Criminal is that villainous ghost who has been eternally absent from 2hu titles for a long time or not
>Yukari's gaps are used to attack Alice and drain herYukari's gap doesn't drain magic power, the Vengeful Spirit's possession does, and Alice got possessed since she fell into comatose. Plus, Satori also clearly says that there is no sign of external injuries, so it cannot be an attack besides possession. Besides, The Vengeful Spirit only possess one person at a time, and repossessing Yukari is very unlikely since Yukari was capable of taking action and could easily flee when freed. This is how the chain of events would be in case of a Yukari repossession :
>Presumably, while Yukari is still compromised, she is repossessed and takes Marisa to Alice's house. Possibly just to taunt everyone and show another victim has been taken?
>Yukari is drained and abandoned, where she then revives enough to go see Reimu
It's confirmed that Marisa was possessed when she visited Hakugyokurou, but there's no indication she has been possessed a second time. If she had, she wouldn't remember going to Alice's house, and only one person can be possessed at a time.Satori brings up that there is a high probability that Marisa has been possessed multiple times, so possessing someone more than once should not be an issue, especially if it's a human who doesn't suffer from the possession side effects Youkai face. It's likely that what happened is exactly as what she told Satori, and it's likely that no Marisa possessions happened after Yukari gapped her, but imo, if she had no incriminating memories to be deleted at the time this happened, there would be little reason to take such brazen action and blow possessed Yukari's cover (along with the legitimacy of the phantom gathering, which wasted quite a bit of time)
the "Alice was attacked before the arc even started" theory is interesting, but given the timeframe other victims have recovered I can't think of a way that would work. Plus, if you look at the frame when Alice's body is shown, there's an overturned teacup, suggesting she was attacked via liquid and not through old-fashioned possession (like I'm assuming happened to Yukari, Marisa, and Sakuya). Still, I'll keep that in the back of my head.
At most, Marisa is her pawn, not a conspirator. And besides, working with someone to hurt Reimu is the one thing Marisa would absolutely never do, no matter the reason. That alone is enough for me to dismiss the idea out of hand, personally.I also don't think the endgame of the Vengeful Spirit is about harming Reimu, since there were quite a few opportunies to do just that previously : for example, she could have just used a possessed Sakuya (before Reimu was made aware of the possessions) to do a surprise attack featuring time powers, or used Yukari and possibly attack Reimu when she was confining herself. Even most of the previous victims didn't particularly suffer any serious harm (despite magic loss supposedly being serious for Youkai) : weak Patchouli still got to move around, while Yuyuko is plenty capable of giving a freaking piggyback : the only person who truly have been harmed at this point would be Satori at the end of Chapter 15 : if the big bad's motives aren't about seriously harming Reimu, then Marisa getting enlisted doesn't seem off the table. I'm leaning more towards the Marisa-is-an-accomplice route because I can't picture Marisa to get manipulated at convenience, plus the things that require a proper partner that is on the ball in the more recent chapters.
And while it's true a gap in memory may not be something Satori would be able to note per se, she would definitely be able to tell if Marisa was actively conspiring with the criminal or lying during her interrogation at Alice's house.Still going by the angle where Marisa may be a conspirator, imo "refreshing" Marisa should not be too much of a challenge : something that seems suspicious to me happens in the start of the IN arc, where Marisa, somehow, figures out exactly that Reimu is in Eientei and even enlist Mokou's help to get just there : before this happens, an supposedly good Marisa was trying to rely on Reimu's intuition to find the Vengeful Spirit, but couldn't ask Reimu since she went to Eientei after a not-possessed-anymore Yukari told her about the Vengeful Spirit's intentions : if Marisa was going to rely on Reimu's help to find something, how did she figure Reimu's current location with exact precision ? Especially if she wasn't made aware of the Vengeful Spirit's objectives ? Extremely suspicious to me, what's with her randomly getting a bunch of highly accurate information. I think things probably went this :
I'm not sure why Kaguya getting to Eientei before Reimu is a plot hole.No no no, I didn't say that that's a plot hole, just that the timing between Yukari to Kaguya possession is ridiculously tight, especially since Reimu flew straight to Eientei just after Yukari told her about Newhu's plans.
So given the progression of events should we expect Eiki or komachi to be the next victim? I also hope we get to see yuuka since it's been awhile since we've seen her.Way it looks, seems like we're getting some of that PoFV disrespect as we are entering straight into MoF arc (if we go by the chapter / arc title + introduced cast of characters. Kinda funny since MoF's "incident" doesn't strike me as a proper generalized incident like the previous ones (PoFV included), but I digress.
I'm surprised that it's such a common reading of the last two chapters that Reimu is going after Mizuchi out of pettiness or because she hates the Miyadeguchi. It's not clear what exactly her feelings are or what she's going to do, but from the start I had the sense she feels some manner of responsibility towards Mizuchi for whatever happened in the past. Whether that's sympathy or merely an element of understanding before she stands her ground though, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm excited to see where the story takes us as we presumably head towards the final act.To me, it was the way she worded things. She spoke very vaguely about it, saying the Miyadeguchis served Hakurei Shrine and that it happened before she was born, which is a very vague way of putting things so I originally felt that she might not have known the full story. And then her final words are "We hit back!", which personally felt to me like an indication that she just wanted to get revenge on Mizuchi rather than anything to do with her past, especially considering that Mizuchi was already sealed in Former Hell, it just felt like she was going after her unnecessarily out of spite, due to the confirmation that this incident was about her.
Reimu already knew she was the personal target of the incident since the second arc though. If she hadn't learned her name was Miyadeguchi, it sounds like she may have accepted the outcome as things are, but learning her tormenter's name caused her to choose to confront her directly, even at the risk of her own life. Frankly, more than anything, I just can't believe Reimu is the type of person who would act out of spite over clan politics from before she was born, and her body language didn't read as anger to me. It's very much vague what her thoughts towards Mizuchi are since we don't know what happened between the Hakurei and Miyadeguchi, but I would be very surprised if this encounter will be a simple matter of Reimu trying to exterminate her.I didn't interpret it as her being spiteful over what happened with Mizuchi over things that happened before she was born, I interpreted it as her being spiteful after having direct confirmation that it was about her. It's been a while since I've read the whole thing, but I don't recall it being concretely established that it was targetting Hakurei, aside from them noticing the pattern of Mizuchi's targets and the incidents Reimu handled. Marisa even acknowledges this by saying "That just makes it even more certain! You're that spirit's main target!", the implication being that now they had concretely established it.
This chapter 42 finally clarifies the gist of her grudge + possibly why Suika is helping her : she's was an extermination specialist (that gave away her humanity, but we'll get back to that later) affiliated to the Hakurei Shrine (as the Miyadeguchi family served under them) that fell to the youkai scum. Also kinda expected her to be a Hakurei no Miko proper rather than a random miko affiliated to the Shrine, but that's more of the same.Actually the"kind human side of Reimu" is shown also in FS,one but not the only example being "Forbidden Scrollery ch17: The Shady Love Letter "
The most unexpected and interesting part to me was the fact Miss Miyadeguchi was actually a Jinyou, a human who became a youkai, AND even partook in attacks on human : meaning that she switched sides, from humanity to the youkai one. Furthermore, her transformation from human to youkai was not just motivated by self preservation, but also by some ideal related to how the relationship between youkai and humans (particularly the extermination specialists) was to be (an ideal that she may have shared with Suika). Unfortunately we don't get insight into what she thinks of youkai in this chapter plus the additional explanation (besides survival) for why she'd become a youkai.
The problem, however, is that after her death the world didn't quite progress in the way that she might have hoped for : the Hakurei Shrine (and the Miyadeguchi family under its service) decided to side with the youkai. Nowadays we know that youkai would have pretty much disappeared due to science's progress, while the necessity to keep some humans alive means that they can't properly use their power and slowly lose that too : so the Hakurei Shrine's intervention was definitely VERY favorable towards youkai's continued existence, while the current setting's incident management just keep them strong and doesn't feature proper exterminations (Reimu / the Hakurei Shrine basically keeps them around)
This presents a pretty unusual view of the setting, where its presented that the Hakurei Shrine is le bad, as Miss Miyadeguchi pretty much call them traitors towards humanity (even roped her family into that). The interesting thing to me lies in the fact that Miss Miyadeguchi HAS betrayed humanity herself (for self preservation and additional unclarified human-youkai relationship related reasons) : what is her point of contention against the Shrine siding with youkai ? And what is the world of youkai that she and Suika hoped for before the Hakurei shrine gone and done it ? Cuz strictly speaking, current Gensokyo is pretty much a haven for the youkai and is relatively safe for its native human population, despite the humans living in far inferior conditions when compared to the outside world AND even having the youkai scum infiltrating their society at every level : there a suspicious kind of peace, but humans definitely have the short end of the stick.
So imo, she's probably super pissed cuz not only she pretty much died for nothing BUT also because her "side" of the conflict sided with the youkai instead and benefited them greatly even in current setting touhou : even nowadays "youkai extermination" can be considered to be a farce. Reimu bears the brunt of her grudge cuz aside from the whatever previous disagreeable reasons there may be, Reimu IS the current face of Hakurei Shrine AND even plays a hand in what angers Miss Miyadeguchi cuz she sanctionned the spell card rules ... Presented like this, it makes more sense why she targets Reimu and follow the order of incidents that follow the spellcard rules in their resolution ...
As far as the human-youkai relationship goes, FS illustrates it best, and it suddenly appearing in this manga this late doesn't really allow it to be properly fleshed out in this particular manga. However, FS is more modern setting, while Miss Miyadeguchi's days and worldview is about a century or so earlier. So I'm a bit bummed that we only get this SUPER late, and don't even get to see what exactly is the world with youkai that Suika and Miss Miyadeguchi envisionned (or Miss Miyadeguchi's second reason to give up her humanity).
If we go back to the VERY old part of the setting regarding the start of Gensokyo, we have a land haunted by youkai as well as verious extermination specialists that gathered there (and eventually settle the place). IF there was neither Hakurei barrier nor the current arrangements regarding human village and youkai, the youkai would have eventually disappeared : bit of a speculation, but maybe the extermination specialists understood that they'll fall into complete irrelevance and into obscurity once the youkai are gone and decided to take action in order to secure their prosperity too (would suck to be left in some godforsaken woods once the job is done while the rest of the world move on).
And another additional speculation regarded to the balnce between powers here, but regarding Jinyous in general, surely the reason why their existence is a massive threat towards Gensokyo is because it means one less humans AND another enemy of humanity on one side (would still need to farm fear of their own, as seen in Miss Miyadeguchi having attacked humans despite decidedly being on their side, while also presenting an alternative towards living in fear of the youkai for the humans AND less humans to farm fear of : if transforming into Jinyou was presented as a proper option to the wider public, the human society could probably collapse (as just any of your neighboor could become a hostile monster), while the youkai could lose their control overthe humans as well as the fear they need (as becoming a youkai may become cool, they become less scary). Not to mention the increase of power Jinyou gets + the uncertainty of their agendas : what will they do ? even Miss Miyadeguchi herself was evidently pro human despite attacking them occasionally. Dunno if the potential forJinyous have something to do with Miss Miyadeguchi's view, but it wouldn't be surprising considering how she rejects the current state of things.
So yeah, all in all, a pretty interesting chapter if you read a bit into it. When I saw that she was actually a human turned youkai, I was like "wait a minute, isn't there a MORE interesting story to tell here ?!!!" Cuz aside from being acquainted with Suika early on and turning into a youkai on her suggestion, I feel like her end is not as interesting (cynical, I know) as what her life, ideals, and motivations that led her to become a Jinyou would be. Also VERY disappointed that the first time we get to view a proper Gensokyo backstory, it's just a few dialogue scenes tbqh.
Anyway, the ending of the chapter 42 shows Reimu doing quite a bit of thinking regarding Miss Miyadeguchi's circumstances and resentment. I quite like the usual depiction of Reimu where she's insensitive, cynical and pretty much cold hearted (FS Reimu superior), but I'm quite open to seeing a human side as well. Like ... is she feeling *gurgle* pity here ?! A bit weak for the crimson slasher but sure why not. What is she gonna do next chapter ? Whoop Miss Miyadeguchi's butt into the afterlife and be done with it ? Or have some kind of heart to heart conversation about current state of things ? Cuz after all, this is still touhou, and we have NEVER seen a 2hu removed from the setting (nor will we ever). Whatever's gonna happen next, imo we'll have the grudge towards Reimu significantly scaled down, but she'll still hold a bit towards Hakurei Shrine to keep existing (a bit like Tojiko).
Also things look like they're coming to a close, but we still haven't seen the SDM crew make a move, and the same goes for Yuugi and Suika (I hope their role is not just gonna be to open a hole and that's it), AND we still need a certain title character to do something.
Minor takeaways :
- An additional title for Miss Miyadeguchi "Traitorous human-youkai shrine maiden", making her the most titled character to appear in one work
- First bunch of youkai who actually eat a humanish person, also very poor table manners
- Jinyou having a 100% fatality rate (2 for 2) now, making it the most lethal race to be in the series
- Actually still don't know what Miss Miyadeguchi's abillity is, huh
- A single line of dialogue for Miss Satori
Furthermore...was Mizuchi really a "Forbidden Arts-turned Full Jinyou(Youkai-turned Human)" like or close to the "(former Human Villager,evil spirit's controlled grudge-born)Jinyou Fortune Teller"? Her dialogue says :" ...I have gotten used to pretending being a Youkai and Attacking Humans...even though it stung my heart at first...".Then she had to use an Healing Talisman for her wound instead of her supposed youkai Regeneration her dialogue,interaction with Suika,Suika's response,the final Youkai attack on her in,she commenting on her own situation regarding youkai and her being a youkai extermination specialist... Yet she is referring to herself as " Youkai Extermination specialist ( humans who specializes in youkai exterminationtreating and referring herself as a Jinyou Youkai?The way she transformed into a Youkai is uncertain, but it's probably not like the fortune teller, whose means is pretty much resurrection through grudge