this is pretty much a manifesto for a certain OTP

SO RECENTLY, I STARTED LIKING AYA
THEN I REALIZED, "WELL, HERE'S ANOTHER JERK TO LIKE" 
THEN I WONDERED, IS THIS A POTENTIAL TYPE?
IN TERMS OF TOUHOU, WHERE JERKS ARE FRANKLY THE NORM, THIS MAY NOT BE A POSSIBILITY
BUT I ALSO LIKE WEISS AND I KNOW NO ONE ELSE WHO DOES
WHICH IS QUITE A SHAME BECAUSE WEISS IS AMAZING
DID YOU KNOW AT A CONVENTION, RBY PLUSHIES WERE SOLD OUT BUT THERE WAS STILL HALF OF A BIN REMAINING OF WEISS PLUSHIES? IT'S A TRAVESTY. IF NO ONE WANTS THESE PLUSHIES JUST GIVE THEM ALL TO PEOPLE WHO DO; PEOPLE WHO CAN APPRECIATE SUCH A CHARACTER

Actually, I think my type, or at least one of my types, is ambition. I like characters with goals who strive to achieve such goals no matter what. That can of course lead to obvious flaws like leaving others on the wayside and having poor priorities, but since I don't care for villains all that much it's never to the point of becoming evil or whatever. They have the capacity to be nice people, but their heads look straight towards only the goal, sometimes too much. They have to learn to appreciate those around them, especially their support groups. I have a few other types, like the extremely happy, eccentric adorable type (ie: Pinkie and Ibuki) who may grate on other people due to their extremism, but I love them either way. My last type is androgyny which can really apply to everything else I mentioned in this paragraph. Weiss may be depicted in formal dresses or  feminine professional outfits quite a bit, and I will agree they will look wondrous and oh-so-pretty, but put Weiss in suspenders or a suit and that's an instant reblog from me. Alternatively it could be someone who is entirely androgynous, like Murasa and especially Miko who can be portrayed in a very masculine light, even if she still wears her dress. It's magical what artists can do sometimes.

When I say ambition I don't mean the main character of a story. I never like the main character. I guess it's probably because whatever goal they want to achieve, while being something that may seem faraway and impossible in our eyes, is storywise going to inevitably happen because that's where the character is headed, being the main character. Unless the story is a downer/bittersweet ending, usually the story will reach that type of conclusion, so the uncertainty that comes with wondering if a character may or may not achieve something is lost. Plus that main character is usually rather noble or nice instead of having a large flaw usually associated with villains in terms of driving to achieve something to the point of tossing everything else away, be that morals, or friends, or anything else. That makes the character seem boring. They want to reach a goal but they don't have the most basic flaw that might come with it. I mean, it makes the main character a suitable role model I suppose, but why would I want role models in fictional settings? You can make that character into ANYTHING you want, and you make them a role model? HOW BORING.

In real life, the role model thing is much more variable. Because people are flawed in many ways and we often don't see each and every one of these flaws (and if we did, unlike a fictional character we'll probably rip them apart for it >_>) we can have role models. However because real people naturally have flaws, a real person being a genuine good role model is really interesting and unique, and not boring like in fiction. That isn't to say someone with more personality and one who may flaunt their talents isn't as likable; a common hockey critique of the players is that they're all trained to respond to media in the same droll, boring way so they all seem like hockey-playing robots, as not to attract attention and distract the team from their goals in such ways. However, people really start liking those who have outward personalities who aren't afraid to be themselves and even though no matter what, they will have detractors just for being who they are, they are always more interesting than the robots. (Then we find out these robots might end up being drug addicts, wifebeaters, or party animals, or alternatively, charity workers, comedians, or community-driven people. The robot is most often an act.)

Of course that's just my perspective. If someone acted extremely noble and good in fiction, I may like them anyway, but they'll never be my favourite because I will always find another more interesting. 

So that brings me to a point I think I mentioned to Akira once, about my OTP/pairing types. I realized these types since the Touhou wiki actually categorizes the most common pairings, such as "Harem with Main Character", "Master/Servant:, "General", and "Domination." Domination is usually a kind of rivalry-driven hate-driven pairing, where two people clash but they clash so much they pay attention to each other all the more, and thus MUST BE IN LOVE. This type tends not to be my favourite, but apparently Byakuren/Miko counts. The traditional definition is usually two characters striving for the same goal, so they will always be competing. We see this in a lot of shounens in particular. The characters though have their own unique traits tend to be rather similar as a result, what with wanting to achieve the same thing. In Touhou aside from a few exceptions (maybe Marisa/Reimu? Def. Aya/Hatate since they both want to have the best newspaper and are actual rivals) a lot of it seems to deviate from the traditional defintiion. Mokou/Kaguya for instance. Though they are similar in terms of both being immortals and that's why they gravitate to one another (so they may kill each other over and over again in mutual hatred) they both aren't striving for the same goal; rather they are the only two in the same position in the entire world. I think Eirin might be immortal too but I'm not sure, but she seems to not care about this whole "killing" thing what with canonically being like 1,000,000 years old and beyond, and being far too smart (being the most intelligent person ever) and wise to care about such trivialities, but eh. 

As for Miko and Byakuren, they don't actually strive for the same goal. It seems that way due to a lot of misunderstandings in fanon, but Miko purposely used Buddhism so she could keep her practice of Taoism a secret to become immortal (FYI in terms of the whole Mokou Kaguya thing any other person I refer to as "immortal" is not truly immortal and therefore doesn't count in their feud) so Miko going around trying to promote Taoism wouldn't even work. That's why her cast herd is relatively small in comparison to Byakuren's giant cast herd, where she's trying to convert all of everyone, especially youkai. Miko always boasts that Taoism is superior of course, but she's not attempting to gather a following. She doesn't even live with her followers, preferring solitude and personal training within her own dimension realm thing. She doesn't even want to teach people these things she's doing (as far as I can remember, anyway) and maaaaybe there are people that catch onto Miko's Taoism just because she's that awesome, but that's not the goal. Of course, they do clash in that Miko thinks Byakuren's ways are baffling, what with converting of all things, youkai to a religion, but again, not the same goal. Miko simply wants to ascend and become a celestial, the next step after becoming a hermit. She's trying to make herself better, self-improvement which I think is a point of Taoism but I don't recall exactly. Meanwhile Byakuren is trying to save all the youkai, those around her. She even became a youkai to do so, even using forbidden dark arts and magic. She's not ascending anywhere herself. 

They're foils certainly, but not rivals. Perhaps that category also includes foils as rivalries and such in shounens tend to be characters that are foils to one another. I forgot to mention the "incest" category since if you're a sibling in Touhou, chances are your most popular pair is with your sibling since you have so much story background with that other character. It's fairly irrelevant to my point but I thought to include it. I don't have any OTPs or like any pairings in this category. I once liked Satori/Koishi a bit because someone drew some adorably suicidal comics about it, and there wasn't anyone to pair them with that made sense outside of the two at the time (plus their story is super sad D:) but now Kokoro exists so Koishi/Kokoro (who are foils and thus fall under the "Domination" category) can work too. Of course that leaves Satori with no one but I don't care to pair the spares and she's a shut-in anyway who probably doesn't care. 

Anyway, Master/Servant is the category I have literally no pairings from. And in fact, this explanation gives me another reason why I disliked PMMM. I don't actually dislike PMMM in terms of hating the story or finding some massive, obvious flaw or whatever in it. PMMM is fairly popular not only for its deconstruction of magical girl tropes, but for A LOT of yuri. Oddly enough nothing is said outright but it's implied so much that it would be hard to believe otherwise. Regardless, when I mention Master/Servant I don't mean literally a master or servant. This ain't some handmaiden with her feudal lord or anything like that. Master/Servant just implies that one character has devoted all of themselves to the other, and if the other did not exist, there would be little if any identity remaining for the character. In Touhou this usually applies to Masters and Servants. Sakuya devotes all of her everything to Remilia. Why? WE JUST DON'T KNOW. Youmu devotes her everything to Yuyuko, why? Well she probably inherited the job from her grandfather, but anyway, these characters exist to make the (usually) sixth stage boss' life easier and more carefree! And the character themselves tends to be ultra-serious and their only goal is simply to serve. It's quite boring in my opinion but extremely popular in Touhou and elsewhere, so clearly my opinion isn't shared by many. 

In PMMM there are no obvious roles here, but there are lot of characters who devote ALL OF THEMSELVES to someone else, and it's guaranteed with tragic results. My biggest beef is with Sayaka. Sayaka is a very righteous character...have I mentioned I don't really like righteous characters who are super into being moral about everything? I don't. She becomes a magical girl (I think, memory is bad so feel free to correct) due to her need to do the right thing. She also has a crush on this boy. I don't care if a girl has a crush on a boy or whatever gender or even species they might be. Unfortunately for Sayaka this boy she has a crush on doesn't seem to care at all about her. It's very unrequited. He's probably depressed due to his medical condition leaving him bedridden and never being able to play the violin, which is his passion, but Sayaka is ALWAYS there, always visiting, caring all too much and this boy never really seems to be grateful for everything Sayaka does. Even if you chalk this up to his depression, even after he is healed and seems much happier he still gives zero attention to Sayaka. He doesn't even care about her as a friend it seems; like she was never there everything she visited. In short, the guy's a douche. Yet Sayaka, being the righteous, noble person she is, tries not to regret her decision. She wants her beloved to be happy after all. Even if he's a douche and she can never be with him, but with Kyuubey being psychopathic as fuck with its loophole-ridden unspecific contracts, it's a decision Sayaka will come to regret no matter what, and her sadness in the boy not returning his feelings (and hooking up with one of her friends of all people, who I don't remember actually showing up to his bedside and caring for him nearly as much) was too much for Sayaka, she becomes a witch and it's all sad and such.

To me, it's more pitiful than anything. It's supposed to be really sad and it is, and emotions and love can be such perilous feelings, but well, she cares and thinks and devotes SO MUCH of her everything, even her life to this boy that she forgets and ignores about the joy of her friends, like Madoka and all the other things she stands for and likes. She's just so devoted, so obsessed over this one guy. I guess since she's meant to be a very vulnerable teenage girl it's realistic in a way, God knows how many stories I've heard of people knowing others who start a relationship and completely ignore their friends suddenly, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I should pity her, feel sorry for her, but for whatever reason I just feel like she was acting very obtuse, and maybe if she had more self-awareness, if she realized she was worth much more than someone throwing their life away just for someone's ability to use their goddamn hand again, none of this would happen. Sayaka feels far more frustrating to me than sad.

Granted, she has a lot of character even if she's super dependent it seems on this one other person, but I dislike those pairs. The actual pair in the show is KYOUKO with Sayaka, and while I can see it in a way, with only like 12 episodes in the series and Kyouko starting off as sort of an antagonist, I thought Kyouko's feelings for Sayaka developed too fast. Maybe she just wanted to be friends, but Sayaka was so preoccupied with her boy issue that I dunno, it seems one-sided too, which is another tragic thing. I actually like Kyouko. I consider her "the best character of Madoka". I usually call her the "only good character" but that isn't fair to some of the other characters who aren't that bad like Mami. My favourite thing about Kyouko is her attitude. She has just as much right as anyone else to angst herself to death, but she's always eating pocky, dancing to DDR, and being her little sassy self instead. Maybe it's a way for her to ignore her problems, but it's certainly preferable. She has a very tragic backstory herself (Good lord they all do) but unlike Sayaka and Homura it doesn't seem like she's throwing everything away for one person. 

Also what I said for Sayaka is like, a hundred times worse with Homura, but Homura is sort of the point of the story. The tale of her fall, as it seems as she tries so hard for Madoka....why? I forget. Maybe Madoka was nice to her or something, I don't remember but man does it seem like these people devote and obsess and try SO hard for someone else they haven't known for all that long, or at least for someone who doesn't seem to care about them. It sounds like stupid teenage girl syndrome. Y'know, I've been one myself. I can empathize even, but I don't really want to watch self-destructive teenage girls self-destruct.  It probably didn't help that I was spoiled rather horribly of the series, but I didn't think the plot was bad at all. In fact it's quite brilliant. I just couldn't really like a single character aside from Kyouko. The manga side-story between her and Mami was much better I found. I guess for Homura you can kind of make the point that since her ability is time she can rewind and fix things, and failing every single time trying to save Madoka (when originally she probably just wanted to casually save Madoka because she was a nice friend) and it just snowballed from there into an unwinnable cycle of Hell that destroys Homura's actual identity of that as a cutesy moeblob shy meganekko thing. The greatest evil is Kyuubey for instigating everything, but he (it? idk) really sure chose some unstable-as-fuck targets (or put them in a position to turn them unstable, the bastard) so I suppose blaming the characters themselves is a bit much, but it still goes into my point of how I'm not into such pairings.

So where was I? Oh yes. I have explained why I disliked such a type of pairing, now to explain why I like the type I do! Most if not all of my favourites are in the "General" category. How general, you say. I like pairings best when each character has their own goals and ambitions, or their own unique backstory, their own little tale about themselves, sort of like real life. I mean an unhealthy relationship is when someone throws everything away for another and becomes far too dependent, so I guess I like realistic "healthy" pairings? I suppose that's really boring. It's the opposite of my characters. I find really noble good characters boring, but I like noble good pairings...does that make sense? And y'know, the character can have flaws, a lot of it even,  but that doesn't mean they can't make a good pair. I'm not saying I like super successful incredibly saccharine pairs that have no wrong to them, though KeneMoko may be the closest to reaching that definition. I like the standard pair to have its own unique obstacles that come with the characters themselves.

And to use an example, I will throw out my most recent OTP, AyaSana! I told Aoi-dono and Akira about this pair, but Aoi-dono doesn't care about the characters and Akira doesn't know about Touhou, so neither of them will ever truly understand. However! This will now be an attempt to get laypeople to indeed understand. Like KeneMoko and HijiMiko before them, AyaSana has a prominent artist drawing comics and artwork to get the pairing gear running. After all, AyaSana isn't a mainstream pairing. Aya has more popular pairing options and so does Sanae. It's relevant enough to get a quote and an entry on that relationshipping page on the wiki, but actual content is small compared to the rest. (This makes me sad :C) But what makes up for the lack of quantity, we have quality! Aya and Sanae have their own very important goals. Aya herself is pretty much defined as a news reporter who cares about news and probably only cares about her news. In fact, it is canon that she doesn't like involving herself in fights and even allows others to win over her (as she is apparently super powerful, tengu tend to be) so long as she's getting a good story. Her walking animation in SWR has her writing down notes as she walks for Christ's sakes. She's the playable character of her own spin-off games, which is why ZUN even created her, a photography danmaku game if you will. She wants pretty danmaku pictures from all the residents of Gensokyo, and to make sure it's purely their attacks she never attacks herself, only dodges and takes photos with her camera. Apparently literally no one else in Gensokyo want her to do this, so they all attack her. Just as planned!

She's obviously taking pictures without their permission. And this will indeed lead into some undesirable characterization in fanon that clearly, for the purpose of our mostly-straight-male audience, that Aya is super interested in taking photos of all the residents' panties. This is disregarding the fact that Reimu and co. seem to be depicted wearing bloomers, the traditional undergarment of the feudal times, more often than not. I'm not going to go into a rant about how much I fucking despise panty shots and this all-too-common depiction of Aya. It's one thing to have fanservice, which I think is fine. It's another to have depictions of people in their panties, usually without their permission, being either angry or flustered so the audience can get off on this. Did you know all cell phones have unmutable shutter sounds on their cameras in Japan just so it's really obvious if someone is taking a panty shot on the train? TOO MANY PEOPLE LIKE THIS. It's demeaning to the characters and it's stupid as hell.

Well, I said I wasn't going to rant on it so moving on. Sanae is an outsider, someone from beyond the Gensokyo border in the modern world all of us are in and used to. So unlike most of the people in Gensokyo she knows more about technology and science and pop culture and all the like. Sanae's backstory is often depicted sad. She either (wisely) chose to accompany her goddesses to Gensokyo so their existence may be saved by finding faith in a more spiritual realm, leaving her friends and old life behind, or her own life was terrible and she was happy to leave people behind to go to Gensokyo for her goddesses. It was most likely the former but there's no concrete evidence of either. Sanae is a goddess herself, an ascended one from a human. Faith in Touhou works kind of like how faith ultimately works in real life, if a god has no faith they die out. No one knows who they are. No one gives them worship nor do they celebrate their existence, so they simply do not exist. Since in the modern world people are becoming more focused on science than religion, a lot of the more minor, lesser gods are fading away because of it. Moving to a place like Gensokyo where science is nowhere as dominant because the place is still trapped in the 1800's, is a wise idea. People don't believe in Sanae's goddesses so much in fact, that when she performs miracles or other things to gather faith people usually attribute it to Sanae herself, giving Sanae the faith, thus why she is now part goddess. A "living" goddess, she's usually called.

So Sanae's "family" travels to Gensokyo and settles on top of Youkai Mountain, the tengu domain. This brings up some conflict between the tengu and the Goddesses, but ultimately Reimu solves the incident as in the game and some agreement is done between the Goddesses and Tengu that we have no details about. (Got to love Touhou and its vagueness!) Though Aya and Sanae's stages are right next to each other there's no immediate indication the two have met, at least in that game. But with Aya going around taking pictures and trying to find stories, being nosy like she is, and being in close proximity to the Moriya Shrine they have indeed met. 

Anyway, large part of the reason I enjoy this pairing so much is how different they are to their other pairings, in particular Aya's. (I only know of Sanae being paired with like, Reimu and Kogasa. With Kogasa it's apparently a "domination" pair, or whatever. With Reimu it's...I have no idea because I don't really care too much about Reimu. I suppose it's fairly standard) Aya's however, is basically either a "Master/Servant or Domination" type with Momiji or...Domination with Hatate. Before Momiji was given more canon personality in Double Spoiler she was just a midboss that fought you in Aya's stage. Aya was listed as her superior, so we had a lot of "Momiji being a loyal happy fluffy moeblob dog" and Aya taking advantage of her to take risque photos! Because everyone loves seeing that! (I hope you can see the sarcasm here...) I don't actually mind the pairing. I've read up some decent Aya/Momiji that wasn't like that and wasn't like when Momiji got her new personality of finding Aya annoying, so now it was sort of a one-sided hate-kind of thing, but it wasn't really enough for me. I personally like Momiji to be well, like an actual wolf who does her guarding job and is rather serious and such (even though I dislike serious/stoic characters) just because it feels like it fits Momiji more than anything else. She probably still has a distaste for Aya but it ain't outright cartoonish hate where she'll bark and bite like a mutt. :| Or being an ultra-loyal lapdog (which is kind of cute but too many negative examples of a horribly unhealthy pairing here)

As for Hatate/Aya...for SOME STRANGE REASON, at least a while back, not quite as popular now, Hatate was commonly depicted as some sort of sad sap of an emo, who took an obsessive liking to Aya and took A MILLION photos of her while being super depressed. I...do not understand?? Either way whenever it isn't like that, Aya is still dominant and taking tons of advantage over Hatate. Apparently Hatate is not quite as crafty as Aya, so she'll never have the upper hand. She'll never have the better newspaper. She'll never be the one trolling. Madness, thy name is fandom.

I actually know less about Hatate's canon personality than I should, but I've never really cared for her. She seemed to be just around to be Aya's rival, and until recently I didn't care about Aya, soooooo... Now you might be wondering, I might want a less morally bankrupt, perverted, dominant, karma houdini Aya than is shown, right? Very correct! However, that is not her only depiction. (Aya is also paired with Reimu, but again I DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT THIS PAIR aside from I do not care) When Aya is being her morally bankrupt fanon self, she's targeted as a buttmonkey quite a bit, usually not by Momiji and Hatate (though it happens) but by various other characters who have free range to beat her up or destroy her because she had it coming. (SHE ONLY HAD IT COMING BECAUSE YOU DECIDED THAT SHE WOULD HAVE THIS CHARACTERIZATION!!) So instead of the karma houdini jerk, Aya could be the pixelated mess of blood on the ground. In a way it is sometimes amusing, especially if you're not fond of Aya or do not care for her, but when you start to like her and notice how often these two things happen, you cry for some SANITY in this fandom! These two interpretations are way off from her canon personality solely so you can do comedic or grimdark things! 

One can complain about similar things about Sanae, though not to that extent. She's sometimes portrayed as faaaar too eager to exterminate youkai, ending up as some sort of sadist who enjoys torturing the poor innocent youkai like Kogasa (cue the pairing!) thanks to enjoying such an activity far too much in UFO. She suffers from this less than Aya by a hundredfold however. 

ANYWAY, in one of the few times Aya is portrayed as decent, is when she is paired with Sanae by this wondrous artist and excellent storyteller. Aya still has her flaws. They aren't just magnifed by a thousand for the purposes of incredibly low-quality humour. Her newspaper is her highest priority! Sanae's faith-gathering is her own highest priority! (Though the activity is a little more vague than the newspaper so she's shown to do a variety of things instead) Why do they like each other? Good question! This artist provided no answer. I will instead counterpoint by why ANYONE in Touhou at all, a series with ZERO ROMANCE would like ANYBODY ELSE, at all! However at least Keine and Mokou are friends and at least Miko and Byakuren are sort-of-not-really rivals, so what gives? The question is indeed excellent, but this artist's portrayal was so refreshing and well-written, the question never even crossed my mind until now. If you can make their characters all the more interesting and interact in entertaining ways by being with one another, does it matter how much sense there is? I think not. 

But for whatever reason, Aya started to like Sanae.

LET'S STOP HERE. Aya started to like Sanae. 

Aya.

Lord Tenma almighty this tengu is the one to start liking someone. So many times it is Momiji or Hatate, who for whatever reason, yearn for Aya. It wouldn't actually make sense for Sanae to start liking Aya if she and the goddesses start off prejudiced against youkai, which there is evidence for considering how fun exterminating seems to be for Sanae. As a person from the outside world, youkai are strange, new creatures one has never encountered before! Can they give faith like the humans? We just don't know. It's an unknown entity that Sanae has no real understanding of, while Aya, being around a millennium year-old and having dealt with humans a lot (Reimu, Marisa, the Human Village during the past? idk of the last part, but eh) would be used to. And it's refreshing after all those things I mentioned about how Aya is portrayed, how she is the flustered one, the shy one, the one trying to push down such feelings, trying to make sense of everything. It gives her character. It gives her an air of vulnerability. It gives her depth. She's not just a soulless husk out to ruin the people for a story! Sanae is suspicious and gives Aya no leeway whatsoever, but through their lovely support systems of characters who are there not just for support (for instance, Kanako and Suwako, Sanae's goddesses, are like parental figures, but they have their own backstory and character and motives, so they aren't simply just "Sanae's Goddess A and B" or anything like that, while Aya has her tengu colleagues) Aya and Sanae end up in a situation (GO READ THESE COMICS OH MY GOD) where Aya tries to comfort Sanae's angst of leaving her old life behind, and the uncertainty if she can gather enough faith for not only herself to become a full-fledged god but for her goddesses too. (Her job is to literally maintain the existence of her parental figures. Think about that.) And Aya, being a youkai (though it seems Nitori and the other tengu do not suffer from this coincidentally, so probably Aya just being Aya and using the youkai thing as an excuse) doesn't fully understand such human angst because she's just a youkai, so instead of saying any words she just takes out her wings and embraces Sanae with them as comfort.

Somehow this cheers Sanae up despite Aya not understanding why (she thought her attempt was bad.) and now Sanae might like Aya too. :3

It goes into a lot of things like Aya not visiting too often because she's TOO BUSY WITH NEWSPAPER, to Sanae, being Sanae, able to troll Aya. Aya doesn't want their relationship public in fear of the other tengu thinking this is all some sort of crazy dramatic scandal, a tengu with the priestess of the mountain goddess!? EGADS! (And every other crow tengu also being news reporters for some reason. Are there like, a billion different issues or something? I think it's more like the crow tengu are intel and the wolf tengu are guards) but the entire worry is a moot point because Sanae already boasted to literally everyone that no one can take her Aya (HA!). Sanae's foreignness by being an outsider and her naive confidence is rather unpredictable for Aya. Sanae also brings in lots of these modern outside traditions about love that Aya doesn't understand nor care about. Aya's also used to being disliked so at the beginning she actually had ZERO FAITH she'd ever be with Sanae. It's all very adorable and super cute and will make you grin like a moron. I love it. The artist even tried to involve the Tragedy of a Long Life into the pair, which is possible I guess? If Sanae fails at her faith-gathering and has lived beyond a normal human lifespan (so she'd be full goddess at that point) she'd disappear. However, if Sanae is successful for a very long time she may even outlive Aya. I've no clue how or when youkai die. That doesn't seem to be ever touched upon by either canon or fanon but they're not immortal; that's for sure. (However since youkai are inherently spiritual too, if one does not fear the youkai they may disappear. That doesn't explain how the fuck youkai like Mamizou exist outside the border. I guess people nearby are terrified enough from various ghost stories to believe in that stuff, but apparently a lot of youkai masquerade as humans on the outside?? idk) 

It's lovely because it isn't just the two like so many others. They have their support groups. This is the first pair I liked that's strictly youkai/human (mostly human, but still) Keine and Mokou, Keine is only half-youkai and that's like once a month. (Keine's on the human side regardless) Byakuren is a youkai and Miko isn't, but I can hardly describe Miko at all as a human, soooo...  yeah! They're basically their own selves. It's great. 

I guess from reading all that. I pretty much basically say Aya gets character development in this pair portrayed by this artist, which like never happens and her character is usually corrupted for comedic purposes instead of treated like an actual entity. That really helps. It also really helps that I love Sanae too. She's my favourite playable. Perhaps I identify with Sanae in a way that she's a newcomer into Gensokyo, and I too started to like Touhou in late 2010, feeling like I came far too late to experience the golden ages that was 2007-2009, apparently. A lot of people hated Sanae for some reason (she was a second miko who became playable when fan-favourite Sakuya stopped being playable, but that wasn't an immediate thing. Reimu and Marisa were the only playables for sometime before Sanae started becoming one, and Sakuya as an in-story reason for not solving incidents herself. She comes back in DDC and usurps Sanae then anyway, but then Sanae returns with Reisen so take that, Sakuya P: By the way, whenever I see Reimu paired with Aya I call her "The Wrong Miko" whenever I see Sanae I call her "The Correct Miko" and whenever I see Miko I call her "The Best Miko" :D ) but Sanae has a lovely personality. (Aya was hated too for canon reasons when she was introduced and suddenly became playable in her own game, but that's because ZUN needed a new character for a photography game to make sense) Then she showed up for the third time in a row in Mountain of Faith because tengu are technically the ones inhabiting Youkai Mountain where the entire game takes place, so it makes sense, but all of these petty opinions were way back in the day and I believe few people still have them now. Many fans enjoy the older games better but as a latecomer I could take in all the games that existed at once and like which-ever I chose without bias. I ended up liking the later games more than the earlier ones, soooo...

Speaking of which, with this whole Aya thing (DAMN YOU FIGURE THIS IS STILL YOUR FAULT!) I have had a favourite character from every single mainline windows game aside from the two most recent ones. It went Meiling (EoSD) -> Yuyuko (PCB) -> Suwako (MoF) -> Koishi (SA) -> Murasa (UFO) -> Keine (IN) -> Miko (TD) -> Aya (PoFV). I consider this the testament of the wonderful world of Gensokyo and how many amazing characters that exist in this series, quite potentially my favourite series of them all.

I believe it is.