Nazrin is not pleased with this topic.

[spotto]

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN.

I was watching this video. Here it is. Then I thought, well, these three have been portrayed with each other often enough, but do I care enough to discuss them on this blog dominated by UFO rants!? OF COURSE I DO! Or rather I'm going to try, see if I can pull out anything out of these three without....UFO ranting. Lol.

Of course it doesn't help Shou's a part of it, but still!

Now, what I'm thinking of at this moment are memetic mutations in Touhou. One very popular example is above, what with screaming CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEN's name out with as many E's as possible. I read a book where a king was honoured by having his name called out, and the longer you held his name, the more respect he recieved. I think that's kind of like how CHEEEEEEEEEN works. The more E's, the more adorable or awesome or Chen-like the video, picture, fiction, whatever is being commented on, and if a Chen shows up in a fanwork somewhere, even for only one line, or one second or one pixel, more often then not a Touhou fan is screaming CHEEEEN somewhere on the internets. 

This is deprived from the manzai, where Ran and Chen are a standup comedy duo, with Ran constantly screaming CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN whenever Chen made a mistake. Now my opinions of the manzai itself is that it really, more often than not, doesn't spawn new memes or contributes to how the majority sees a character. A lot of the characters portrayed in the manzai I actually disagree with, so it's kind of surprising to me that CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEN came from the manzai. (As did JAAAOOOOOOOOOOO~! but CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN is quite obviously more prevalent.) To many fans though, calling out CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN's name like a crazy idiot is getting quite old. In fact my eyes are somewhat searing with seeing so many CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN's in the same paragraph, especially this one. So I will cease and desist.

......CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN~!

But anyway, just because a character is memetic, doesn't mean they're popular. Citing the popularity poll I've found isn't always accurate, but I think 24,000 people is enough to evaluate the whole community, but taking from many other resources, we start with one character named Cirno. I'm sure the average fan will believe that Cirno is popular. She has, after Reimu, the most fanarts of ANY Touhou character and that's saying something considering there are shitloads of Touhou images. (This is taken from pixiv.) She has her own official game, many many memes, a whole bunch of videos (particularly that one MAD, Cirno's Perfect Math Class) and her idiocy is canon! What more can you want?

Well, Cirno's been around since 2003...and her popularity is waning, probably because there's too much. The same with Chen, but Chen I always found was always seen as a moeblob. That's it. Her personality was simply being the most adorable thing in the existence of everything, and I...well, no matter how memetic she becomes that is incredibly boring. One of my favourite doujins that focus on Chen is this one, with a Chen I think is more than simply her name with an over-abundance of E's. I believe many people share this view, for in the most recent popularity poll Chen was in a pitiful position, lower than Murasa! How can you be lower than her!?!? In contrast, both Orin and Shou are loved by more people than poor, poor Chen. (Even then they're not really that high, but you know. MORE THAN CHEN.)

I suppose it's similar to Cirno in that she's been around for quite a long time. Through those years several people have drawn her, stuck her in videos, voiced her, wrote her, so much that people will obviously look to newer characters to explore and wonder. Even if Shou is the coolest cat at the moment, no matter what there will be people who scream out her name and show her as the adorable blob she is because she's been this way forever, and it's not going to stop. I just wish I saw more of badass Chen. Or Bkub Chen. Actually I want more Bkub Shou, but Chen's the main character... (BKUB ORIN!!!)

Though I think the character most shafted of the three...just barely, is probably Orin. I don't know for sure though. The sheer love that Chireiden gets allows Orin to show up everywhere, but as an individual she doesn't get too much of a spotlight, so I'm still unsure if she's truly that shafted or not, especially the amount of videos she appears in. (THRILLER!TOUHOU!!!) Shou originally was the least popular of the last four bosses revealed when UFO came out, but her association with Nazrin and her personality that resulted from the lovely flanderization of losing a pagoda keeps her at a respectable spot in the fandom. Nothing too underwhelming but not everywhere like Orin and especially Chen. The three characters may not have much votes in terms of polls, but they feel well represented so far. Also tigers are cool. I like tigers.

I also have something minor I want to add in. I saw this one fanart a while ago, shortly after the earthquake hit Japan (maybe a week afterwards) with Tenshi, Murasa, and Utsuho on the picture. ('tis here) I chalked it up as coincidence (because...isn't that kind of distasteful?) but then I saw this. So I guess it wasn't a coincidence after all. Oh Spotto you hopeless fool, wishing to believe the population of this world isn't this moronic. I mean the picture itself (that first one especially) looks really good in an artwork standpoint. The effects are nice, the characters look nice and badass, but uhm...are they implying Tenshi got bored, shook the earth, wherein Murasa launched a tsunami, which in turn caused Utsuho to become unstable, all of which leading to thousands of deaths? And looking like they're HAVING FUN!? Hmm!? I'm not entirely sure what the logic of these pictures are.

But to end this entry in a happy point, Neko Sister videos! (That I haven't mentioned already!)

 

...wait this one isn't cats! Oh well. WAN! WAN! WAN WAN WAN~!