Sortie sort sort
Aug. 20th, 2013 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spottoI had a rant here before but then it died. GJ auto-saving feature...then I started redo'ing it but stopped. I had ideas in my head but my desire to type things out disappeared when I developed a sudden headache. A DAY LATER and I've abandoned what I wanted to type about... for some TOHO SORT!
Did it once again because now it is updated with the newest of new characters. This is unlike a few years back when Ten Desires' characters took forever to be added to the system. (I think someone else ran the sorter back then, so good on you new person!) On the other hand, since I've not warmed up to the DDC characters yet they don't really affect much of my rankings. The newest character who does make a big splash just like on the character polls is Kokoro, who comes along with a few others as a direct result of my utter love for Hopeless Masquerade. So I'll be taking a break from what I wanted to rant about (which was just RWBY anyway) for more good ol' Touhouism on a very classic topic... my favourite characters!
First before a certain person is shocked that Alice broke into my top three, I'd like to give an ode to Koishi. Yes, Koishi. Koishi is someone who initially was my most favourite of them all and though has never reclaimed the grand throne, has never once fallen out of my top-5 and therefore deserves some praise. Koishi recently reached a very unexpected yet delighting second on the big Touhou polls meaning her appearance in HM, article in SoPM, and countless of countless fanworks have shot the lovely pseudo-satori into stardom. Sadly, Koishi herself still suffers from that whole "closed-eye" thing, so in the world of Gensokyo, no one will remember who she is, or know who she is unless you're her poor secluded sister, Satori. Koishi herself probably can't even acknowledge popularity regardless of that one incident in the village with that mask youkai that she inadvertently caused by not returning the titular mask. Isn't it sad?
But by extension to Koishi, the cast of SA as a whole has always been loved by me and of course, the general fanbase it seems. Lately I've begun to appreciate Yamame, who I normally found a very generic and forgettable character. Certain fanworks have spelt out some potential for her and so she is no longer on the bottom end of my list. Satori is usually in my top ten and Utsuho hangs around on the outskirts, yearning to break out as a favourite of them all but again, still swinging by the outskirts. (She's pretty much been between 7th and 14th forever, mostly #10) Parsee's also often high up and Yuugi is just precious. I've found more serious depictions of the oni more interesting than the usual "strong drunkard" applied to the oni of Gensokyo. Orin though has not been consistently high up, but she's a swell character as well.
In a bit of a contrast to SA though, the crew of UFO have been falling. Murasa and Nue have for the very first time dropped out of my top-ten, with only Byakuren staying on due to the aforementioned TH13.5. Unfortunately while SoPM drove up other characters and HM drove up others even more, these same games as well as Ten Desires and even Double Dealing Character itself has really dried up my interest into the less-popular crewmembers of the Palanquin. Nazrin still manages to stay in the top-ten due her only-sane-man characterization and her unique role amongst a cast of irrelevant stage one bosses. Shou's not doing too well either, but for the longest time I thought her curvy lasers, neat little pagoda, and awesome spear would've been perfect tools for Shou to enter the religious "war" that Hopeless Masquerade was, but unfortunately ZUN did not think the same. Instead, canon Shou is apparently a terrible fighter, her most important role simply to represent Bishamonten and therefore look as much like him as possible despite being not only a youkai but also female. The spear is just for "Shou" and she relies heavily on the pagoda, which made it to the game but Shou didn't. These developments dropped her for me, if only, if only.
The usurpers are newcomers or older characters who took a long time for Spotto warm up to. Sanae just randomly ended up in the top ten as a result, not because I've suddenly taken a huge liking to her but more like I've ALWAYS liked her and others having fallen gave her room to move up. The other ones popping up are Alice, whose been in my top ten for a while anyway and Kokoro who went from non-existent to a ridiculous fourth! Alice I mostly blame Aoi-dono for, but sometimes you just gotta like one of the most popular and classic of Touhou characters. To really enjoy the series as a whole just being interested in the more obscure ones isn't going to give me as much access to the fandom as much as I like. Alice is quite possibly the only character who is up in my top ten with literally no cast herd to push her into he spotlight. Byakuren had the UFO!crew and HM. Miko also had HM while Koishi is near the summit with a lot of other SA characters. Keine and Mokou are largely powered by their utterly adorable pairing, and while the other Moriyas aren't quite high up they are very helpful in keeping Sanae up in my top ten. Alice...well I'm not really much of a MariAli person, or an Alice/ANYONE person and I see Alice as a loner anyway so she really has no one giving her reason to be up here. I just like her and blame Aoi-dono, as per usual.
Hata no Kokoro is again, a direct result of my utter love for Hopeless Masquerade. It's quite possibly my favourite Touhou game now and the dysfunctional family!dynamic between her, Byakuren, Miko, and Miko's crew is just delightful. While it's most likely if Kokoro could choose, she'd end up with the Buddhists due to their openness towards youkai in general, I'm still fairly miffed at how huge that cast herd is getting, which is only pushing other characters I did love out of the way due to so many people trying to share spotlight in the same setting. In future Touhou sorts Kokoro is most likely to fall however because the novelty and hype from HM will likely fade over time unless we get a fighting game expansion like Hisoutensoku. There are also fanworks that might keep her high up however, like that random Kokoro story involving Alice.
Miko herself was almost first. At the pique of my hype for HM, Miko probably was first, but soon I was reminded of all the reasons I love Keine, so Miko's complete capture of my heart was sadly brief. Still, my taste in the characters is unusually malleable, which is just further evidence of how Touhou in general really is amazing. So someday in the future Keine may no longer be first and some other character, perhaps Miko, perhaps a DDC character, perhaps some unexpected one will plant their flag on my metaphorical mountain of love. And then I will post this sort again on this blog again and write this post again just like the five other times before this. A tradition I will surely continue because typing about my favourites is quite possibly the easiest thing to write about.
Speaking of DDC characters though, it's been over a week! I've posted my first impressions and first-first impressions already, but here are my third impressions after comparing them directly to other characters via this sort. The biggest problem with DDC so far is the lack of proper cast herd that has caused this incident because instead, the ones behind the abnormality in Gensokyo is just this very troublemaking pretend-oni who looks like an overdone OC. Seija is, to me, just Tewi + Nue + Seiga combined into Seija. All of their mischievousness combined with their maliciousness, design, and even name were put together to make this latest stage five boss. Her mostly-black hair, red eyes, and tongue sticky-itude remind me so much of Nue all the artwork I see of Seija just looks like Nue 2.0. And my first impressions of Nue were poor as hell. Sukuna is adorable, but not very traditional in the sense of final bosses (due to the plot, but still) and I'm also not very fond of her design. The tsukumogamis all suffer from a lack of mysterious backstory due to their recent birth (all of 'em are quite young!) so I can't find much potential with them either.
That only leaves the first three bosses who are mostly unconnected with one another. Besides going crazy due to a magical mallet, Wakasagihime is usually a docile mermaid bothering no one inside Misty Lake. Her only connection is that she's part of some Youkai Grassroots Network, which Kagerou is also a part of. (And Kagerou almost ate her once, but those jokes were inevitable even if this wasn't mentioned in canon) Sekibanki lives in the village pretending to be a human, but is actually sorta-like a teenage youkai rebellious of authority and finding herself cooler-than-thou. She has absolutely no connections with anyone else though and is just a cynic. Finally, Kagerou is a werewolf. We only see her on the full-moon anyway so we don't know anything of her human-side besides the fact that she identifies more as a youkai regardless of being human the other twenty-nine days of the month AND that even if she does see herself as a youkai hides when she is one anyway because she doesn't like getting hairy.
Wow, there sure were a lot of insecure and naive youkai this incident. I guess it makes sense since it's all about trying to get the weak to overthrow the strong! Also in DDC is Sakuya who I've never been very lenient towards in terms of a character to like. Regardless, she hit my top-20. Just barely, but she's there. I could very well blame Aoi-dono like everything else, but the biggest reason is actually because of DDC. You see, now that I can no longer normally play Sanae like I usually do and didn't find Reimu's shots to be all that interesting, my mainstay in DDC is SakuyaA. Knifing people with a wide-shot seems fairly useful and pretty easy for me, and playing as Sakuya has indeed shot her up a few points. If Youmu had completely replaced Sanae in Ten Desires maybe Youmu would've been higher, but it was not to be for Sanae was indeed there for me to play as.
...well, that's all I have to say about this sort.There's still like 40 names to go through on that list next to this text and if I just end here it'd be all unbalanced and the like. Well fuck I made all of my text bigger to type and it gave me an inaccurate ratio of text to image, so LOTS OF EXTRA WORDS AHOY! First, I'd like to say I dislike no Touhou character and those who happen to be lower just happen to be lower. I just like others more than them I guess. Second, PATTERNS! Spotto loves patterns, you love patterns, everyone loves patterns, hooray! I still have the other sorts I did so I can compare my own changing interests overtime. Like how Ran was once third and is now in the 50-somethings. Isn't that sad? Oh Ran, why aren't you interesting!/ Why are you just CHEEEEEEEEENNN or Yukari's caretaker!? Why can't you have some individuality for yourself? Why does canon merely call you a computer? How is mathematics fun at all? Oh Ran. You do have good taste in fried tofu though. Yukari fell too, but mostly because I didn't care for the picture they used on the sort. I am well aware the image is actually her official portrait from the fighting games, but I still don't like it. The DDC artwork isn't very refined either. I actually do like Raiko but it was hard to vote for her because her artwork was so bad. Perhaps I should have sorted the characters without having images ticked.
ZUN's own official artwork for DDC was quite good though. Raiko's expression in that one was just perfect for her type of character. Even though I've found extra bosses underwhelming lately there is still a charm to them. What else can I type to fill out this side!? Should I start ranting about RWBY now? Oh well, let's just go for it.
There is still only around thirty-minutes of existence for RWBY, so having a huge fandom and tons of hype so early seems to be a formula for disappointing disaster. The only constant we can be sure of are the action scenes. They will no doubt be amazing and fun to watch, so that's really the only expectation I had going into this and should probably realistically have. Though the writers for RWBY did work on RvB which I have watched and those are known for more than just comedy. If I can remember, there were a lot of very interesting twists and darker sides to just a red team and a blue team in a random canyon trying to steal a flag. Hell, even shippers shouldn't feel like their expectations are unrealistic, even the ones that ship slash! Monty's first actiony video was Haloid, which ended with [spoilers] yuri! I find that absolutely hilarious that this kind of man is working on this, so actually whether or not my expectations are unrealistic, I still think the team behind the series will have something very, very surprising for us. It's probably one of the reasons I'm watching RWBY and following it so much as opposed to giant anime company's big anime of the year or whatever. There's some history with this group that I know of, and I'm far more privy to internet-made things and indie-things as opposed to big-name things. Just kinda how I am in with this somewhat hipster-like mindset.
I think the biggest reason I gravitate towards these things is usually the person behind the project is more personable than say, a mangaka or an anime producer. They just seem more real, or closer to your own level so perhaps if I did get disappointed, it would be easier to take than say, if a certain manga I followed for years ended in the worst way possible and so severely angered me that all the money on the merchandise and manga that was bought feels like a waste, or if a certain cartoon series came out with a theatrical movie which turned out to be stereotypical cliché crap. Indie games, indie productions, and stories told through the magical portal that is the internet usually lacks that executive meddler who ends up ruining or milking a franchise to death. No Michael Bay to suddenly tell a story where ninja turtles are actually aliens or anything retarded like that! Oh and the other reason is that it is truly free! No need to enter into some sort of mystical level of legal ambiguity wondering if something you saw is worth paying money for.
Oh hey I just noticed I made it past my TOHOSORT screenshot, despite having more to say. Well, guess I'll leave that to the next post! Dis ben spawt.
Did it once again because now it is updated with the newest of new characters. This is unlike a few years back when Ten Desires' characters took forever to be added to the system. (I think someone else ran the sorter back then, so good on you new person!) On the other hand, since I've not warmed up to the DDC characters yet they don't really affect much of my rankings. The newest character who does make a big splash just like on the character polls is Kokoro, who comes along with a few others as a direct result of my utter love for Hopeless Masquerade. So I'll be taking a break from what I wanted to rant about (which was just RWBY anyway) for more good ol' Touhouism on a very classic topic... my favourite characters!First before a certain person is shocked that Alice broke into my top three, I'd like to give an ode to Koishi. Yes, Koishi. Koishi is someone who initially was my most favourite of them all and though has never reclaimed the grand throne, has never once fallen out of my top-5 and therefore deserves some praise. Koishi recently reached a very unexpected yet delighting second on the big Touhou polls meaning her appearance in HM, article in SoPM, and countless of countless fanworks have shot the lovely pseudo-satori into stardom. Sadly, Koishi herself still suffers from that whole "closed-eye" thing, so in the world of Gensokyo, no one will remember who she is, or know who she is unless you're her poor secluded sister, Satori. Koishi herself probably can't even acknowledge popularity regardless of that one incident in the village with that mask youkai that she inadvertently caused by not returning the titular mask. Isn't it sad?
But by extension to Koishi, the cast of SA as a whole has always been loved by me and of course, the general fanbase it seems. Lately I've begun to appreciate Yamame, who I normally found a very generic and forgettable character. Certain fanworks have spelt out some potential for her and so she is no longer on the bottom end of my list. Satori is usually in my top ten and Utsuho hangs around on the outskirts, yearning to break out as a favourite of them all but again, still swinging by the outskirts. (She's pretty much been between 7th and 14th forever, mostly #10) Parsee's also often high up and Yuugi is just precious. I've found more serious depictions of the oni more interesting than the usual "strong drunkard" applied to the oni of Gensokyo. Orin though has not been consistently high up, but she's a swell character as well.
In a bit of a contrast to SA though, the crew of UFO have been falling. Murasa and Nue have for the very first time dropped out of my top-ten, with only Byakuren staying on due to the aforementioned TH13.5. Unfortunately while SoPM drove up other characters and HM drove up others even more, these same games as well as Ten Desires and even Double Dealing Character itself has really dried up my interest into the less-popular crewmembers of the Palanquin. Nazrin still manages to stay in the top-ten due her only-sane-man characterization and her unique role amongst a cast of irrelevant stage one bosses. Shou's not doing too well either, but for the longest time I thought her curvy lasers, neat little pagoda, and awesome spear would've been perfect tools for Shou to enter the religious "war" that Hopeless Masquerade was, but unfortunately ZUN did not think the same. Instead, canon Shou is apparently a terrible fighter, her most important role simply to represent Bishamonten and therefore look as much like him as possible despite being not only a youkai but also female. The spear is just for "Shou" and she relies heavily on the pagoda, which made it to the game but Shou didn't. These developments dropped her for me, if only, if only.
The usurpers are newcomers or older characters who took a long time for Spotto warm up to. Sanae just randomly ended up in the top ten as a result, not because I've suddenly taken a huge liking to her but more like I've ALWAYS liked her and others having fallen gave her room to move up. The other ones popping up are Alice, whose been in my top ten for a while anyway and Kokoro who went from non-existent to a ridiculous fourth! Alice I mostly blame Aoi-dono for, but sometimes you just gotta like one of the most popular and classic of Touhou characters. To really enjoy the series as a whole just being interested in the more obscure ones isn't going to give me as much access to the fandom as much as I like. Alice is quite possibly the only character who is up in my top ten with literally no cast herd to push her into he spotlight. Byakuren had the UFO!crew and HM. Miko also had HM while Koishi is near the summit with a lot of other SA characters. Keine and Mokou are largely powered by their utterly adorable pairing, and while the other Moriyas aren't quite high up they are very helpful in keeping Sanae up in my top ten. Alice...well I'm not really much of a MariAli person, or an Alice/ANYONE person and I see Alice as a loner anyway so she really has no one giving her reason to be up here. I just like her and blame Aoi-dono, as per usual.
Hata no Kokoro is again, a direct result of my utter love for Hopeless Masquerade. It's quite possibly my favourite Touhou game now and the dysfunctional family!dynamic between her, Byakuren, Miko, and Miko's crew is just delightful. While it's most likely if Kokoro could choose, she'd end up with the Buddhists due to their openness towards youkai in general, I'm still fairly miffed at how huge that cast herd is getting, which is only pushing other characters I did love out of the way due to so many people trying to share spotlight in the same setting. In future Touhou sorts Kokoro is most likely to fall however because the novelty and hype from HM will likely fade over time unless we get a fighting game expansion like Hisoutensoku. There are also fanworks that might keep her high up however, like that random Kokoro story involving Alice.
Miko herself was almost first. At the pique of my hype for HM, Miko probably was first, but soon I was reminded of all the reasons I love Keine, so Miko's complete capture of my heart was sadly brief. Still, my taste in the characters is unusually malleable, which is just further evidence of how Touhou in general really is amazing. So someday in the future Keine may no longer be first and some other character, perhaps Miko, perhaps a DDC character, perhaps some unexpected one will plant their flag on my metaphorical mountain of love. And then I will post this sort again on this blog again and write this post again just like the five other times before this. A tradition I will surely continue because typing about my favourites is quite possibly the easiest thing to write about.
Speaking of DDC characters though, it's been over a week! I've posted my first impressions and first-first impressions already, but here are my third impressions after comparing them directly to other characters via this sort. The biggest problem with DDC so far is the lack of proper cast herd that has caused this incident because instead, the ones behind the abnormality in Gensokyo is just this very troublemaking pretend-oni who looks like an overdone OC. Seija is, to me, just Tewi + Nue + Seiga combined into Seija. All of their mischievousness combined with their maliciousness, design, and even name were put together to make this latest stage five boss. Her mostly-black hair, red eyes, and tongue sticky-itude remind me so much of Nue all the artwork I see of Seija just looks like Nue 2.0. And my first impressions of Nue were poor as hell. Sukuna is adorable, but not very traditional in the sense of final bosses (due to the plot, but still) and I'm also not very fond of her design. The tsukumogamis all suffer from a lack of mysterious backstory due to their recent birth (all of 'em are quite young!) so I can't find much potential with them either.
That only leaves the first three bosses who are mostly unconnected with one another. Besides going crazy due to a magical mallet, Wakasagihime is usually a docile mermaid bothering no one inside Misty Lake. Her only connection is that she's part of some Youkai Grassroots Network, which Kagerou is also a part of. (And Kagerou almost ate her once, but those jokes were inevitable even if this wasn't mentioned in canon) Sekibanki lives in the village pretending to be a human, but is actually sorta-like a teenage youkai rebellious of authority and finding herself cooler-than-thou. She has absolutely no connections with anyone else though and is just a cynic. Finally, Kagerou is a werewolf. We only see her on the full-moon anyway so we don't know anything of her human-side besides the fact that she identifies more as a youkai regardless of being human the other twenty-nine days of the month AND that even if she does see herself as a youkai hides when she is one anyway because she doesn't like getting hairy.
Wow, there sure were a lot of insecure and naive youkai this incident. I guess it makes sense since it's all about trying to get the weak to overthrow the strong! Also in DDC is Sakuya who I've never been very lenient towards in terms of a character to like. Regardless, she hit my top-20. Just barely, but she's there. I could very well blame Aoi-dono like everything else, but the biggest reason is actually because of DDC. You see, now that I can no longer normally play Sanae like I usually do and didn't find Reimu's shots to be all that interesting, my mainstay in DDC is SakuyaA. Knifing people with a wide-shot seems fairly useful and pretty easy for me, and playing as Sakuya has indeed shot her up a few points. If Youmu had completely replaced Sanae in Ten Desires maybe Youmu would've been higher, but it was not to be for Sanae was indeed there for me to play as.
...well, that's all I have to say about this sort.
ZUN's own official artwork for DDC was quite good though. Raiko's expression in that one was just perfect for her type of character. Even though I've found extra bosses underwhelming lately there is still a charm to them. What else can I type to fill out this side!? Should I start ranting about RWBY now? Oh well, let's just go for it.
There is still only around thirty-minutes of existence for RWBY, so having a huge fandom and tons of hype so early seems to be a formula for disappointing disaster. The only constant we can be sure of are the action scenes. They will no doubt be amazing and fun to watch, so that's really the only expectation I had going into this and should probably realistically have. Though the writers for RWBY did work on RvB which I have watched and those are known for more than just comedy. If I can remember, there were a lot of very interesting twists and darker sides to just a red team and a blue team in a random canyon trying to steal a flag. Hell, even shippers shouldn't feel like their expectations are unrealistic, even the ones that ship slash! Monty's first actiony video was Haloid, which ended with [spoilers] yuri! I find that absolutely hilarious that this kind of man is working on this, so actually whether or not my expectations are unrealistic, I still think the team behind the series will have something very, very surprising for us. It's probably one of the reasons I'm watching RWBY and following it so much as opposed to giant anime company's big anime of the year or whatever. There's some history with this group that I know of, and I'm far more privy to internet-made things and indie-things as opposed to big-name things. Just kinda how I am in with this somewhat hipster-like mindset.
I think the biggest reason I gravitate towards these things is usually the person behind the project is more personable than say, a mangaka or an anime producer. They just seem more real, or closer to your own level so perhaps if I did get disappointed, it would be easier to take than say, if a certain manga I followed for years ended in the worst way possible and so severely angered me that all the money on the merchandise and manga that was bought feels like a waste, or if a certain cartoon series came out with a theatrical movie which turned out to be stereotypical cliché crap. Indie games, indie productions, and stories told through the magical portal that is the internet usually lacks that executive meddler who ends up ruining or milking a franchise to death. No Michael Bay to suddenly tell a story where ninja turtles are actually aliens or anything retarded like that! Oh and the other reason is that it is truly free! No need to enter into some sort of mystical level of legal ambiguity wondering if something you saw is worth paying money for.
Oh hey I just noticed I made it past my TOHOSORT screenshot, despite having more to say. Well, guess I'll leave that to the next post! Dis ben spawt.
