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PV Review 3: Every EWI ever
Jun. 29th, 2013 09:31 pmRecently a new EWI came out, after one year of nothing.
Recently HM came out, after an entire year of no new Touhou games.
Recently Spotto fell in love with a character named Toyosatomimi no Miko.
AND THE CIRCLE, IT CONTINUES.
So anyway I'm not actually reviewing just THAT video, but all of them in general. There are common complaints and common praises for these series of videos. Sometimes if you're hoping for that one PV some awesome doujin animation group might make for your favourite Touhou cast herd, the creator of EWI may produce it instead, provided you can tolerate the excessive amount of swimsuits and schoolgirl gym outfits. You also not only get to watch some talented animation someone did on their free time purely from their love of Touhou, but also some talented person with an instrument I've never heard of until these videos, blare out their magnificence for all those Touhou fans' ears to hear! This hope was pretty much fulfilled for me back in the day when my favourite cast herd were the Buddhists from UFO. You could not get a better video divulging all that you love about certain characters than Byakuren's EWI vid, and to this day still the longest and probably most ambitious video this man has done until he chalks up an even more impressive one. (But considering it took him a year to make a new one, and this one must've been done in the past month due to how recent HM has been released because of Miko's cape, he's either very busy or working or something else)
The first EWI was Suwako, a fairly simplistic version with no switch of camera angles or anything happening in the background. All it is is Suwako playing the EWI in a school swimsuit. To provide fanservice, the initial intro image has better (though not entirely) anatomy detailing all the juicy bits of an ancient goddess who looks like a ten-year-old. Sometimes I wonder how I've built up such tolerance to this, but after going through the MLP fandom I don't think anything out there shocks me anymore. Anyway because all the fanservice is relegated to merely an image and the actual video is of a very adorable super-deformed Suwako happily playing her amazing song, it's not much of a complaint. The music is good and catchy and the visuals never bore you whatsoever. Definitely something you'll be fine investing a few minutes of watching.
The sequel, Sanae, is an actual sequel, since Suwako is still there in the same video near the same spot. Again fairly simplistic, but fancy danmaku is added and the amusement of Suwako's attempt at grazing. I forget what year this video was released because Suwako could simply just jump into the ground to dodge everything like in Hisoutensoku. Anyway it's quite amusing all the gameplay mechanics involved like how Suwako loses and life and simply disappears into her hat at the end. There is obviously way too many EWI videos to actually review each individual one, so I'll just point out the big ones and certain changes that happens throughout the series.
At first the order of each video made sense and had continuity. After Sanae it was Aya, who was probably in the area to pick up the EWI. Then Komachi had it, which probably made least sense in the series of events because initially the spirit, that turned out to be myon, had it, but then after that video Youmu had it which did make sense, and right after that we had... Flandre. Sooooo yeah. The early videos also used Marisa as a buttmonkey. She dies in both Youmu and Flandre's vids. I especially liked Flandre's how she used four of a kind and the movements of her other selves. Mokou's is also a favourite mine since it details, or at least elaborates on with some fanon details of her tragic backstory. (Plus Keine turning EX to attempt to stop the fight only to fall out of screen for whatever reason is funny) Tewi and in the future other characters collecting point items also ends up a running gag and a favourite of mine. Obviously by the time you get to Mokou everything starts to unravel into much more elaborate videos. Some EWIs will depict a story while others will merely show a danmaku battle. There are a few that just have the characters playing instruments and showing off! One part I very much enjoy is how the they animate the bouncing of the characters to the beat of songs. Their sprite's basically just compressing and extending back and forth but it really gives the character animation some depth with little effort! I find it akin to say, animated comics where they basically redraw the comic three times and layer it ontop of another, then have it rotate through the frames constantly to give it this childish "moving" look without really doing much to the picture in the first place. It's very effective and efficient.
Of course, with improvement comes well, better defined "bodies" for the girls, not just in the initial intro or ending image but in the animation itself! So now the video itself has fanservice, which I still tolerated so long as interesting things happened and the video did not comprise entirely of showing off some girl in a swimsuit. The videos I've yet to mention after the ones in the above paragraph still stuck with the super deformity for the most part, elaborate videos like Yukari's notwithstanding. But still, there was still some danmaku or story being told that in my opinion greatly overshadowed the so-called "skimpy" parts of these vids. By the time you got to the special "IaMP" one though... it was now everywhere. Why? Because EVERYONE is wearing these swimsuits and because of all the action you get the "BELOW THE GIRL" action shot where Youmu is posing all cool, but it's ALL FOR NULL because of that specific angle! At this point of the series if you couldn't tell these things were the creator's fetish you were a blind, blind fool! Though despite my initial annoyance at that, Yuyuko shrugging off knives in the face was still the highlight for me.
Then we get to Momiji, who gets all her angle shots taken by Aya to go with that fanon interpretation of her. (It's interesting to note the contrast between this video and Aya's, because Aya's came out before Double Spoiler that made Momiji's dislike of Aya canon. Before that game came out Momiji was merely the generic moeblob everyone could pile upon because she was a portrait-less, spellcard-less midboss with no lines. Then came DOG SIGN, RABIES BITE and eeeeverything changed) And I haven't mentioned it yet but alluded to it, continuity, continuity everywhere! Yukari's vid revisits previous EWI locations and what might be happening there now, implying all these videos, at least at that point, were happening at a short time after another. Of course after that just like with the brief logic within the order of themes played, it did not last. The newer vids being a whole bunch of different videos of different happenstances without much continuity between them. With some exceptions like the Yuugi/Satori ones seemingly looking like live stage performances. Anyway after this point we reach Byakuren's, the pinnacle of the EWI videos imo.
Being incredibly biased for Emotional Skyscraper, it is of no secret that this EWI is my favourite. It tells a heartwarming story, spells out all the good deeds Byakuren has done for various youkai... and also shoves Hijiri's chest into the camera so much it's like she has two chestbursters hiding beneath her blouse about to explode out in ever-loving violent glory like the popping of a balloon. I'm hoping that imagery ruins everything for everyone. I do like how he basically keeps the rest of Byakuren's costume though, so she doesn't look all that different from normal. But the massive differences and improvements like Byakuren's anatomy, ignoring the gazongas, is almost like one of a real woman. This is probably helped out by the theme itself, a very bombastic climatic tune, with quite possibly the longest loop of all Touhou themes. It is no wonder the video was so long and the story so well-thought out. Due to showing off her follower's past though, I feel that they probably won't get EWIs for themselves or if they do rather short ones with danmaku or something else as opposed to a story-based one.
The next few videos seems to be PC-98 galore with like Tewi randomly in between. I can't comment too much on these besides certain PC-98 themes being surprisingly catchy (and I dunno why I'm surprised it's still the same composer, I just rarely listen to such themes) The Konngara one seems out-of-place the most because at least the rest are of the more well-known pre-Windows characters but since she is placed with the rest of the oni and Suika (technically) and Yuugi already finished their EWIs, with Kasen not even having a theme, I guess if you wanted onis you'd have to go with Konngara (who is only theorized to be one in the first place!). I found it especially interesting that Orin played her stage theme, not her own theme, Be of Good Cheer. Is Lullaby of a Deserted Hell so good it overrides her actual theme? In that case, if there is ever a Koishi one I hope to the end of the world that it's Last Remote instead. I'm just not that fond of Hartmann's Youkai Girl. I'm not really fond of that many Extra Boss songs in general. Beyond Flan's, Mokou's, and Suwako's the rest are, well they are at least unique and probably very fitting of the character, but not my favourite. (Futatsuiwa from Sado is TOO DAMN REPETITIVE and then it gets remixed twice in HM! WHYYYY)
So that leads me to the latest video, Miko's. Following the same tangent with the above bracket statement, I was not impressed by TD's soundtrack when it came out. But I reasoned to myself that it was the first game I was around for when it first came out, so the music would need some getting used to probably, as opposed to the endless amount of remixes I had access to for the previous games. Nonetheless, there was something off about the music that I found missing from every other game. Granted I didn't even like UFO's soundtrack that much beyond finding the sixth stage and boss theme as the best ever in the entire series. Subterranean Animism had so many excellent tracks one-after-another, so UFO and TD coming in with fewer gems was a bit of a disappointment. The big one for me in TD though, was True Administrator. Every single other final boss theme was awesome, great, fitting, climatic, etc. I found True Administrator cripplingly underwhelming compared to others. Even final boss themes in the PC-98 games were amazing and catchy.
But True Administrator WAS catchy, and did sound cool like ZUN had intended. It just felt like it was missing a part in the song. It had 3 parts of a complete song but not the final fourth. It felt like it dragged a lot of the intro and a lot of the lower tempo pieces far too long, as if it were covering up something missing or trying to be longer than it was. I think, though I cannot confirm, that True Administrator has the shortest loop of all the final boss songs, which is saying something. This is so evident because just last game, Emotional Skyscraper had the longest and was imo the best song ever. EVER! But, my love for Miko emerged so I tried to listen to some True Administrator remixes I might like. Many I did not, but it's not like I love every Emotional Skyscraper remix. Eventually I listened to the song SO much that by the time one of my friends (Cunchy) linked me simply to the original theme, saying he liked it, I found no flaws with the song. Was it my utter bias for Miko now? What happened here!? DID I GET USED TO THE TD SOUNDTRACK!? Was HM's remix that awesome??
So...the EWI video. A lot of people (or well, a significant amount) were saying there were a few parts of the EWI that was off-key. Perhaps the heat of the summer is making my ears delirious, but I simply can't hear these off-key notes these other people keep insisting is in the video. Perhaps I am wearing the overly-biased fangirl Miko earmuffs now. Nonetheless, the video though hyped me up and made me quite happy initially did end up in the long run (one day if that counts) a tad disappointing. Yes there is this whole awesome band and Miko shoots awesome danmaku in super adorable tiny form, but the entire video beyond staring at the Taoists playing instruments (Tojiko's literal electric guitar FTW!) was...SHOWING OFF MIKO IN HER SCHOOL SWIMSUIT. All the angles and all the shots of Miko in a generic school swimsuit. It wasn't even coloured differently to match her outfit, it was the same colour as a generic one. She threw off her awesome cape too early and we had to rely only upon the school swimsuit, as if it were king, as if it were the one thing we had to focus on...nothing else. Later Byakuren showed up for a fight that we get to see NONE of after Kaguya fought Mokou and Kanako fought Suwako. If Futo hadn't made the best facial expressions ever I'd have been even more disappointed with the video...oh and her so-called "Dead Parrot" pose at the end, it is the best.
But oh well, at least I've discovered True Administrator is actually 100% perfect contrary to my lying ears of the past.
Recently HM came out, after an entire year of no new Touhou games.
Recently Spotto fell in love with a character named Toyosatomimi no Miko.
AND THE CIRCLE, IT CONTINUES.
So anyway I'm not actually reviewing just THAT video, but all of them in general. There are common complaints and common praises for these series of videos. Sometimes if you're hoping for that one PV some awesome doujin animation group might make for your favourite Touhou cast herd, the creator of EWI may produce it instead, provided you can tolerate the excessive amount of swimsuits and schoolgirl gym outfits. You also not only get to watch some talented animation someone did on their free time purely from their love of Touhou, but also some talented person with an instrument I've never heard of until these videos, blare out their magnificence for all those Touhou fans' ears to hear! This hope was pretty much fulfilled for me back in the day when my favourite cast herd were the Buddhists from UFO. You could not get a better video divulging all that you love about certain characters than Byakuren's EWI vid, and to this day still the longest and probably most ambitious video this man has done until he chalks up an even more impressive one. (But considering it took him a year to make a new one, and this one must've been done in the past month due to how recent HM has been released because of Miko's cape, he's either very busy or working or something else)
The first EWI was Suwako, a fairly simplistic version with no switch of camera angles or anything happening in the background. All it is is Suwako playing the EWI in a school swimsuit. To provide fanservice, the initial intro image has better (though not entirely) anatomy detailing all the juicy bits of an ancient goddess who looks like a ten-year-old. Sometimes I wonder how I've built up such tolerance to this, but after going through the MLP fandom I don't think anything out there shocks me anymore. Anyway because all the fanservice is relegated to merely an image and the actual video is of a very adorable super-deformed Suwako happily playing her amazing song, it's not much of a complaint. The music is good and catchy and the visuals never bore you whatsoever. Definitely something you'll be fine investing a few minutes of watching.
The sequel, Sanae, is an actual sequel, since Suwako is still there in the same video near the same spot. Again fairly simplistic, but fancy danmaku is added and the amusement of Suwako's attempt at grazing. I forget what year this video was released because Suwako could simply just jump into the ground to dodge everything like in Hisoutensoku. Anyway it's quite amusing all the gameplay mechanics involved like how Suwako loses and life and simply disappears into her hat at the end. There is obviously way too many EWI videos to actually review each individual one, so I'll just point out the big ones and certain changes that happens throughout the series.
At first the order of each video made sense and had continuity. After Sanae it was Aya, who was probably in the area to pick up the EWI. Then Komachi had it, which probably made least sense in the series of events because initially the spirit, that turned out to be myon, had it, but then after that video Youmu had it which did make sense, and right after that we had... Flandre. Sooooo yeah. The early videos also used Marisa as a buttmonkey. She dies in both Youmu and Flandre's vids. I especially liked Flandre's how she used four of a kind and the movements of her other selves. Mokou's is also a favourite mine since it details, or at least elaborates on with some fanon details of her tragic backstory. (Plus Keine turning EX to attempt to stop the fight only to fall out of screen for whatever reason is funny) Tewi and in the future other characters collecting point items also ends up a running gag and a favourite of mine. Obviously by the time you get to Mokou everything starts to unravel into much more elaborate videos. Some EWIs will depict a story while others will merely show a danmaku battle. There are a few that just have the characters playing instruments and showing off! One part I very much enjoy is how the they animate the bouncing of the characters to the beat of songs. Their sprite's basically just compressing and extending back and forth but it really gives the character animation some depth with little effort! I find it akin to say, animated comics where they basically redraw the comic three times and layer it ontop of another, then have it rotate through the frames constantly to give it this childish "moving" look without really doing much to the picture in the first place. It's very effective and efficient.
Of course, with improvement comes well, better defined "bodies" for the girls, not just in the initial intro or ending image but in the animation itself! So now the video itself has fanservice, which I still tolerated so long as interesting things happened and the video did not comprise entirely of showing off some girl in a swimsuit. The videos I've yet to mention after the ones in the above paragraph still stuck with the super deformity for the most part, elaborate videos like Yukari's notwithstanding. But still, there was still some danmaku or story being told that in my opinion greatly overshadowed the so-called "skimpy" parts of these vids. By the time you got to the special "IaMP" one though... it was now everywhere. Why? Because EVERYONE is wearing these swimsuits and because of all the action you get the "BELOW THE GIRL" action shot where Youmu is posing all cool, but it's ALL FOR NULL because of that specific angle! At this point of the series if you couldn't tell these things were the creator's fetish you were a blind, blind fool! Though despite my initial annoyance at that, Yuyuko shrugging off knives in the face was still the highlight for me.
Then we get to Momiji, who gets all her angle shots taken by Aya to go with that fanon interpretation of her. (It's interesting to note the contrast between this video and Aya's, because Aya's came out before Double Spoiler that made Momiji's dislike of Aya canon. Before that game came out Momiji was merely the generic moeblob everyone could pile upon because she was a portrait-less, spellcard-less midboss with no lines. Then came DOG SIGN, RABIES BITE and eeeeverything changed) And I haven't mentioned it yet but alluded to it, continuity, continuity everywhere! Yukari's vid revisits previous EWI locations and what might be happening there now, implying all these videos, at least at that point, were happening at a short time after another. Of course after that just like with the brief logic within the order of themes played, it did not last. The newer vids being a whole bunch of different videos of different happenstances without much continuity between them. With some exceptions like the Yuugi/Satori ones seemingly looking like live stage performances. Anyway after this point we reach Byakuren's, the pinnacle of the EWI videos imo.
Being incredibly biased for Emotional Skyscraper, it is of no secret that this EWI is my favourite. It tells a heartwarming story, spells out all the good deeds Byakuren has done for various youkai... and also shoves Hijiri's chest into the camera so much it's like she has two chestbursters hiding beneath her blouse about to explode out in ever-loving violent glory like the popping of a balloon. I'm hoping that imagery ruins everything for everyone. I do like how he basically keeps the rest of Byakuren's costume though, so she doesn't look all that different from normal. But the massive differences and improvements like Byakuren's anatomy, ignoring the gazongas, is almost like one of a real woman. This is probably helped out by the theme itself, a very bombastic climatic tune, with quite possibly the longest loop of all Touhou themes. It is no wonder the video was so long and the story so well-thought out. Due to showing off her follower's past though, I feel that they probably won't get EWIs for themselves or if they do rather short ones with danmaku or something else as opposed to a story-based one.
The next few videos seems to be PC-98 galore with like Tewi randomly in between. I can't comment too much on these besides certain PC-98 themes being surprisingly catchy (and I dunno why I'm surprised it's still the same composer, I just rarely listen to such themes) The Konngara one seems out-of-place the most because at least the rest are of the more well-known pre-Windows characters but since she is placed with the rest of the oni and Suika (technically) and Yuugi already finished their EWIs, with Kasen not even having a theme, I guess if you wanted onis you'd have to go with Konngara (who is only theorized to be one in the first place!). I found it especially interesting that Orin played her stage theme, not her own theme, Be of Good Cheer. Is Lullaby of a Deserted Hell so good it overrides her actual theme? In that case, if there is ever a Koishi one I hope to the end of the world that it's Last Remote instead. I'm just not that fond of Hartmann's Youkai Girl. I'm not really fond of that many Extra Boss songs in general. Beyond Flan's, Mokou's, and Suwako's the rest are, well they are at least unique and probably very fitting of the character, but not my favourite. (Futatsuiwa from Sado is TOO DAMN REPETITIVE and then it gets remixed twice in HM! WHYYYY)
So that leads me to the latest video, Miko's. Following the same tangent with the above bracket statement, I was not impressed by TD's soundtrack when it came out. But I reasoned to myself that it was the first game I was around for when it first came out, so the music would need some getting used to probably, as opposed to the endless amount of remixes I had access to for the previous games. Nonetheless, there was something off about the music that I found missing from every other game. Granted I didn't even like UFO's soundtrack that much beyond finding the sixth stage and boss theme as the best ever in the entire series. Subterranean Animism had so many excellent tracks one-after-another, so UFO and TD coming in with fewer gems was a bit of a disappointment. The big one for me in TD though, was True Administrator. Every single other final boss theme was awesome, great, fitting, climatic, etc. I found True Administrator cripplingly underwhelming compared to others. Even final boss themes in the PC-98 games were amazing and catchy.
But True Administrator WAS catchy, and did sound cool like ZUN had intended. It just felt like it was missing a part in the song. It had 3 parts of a complete song but not the final fourth. It felt like it dragged a lot of the intro and a lot of the lower tempo pieces far too long, as if it were covering up something missing or trying to be longer than it was. I think, though I cannot confirm, that True Administrator has the shortest loop of all the final boss songs, which is saying something. This is so evident because just last game, Emotional Skyscraper had the longest and was imo the best song ever. EVER! But, my love for Miko emerged so I tried to listen to some True Administrator remixes I might like. Many I did not, but it's not like I love every Emotional Skyscraper remix. Eventually I listened to the song SO much that by the time one of my friends (Cunchy) linked me simply to the original theme, saying he liked it, I found no flaws with the song. Was it my utter bias for Miko now? What happened here!? DID I GET USED TO THE TD SOUNDTRACK!? Was HM's remix that awesome??
So...the EWI video. A lot of people (or well, a significant amount) were saying there were a few parts of the EWI that was off-key. Perhaps the heat of the summer is making my ears delirious, but I simply can't hear these off-key notes these other people keep insisting is in the video. Perhaps I am wearing the overly-biased fangirl Miko earmuffs now. Nonetheless, the video though hyped me up and made me quite happy initially did end up in the long run (one day if that counts) a tad disappointing. Yes there is this whole awesome band and Miko shoots awesome danmaku in super adorable tiny form, but the entire video beyond staring at the Taoists playing instruments (Tojiko's literal electric guitar FTW!) was...SHOWING OFF MIKO IN HER SCHOOL SWIMSUIT. All the angles and all the shots of Miko in a generic school swimsuit. It wasn't even coloured differently to match her outfit, it was the same colour as a generic one. She threw off her awesome cape too early and we had to rely only upon the school swimsuit, as if it were king, as if it were the one thing we had to focus on...nothing else. Later Byakuren showed up for a fight that we get to see NONE of after Kaguya fought Mokou and Kanako fought Suwako. If Futo hadn't made the best facial expressions ever I'd have been even more disappointed with the video...oh and her so-called "Dead Parrot" pose at the end, it is the best.
But oh well, at least I've discovered True Administrator is actually 100% perfect contrary to my lying ears of the past.
