Subterranean Chromaticism

Haha, and to think that I actually thought I was going to be timely in writing about some of these new albums from Comiket 81.  Not too late, of course, but late enough.  I suppose I had an excuse in that I was going to do it earlier, but I couldn't find one or two of the albums I wanted to listen to, and, truth be told, I still haven't listened to everything I intended to.

I'm also going to try to stop being so very formulaic in the way I go about talking about these albums.  Music is probably the most subjective sort of art, and it's not something one can so much review as it is something one writes about, analyzing and voicing opinions, but not necessarily judging as good or bad in an objective sense.  Usually, this sort of idea is a sell-out, and if I didn't voice any opinion whatsoever, it would be, but I aim to be interesting: a few hundred words rattling off which songs are pretty good and which ones have problems is boring, boring, horribly boring.  Touhou is not a boring series of games, and the sort of music that has come out of C81 isn't boring either.

じゃ、はじめましょうね！

Avidya

Yukari is totally Buddhist: she's

too lazy to have desires.

And what's less boring than going in alphabetical order?  Nothing, bro: alphabetical order is totally rad, and you know what, so is Avidya.  This is a joint production between Syrufit and *Poplica.  I've already heard quite a bit of Syrufit, both on Alstroemeria Records albums and on his own, under the name Syrup Comfiture.  His tracks may sometimes seem to lack Minoshima's diversity in style, but he's also more consistently good, and as I mentioned once before, he's a heck of a lot better at picking and arranging for vocalists.  *Poplica, on the other hand, I've heard very little of, but what I have heard has been pretty good.  Syrufit and *Poplica are not new to collaborations: they've actually produced quite a number of albums together before.  After hearing this album, I'll have to look up some more.  They have different styles, but they compliment each other quite well.

Anyway, Avidya sets the atmosphere with ambient Shakuhachi and electro in a very distinct, Syrufit sort of manner.  It's an original track, so the fact that Syrufit's style comes through strongly here...is not a surprise.  Another Vision carries this on the electro side of things, also a Syrufit track, though this one perhaps too repetitive and atmospheric for its own good.  I'm not quite what's going on with the vocal samples, and I don't think it quite worked out how Syrufit might have wanted it to.  *Poplica's first track on the album is We Are (I haven't the faintest).  The style is distinctly more built around distinct synth chordal progressions, or in other words, more like Alstroemeria style progressive house and, well, more pop-ish sounds.  As a matter of fact, it feels a bit like eurodance in structure, but with a certain air of maturity to it that most eurodance doesn't really have.  Rapture continues more along that stylistic line, but reversed, with the vocals forming the melody with atmospheric synth and piano work and house style 4/4 beat providing a mild counter-point.  It's almost more Syrufit style-wise than *poplica.  et Cetera is actually Linjin's work, but it fits with the album's flow well.  I quite like the very rapid, distinctly stress-metered vocals, even if at its core, it's a rather simple track, with continuo synths and fairly standard percussion work.  Perhaps it goes to show that the tropes wouldn't be so tired if people would just put some soul and talent into them.  Links is also a combo-breaker in that it is a co-arrangement by Syrufit and *Poplica.  I'm immediately suspicious when more than one person begins working on a single track, and to be honest, I don't think this is as good as any of the tracks they worked on individually, but it does retain the soul of the album.  *Poplica and Syrufit work very well together, it seems.  I will say this though: I'm not sure what modulator they put the vocals through, but it sounds a little like Miku Hatsune.  Confirming my theory that Syrufit and *Poplica work well as a team, Stellar is a very heavily phrased sort of upbeat house track with a very strong central feeling.  It's pretty stellar.  Anyway, it's Röyskopp's turn for Candle, the next track on...wait, Röyskopp?  No, this is definitely Syrufit.  Huh, coulda sworn it was Röyskopp, what with the very low base+pad aesthetic it opens with...and the quiet, mid-octave range vocals it continues with...and ends with.  It's undeniably Syrufit in its structure, and it fits with the rest of the album, but it's still kinda uncanny.  You know what doesn't fit at all with the rest of the album though?  Innocent - Nhato remix.  2/2 beat, base drops, noisy/growly instrumental interludes, yep, this is Touhou dubstep.  It actually works pretty well, for dubstep.  The clear sounding, airy interpretation of Broken Moon that the base-dropping segments play off of make it, I think.  The last track, Angel's Doubt - a very vague sort of interpretation of Necrofantasia - actually uses dubstep style tropes in concert with the atmospheric style synths we've come to expect from Syrufit/Poplica extraordinarily well, proving that dubstep might have actually given us an interesting musical tool, if people would only stop making the same song over and over again already.

I don't really have as much to say about Avidya as I do about, say, Killed Dancehall, not because it's not good, but because it didn't evoke much more of a reaction than pure enjoyment.  I'm certainly not saying it's only mediocre, because it's actually a very good album that I recommend any electronic music fan listen to, but that said, it didn't inspire much passion in me either.  But with a Buddhist name like Avidya, perhaps passion isn't what this album was really about.

Lol, the bs I say sometimes.  Go listen to this album.  No really.

Begierde des Zauberer

Marisa took a trip to Mordor, naturally
intending to steal Sauron's ring.

Apparently, it was really good timing that I only just discovered Demetori, because I didn't have to wait as long for their next album, which came out this Comiket after a rather lengthy period of time when they didn't produce anything.  What they did eventually release was Begierde des Zauberer - The Magician's Longing in German, referring to Marisa Kirisame: the Lord Byron of Gensokyo.  I guess Patchouli would be Anne Isabella, in that case.  Who would Alice be though...  Agh, muisc, yes, topic.

The introductory track is most appropriately named "introduction," and serves as an introduction.  Derp.  The dark synths build into the introduction of the guitars and twisted version of what I think of as the "ZUN scale progression" that always appears in his menu themes, and it's all very badass.  What's surprising is that, even though they share very similar riffs in the start, albeit in different keys, it doesn't transition into the next track like an Alstroemeria album might, which actually makes the similarity sound rather awkward.  In fact, the first few bars of Plastic Mind ~ Alice in Underground are actually rather awkward, with a very straight speed metal beat, but it straightens itself out quite nicely into Demetori's signature guitar and synth double counterpoint.  It never quite feels like the brothers' A game because of some weirdness with the percussion and synth in one part of the bridge, but flawed as it may be, it is also quite awesome.  Rigid Paradise ~ Dawn of the Dead is also awesomeness, great simply in general, but notable for how well it manages to make the "Dawn of the Dead" part of its name work, with some very nice use of atmosphere in what could have easily been a very straight progressive metal track.  Love Colored Master Spark ~ Final Sorcery takes Marisa's already very rock-like theme and puts it through Demetori's metal filter.  The result follows the original quite closely, feeling very much like a Demetori version of a ZUN track rather than a Demetori track that happens to use a riff from ZUN somewhere.  I can't fault Demetori for this, because I certainly don't think they have anything to prove, but also because they do such a great job of maintaining and reinforcing the soul of the tomboyish, cocky, rainbow-colored-destruction wielding mage and kleptomaniac named Marisa.  Perhaps fittingly, U.N. Owen Was Her follows this, matches it, and crushes it in the palm of its hand while grinning madly.  I didn't like this track as much when I first listened to it, but the more I do, the more I realize what a great job of keeping the eerie power of the original whilst at the same time totally twisting it into something eldritch and heady with Flandre's insane spirit.  U.N. Owen is a very hard composition to work with, but Demetori rises to the challenge quite beautifully, which may be one of the reasons for it being one of the most memorable tracks on the album.  Magus Night ~ Frenzy Night seems rather tame and straightforward in comparison, and it actually is rather straight forward for a Demetori track.  Which is not to say it's bad.  The song it's nominally an arrangement of is from Fairy Wars, and yet occasionally, I seem to hear quotes from other ZUN songs, especially Doll Judgement, but I suppose that comes with the territory of being from ZUN.  Really, this album's problem is that too much of it sounds like Demetori playing ZUN, which, while awesome, can get a bit tiring.  Desire Drive ~ Desire Dream is not an exception to this, being exactly that: Demetori's version of Desire Drive.  I can't really substantiate specifically why this is, but on the other hand, I don't particularly care, because as I said before, Demetori playing ZUN is still oh so very awesome.  Endless ~ The Endless Deadly Deadly Sins provides a nice buffer before the final track, Strawberry Crisis !!!!!!  It's very speedy and adroitly played with the flare one expects from Demetori, but I think the guitar work stands out here even in comparison with the other tracks on the album.

As a whole, it's not as interesting as Nada Upasana Pundarika, or as varied or clever, but given how brilliant Nada Upasana Pundarika was, that's a rather unreasonable bar to set.  I definitely recommend anyone who likes hard rock or metal give it a listen, but after Nada Upasana Pundarika.  I also have to say that, though I have not listened to any others in their entirety, it's probably their second best album, so take that for whatever it's worth.

Killed Dancehall

Geez Flandre, this is the fifth
Dancehall you've killed this year!

I think I've said it before, but Alstroemeria Records is really, really unreliable sometimes.  You never know whether you're going to get good Minoshima or evil Minoshima.  When I first listened to this album, I knew it was good Minoshima, but I couldn't make up my mind how good.  While it's not really brilliant in the same way as Haunted Dancehall was, the more I listen to it, the more I like it, and the more I think that it's a very good mirror of its predecessor.  See, Haunted Dancehall was etherial and full of groovy, almost disco-esque soul.  It was "haunted," as if spirits were floating around in the data.  Killed Dancehall is much more hard-edged, taking the structure and spirit of the original and going for a much more electronic feel.  Killed Dancehall is to Haunted Dancehall as Human After All was to Discovery: not as good, but a very interesting mirror, and still, in the end, a pretty neat album.

I shouldn't even need to mention that it starts with a short original track with sampled vocals that leads into a longer track, but I should mention that this one - Undercover - is especially cool.  What it leads into, Romantic Children, lives up to this promising intro, at least partially.  The pulsing synth echoes the soul of Haunted Dancehall, and yet, in it, there is a depth: something hard and unyielding.  Unfortunately, Minoshima being Minoshima, he writes a vocal part for Nachi Sakue (whose name I've been improperly romanizing as Nachi Sakagami for the longest time, ごめんなさい) which falls into the common trap of being high and "moe" in a track where it's really not appropriate, and it doesn't really work.  On a track where everything else works so well, it's quite unfortunate.  Luckily, there's a vaguely Daft Punk-esque bridge into a track with Mei Ayakura vocals: Unknown.  There are still traces of the intro track as it begins, actually.  The arrangement is is very Minoshima in several ways.  The interplay between the instruments and the vocals is minimal, but contributes to an overall whole very well.  It's also supposedly an arrange of U.N. Owen, but in true fashion, the only part of U.N. Owen Minoshima actually seems to have used is the continuo part.  It's probably the best track on the album, actually.  It's followed by Phantoms in da House by Nhato.  He's always a bit of a gamble, but this track is actually very interesting, and very distinctly his style.  It uses the melody of Phantom Ensemble in some rather interesting ways, along with a very wide range of hard-edged electronic instrumentation, used playfully and in very good harmony.  I think I also hear the pentatonic scale progression from Ancient Temple at one point, but I could just be hearing things.  Brazil follows, which is a very strange Minoshima original, with a totally incomprehensible vocal sample (I'm not entirely sure what language it is, even) used in concert (though not really harmony) with the sort of instrumental backing one expects from Minoshima.  It's disappointing for an original track to be as uninteresting as all that, but it's over about four minutes and goes on to Lunar DIAL, another rather odd track with a riff that uses glissando to...some effect anyway.  To be honest, I'm really not certain at all about the reasoning behind some of the stuff in this track, like the rhythmic, compressed vocal segments, but it nonetheless works fairly well, even if it's confusing.  Endless is confusing for different reasons.  Minoshima bases this track partially on an English DJ track, with the refrain "My fellas run this muthafucka."  Oh Minoshima.  One of these days I'll go to Comiket myself and ask you where you keep finding these samples.  Musically, it actually works really well, and ends up being a really fun track, with a tight sense of rhythm and tone.  It marks the transition from the album's rather mediocre middle to its strong end, a trend that continues with Flowering Night, a track that plays with the riff from, guess what, Flowering Night, and continues on into what might have actually sounded more at home on Haunted Dancehall (or, for that matter, Harmony), with its piano and laid back vocal aesthetic.  It flows into Underdog, the other Minoshima original on the album, and by far the better one.  It's his often-used double layered style, with a complicated looped undercurrent and much more broad melody section for some sort of glissando-y FM synth.  It's pretty neat.  The album proper ends with Underdog, but Syrufit contributes an extra track at the end called DIS_K.  It's rather uncharacteristic of Syrufit, and I checked twice to make sure I had read it right and it was in fact Syrufit, because it's much more in a glitch sort of style than really anything else he's done that I can recall.  It's good to have heard him try something new, but I can't say I like glitch-mode Syrufit as much.

Killed Dancehall starts off very strongly, has a mediocre middle, but then picks up again quite nicely for the end.  After Haunted Dancehall, I was expecting a bit more, but all things considered, this is still probably one of Alstroemeria Records' better albums, at least as good as Fragment Reactions, and probably on par with Plastik World.  Yet, I don't feel quite right comparing it with something like Plastik World, because Alstroemeria Records has changed so much from that era.  Bad Apple!! barely even feels like it came from the same artist.  Minoshima is going in a new direction, I think the two Dancehall albums have shown that pretty clearly.  What will be next, I wonder.  Fused Dancehall, maybe?  I think Utsuho has only been on the cover once, and that was Double Counterpoint...so what I really meant to say was "Utsuho has never been on an Alstroemeria Records cover, what are you talking about?"

Uncanny Instinct

Blonde: Woe!  My soliloquies be verily poor:

I must anon resolve to further my emoting!

Purple: Oh man, the salt on your skin is making

me soooo high~

Being arrangements of somebody else's already brilliant work, one can't help but be slightly cynical about the actual talent of some doujin arrangers.  While some may produce decent covers, I don't think all of them would be as good if they played completely original material.  This is only to be expected, but on the other hand, it does take a considerable amount of talent to create truly great arrangements, talent that would easily be applicable to original material.  The best doujin circles would no doubt be notable if they did play their own material, and in fact, many do put completely or almost completely original tracks on their albums.  Alstroemeria Records does this all the time, either with totally original material or only using elements from the original totally out of context for different ends.  Though Minoshima, Syrufit, and Nhato often play sets as club DJs (under the name Badcats Party), surprisingly none of them have released original albums.  EastNewSound, however, has, and their product is Uncanny Instinct.  I wish I were more familiar with EastNewSound beforehand to see how much of the style here is present in their Touhou arrangements, but that said, what I have heard has been very interesting.  For refrence, possibly their most known piece being a really great U.N. Owen arrangement called...(looks up kanji)...crap...Under a Scarlet Moon, Absolute Insanity...I hope.  あなたが甘い．．．甘い．．．赤い．．．赤い．．．フフ殺してあげる!

Looking at the track information, I think the defining feature of this album is that it has so many different artists contributing to it, yet I think you can still pretty definitively call the album electronica.  We start the album with Summer Breeze.  The translation on touhouwiki says "Summer Wind," and this isn't really inaccurate, but it sounds weird, and in my world, I'd like to think that Kofun P is a Seals & Croft fan.  The song itself is a melodic affair with moe vocals that, fortunately, are arranged and performed well enough not to be grating.  The easy listening synth provides a sugary second layer of melody that provides harmony with the vocals occasionally, but doesn't really do much else.  It's really pretty bland stuff, but it's inoffensive, and afterwards, Steel Cliff comes along and takes it in a more eurodance-y direction.  It would sound a little bit like Harmony-era Minoshima were the vocals not so chromatic and in a tolerable octave.  It's got some nice harmonies with the base part and percussive piano, and works quite admirably.  While the arranger was different, the vocalist was actually the same as the first track.  Whaddaya know, I guess it's just Minoshima who can't pick good vocalists.  The next track, In a Constant World (again, not the touhouwiki translation, but heck, even GoogleTranslate says that  ｢変わらぬ｣ means "constant") is more glitchy in its instrumentation, but despite being from a different composer, is structurally similar to the previous track.  Its vocals are of the "low and breathy" sort, another one of those aesthetics I can never quite get into, but I suppose they are interwoven with the instrumentation fairly well.  Original Remind (this one was named in English originally, can't you tell) comes next and keeps up with the trance-like trend of the last two tracks, with meandering vocals, very lightly phrased vocals, and high-attack synth and pad second layer.  It's really quite traditional, but it does its thing well, and moves on to EasyNaturalStep.  Now, EasyNaturalStep is probably one of the most Jpop-like tracks on the album, but it's also probably my favorite.  It has a very well done vocal section, trading off between heavily phrased and harmonized female vocals and rapid rap sections, playing off of the admittedly pretty simple major-key continuo and base.  It helps that this is one of those lucky tracks where I can sorta-kinda understand the lyrics...well, one half of the lyrics anyway.  It has this pervasive atmosphere of fun that good pop should have, with the adroit execution and soul to make it work.  I'd call it a guilty pleasure, but I can't say I feel all that guilty.  Within the Light follows this up, a more slow paced track with a simpler sort of melody, going for a softer feel, with its soft-spoken (not breathy, mind you) vocals, percussive piano, and pad aesthetic.  As this is the same composer as In a Constant World, this isn't particularly surprising.  Again though, I can't honestly say it doesn't work, but it does go on into The Two of Us, which is another one of the album's more notable tracks, also by Kurotori (Black Swan), the composer of EasyNaturalStep and Under a Scarlet Moon, Absolute Insanity.  It's got a very interesting minor-key vocal section and some very good use of distortion and pads in its instrumental and continuo section.  It at times feels the slightest bit like Yuki Kajiura, actually.  I think it's the sweeping and rather un-pop-like melody and solo section, but it's more likely I'm simply hearing things.  Monochrome, sorry Monokuroumu, is next, and it maintains the quality of the previous track.  Again though, I'm having trouble pinning down exactly why this is.  It's not a melody with traditionally constructed tonalities, anyway, so maybe I like it just because it sounds different.  The next song is Paper Planes (which was hilariously mis-romanized in the download I got ahold of as "kamihiko uki" instead of "kami hikouki," but I suppose I should be glad he didn't translate it as "Spirit Plane" or something) is the third song on the album from Kurotori, but it's also probably my least favorite, despite the fact that his style continues to remind me of Yuki Kajiura for some incomprehensible and probably really stupid reason.  Maybe I just don't like the fact that he opted for very traditional trance-style synth instrumentation this time.  Before the Dawn Breaks finishes the album on a rather Jpop-y note, but an exceptionally good Jpop-y note.  Actually, many Jpop-y notes in a row.  That together form a song.  Sorry, sorry, anyway, the pulsing synth and continuo harmonize with the vocals quite well, and give the song a distinct aesthetic despite it's questionable heritage.

Uncanny Instinct is a good album, and I think I could point to it as proof that doujin circles aren't worthless second-handers and actually do have some genuine talent.  I would not call this one of my favorite albums ever, not by a long shot, but I see myself listening to it quite a bit in the future.  I think EastNewSound could make quite a name for themselves as an indie music group, though if they do want to make their way in the world, I'm not sure if they want to stick with the anime lesbian album covers.  I love anime, and I love lesbians, but really, they're not doing themselves any favors.  I'm also a little confused, because I'm looking through their discography on touhouwiki, and as far as I can tell, despite Touhou being responsible for a good 75% of the world's girl-love manga and fanart, this is their first album cover to do this.

Why am I spending so much time talking about this?

Edit: I looked it up, and apparently "Under a Scarlet Moon, Absolute Insanity" is actually, according to touhouwiki anyway, "Beneath the Scarlet Moon, The Crazed Blossoms' Severance."  Got the first part right, but not so much the second.

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Touhou Pianoforte I - Requiem for Sakura

Yuyuko lookin' boss, Youmu lookin' QUALITY

I'm actually going to cheat a little and talk about an album that is actually from...you know, I'm actually not sure, because it's not on touhouwiki at all.  *looks up*  Apparently, this was C79, so only a year ago or so.  The artist - Tomoya-san - is on youtube here.  He's pretty small-time, and as a result, the quality of the recording is pretty awful.  There's significant cut-off at the high end that causes some really unfortunate distortion.  Fortunately, the music itself is beautiful.  A piano album like this isn't the same thing as a more traditional doujin arrangement, because it's usually much more straightforward in its interpretations of the originals.  For this reason, I think it'd be more accurate to call this "variations on ZUN" instead of "arrangements of ZUN."  "Variations" sounds higher-brow anyway.


Unfortunately, I can find only two tracks from this album on youtube, both uploaded by kkcwkoh.  I'll go ahead and say that it's worth downloading, or, if you live in Japan and are actually able to buy it, buying.


Because of its nature as piano variations on Touhou music, mostly from Perfect Cherry Blossom, I'm afraid I don't have as much to talk about.  It opens with the "ZUN scale progression," naturally, but moves on to, actually, a rather powerful motif on Sakura, Sakura, which is fitting with the whole "Perfect Cherry Blossom" thing, and also thematically, since contrary to popular belief, the song was only popularized in its modern form in the Meiji period (though the melody was from Edo), when Japan was modernizing, and the romanticization of its history began.  This is the era that Gensokyo appears to be in technologically as well.  All this weaves in quite well with a variation on Ancient Temple, one of ZUN's more under-recognized compositions, played with feeling and flare.  Next is a very dizzy, formless, yet still strong variation on Mystic Dream.  After this is a variation on Hiroari Shoots a Strange Bird (another one of Youmu's themes), this time much stronger in its central themes.  It captures the feel of the original better than the original did, in some ways.  The Sakura, Sakura motif returns in the next track, which is a variation on Ultimate Truth.  It doesn't feel as strong as some of the other tracks on the album, but as a relative measure, this is meaningless, since the rest of the album is so awesome.  A variation on The Doll Maker of Bucharesti is next.  Alice's themes are some of my favorites from PCB, and this track is one of the best on the album.  Next is a variation on Paradise, a track I'm actually not as familiar with.  However, the arrangement itself is very nice, and played with the characteristic flare.  I'm even less familiar with the next track, Prayer in Service of the Sky ~ Towards Equal Heights, mainly because it's not actually from Touhou, but Clannad, an anime.  I've never seen Clannad, but it has quite a large fandom.  I imagine that if I saw it, I'd like, but it is, at its core, a soap-opera, so I'm not sure if I could ever take myself seriously again.  Then again, I loved every panel of Touhou Tonari, so I guess I already kinda can't take myself seriously.  Anyway, the track is good, and even though it's quite obviously not ZUN's style, it's still Tomoya-san's, so it's all good.  Next, going apparently in reverse order, is a very nice variation on The Fantastic Tale of Touno. The album concludes with a variation on Phantom Ensemble, a very nice end to the album, embodying quite a few of the themes present throughout.

It's an extraordinary album, carrying the atmosphere of PCB's soundtrack perfectly, except for the recording hiccups.  It's probably my favorite Touhou piano album.  I once played this album for a friend of mine who listens to almost nothing but top 40 stations and has been exposed to very, very little Japanese otaku culture, and he said he very much enjoyed it.  If that's not an endorsement, I don't really know what is.

Symphonic Suite: Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil

If only, if only.  The more I think about it, the more I think how perfectly Touhou soundtracks are structured to be adapted into symphonic suites.  Think Pictures at an Exhibition.  Think about it: every Touhou soundtrack has a very proper first segment - the menu music - to set the theme.  Each is already segmented into very distinct sections that explore their own themes, but progress the suite as a whole.  ZUN's work, if handled correctly, could be played very well by even a small orchestra or septette and piano.  It wouldn't be overly long (about the same length as your average symphony), and would be a unique experience even for people who are already familiar with video game music.

In my ideal world, someone would get ZUN's permission (or heck, maybe even inspire ZUN to do it himself, the lazy drunk) to write a symphonic suite based on Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil.  Since Touhou fandom is rather large in Japan, I think someone could conceivably convince even the Tokyo Philharmonic to do it.  Hey, they've done Final Fantasy, though granted, Nobuo Uematsu is a respected name in higher circles, and Junnya Ota really isn't.  If it's a success, then there are still seven more games to do, not to mention all the spin-off games ZUN has composed music for.

If I were to undertake the task of adapting ZUN for orchestra, a task I'm in no way qualified to do, despite the meaningless jargon I throw around, I'd try to keep a few things in mind.  First, while Touhou compositions work because of melody, the also work because of their unique atmospheres, so having the whole string section playing the same part simply won't do.  Any Touhou orchestration has to emphasize solo performances and interplay, perhaps using instrument combinations not often seen in more traditional video game arrangements.  TAMusic has demonstrated that simple violin and piano can go a long way.  Too many have forgotten that large orchestras originally evolved for variety and flavor, not for redoubling the same handful of sounds.  Speaking of which, I also imagine that, if at all possible, a clavichord would be most useful to the orchestra.  I should also think that choruses should be spared for the most part.  There are few tracks that I think would really benefit from that sort of aesthetic, but on the other hand, using them for the tracks that are already supposed to be bombastic, like U.N. Owen Was Her, might work.  The trope became popular for a very good reason, it's just that people keep on using it without understanding what makes it work.

One Winged Vampire.  Lol.

Anyway, I'm thinking the chances of this happening are very much dependent on what mood ZUN is in, and knowing ZUN, that means it's pretty darn unlikely, but one can hope.  Perhaps we'll continue to see things like the performance in the video above.  This isn't what I had in mind, stylistically or otherwise, but having anything Touhou played by an actual orchestra is pretty darn cool.

On the other hand, maybe all we need is a good ol' tavern bard.

Warwolf, Tally Two Youkai, Angels High, Engaging!

I don't have anything new, but I needed something here.  Sorry.

So yeah, remember how I promised an update by the Thursday before last?  Yeah, didn't happen, and now I actually have some more Alstroemeria Records albums to talk about (but that'll be the last part).  No more Touhou otherwise though, I promise.  I still haven't found a not sketchy way to play any of the games anyway, and I figure I'd better at least beat one on medium, just so that it doesn't seem too ridiculous that I've read and watched so much about characters that I haven't even seen the original versions of.

Speaking of which, I went on amazon.jp out of curiosity, and browsed through some of their stuff, and man is everything expensive.  I don't know if it's just the dollar being weak against the yen or something, but wow.  I'm definitely not buying anything from there anytime soon, especially not with US shipping expenses, which I imagine must be enormous too.  Also, kanji, kanji everywhere.  There's a joke that four years of Spanish lets you read a novel comfortably, and four years of Japanese lets you barely stumble your way through a comic.  Except it's not a joke, it's probably just a fact.  How does anything ever get done over there?  Oh wait, it doesn't, their government is at least as inefficient as ours is right now.

What Have I Been Playing?
Next Tuesday, the answer is going to be Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.  I downloaded the demo last Thursday and I've been playing it, getting used to the new physics and mechanics.  Planes handle more or less the same as in previous Ace Combat games.  The yaw and roll and pitch are pretty heavy when compared to something like Ace Combat 5 or Zero, but it actually reminds me a bit of Ace Combat 04's more floaty sort of handling.  What doesn't handle like any other console Ace Combat game is acceleration.  Tap the right trigger, and all of a sudden you're going 1500 knots and about to overshoot the Flanker F you've been chasing.  On the other hand, tap the left trigger and you're falling out of the sky.  It's very weird to get used to, but once I do, I imagine it'll just make maneuvering into position all the more precise and swift.  Still, I'll often try to merge with too much energy, or start a series of high alpha maneuvers with too little, and end up dangerously out of position in a way that would cause me a lot of trouble if I were playing against a human opponent.

Maneuvering into position is at the same time more important and less important in Ace Combat Assault Horizon.  With DFM - dogfight mode - you can tap the bumpers and enter this sort of chase scene thing where the enemy is trying to shake your pursuit and you have to try and follow and get off missile shots.  It's the only way to efficiently take down some enemies, and it's actually very cool, but on the other hand, reliance on the new feature means that Project Aces has made taking out aircraft outside of DFM rather more difficult.  Missiles do not track very well at all outside of DFM, requiring very good timing, judgement of energy, and positioning to get hits on the more difficult enemies.  Normal aircraft in ACAH have very passive AIs that seem content to take it in the rudder while you sit behind them and shoot 20mm cannon rounds in their general direction.  This is probably for the better, since the cannon in ACAH does not compensate for lead outside of DFM, so getting a gun track on the target at anything except point blank range is very hard, and is not helped by the fact that it takes a lot more to take down enemy planes in this game than in any other Ace Combat game before it.  Missiles work just fine though, and I can take normal enemies out without any more difficulty than in any other Ace Combat game.

There are also so called "target leads" though, that are much more difficult to engage outside of DFM because the designers did not intend for players to engage them outside of DFM.  Their AI is pretty lackluster - about the same as a normal aircraft in any other Ace Combat game - but man, does the computer ever cheat.  Most of them are scripted to be invincible outside of DFM, even though you can still score missile and gun hits, and I always forget which ones are which until I'll be chasing one, maneuver into position, watch the plane disappear behind a wall of smoke and flame, only to emerge unhurt from the other side.  They also tend to spam flares if you get too trigger happy with the missiles, which can be very difficult to deal with, and will defeat even the most well positioned missile shot.  They're very much like the Yellow squadron planes in AC04's Lifeline mission, and like them, I can still score enough missile hits on any given target lead that I'm pretty sure it'd be dead if it weren't protected by plot armor without much of an issue.  On the other hand, they're very good for training, just scoring missile hit after missile hit in preparation for dealing with the AIs in the real game, and potentially for other humans.

See, my colleagues at Ace Combat Skies have come up with a master plan.  There's a game mode in ACAH multiplayer called world domination, where the player chooses a city to join, and compete to take control of all the other cities of the world by flying combat sorties on the offense to new territories and in defense of their own.  Most of the best and experienced Ace Combat pilots in the western world (my humble self included) are on ACS, so this is what we're planning: everybody on the forums joins a really unpopular city, like Dubai, so that it's mostly just us and whatever other people that region manages to get, and together we take the rest of the online community by surprise and conquer the world with our hundred-or-so player army.  First, we would take Tokyo for the sake of the Japanophiles, then we'd take Hawai'i to take control of the world's hula girl stockpile, and then, the world.  They will come to know and fear the ACS clan tag.  Or we'll start in Honolulu and work the other way around, but in either case, it'll be hilarious, this faction that has such a small percent of the online community taking over the world.

Or so we hope.  It's actually more feasible than it sounds.  From what I've seen, most people, even experienced gamers who play flight games on occasion, really don't fly very well at all.  Heck, the professionals that play for the previews, who you'd think would be pretty experienced with this sort of game, fly horribly.  What with the influx of new people drawn to the steel carnage of Assault Horizon, the average opponent probably won't be much harder than the average AI.

Of course, if I wanted to take part in this glorious battle, I'd have to get Xbox Live Gold.  Which sucks.  Maybe if I pay my parents back, I can get a one month subscription, so I can help my comrades for the majority of the fighting.

Life?  What is this life you speak of?

What Am I Watching?
Drunk people outside my window, but that's not important right now.

No, but really, I've been watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Super Dimension Fortress Macross, but as I've already talked about both on here, and I don't really have anything more substantial to say about them, I'll leave it at that.  It did occur to me, however, that Legend of the Galactic Heroes isn't a space opera after all.  What it really is, is a historical epic that happens to be set in the future.  As the show's tagline says: Zu jeder Zeit, an jedem Ort, bleibt das Tun der Menschen das gleiche - in any age, in any place, the acts of men remain the same.  Holy crap is this show awesome, all the politics and history and personalities, and stuff, but of course, that's exactly why it'll never see the light of day stateside.  So ist das Leben.

how do i facial proportions plz k thanks

SDF Macross is still pretty good, like a slightly less stupid version of the original Battlestar Galactica, but that's really not saying much.  The characters aren't great, and the plot is kinda stupid at times, but it does have some genuinely great moments in it, and it's still something cool to put on during dinner.  It's also kind of funny just watching to find animation errors...which isn't that hard, because if I had a penny for every time someone goes off model or crosseyed or there's a sea of elementary school drawings in the background cells, then I'd be able to pay my own way through college.

On the Theoretical Basis Of Anime Clubs
I've thought about it a lot, and I've decided that I'm going to consider thinking about trying to start an anime club next year.  I've never run anything like a club before, and I'm not sure how one goes about starting one, but with all things, one must start with a purpose, and for something like an anime club, which you'd think would be more or less straight forward, there are some odd anomalies and contradictions that have to be solved to form a solid operating principle.  Here is how I see it.

Premise 1) Anime as a blanket concept has fans because there are things going on in Japanese animation that simply are not seen anywhere else.
- Anime itself covers a very wide range of formats and topics.  This results in many subfandoms; many people attracted to the same blanket concept of anime with very divergent tastes.
- Animation has certain inherent filmic qualities to it that are present across subgenres that nevertheless lend it to certain types of stories (mainly those dealing with subjects impractical or impossible to do in live action).
- Animation has certain inherent filmic qualities to it that make certain types of storytelling, character development, and atmosphere possible, whereas in live action it would be impossible.
- Anime undeniably has elements highly influenced by Japanese culture that inherently cannot be found anywhere else.
       - Interest in Japanese culture is not endemic with interest in anime.

Premise 2) Anime fandom itself is very diverse.
- There are many ways to be introduced to anime that each have their own canon of anime titles the fan is likely to be familiar with, and each attracting a different sort of taste.
       - Those introduced from Toonami/Cartoon Network will likely know things like Trigun, Cowboy BeBop, and Gundam Wing.  If they stayed around long enough, maybe FMA, FLCL, and Death Note.
       - Those introduced from the internet will have a very wide range, but will likely at least include Suzumiya Haruhi, and may also include things like Fate/Stay Night and Azumanga Daioh.  Madoka Magica may be on the list too.
       - Those introduced from film theory or a preexisting interest in Japan will likely know things like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and at least a few Studio Ghibli films.
       - There are likely many fans who haven't seen much beyond Shonen Jump shows, like Naruto, Bleach, or One Piece, but are still undeniably part of anime fandom.

Premise 3) Anime fandom shares the uniting factor of being a fairly small community.
- Anime is largely accessible only through the internet.
- Anime fans are accessible and common only on the internet.
- Common interest in something uncommon is a uniting factor.  Anime fandom is quite uncommon.

Premise 4) Anime fandom is largely self sustaining.
- Anime fandom has its own reference pool, and therefore its own set of in jokes and memes.
       - Anime fandom also has the big three sub-fandoms: Vocaloid, Hetalia, and Touhou.
- Anime fandom is largely self-contained.
- Such a blanket sort of fandom inherently cannot be defined by a singular source material and therefore must be defined by the conception of its own fans.

Therefore An anime club must serve two separate imperatives.
1) An anime club must promote the concept of anime.
2) An anime club must promote anime fandom.

Things therefore entailed that an anime club must do.
- Meet.
- Watch anime.
       - Ideally, anime that exemplifies something inherently good about anime that all who appreciate anime can potentially enjoy regardless of what they're already familiar with.
- Discuss anime.
- Consume secondary media concerning anime.

Things therefore not entailed that an anime club do, but might be commendable.
- Hold events outside of itself.
- Attend events outside of itself.
- Collaborate with the Japanese club.
       - Anime as an interest is innately filmic rather than related to Japanese culture, but as the two are nonetheless interrelated, it might be in both our interests to occasionally work together.

Things therefore entailed that an anime club should never do.
- Promote ideals that are inherent to a specific subset of anime fandom but not applicable to a whole.  (in-joke focused shows like Lucky Star or any moe-for-the-sake-of-moe sort of shows fall under this category)
- Neglect moderation and leadership.
- Crossplay.


Practical concerns.
- We should probably not try to watch shows and OVAs longer than 15 episodes (so that they may be watched in three weeks or less).
- Unless it's unlicensed in the states, or unreasonably hard to obtain, we should only watch legal streams or DVDs, if for quality reasons alone.
- Meetings should probably be on Saturday so as not to conflict with homework or other clubs.
- Hentai would probably be a very bad idea.

First Three Things I've Unilaterally Decided We Should Watch
- Daicon IV Opening Animation (would make a good introduction on the first day)
- Ghost in the Shell (it's a truly great film with broad appeal that's not Ghibli)
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica (has things to offer to pretty much all types of anime fans, would introduce old school fans to what the new school has to offer, and fits perfectly into four episode arcs)


More Alstroemeria Records
Yep, there's more of them, and since y'all must have been so entertained by them last time, I've decided to do it again (don't worry, there's only two this time).


Harmony

"Yeah yeah, talk to the butterfly; I'm

gonna go to the ghost disco, but

not before I strike an elegant pose."

Well, it's probably not the best Alstroemeria Records album out there, but it's probably got the most awesome cover art, or if not the most awesome, the most descriptive.  I'll give you a hint: it's not power metal.

Alright, first off we have...wait...this is the right album, right?  Did I just accidentally turn on some mid 80s synth rock?  I dunno, but whatever it is, Cheek Colors has a pretty epic, 80s-tastic opening section.  It's pretty sweet...right up until the vocals start.  As much as I may complain about Nomico, at least she's accurate and has an interesting voice.  Haruna, the vocalist for Cheek Colors, very nearly ruins it, with one of the least charismatic, barely on key performances on an Alstroemeria track yet.  Anyway, still pretty cool, even if it's pretty pop-like for Minoshima.  I just wish the idea were done better justice.  After this are three songs I've already talked about because they were on Exserens (the compilation album): Dark Road, Alice Maestra, and Voile, The Magic Library.  After those three is Wind's Believer, a pretty good down-beat song in the same vein as the previous three, though also a bit more groovy with its baseline and percussion.  Misato also proves again why she's probably the best of the vocalists who contributes to Alstroemeria Records with a surprisingly effective performance.  The eponymous Harmony follows.  I gotta say, the grooviness of the track goes so well with the cover art that it's not even funny.  I get the feeling that this exactly the song the artist had in mind when he created it.  Following it up is Interlude, a Minoshima original and by far the most interesting track on the album, with its variable tempo, unconventional, almost tape-loop like vocal sampling, and general contrast with the rest of the album.  The next track is Maple Wizen (2007AW Re-Master), a very good example of Minoshima in laid back house dance mode, which is good, because it's seven minutes.  The last track is Suwa Foughten [sic] Field, and holy crap, did Minoshima san just figure out how to use nomico?  I mean, I call her helium voice, but she's actually pretty good when used right, like on this track.  Actually, I'm not sure Yuki Kajiura might not have had something to do with it.  Hmm...


Trois Noir

The god of nuclear fusion still

has yet to discover the secret

of how to sit in a chair.

Alstroemeria Records is not the only Doujin circle that composes tracks based on Touhou compositions.  Two of the most prominent DJs besides Minoshima san to do so are Sound Online (Tsukasa) and ALiCE'S_EMOTiON (also known as REDALiCE), and fortunately for us, they all seem like pretty good friends.  In fact, they decided one day to do a project together: a three part album called Trois, that would be composed of Trois Rouge (ALiCE'S_EMOTiON), Trois Noir (Alstroemeria Records), and Trois Bleu (Sound Online).  So far, I've only heard Alstroemeria's third of the project, but maybe later tonight even, I'll check out Tsukasa san's.  I've heard one or two of his tracks, and they're pretty good, and much more trance like in style.  Should be interesting.

Anyway, just like most Alstroemeria albums, Trois Noir starts with an original Minoshima composition that leads into the first track.  This time, the opening is Showdown/For Lovers Not Fighters, which in true Alstroemeria tradition, features an English phrase (telling us, apparently, to "eat it") looped to a very deep electronic organ like synth riff.  It's an interesting track for its instrumentation, even if compositionally it's very much traditional PlastiQ World Plastik World era Minoshima, and it still features the trademark bland Alstroemeria vocals, though thankfully within a reasonable octave this ti...HOLY CRAP, DID MISATO JUST TRY TO HIT F7?  I would have forgiven Minoshima if he had decided to autotune that, but I guess he has standards too.  This is followed by Flight on Tears, which reminds me very much of something that might have been on Lovelight, with the synth strings and upbeat melody, and a this time quite good vocal performance by Misato san.  Next is 光の都 (City of Light), which...wait a second, this is adapted from the same composition as the opening to Memories of Phantasm.  This one is a lot less normal-anime-OP-style, which makes sense, since it's not from an anime OP.  Also, it's actually a Sound Online track, which would explain why it...well...doesn't sound like Minoshima.  After this is...wait...this is WAY the hell not a Minoshima or Tsukasa track.  Underground Bridge, REDALiCE's main contribution to Noir, is far more like something you'd hear at a rave than anything else on any other Alstroemeria Records, but for what it is, it's a very good track, and it definitely still has a place on the album.  Well, I say that, and the next track, Nuclear Fusion couldn't be any more different if Minoshima had been trying.  Nuclear Fusion is much more like alternative rock than anything else I've ever head from Alstroemeria Records, and it works quite well.  Following is Last Remote, a...the hell do you call this?  It's not house, it's not alternative, it's not tanzmetall, it's...really heavy alternative synth rock?  The vocals are by Ayumi Nomiya, and are actually excellent for an Alstroemeria track.  Why don't we hear her more often?  Then comes REDALiCE'S remix of everyone's favorite, Bad Apple!!.  Or should I say, Rave Apple?  It's not incredible, but it's pretty hard to mess up Bad Apple.  Anyway, Gallardo (I haven't the faintest), a pretty typical Minoshima original, comes next.  Fortunately, typically Minoshima original tracks are pretty awesome.  Finally, the last track is a Sound Online remix of For Lovers Not Fighters, which, well, sounds like Tsukasa's version of For Lovers Not Fighters.  Which happens to be pretty awesome, actually.  A very atypical album for Alstroemeria Records, but a pretty good one nonetheless.


And now, remember that thing called the conservation of energy?  Screw that, physics is for dorks!  This is what a world where car tires can have a negative coefficient of friction looks like.

A Youkai, a Miko, and a Rabbi Walk Into a Bar...

Commando Miko Reimu?  I guess.
We still love you.  Note: this is probably
the only time you'll see me draw fanart.

The bartender runs away because he's never seen a youkai.  Poor bartender: these jokes never end well for him.  No wonder Moe was always so morose on The Simpsons.

I wonder how many decades that show has left, anyway.  Ah well, I don't know the last time I watched a currently running show on the television that wasn't Doctor Who or Top Gear, the two biggest English cultural achievements of the last few decades.

Seriously though, Doctor Who has been getting very popular over here in the States lately.  Not surprising at all, really: it may still be a guy going around in a space-time-traversing police box dealing with the monsters of the week, but it's got some pretty great writing, and a very charismatic main character.  Not to mention, some of the monsters of the week are actually pretty awesome.  The Weeping Angels is one of the best ideas for a monster I've ever heard.  But, no, there are actually people here that care about Doctor Who, and the rule of this blog is that I have to talk about a lot of crap that nobody gives a shit about...yet, of course.

Note: I originally intended to write about a couple other, non-Touhou related things, but it seems there was a lot more here to cover than I originally had anticipated, so you guys get another all Touhou megapost.  Sorry.  I still plan on writing all those things, but I'm going to have to put it off until at least Thursday.

The Touhou Project: It's Not a Game, It's a Lifestyle
Well, not really, but the thing about Touhou is that it has a large fanbase, a loosely defined canon, and lots of really creative people.  It's not like something like Star Trek fandom, where there's a set canon and the fans wedge their own ideas into it.  Here, the fans are actively building the canon.  And it's pretty cool.

Alstroemeria Records
You may remember the song Bad Apple!! from my last post.  I did not mention that it was the work of one Masayoshi Minoshima, a house composer who runs the Touhou doujin circle Alstroemeria Records.  A doujin circle is, for the lack of a better word, something akin to The Gorrilaz: a project with a revolving door of talented artists working along the same theme.  Like with The Gorrilaz, this leads to a very eclectic selection of music that can range from electro-house to Daft Punk-esque funky sort of house to tracks that, if the vocals were sung a few octaves lower, would qualify as tanz-metall (like Bad Apple!! itself).  Almost all of it is at the very least good, and quite a lot of it is downright awesome.

The reason this is even related to Touhou is that many of the tracks are based on compositions for the games' soundtracks.  How it works for Alstroemeria Records though, is that they tend to sample in the same way that Daft Punk does: most of the time, it's hard to even identify what song it's sampling.  The new track is so very different from the track being sampled, it's crazy to hold it against the artist for doing so.  The difference between Daft Punk and Alstroemeria is, of course, that Daft Punk normally samples rather unremarkable songs, while Touhou's soundtracks are already incredible.

Many tracks have vocal elements as well, and most of the Japanese lyrics are actually very well written.  Alstroemeria Records also has a habit of having Engrish samples that it's quite obvious neither the composer nor the vocalist actually understand, and have no clue how to pronounce.  It took me a while to even realize that Plain Asia was supposed to be English at all.  In retrospect, maybe I should have known better.

I'll explain more about the strengths and weaknesses of Alstroemeria's vocals later, but even though I'm sure that the concept of singing in an octave below C4 is not completely alien to Japan, I'm pretty sure the news hasn't reached Minoshima-san yet.  Tracks where Nomico sings, especially, seem to never go below C5.

Anyway, because ZUN - Touhou's sole creator - doesn't allow merchandise to be sold officially outside of Japan, there's no legitimate method of buying any of Alstroemeria's albums.  On the other hand, this just gives me a good reason to download them off of mediafire, so yay.  Here are my thoughts on the albums I've downloaded so far, in chronological order.

Pictured: Reisen Undongein Inaba.
Not pictured: batshit insanity.

Lovelight
Lovelight is a very good album in all, even if it has fewer truly awesome tracks than, say, Plastik World.  The first track, the eponymous Lovelight, reminds me a little of some of Daft Punk's early work, with the strong riff and looped (Engrish) sample, creating a catchy and atmospheric track, albeit not a particularly complicated one.  After that, we get the afforementioned Bad Apple!!  It's a very heavy track, even for Minoshima-san, with a compositional style and intensity that make me wonder seriously what would happen if Rammstein's Till Lindermann sung the vocal part.  The lyrics have an especially melodic quality to them, and even though Nomico "Helium Girl's" vocals are normally far too high for my tastes, her performance is emotional and sharp enough that it works exceedingly well.  It's still probably my favorite song from Alstroemeria I've heard so far.  The next track, Magic Girl, is another great reason not to sample English lyrics if you don't know what they mean.  Withered Leaf is an interesting instrumental piece with some very good use of synth and real instrumentation working together in a way that contributes to atmosphere instead of dissonance.  Silver That Can Be Crushed Like Crystal is a long, fast paced instrumental piece, fairly unremarkable except for the fact that it sounds a lot like a dance version of Excalibur from Ace Combat Zero in places, for some reason.  Ultimate Truth and Interlude are both pretty cool electro-house sort of tracks, as is Fractal Night, which is a pretty direct arrangement of Flowering Night, one of my favorite Touhou compositions.  Extend Ash doesn't have much going for it one way or another, except for the strange decision to use a synth choir, which just plain doesn't work, in an album that is at the very least competent at everything else.  How Is Your Eyes Crazy? is another pretty straight forward adaptation of a Touhou composition, this time Lunatic Eyes, but in the translation, it loses the power of the original's epic riffs, which could have been really cool to hear arranged Bad Apple!! style.  As a whole, Lovelight is a very good album to turn on and chill out to some house tunes.

...why is Keine wearing lipstick?  Oh fan
art, how I love you.

Plastik World

It's a pretty fantastik album, probably Alstroemeria's most consistently awesome.  It's a lot heavier as a whole than Lovelight, meaning more frequently complex, stronger tracks, but it's also slightly more pop-like.  The album opens with God Know Will You To Love From True [sic]/Plain Asia, an (completely original) intro track by Minoshima-san, followed seamlessly by Plain Asia, so that it's really very difficult to separate the two.  As the album is seamless, this applies to a lot of the songs to varying degrees, though not as much as on Haunted Dancehall.  Also, Engrish.  Wheel of Fortune follows, which is pretty standard Mei Ayakura material, which, fortunately, is pretty awesome.  It's followed by another track by Ayakura-san, Saigetsu, which is probably my favorite track of the album.  It's notable for having a very interesting call-and-response duet structure between two singers, one in C3/4, and one in C5/6.  It, along with the rest of the album really, reminds me a bit of Kaskade at his best (I still don't know who did the vocals for Angel on my Shoulder, but whoever she was, why the hell doesn't Kaskade use her more often dammit.)  The next track, the eponymous Plastik World, also reminds me of Kaskade, this time of what Kaskade vocals sound like most of the time.  Still, a pretty cool track.  The next one, m9, is a pretty funky Minoshima original that provides some nice variation on an album that, if nothing else, has a very strong and consistent style.  Times, a fast, lighter sort of track, also helps, though the sort of rudderless vocals do little for it.  Following that up is Twilight Tea Room, a...very oddly JPop sort of track by Nachi Sakagami, who as far as I know hasn't composed anything else for Alstroemeria Records.  It's actually a pretty good track, but it's very strange for something off an Alstroemeria Records album.  The next to last track is a light piano Outro...which isn't actually an outro, because it's immediately followed by Leading Phantasy, which sounds a lot like it should be an anime theme song.  Actually, hold on a second...I knew it!

Busy album cover is busy.

Exserens

"Selections of Alstroemeria Records" claims the cursive subtitle, presumably in a French accent.  C'est vrai, Monsieur Subtitle, c'est vrai, and it seems like Minoshima-san picked well.  Predictably, the first track is Bad Apple!!  Fair game.  The second track is Dark Road, a pretty straight forward adaptation of The Road of the Apotropaic God, and which is probably one of my favorites from Alstroemeria Records in general.  Both versions have very strong motifs and well considered instrumentations.  Crystalize Silver and Dreaming are why I don't like Nomico, but they're still not actually bad, nor are they extraordinary.  Just...really...helium-y.  The vocals for Dreaming are partially based on Reimu Hakurei's theme, Maiden's Capriccio, which has another, more well-known adaptation, Neko Miko Reimu, for which the high octave makes slightly more sense.  Eighteen Four is another track with Misato's vocals, which, if nothing else, provide a nice change.  The instrumental arrangement is pretty blasé for an Alstroemeria Records track though.  However, it's followed by Dolls, which is a far stronger track compositionally, and makes good use of Misato's range.  It's followed, however, by Shinto Shrine, which sounds like it should be playing over the end credits for something, but is still a pretty solid, downtempo sort of track...which is a good thing, because it's also a good seven and a half minutes.  Then it's Helium Voice again for Shanhai [sic] Alice in 1884, another not bad but also slightly less good downtempo track.  This is followed by the very trance influenced Voile, The Magic Library, based on the Touhou composition of the same name.  This is probably the closest Minoshima has ever come to a by-the-numbers track of any genre, but it works.  Another trance influenced piece, Scolded By The Princess, clocks in at nine minutes and six seconds of laid back dance beats, and comes immediately after, so I hope you like FM Synthesis baselines.  Then it's time for more Helium with Alice Maestra, a pretty solid but unremarkable track, and The Last Judgement, another trance-like track, and probably the strongest of it's type on the album.  It leads into another one of Minoshima's piano Outros (which I can't find on youtube), which brings the album to a nice piano and synth string conclusion.

Youmu Konpaku: half ghost, master
swordsman, gardener, and now,
Alstroemeria's most adorable vocalist.

Haunted Dancehall

Alstroemeria Record's Most recent album, subtitled Living Dead <Danceable>, is also, while maybe not their best, in my opinion, almost certainly their most fun.  It's a completely seamless album, with songs often flowing into each other so well that it's hard to tell where one begins and the other ends.  For this reason, here's a youtube video of the whole album.  This is something you could just turn on at a dance party, and just leave playing, and it'd work perfectly.  Like in Plastique World Plastik World, it opens with a short Minoshima original, featuring a single looping Engrish phrase (Only In the Morning Upside Down After Moonlight), followed seamlessly by a song that builds off of it (Ancient).  At least for Only in the Morning Upside Down After Moonlight, the English is actually grammatical.  Together, the two tracks make for a fun, dangerously catchy, and surprisingly complex opening section, and includes some very cool polyphony with Mei Ayakura's vocals.  The next section, Witching Dream, is a pretty bright, funky house track in true Minoshima style (including another helium girl who's not Nomico, and who actually has a pretty good range).  This leads into an instrumental section - the eponymous Haunted Dancefloor - that reminds me an awful lot of Daft Punk's Voyager done Minoshima style.  This is followed by Border of Life, another pretty cool, bright house track, after which comes Little Love Girl.  Note, this is Little Love Girl, not Little Girl Love, which is how I keep on reading it; I don't know if it's me or Minoshima who's subconsciously a pedophile.  Anyway, it's another pretty solid track, though probably the closest the album ever comes to pop.  It quotes Cirno's theme, Beloved Tomboyish Daughter, in the vocals, even though it's not an adaptation in the same way some previous tracks on other albums have.  In fact, unless I'm mistaken, a significant amount of material on Haunted Dancehall is completely original.  Little Love Girl also provides a great example of why you really shouldn't be taking large samples of English vocals if you don't what they mean.  Unless Minoshima-san is really wondering "Where my homies at?  Where my bitches at?"  Which he could be, I understand the sentiment completely; I loose track of my homies and bitches all the time.  Anyway, this is followed by the funky (I've been using that word a lot in describing this album, haven't I) instrumental interlude Crescent Dream.  After this is Sky Ruin, another very nice entry, even if the vocals, while for once down in C3 throughout the song, are pretty non-desrcript.  The album ends with with Your Smile, Your Face, Your Lies, Your Love, a very nice nice track with some very nice percussive synth piano in the composition, and English lyrics that are grammatical and actually mean something (mispronounced as they may be).  I say it's the end of the album, and it is the end of the album as a contiguous whole, but it's not technically true, because it also includes a remix of Plain Asia from Plastisch Welt Plastik World.  It's a much lighter track than the original, but it works about as well.  Lots of glitchy sounds.  Very much old Minoshima in Nu-Minoshima form.

Anyway, there are still a few more albums I haven't downloaded yet, so I get to do this again for them too.  And who knows, maybe Alstroemeria Records will have another one for Comiket 82 (or whatever the next one is).

On Touhou Anime

I mentioned in the last post that a Touhou anime could stand to be very interesting, only peripherally knowing that there were already two examples of doujin produced anime's based on Touhou already in existence, one with a second episode already in production.  This is not the one I'd have preferred a second episode be made of, but I'll get into that later.  Neither of the two examples are quite there: they both have their strengths and weaknesses (the first mainly weaknesses), but they're both very interesting.

The first one of these is A Summer Day's Dream, produced by the independent studio Maikaze, and featuring some very well known Japanese voice actresses.  Now, the article on the Touhou wiki says it's uncertain where the studio found the money and the connections to get these voice actors, but to me it's pretty simple: they took it out of the budget for the animation and the rest of the staff.  Perhaps that's a bit harsh, but the truth of the matter is, despite ZUN's concerns that with such well known seiyuus attached to the project that people would mistake it for an official Touhou anime, there is no mistaking this for anything but a doujin production.  That said, this is still better than a lot of real, television anime that still manages to make money...somehow...so even though this isn't the best possible world, I'm glad this exists.

Let's start with what this does right.  As I mentioned before, it has some high profile voice actors in it, and the voice acting is, if nothing else, professional and competent.  This is the level of work you'd expect out of your average television anime, even if besides for Reimu and Marisa, nobody delivers much beyond the baseline of this-is-convincing-enough-to-overlook.  To be fair, they do their best with the dialog and direction they're given.  And that's where the trouble starts.  In neither of the two examples is the dialog by any means great, but in the other example that I'll get to, the dialog is written for real people that fit the basic framework.  This show has dialog written for the basic framework.  Okay, that's unfair too: a few characters - especially Reimu - have moments where they not only act like a human being would probably act, but act specifically like the human beings that they'd ideally be acting like.  They have their moments.  But for the rest of the time, they have the same plausibility as Hetalia characters.  (cue nerd rage)

This is not completely the fault of the dialog though.  Another part of the problem here lies in the animation, specifically, the character animation.  Again, the problem is that these are not the expressions and emotions of real people, these are the expressions of tropes.  When someone is supposed to look nervous, they assume the standard this-is-what-a-nervous-person-looks-like-face, and when they're angry, the assume the standard this-is-what-an-angry-person-looks-like-face.  There is almost no subtlety here at all.  Of course, this is animation, and true subtlety in the same way a real actor can have subtlety is pretty much impossible, and in the end, all animated emotion is short hand for the real thing, but compare this to something like even the under-budgeted Neon Genesis Evangelion, or even the next example, and it becomes clear that something is deficient.  This isn't even counting the times that people look outright - and I swear I've tried to think of a better word, and this is the one that fits it most - derpy because the animators have gone off model.  The backgrounds at least are nice, if not particularly detailed.

All this is pretty important, but perhaps a bit nit-pickey compared to the overall lack of decent direction.  This seems to have been story-boarded, directed, and edited by someone who had maybe seen a bunch of anime before and picked up on a few things about how directors normally go about doing things like setting a scene, without really knowing why they do them that way.  This isn't (I sincerely hope) the work of someone who has actual experience making an anime.  Consider the first scene of the donation box being stolen, after the not-as-awkward-as-it-could-have-conceivably-been expository intro.  The camera pans down onto the forest near the Hakurei shrine at night to "crime happening at night" music.  There is a shadow moving through the trees.  There is a distance shot looking at the shrine, illuminated by...a spotlight?  Whatever.  It then cuts to a frame of the donation box, with the shadow approaching it, then cut to black.  Now, ask yourselves, even if you've never seen an anime in your life, how many times have you seen this exact sequence of shots before?  You know what it reminded me of?  Cyberchase, right down to the music.

Speaking of the music, for a game series so rich in truly great music, A Summer Day's Dream has some of the least inspired music I've ever seen used in an anime.  On the other hand, some of the sound usage is actually quite clever, and this is something that the next example gets wrong.  Using the sound of a distant jet for Aya's supersonic flight ability was actually pretty funny.  There are appropriate ambient sounds for most of the scenes, and very few stock sound effects that I recognized.

In fact, this all probably seems rather harsh.  This is not a great anime, but it is not unwatchable, and it has enough going for it that I genuinely want to see the next episode.  It's not a complete waste of 20 or so minutes.

On the other hand, we have Fantasy Kaleidoscope: Memories of Phantasm.  I've thought about it, and I've come to a conclusion.  You can, and I will, talk about how technically this is a far better constructed anime than A Summer Day's Dream, but the fact of the matter is that this version succeeds mainly because of the charisma of its main characters, but especially Marisa.  On paper, and especially in this version, both Marisa and, to a lesser extent, Reimu, are charismatic characters: they have strong personalities (if so far little true depth) and little real concern for what other people think of them.  People like this are fun to watch, and for a 16 minute adventure, very well suited.

Stanley Kubrick did not direct this anime.  However, the guy who did obviously had some idea of what he was doing.  This guy knows how to build images, how to use "camera" angles, and how to use little subtle things to do some pretty nice indirect characterization for what is, in terms of structure, essentially little more than a saturday morning cartoon.  I can only think of one poorly constructed shot or sequence in the entire thing, and that's the ending of the fight with Youmu, but to be fair, that was probably because animating energetic fights is time consuming, and therefore expensive (and the fight with Yuyuko makes up for it with a very cool depiction of danmaku combat).  There's also some very nice background detail.  Alice, in the ending scene, walks up and sees Marisa talking with Reimu, and watches with her normal cold expression.  Shanghai and Hourai - her animated dolls that accompany her everywhere - however, are ecstatic.  It's not quite subtle (and it doesn't have to be), but it's still a small detail that I highly doubt the director of the first example would have come up with, and it's the little details like these that help build up a living world and its characters.

The backgrounds themselves are very pretty, but what Memories of Phantasm does right that A Summer Day's Dream does not is character animation.  Here, we see plenty of hyperbole with face and body animation, as it should be, because these are hyperbolic people, but the difference here is that this hyperbole is used more sparingly, and to express more nuanced things than the previous example.  The shorthand doesn't say "this is what a frustrated person looks like; this frustrated person is Marisa," it says "this is what Marisa looks like right now; doesn't she look a bit frustrated for reasons that are uniquely Marisa's?"  It also gets points for depicting Marisa's confident grin absolutely perfectly (I use a cropped and resized screencap of Marisa from the anime as my avatar on ACS and Formspring, like a boss).

Visually, this anime works very well, but if it has a problem, it's with sound effects.  You see, I don't know much about who made this animation, and how it was made, but I do know this much: the original had no voices, just the Japanese subtitles, the music, and the sound effects.  It was, in essence, a silent film.  It was only dubbed later by another group of doujins, who, if what I read in the youtube comments section was true (hahaha), also did the dubbing for a Touhou parody of Castlevania.  I'll get to the voices and music later, but if this anime has a problem, it's with its use of sound effects.  For a silent film, there's no problem in having the occasional whacky sound effect to punctuate the silences.  It works when there's no dialog to go along with it, because it's a different dynamic.  However, having Cirno the idiot ice fairy get tossed outside with a whistle just doesn't work when you have Marisa and Reimu already talking away with background music as well.

The music, however, works great.  It's not hard to make a soundtrack for a Touhou anime: just use arrangements of ZUN's already awesome soundtrack.  This is what Memories of Phantasm does, and it's great.  I really wish I could find the version of Flowering Night they used with Sakuya's conversation with Reimu, because it's fantastic.  The opening and ending themes are pretty standard anime faire, but for standard faire they're both pretty good, and they work well enough for the show.  Quoting UN Owen Was Her at the very end of the closing credits was kind of funny though, in a "ha ha, I know this song, but why is it being used here" sort of way.

As for the voice acting, I don't know if any of these people are professional voice actors, but the ones playing Marisa and Reimu do a pretty good job.  Everybody else is on the verge of really sucking.  In fact, some of them actually do really suck.  Yuyuko's seiyuu in particular is pretty hilarious, and does nothing to improve her already questionable dialog.  Youmu's seiyuu is little better.  Still, Marisa and Reimu's do more than a decent job.  Marisa especially sounds pretty much exactly like Marisa should sound, even if she brings little actual subtlety or subtext to her performance.  Reimu probably gives a better one in terms of bringing subtext to the table that isn't made explicit in the dialog, but Reimu doesn't get as much screen time anyway.  This is a shame, because in something so short, subtext is a must if you're going to actually do things with these characters.

Of course, the script itself wasn't written to be read aloud.  As I said before, this was originally a silent film, only later dubbed by others, so there is some dialog in it that sounds sorta awkward when actually acted out.  Once again, poor Yuyuko gets the short straw, and she, along with Youmu get some really clunky lines that seem to be depicting them as card carrying villains.  This is very unfortunate, because Yuyuko has the potential to be a really, really interesting character, and yet, here is some real dialog that takes place between her and Youmu within the first few seconds of the anime:

Youmu: Lady Yuyuko, all is going according to plan.
Yuyuko: Heh.  Now, let's us begin, in this dark and unvisited land, the banquet of the Ghosts.

Yeah, I can totally see a real person saying this.  Really?  Really?  Oh well, at least Yuyuko has boobs, and that's all some people care about I guess.

Anyway, I guess Memories of Phantasm also runs into a bit of a structuring problem, wherein too much is going on where characters just sort of appear for the sake of them appearing.  It's made too much for people who are already familiar with Touhou, for them to go, "hey, it's Aya the reporter," or "hey, it's the Prismriver sisters."  Anyone who doesn't already know who the Prismriver sisters are is just going to scratch their head at the random klezmer band magical musicians floating around the entrance to Hakugyokurou.  This is all time that could be spent doing more productive things.

Anyway, I think the 16 minute run time structure is actually a very good fit for a Touhou anime.  It doesn't take as much money or time to produce, or to dub, and, lets face it, no matter what you do with it, these characters are never going to be the cast of the next Neon Genesis Evangelion, nor is the plot going to ever reach the sophistication of Legend of the Galactic Heroes.  This is as it should be.  Touhou is about these funny, interesting, sometimes whimsical characters doing things that threaten the balance of existence because they're bored, having crazy awesome danmaku fights, then all going back to crash at Reimu's place.  If you build up the characters enough, you can have some really great moments - the doujin manga The End of the Maiden's Illusion is a very good example - but it wouldn't work if you started out to do Le Samourai with Marisa Kirisame.

Memories of Phantasm is not there yet...but it's on the right track.  There is a short after-credits sequence that sets up for a second episode, even though I have not read anything official about one being in production.

I really hope there is a second episode in production.

FANBOI MODO, AKTEBEITO!

There fucking has to be a second episode in production, man!

And now for something completely different: