Talking about Touhou pairings
Talking about favorite Touhou characters and pairings
For the final part, I’d like to finally have you all talk to your heart’s content about Touhou couplings and doujinshi. First of all, can I ask you about your favorite Touhou characters?
Hotaru: As characters on their own, I like Eiki Shiki and Reimu. I’m a dreamer girl, but I don’t feel like I want to hang out with the characters or want them to recognize me. It’s good that I like the character so much one way or the other and they don’t know me at all, or if they do, they don’t like me one-millimeter. So that’s the ideal position to take with Reimu, as well as Eiki Shiki.
In terms of pairings, RenMerry (Renko Usami x Mariabelina Hearn) has been hot recently. I really like a closed world where it seems like “You and I could go anywhere, but we’re not going anywhere”. On the other hand, I can’t get over the fact that I have a “the two of them are already fine” side to me!
Ranko: For characters, I like Marisa, Mokou, Yuuka, and Joon. For couples, I like ReiMari (Reimu Hakurei x Marisa Kirisame) and, hum… I like TeruMoko (Kaguya Houraisan x Fujiwara no Mokou) with MokoKene (Fujiwara no Mokou x Kaguya Houraisan). I don’t like a closed world very much, I prefer “those two in the middle of everyone”. I also like MayuKeki (Mayumi Joutougu x Keiki Haniyasushin), SeiYoshi (Seiga Kaku x Yoshika Miyako), and recently SakiYachi (Saki Kurokoma and Yachie Kicchou). SakiYachi is BL.
Sakiko: Yes, I’m a woman who wrote a dream fiction about Yukari Yakumo…
Ranko&Hotaru: Bwahahahaha!
Sakiko: Because everyone loves her!
Ranko&Hotaru: I like her!
Sakiko: I had only been in genres where dream fictions were thriving up until that point… so it’s no surprise that Touhou is predominantly male in the genre, of course. I despaired that it didn’t have a dream fiction, and I thought I’d have to write one myself.
…So it wasn’t so much that I liked her as a character as it was that I liked her as a dreamer girl. I like Suwako as a character. For a pairing I like, I’m gonna say YukaReimu, but there are no romantic feelings there. Yukari just wants to drop Reimu, as human, on our side. She just wants her to not be human. But as soon as she’s no longer human, Yukari loses interest.
Ranko: The best.
Hotaru: There is an amazing deal of agreement in interpretation.
Sakiko: Because she is a youkai. The moment they stop being human, they lose interest in them, but they want to stop being human. And Marisa is aware of that. Marisa is desperately trying to keep Reimu from being human… I like this idea of relationship, so maybe it’s a bit different when it comes to whether or not it’s a pairing.
I like the basic reversible, or rather, I’m more receptive to motherhood.
Motherhood is more uke.
Sakiko: Or rather, the clumsy is seme.
The clumsy is seme.
Sakiko: I’ll accept a clumsy seme, and a huge degree of uke.
Okay, the seme is more dependent on it.
Sakiko: Yes. So I like SuwaKana as a pairing. Mentally, Suwako is better, and Kanako is the one who’s been sent there, but she didn’t end up being able to reign it in, so her spirit is young. In contrast, Suwako is a mother. She has created many things and ruled at the top, so she has a different sense of solidity. So mentally Suwako has the advantage, but physically she’s uke. That’s why I thought it is SuwaKanaSuwa.
Showing recommended doujinshi! Examining BL and GL in Touhou
Ranko and Hotaru brought their recommended doujinshi today, so let’s put them side by side, shall we?
[Note: the picture of Sakiko’s doujinshi has been removed due to the presence of a NSFW cover]
Ranko: I’ve got a doujinshi today that isn’t from hell.
Hotaru: What’s the matter, I like hell.
Ranko: “We also have these”. For presentation to those who are not yet in hell.
Sakiko: I thought… “This is not something I can show you,” so I weighed myself…
Ranko: I recommend this one, black on black printing. Not bad! I buy a lot of authors, so I couldn’t choose. And they’re all ReiMari authors.
Sakiko: Takatora is really good.
Ranko: Everyone likes Takatora. I also really like “Hanasaku Yume” by Takatora and Hitohira, but it’s too heavy for me to bring it. Ah, this one is the newest, from 2019. It’s about Wily Beast and Weakest Creature. Lately I’ve been really into WBaWC.
Hotaru: You are a man without vocabulary.
Who do you like from WBaWC?
Ranko: Keiki. MayuKeki is too deep in karma, it’s so good. It’s squirming.
Everyone: (laughs)
Ranko: It’s just that I’m not really into that kind of thing by nature. In Touhou, I’m a sucker for pairings, “I knew this was BL!”. ReiMari, TeruMoko. I wasn’t into something like “It’s yuri!” until then.
Hotaru: Touhou has a lot of BL pairs.
I’d love to hear how you see the distinction between BL, yuri, and other genres in Touhou.
Hotaru: From the side, it’s not BL because there are no boys. But in the context I grew up in, I’m calling it BL because it looks like BL… and that’s the only explanation I can give at the moment. I don’t know how else to explain it.
Ranko: I got it. In places close to me they say that ReiMari is BL, but I still call them friends of sorts. Actually, no, it’s not, but it may just be that the people who say that have gathered around the idea.
Hotaru: But when I think about how to explain “Reimari is BL” to people, it’s because, roughly, they are like the main characters of a Weekly Shonen Jump manga. So I wonder if that’s not enough to push the BL to the point where they are… both boys…
Sakiko: I decided to face BL first, too.
Hotaru: Is that how you get in!?
Sakiko: I felt that I couldn’t say “this is why it’s BL” unless I first decided on my own concept of BL. I read all the BLs at home, from commercial to doujinshi, but I just didn’t get it. Because it’s BL and there’s something like “This is yuri”.
Ranko&Hotaru: Yes, yes, yes! There’s a lot!
Ranko: I can understand it between the same contexts.
Sakiko: I reached the conclusion that it’s all about passion in the end. I thought that if it’s full of humanity, it’s BL. GL is secretive, or rather, doesn’t reveal a world that is just the two of them. When it’s just the two of them in their own secret worldview, it’s close to GL. Yuri is more chirping.
Ranko: So, isn’t Hifuu very GL? It’s not BL, it’s squirming.
Sakiko: That’s lesbian.
Hotaru: I love it!
Sakiko: I didn’t really like yuri, at first. There are a lot of yuri lovers in the band-man scene, so when I saw a tweet on my timeline that said “This yuri is good”, I didn’t really understand it, but recently I realized “Oh, I don’t like condescending women”.
Even though it’s my ego, I don’t really like the feeling of pushing through and getting it all together in a clean way, as “I’m doing this for you!”.
Hotaru: I got it, I got it (laughs).
Ranko: I kind of get the “huge emotions and huge emotional clashes are BL” thing. It’s plainly easy to understand for ReiMari and such.
Hotaru: It’s a strain of pairings that I just love, but I don’t want them to be in a relationship or need a clear name for the relationship, I just want to see them next to each other. As air. So I didn’t know if I liked BL or yuri or anything else. I’ve reached a point where I don’t know it anymore.
Ranko: It’s easy to understand that they overlap each other, isn’t it? That has really huge emotions, it’s BL. On the other hand, isn’t ETeru (Eirin Yagokoro x Kaguya Houraisan) really yuri? So maybe there are different kinds of giant emotions.
Hotaru: Each one has its own humidity.
Ranko: Yes, humidity is important for yuri!
Sakiko: I’ve been thinking a lot about the ReiMari BL theory. I think it’s BL if it’s just ReiMari, but I like YukaReiMari. Then it becomes lesbian all at once.
Hotaru: You got it? (Laughs) Putting Yukari in there is going to raise the humidity a little bit! The humidity goes up and the saturation goes down!
Ranko: The humidity goes up and the saturation goes down (laughs)
Hotaru: I like it better when it’s less saturated. I really like double suicides and curses. I like the ones where the two of them can’t go anywhere, so I’ve been studying Hifuu recently. I have the impression that most people who write Hifuu tend to draw a miniature garden full of so-called dreams. The doujinshi I brought with me today weren’t about lovers’ suicide, but they are good. I like it when the dying side leaves a curse on the living side.
Sakiko: I got it! (immediate reply)
Hotaru: The last words you leave behind will eventually turn into a curse in any vector, and isn’t that good!?
“Always have a hobbyist feeling” “You can start digging in on the points you’re interested in”
This is a good symposium that really burns calories (laughs). To finish it, please tell us what are you recommended points of Touhou, where to start if someone wants to get into it, etc.
Sakiko: If you want to get started right now, I think apps, social network games or similar would be easy to check briefly. They are easy to see and understand at home, with no money to spend.
Ranko: Nowadays you can purchase the original games on Steam, and as for mangas, you can find “Wild and Horned Hermit”, “Forbidden Scrollery” and such officially published in some other magazines they sell in stores, so it’s getting easy to come across Touhou. Especially NicoVideo is also good.
Hotaru: I’ve always had a hobbyist feeling. It’s not like I’m an expert or anything, or I’m competing with someone, but I’m sure that’s leading (the people who want to get into it) to the situation “I don’t know where to start”.
Ranko: I understand. It’s kind of like, if you’re interested in Touhou, I think there’s a reason why you’re interested in it. Like, “the characters are cute”. Then I think it’s a good idea to look at it from there. There’s no right answer.
Hotaru: If you’re curious about the visual aspect, you can even do a Google Images search first. You can take it as you like.
Sakiko: In the end, I would say, “I’ll lend you the original games!” (laughs).
Ranko: That’s good (laughs). If you want to dig into it, you can dig into it and you don’t have to.
Sakiko: I did it once, I’ve got a doujinshi I’d like to show you, so why don’t you take a class with the wiki? (laughs) So, just check the relationships here.
Everyone: (laughs)
From each of their entrance into the “otaku” world to their feelings as a vocalist “when they sing Touhou arrangements”, to their huge emotions towards Touhou pairings, they talked happily in a friendly atmosphere from start to finish.
The “Touhou” genre is often discussed from the perspective of men and communities, but I think it was very, very interesting to see it from the perspective of women who have gone through different otaku genres and environments.
It’s hard to get together in real life these days, but now that it’s easier to get together online, it’s good to try to engage enthusiastically about “how good Touhou is” once again, isn’t it?