First of all, special thanks to Yoruri, who bought the book and shared pictures of the relevant pages with me! I’m sorry that I’m not able to publish a full translation.
This interview comes from the book Exist twinkle white by the circle Exist twinkle. It was published on December 30, 2011, at Comiket 81. This book is currently unavailable through official means, you can only buy it from second-hand stores.
I can’t remember when I started to translate this one, I think it was in January? it was a high priority because there are Ranko BL talks. I put it on hold several times because it’s very, very long. And this month I was finally able to finish it. However, as I was doing the final checks before publishing it… I felt uncomfortable.
You see, this is a 10 years old interview from a very obscure book. While it has some fun facts that are actually interesting to read, it also features some personal details about the circle members, mostly related to their age. At first, I thought about censoring and removing those details, but as I was re-reading through this whole interview, I still felt uncomfortable with resuming something extremely old.
And thus, I’ve decided to write only a summary of the more interesting facts. I’m sorry if you were looking forward to a full translation, but I hope you understand my viewpoint. I still have some interviews to translate that will come in the future, and while there is nothing as old as this one (although a couple of them are from 2013), I hope there won’t be any critical detail.
To start off, they talk about wearing masks, which is weird considering they are real animals and all…
While this is not a fact exclusive to this interview, I will write it because I think I never wrote it on this website: did you know that BUTAOTOME didn’t have a booth at Reitaisai 7 in 2010? Copies of Touhou Kaiten Mokuba were being sold at Shinigiwa Satellite’s booth.
Ranko thought it’s more fun to watch other people playing Touhou, even on easy. Her favorite game is Imperishable Night, but the one she played the most is Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Perfect Cherry Blossom and Subterranean Animism are hard…
They talk about each member’s name origin, and we finally learn about Paprika’s one! It comes from the movie Paprika.
Ane’s favorite Touhou character was Meiling, even though she loves the Hifuu duo for the derivative works.
Ranko cosplayed Mokou in 2011. At the time, the phoenix girl was a character who was slowly joining Marisa and Yuuka in her roster of absolute favorite Touhou girls.
Live concerts are so hot. To survive them, it’s recommended to eat miso soup and umeboshi!
They generally decide on the album concept first and choose the original themes accordingly. If there is a theme Comp wants to do, they consider it. They also think about the tone of the songs depending on the season. Summer is for more poppy stuff, while winter is for harder songs.
The final part is all about ramen restaurants. Eating ramen is like a sport! You need a strategy to eat it, like eating the noodles first because it’s easier.