International Saimoe League 2009

[LazyCanuck]

Originally Posted by melange

A pacifist run is playing while not shooting. Because each enemy attack/spellcard has a timer you can get advance in the game w/o shooting at all by just waiting out the attack. Because of the difficulty of the attack its not that easily done.

Ah so thats what it is, god i would NEVER try and do that, i have enough issues beating the touhou games with actually killing the targets, i could never dodge for the entire spellcard limit, even more so at the end when the spell cards last like 2-3 minutes -_-'



Also just to clarify i'm not against touhou because its unofficial, i dont care about that, my issue is that 1 episode is not enough for me, which also leads me to the being one of those people who stays strict with, that if they need to be in an anime to be eligible then i only take what i see in the anime, that may be a really REALLY narrow view to take but thats just how I am.

[qtipbrit]

srs bsns is srs.

[Cluelessly]

Originally Posted by LazyCanuck

What? elaborate please lol.

Games like Ikaruga. Touhou is much easier because of the bombs. And the cards that look the most impossible (massive amounts of bullets, pure dodging) are actually not that hard once you don't panic/move around more than needed. Also don't play on easy, start with hard. I find easy harder than hard/some lunatics because the bullet speed just completely screws me over. I slow down too much to compensate and get lazy or bump into random stuff that hasn't cleared off the screen yet. Embarrassing.

Uh...since this is straying off-topic I'll just stop there.

On-topic: Ilya Ilya Ilya!

[Psieye]

Old habits die hard... I was hoping to focus more on RL this year, but seems the situation has summoned me.

Originally Posted by melange

This.. and all the talk about the MALMAT Club makes me want to go "whysoserious"

4chan rule: the more you Hate it, the stronger it gets.
Note: "strength" as used in the above sentence does not (directly) translate to "number of votes"

The fact there is a hate club out there only makes me happier as people are acknowledging Touhou has a large weight.

Originally Posted by Blacksmith_Tony

My question to those that have played the Touhou games, are the characters really moe in the games (and moe enough to beat so many others so easily)? If they are, then I'd be a little happier, even if some of their votes are just Touhou support votes.

The games do have their moments of Moe, yes. Off the top of my head, I doubled over from the SO MOE IT HURTS when I first met Nitori, and IN dialogue was plenty delicious too. In the case of Suwako, her Spellcards themselves made her Moe to me - before I looked up the translation of what she was saying in the dialogue. If a more relevant example is needed, I'd point to the Aya-Remilia conversation on Aya's path in SWR: "Gao~"

Official Touhou has gone beyond the games though - there's 2 official manga serialisations being directed by ZUN and he's written lots and lots of prose text as well. Wait, there's 4 official manga of Touhou... the Three Fairies series. So even for people who only want to restrict themselves to Canon material, there's a heck of a lot one can go through and a heck of a lot of Moe to be found in it all (even Akyu couldn't help comment on how amusing/Moe Rumia is for not being able to see out of her own darkness).

Originally Posted by OverFunk

Psieye would have a field day explaining how the Touhou characters are built by the fanbase doujin engine more than the games. I'd say a 80 fanon media:20 canon media ratio.

Actually no, others can do (and have done) that. I'm going to point out something more unique to Touhou: the boundary between Canon and Fanon is both ways.

Originally Posted by LazyCanuck

like overfunk said i'd be willing to bet about the same if not more, 85-90% of the Touhou fanbase is from all the fanon works, doujins, music whatever. Zun makes the games and the fans run away with it making up their own personalities and character quirks and whatever else they think of.

In a regular work, the company's creators make their story and characters. Fans then do stuff with the setting and characters, but the creators continue with their work without taking influence. With Touhou? If ZUN likes it, something fans came up with becomes Canon in an official work later. Case: Keine's headbutts. It's official now (see Perfect Memento in Strict Sense).

For me, part of the charm with Touhou is that it's World Building as well as Character Development. Both ZUN and doujin creators build up an immersive world. Sure, varying interpretations of plot points, characters, etc happen - but that's a phenomenon that has always happened with any story. Literature studies in Academia is all about looking at different interpretations of the exact same canon source.

What? elaborate please lol.

Mushihime is generally acknowledged to be more bastardly hard I believe. From my own experiences, Seihou is definitely harder - Touhou at least gives you the Danmaku at a relatively slow pace and is quite generous on extra lives + bombs.

Different people have different aptitudes. Nothing wrong with not being as compatible with Touhou danmaku as some other individuals. Me, I'm content with being at the "1cc Normal and can do Extra stage" level, with no motivation to set aside significant amounts of time from RL and other hobbies to grind my skill up to higher. It does help to have a masochist streak though, yes.

[Ithekro]

Summary: For some reason that no one knows (not even most of the staff), minty and juice wants to change the order of the periods to Topaz first instead of Aquamarine, etc... This does not make any kind of sense. Please sign a petition to keep the current periods (the periods of 2008).

And this matters because..............

[cicido]

Oh Psieye, you know you can never escape, we are always here to haunt you.

[Juice[Lemon]]

Groupings up for rd 3 with avg. Weighted Vote Totals

http://moeratings.blogspot.com/

*Edit: Main ISML site now up as well.*

[Psieye]

Originally Posted by cicido

Oh Psieye, you know you can never escape, we are always here to haunt you.

The only way to fight an addiction is with stronger addictions~ Just that my other addictions have waned temporarily in strength.


Gee, I should know better about the speed threads can move...

i'm not seeing anythign about how the gemstones relate to the days of the week

Oh, because last year, I told Minty about Patchouli (the Chinese system of 5 elements + Sun + Moon) who is also known as the "One-Week Witch".

Sun = Sun
Mon = Moon
Tues = Fire
Wed = Water
Thur = Wood
Fri = Metal
Sat = Earth

In fact, in Japan and Korea (so I assume it's true in China too), we write the days of the week as e.g. "Fire Day" if you literally translate each of the Chinese characters.


Now, Topaz is associated with the Sun. First day of the week is Sunday. Therefore, Minty wants to do Topaz first.

Yes, Patchouli Knowledge was influencing ISML even before she was elligible for it.

[LazyCanuck]

Originally Posted by Psieye

Mushihime is generally acknowledged to be more bastardly hard I believe. From my own experiences, Seihou is definitely harder - Touhou at least gives you the Danmaku at a relatively slow pace and is quite generous on extra lives + bombs.

Different people have different aptitudes. Nothing wrong with not being as compatible with Touhou danmaku as some other individuals. Me, I'm content with being at the "1cc Normal and can do Extra stage" level, with no motivation to set aside significant amounts of time from RL and other hobbies to grind my skill up to higher. It does help to have a masochist streak though, yes.

Ah i see, i've only played Touhou as far as i can think of, i guess if you compared it to some other similar games touhou is eazier but it is in noe way "easy" at least not for me and many MANY people that i've talked too xD

[Ithekro]

Mostly good groups...some heavy splits possible.

A Group...I have no clue yet.
After that: Chii, "Osaka", Mei.

[chaosprophet]

Originally Posted by melange

I may not do the subject justice but I will try..

The division between official work and doujin work is porous in Japan. Clamp (X, CG chara design) began as a doujin group, Peach-Pit (Rozen Maiden) began as a doujin group. Seiyuu's may work in productions that are doujin in nature as we saw with the Maikaze Touhou anime.

Touhou is a work where the division between official and non-official is ambiguous to the extreme. Touhou itself is a doujin game, made by one person, Zun, who does all the programming, drawing, music etc, and sold only at Comiket, the premier doujin festival. On this very basic level, Touhou thus seems like a product by an individual, but in reality, especially when it comes to the characters, it resembles more a collaborative group creation. All Zun does at best is set very broad guidelines through his profiles for the characters and the dialogue he writes (this dialog is accessible at http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Touhou_Wiki, click in each individual game and click the link that says 'translation' at the 'story' bit), while the fans fill in the rest. Their personalities, quirks and eccentricities, relationships are slowly developed layer by layer with each fan interpretation. The richness and vibrancy of the Touhou characters comes from the personal investment put into them by the fans.

The Touhou situation makes me think of William Gibson's novel Idoru, where when the protagonist Laney views the official corporate material/information of Rez the singer, it feels cold and devoid of 'character'. However, when the material/information of Rez's fan activity base are overlaid on it, 'life' and personality instantly emerge. The "life" of the character lies at least in part in the overlay of fan discourse.

But, why must moe be limited by "official" sources? Why must moe be limited by medium? To me what matters is the character and the character alone. Because what are we judging but the moe of a character? Seiyuu, official source, canon/fanon, anime, manga, novel, game are all subsurvient to the character. Whichever medium/source manages to bring out best the potential in the character, whatever that medium/source may be, that then is an important part of the character's existence.

Some will argue (I know you're there) that "this is an anime saimoe, so only anime is considered". No, their eligibility comes from anime but their full character and personality are made up of much more than anime. Why should we take away part of what is the richness/personality in a character? Why essentially lobotomize a character by only keeping what's shown in the anime and throwing away everything else? In J-saimoe, you are actually encouraged to consider all support materials, including fan-drawn images, fan written essays/stories, fan made amvs etc when deciding how to vote. They don't draw this strict and honestly restrictive corral around their tournament. Why should we?

Note this does not mean that then you "have to see everything in order to judge a character". You are encouraged to consider it, but you are not forced to consider it. Likewise, have the courtesy not to force others not to consider the other sources of a character's charm.

I agree with what you said but I think you have to somehow put a limit. What about a fanfic where a character is not in character? One where Shana was like shana-tan of the specials? If you can consider things like this them every character can be everything so there would be no point in having a saimoe contest... all characters would be equally everything.

Edit:
Next round I'm between Nagi and Hayate for group A, Shinku for B, Misaka Mikoto for C and Ilya for D.

[KholdStare]

Update on the periods: It was resolved so no further (or farther if you're Chiharu) discussion is needed.

[Ithekro]

Each person sets their own limits on what they consider. The anime as entry qualification is just that, the ability to enter the contest. After that it is in the hands of the voters.

[KholdStare]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Each person sets their own limits on what they consider. The anime as entry qualification is just that, the ability to enter the contest. After that it is in the hands of the voters.

^ What he said. If enough people hate Touhou, they will be taken down, just like Miku in KSBM.

[Eater of All]

This time, Group A seems pretty stacked. Although I'll probably be voting San, my secondary choice is split between Vita, Ami, Nagi, and Hayate, with Yuuko, Miyako, and Matsuri fairly close behind in the priority chart.
In contrast, Group B looks relatively boring (at least to me).
As for Group C, my vote goes to either Mei or Mizusu, depending on how other people vote in round 3.
Lastly, I'll be supporting Alice again for Group D (sorry, Makoto ) I'm guessing her being placed in Group D three times in a row is due to some aforementioned "secret factor" during the shuffles?

[melange]

Originally Posted by chaosprophet

I agree with what you said but I think you have to somehow put a limit. What about a fanfic where a character is not in character? One where Shana was like shana-tan of the specials? If you can consider things like this them every character can be everything so there would be no point in having a saimoe contest... all characters would be equally everything.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Each person sets their own limits on what they consider. The anime as entry qualification is just that, the ability to enter the contest. After that it is in the hands of the voters.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

^ What he said. If enough people hate Touhou, they will be taken down, just like Miku in KSBM.

KS and Ithekro have put it succinctly...

I'm not putting a limit because I'm not the one, nor anybody else, who should be determining the limit for you. If you think that fanfic fits? Sure consider it in your evaluation of moe. If you don't think it fits? Don't. All fan made stuff have to run this gauntlet; stray too much from the general direction of the character and the fan work won't be recognized by majority of the fans and it won't add much to the existence of the character. You, the fan, determine your own limits. But just as neither I nor anybody else, should determine the limit for you, neither should you nor anybody else, attempt to determine the limit for others.

I just want people to be able to vote for Yuki because they appreciate all the nuances that came out in vol 4 even though none of it is seen in anime yet. I want people to be able to vote for Matou Sakura because they like her as a whole character and not the shadow that was left in the anime even though i have not even played the F/SN game. Although I have not read the manga, I want people to be able to vote for the fullness of the Negima characters even tho the anime fails. I want people to be able to vote for/express their love for the character they have come to love and not be untruthful about their feelings of moe because they have to artificially disregard part of what makes that character moe for them. I want them to be able to do this without people breathing down their neck about it and without them breathing down the neck of others. Is that too much to ask?

[imbehindyou]

Vita and Hayate, Ranka and Sheryl again?

[KholdStare]

Originally Posted by imbehindyou

Vita and Hayate, Ranka and Sheryl again?

These are semi-randomized seeded groups so you can blame the characters.

[Demi.]

Vita and Hayate in same group again? I do not approve.

[Mushi]

Originally Posted by qtipbrit

srs bsns is srs.

So desu ne.

I want them to be able to do this without people breathing down their neck about it and without them breathing down the neck of others. Is that too much to ask?

If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.

The rest of your, and others, comments are well noted.

I don't hate Touhou. How could I hate something like this?

Spoiler for Sakuya:

ZUN has apparently been ambiguous about his support for the anime.

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2008/1...ouhou-for-you/