Shupattsu -- Shupattsu~~~~~~

Tagged as such by the artist.

Sometimes I wonder if we need a who_gives_a_fuck_trap tag.

Ketafuki said:

Sometimes I wonder if we need a who_gives_a_fuck_trap tag.

It's not a trap if you KNOW =3

She's fishing up an egg out of the river, so I'm adding the Doubutsu no Mori tag.

Happy little Patchy.

I'm still waiting for that last surviving cockroach to ambush the Scarlet Devil Mansion after laying enough eggs...

When the children are in bed, the booze comes out. Shigeru's mamas sure know how to take care of themselves.

Valentine322 said:

Much as I like his work, I have to say that this statement is just plain false. While certainly there are mentions of a darker underside of Gensokyo, the whole "consuming human" thing is something applicable only to a very few of them. Zounose kinda cranked that up over eleven.

very few of the main cast only, mind you. Like, what we're seeing from the main cast is probably just the tip of the iceberg of what Gensokyo actually has in store if Japanese folklores are anything to go by.

Do remember that almost every youkai in existence, once again from Japanese folklores' portrayal, will and must eat human or else they cease to be one and ceased from existence altogether, a fact also supported by official manga. Just because they look like cute little girls now doens't mean that 'youkai' flair is thrown out the window or flushed down the shitter.

Sure, Zounose may be really cranking up that cannibalism and absurd scale, but that's why all of us here love his works for. B

But the fact that many people decided to just handwave/ignore or flat out refuse this as simply the darker underlying tone of the verse because it doesn't align with their headcanon is just ridiculous

DammitCarl said:

very few of the main cast only, mind you. Like, what we're seeing from the main cast is probably just the tip of the iceberg of what Gensokyo actually has in store if Japanese folklores are anything to go by.

Do remember that almost every youkai in existence, once again from Japanese folklores' portrayal, will and must eat human or else they cease to be one and ceased from existence altogether, a fact also supported by official manga. Just because they look like cute little girls now doens't mean that 'youkai' flair is thrown out the window or flushed down the shitter.

Sure, Zounose may be really cranking up that cannbalism and absurd scale, but that's why all of us here love his works for. But the fact that many people decide to just ignore/handwave or flat out refuse to accept this as a reality when it has been supported by official manga is just ridiculous.

Well it would help if the "darker side" of Touhou wasn't exclusive to one or two side works that the majority of fans haven't read. It would also help if that information hadn't come long after the majority of fanon had already been established based on information given in the games. And I don't know where this "refusing to accept reality" nonsense is coming from, as if people are just actively dismissing canon, which is absolutely not true.

The only humanoid youkai in canon stated to eat humans are Rumia and the Scarlets. Eating humans never comes up for the rest of them, and it can generally be assumed that most of the human eating is done by the normal, wild Youkai, that are rarely seen. There's also no confirmation on how often Gensokyan youkai eat humans. They're not allowed to eat the village humans and it's unlikely that Yukari is collecting hundreds of outside world humans on her own just to feed hundreds of youkai on a daily basis.

What's more, not all youkai in Touhou are japanese, so the statement, "most youkai eat humans" applies even less to the humanoid youkai. According to Touhou, the main thing that keeps youkai alive is fear and faith, not specifically the flesh of humans. That's why Gensokyo exists, that's why the human village is off limits, because they serve as a constant source of fear and faith in gods and monsters in a pocket world separated from the faithless outside world.

If the majority of fanworks are focusing on the humanoid characters, the majority of which aren't ever shown or stated to consume humans, who just sit around having parties and participating in non-lethal magic battles, which exist specifically to allow youkai to torment humans without disrupting the natural order of Gensokyo, then yeah, unsurprisingly, there's not going to be a whole lot of dark themes. Which again, are barely present in canon as it is, so I dunno why you're so upset that more people aren't latching onto these barely existing themes.

Edit:

Sure, Zounose may be really cranking up that cannibalism and absurd scale, but that's why all of us here love his works for.

Actually most find his works incredibly divisive. I wouldn't say I love them, they're just an interesting darker take on things. Please don't speak for everybody.

blindVigil said:

According to Touhou, the main thing that keeps youkai alive is fear and faith, not specifically the flesh of humans. That's why Gensokyo exists, that's why the human village is off limits, because they serve as a constant source of fear and faith in gods and monsters in a pocket world separated from the faithless outside world.

And that's kinda the whole point here. Anything that isn't human in Gensokyo is kept alive by fear and faith, for youkai and gods/goddesses respectively. To maintain that fear in the human heart, Youkai eat human, just not from the village but is supplied by Yukari. They don't need to eat human to survive, but eating human is a way to sow fear in other human which is what keep them alive.

And to keep faith flowing, gods/goddesses bestow blessing and protection on human.

One prime example is the Moriya shrine's cable car in WaHH, the tengu and Kanako struck a deal under the table, the former cause a little disturbance to remind the human that the Mountain is their domain and sow fear in their heart, Kanako then appear to solve the problem to increase the human's faith in her, typical hero vs villain situation but it worked out wonderfully for both sides.

The only reason why we don't see much human consumption is because youkai wise, while the cast is diverse most of them have no need for human meat/no longer have a need for human meat/have other alternatives to human meat, but the fact remain that they are youkai and they will eat human if given the opportunity and permission.

Not all youkai in Gensokyo come from Japan, sure, but even among the foreign ones there are man-eater type, it's just she preferred drinking blood over dirtying herself at the table so there's that.

It's not that I am mad, far from it, I am simply finding it ridiculous when so many people are refusing to accept the in-verse reality just because they want to keep their own headcanon, even disregarding Words of GOd.

It was years ago that an argument about this same point was sparked, on this very site, the post back then was also one of Zounose's work, I believe.

DammitCarl said:

And that's kinda the whole point here. Anything that isn't human in Gensokyo is kept alive by fear and faith, for youkai and gods/goddesses respectively. To maintain that fear in the human heart, Youkai eat human, just not from the village but is supplied by Yukari. They don't need to eat human to survive, but eating human is a way to sow fear in other human which is what keep them alive.

... Maybe I'm missing something here. But how in the hell is eating random outsider humans that the villagers have no connection to supposed to provide fear from the villagers? The villagers are not the ones going missing, they're not the ones vanishing into the night, their bones aren't gracing the lairs of youkai. The other example (WaHH) makes more sense. If you need fear/ faith, and you have supernatural powers that the people around you can't explain away, the easiest way to get the former is probably to just use the later.

DammitCarl said:

And that's kinda the whole point here. Anything that isn't human in Gensokyo is kept alive by fear and faith, for youkai and gods/goddesses respectively. To maintain that fear in the human heart, Youkai eat human, just not from the village but is supplied by Yukari. They don't need to eat human to survive, but eating human is a way to sow fear in other human which is what keep them alive.

Garrus said:

... Maybe I'm missing something here. But how in the hell is eating random outsider humans that the villagers have no connection to supposed to provide fear from the villagers? The villagers are not the ones going missing, they're not the ones vanishing into the night, their bones aren't gracing the lairs of youkai. The other example (WaHH) makes more sense. If you need fear/ faith, and you have supernatural powers that the people around you can't explain away, the easiest way to get the former is probably to just use the later.

To clarify things, Yukari doesn't actually supply humans for youkai to eat, any humans that get eaten are people who are so detached from society, often extremely depressed and suicidal individuals who "get lost" and end up in Gensokyo. Yukari has no hand in this whatsoever, and realistically you're probably looking at maybe a dozen people a day. And any of those people that make it to the village or the Hakurei shrine either find safety in the village or are returned home by Reimu.

Fear is primarily generated by Incidents caused by youkai, as directly attacking the village would incur the wrath of every single major youkai in Gensokyo. Fear is also found in the fact that you're only safe in the village, leaving the village at all, especially after dark, makes you fair game. You only have to believe the youkai are dangerous for them to continue existing, and being confined to a single village that is surrounded on all sides by monsters is a good way to perpetuate the idea of constant danger.

DammitCarl said:

The only reason why we don't see much human consumption is because youkai wise, while the cast is diverse most of them have no need for human meat/no longer have a need for human meat/have other alternatives to human meat, but the fact remain that they are youkai and they will eat human if given the opportunity and permission.

That's literally what I already said.

It's not that I am mad, far from it, I am simply finding it ridiculous when so many people are refusing to accept the in-verse reality just because they want to keep their own headcanon, even disregarding Words of GOd.

Again, most people aren't disregarding anything, it just doesn't matter. Everyone knows some youkai eat humans, even before it was explicitly stated people generally assumed it probably happened, it just doesn't fucking matter like 95% of the time. It's rarely mentioned in canon, only ever as a passing detail, and never has any effect on whatever plot is currently being explored.

It's such a minor background detail, that it's almost never worth actually bringing up. Zounose and a few other artist/writers just happen to feature it more prominently in their personal Gensokyos than it normally is. And in Zounose's case, it's defintely way more overblown than anything in canon, an entire canned meat producing factory to supply the entirety of Gensokyo with a constant source of human meat is no more canon than saying no one in Touhou ever eats humans.

Well this got out of hand rather quick.

blindVigil said:

To clarify things, Yukari doesn't actually supply humans for youkai to eat, any humans that get eaten are people who are so detached from society, often extremely depressed and suicidal individuals who "get lost" and end up in Gensokyo. Yukari has no hand in this whatsoever, and realistically you're probably looking at maybe a dozen people a day. And any of those people that make it to the village or the Hakurei shrine either find safety in the village or are returned home by Reimu.

Not necessarily. Her profile in PCB and a chapter in WaHH stated that Yukari is responsible for the humans being spirited away into Gensokyo.
These implied that it wasn't so much the humans accidentally stumbling into Gensokyo, as it was Yakumo Yukari allowing them to cross over the boundary.

Now whether she does this on a whim or is actively supplying Gensokyo's youkai with "supplies" (or at the very least, the SDM) is something one can make an argument for, but I'm really not cut out for that.