Touhou Fantasy Kaleidoscope: The Memories of Phantasm

Yorokobe Touhou fans, after the long-awaited 12 years, MyAnimeList finally decided to add this entry to their database. Fantasy Kaleidoscope ~The Memories of Phantasm~ (MoP for short) is a fan-made series produced by a doujin circle named Manpuku Jinja. Currently known as the most popular Touhou Anime, not only does it attract Touhou fans in particular but many Anime fans in general. Anime adaptations from whatever source have always been a hot potato for studios. People may wonder why franchises like FGO, Azur Lane, and Kantai Collection have managed to get an official adaptation, but Touhou still has not. First, we need to answer thisquestion. How do we turn Touhou into an Anime adaptation? The best you could think of is making it with the structure of half plot and half fight, right? But here’s the deal: the original plot is lacking, and the fight is also unconventional. + About the plot, it often just follows the same pattern for most games: A supernatural incident happens caused by some random powerful entities. The main protagonist, the miko of Hakurei Shrine, Hakurei Reimu, will embark on a journey to resolve it and bring back Gensokyo to its balance. Every time she encounters an opponent, there’s usually a conversation, then two parties start fighting each other. As you can see, there are very few interesting things here without considering the lore. It’s almost impossible to craft a faithful adaptation of the game story while at the same time also having to maintain enjoyment for fans. + In Touhou, the fights go by the Spell Card System. Unlike a normal duel, a Touhou fight is a mental contest in which the most beautiful one wins, and it isn’t meant to slaughter each other (very similar to the covenant in “No Game No Life”). It somewhat lessens the intensity since there’s no death threat no matter who wins or loses. Even ignoring that issue, the essence of the Touhou fight – danmaku, is very flashy, garish, and ostentatious, which does not appeal to general audiences. People may argue that those Minus-T videos on Youtube are pretty eye-catching. It’s not wrong, but just remember one simple thing: they are two different mediums. I don’t think there's any person who would like to watch an episode whose straight 10 minutes just splattering colorful fireworks, let alone it takes several years with a great amount of effort to animate it. I’m quite rambling with tons of info dumps, but it’s only to show the issues that Manpuku Jinja had to consider when making this Anime. For a series that is gameplay and lore-heavy like this one, it’s hard for any non-hardcore person to dig deeper and rather just prefer gazing at flowers while on horseback. Thus, it’s reasonable that they didn’t pick a risky choice that could potentially alienate the fanbase but instead chose to turn it into a fanon in which fanservice prevails over the actual plot with the sole intention of entertaining the audience as much as possible. Despite such reasons, MoP still follows the original story, just not in chronological order. The first episode introduces the incident in Touhou 7. The next three episodes take place after the event in Touhou 11, but retell the flashback of Touhou 6. The fifth and sixth episodes show the story that happened after Touhou 9. The seventh episode is based on Cirno’s route in Touhou 12.3. Episodes 8 to 13 tell the story of Touhou 8. Episodes 14 to 17 tell the story of Touhou 10. And finally, episode 18 is a tribute episode that is entirely original and features all characters. Talking about the direction, Manpuku Jinja simplified the two main factors I mentioned in the second paragraph, the plot and the fight, while adding on many fanservice and original scenes. I’d like to name some notable ones: the Onsen scene in the opening, the Yakumo’s bathing scene, the Sakuya’s Dio time-stopping scene (oh wait, this is canon), the Remilia and Flandre’s fighting scene, the Yuuka and Cirno’s confronting scene, the Shiki Eiki’s lecturing scene, the Tewi and Reisen’s poisoning scene, the Kaguya and Mokou’s quarreling scene, etc. I myself enjoy every minute of them and really appreciate the circle. They have to love Touhou and understand the fandom greatly so that they could ingeniously incorporate many references. But of course, at the end of the day, it still is an unofficial series, and most of the characterizations are very far from their actual depictions in the source. For example, in the Anime, Flandre is locked up in the basement against her own will and is mistreated by other members of the mansion. This is nearly opposed to the canon version of her, in which she chooses to stay in the mansion of her own volition because she cannot fully control her strength. In the print work “Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red”, she is seen talking to Aya with her sister Remilia. She’s quite strange and eccentric, but not to the point of being unhinged or lunatic like what was exaggerated in the Anime. I guess it’s enough for an analysis of story and character. Let’s move to another aspect, art and animation. FYI, most of Manpuku Jinja staff who participated in this project like Lunamoon or Tasuke, are all veterans of the animation industry and have a lot of experience within them. That’s why every moment of MoP is so gorgeous and memorable, from the elegant demeanor of physically matured characters (Yukari, Yuyuko, Kanako) and adorable expressions of young-looking ones (Cirno, Tewi, Chen, Flandre) to mesmerizing animation during action scenes. Along with the stellar art are the bewitching soundtracks, each one of them is a remix of an original song from the game. I’m very picky when it comes to music but Yuuhei Satellite never disappoints, all 4 openings and 18 endings made by them are excellent to me. Especially the first one, “色は匂へど 散りぬるを(Iro wa Nioedo, Chirinuru wo)” became an earworm for me when I first listened to it, and till now, it still stands firm as one of my all-time favourite songs. Though this adaptation is quite decent, there’re still some minus points that can’t go unmentioned. First off, this Anime doesn’t feature any voice acting, and the versions widely known to most of us are but a fandub. Next thing, the circle did show a part of the fight between Okuu and Reimu in the opening and provided a little hint about Hijiri at the end of episode 4 but sadly, we never have a chance to see these two arcs getting animated. Another thing is the issue with episode composition, the stretching is really awkward and frustrating. Only 10 to 15 minutes for one episode, but about 5 minutes of the running time is covered by opening, ending and unnecessary summaries. Had all episodes been more condensed, it surely would have been more engaging to watch. Of course, I acknowledge the financial problem Manpuku Jinja had to face when making this project but still, a bit of dissatisfaction is unavoidable. Well, this is the end of my review. By and large, I think this Anime does a great job being a goofy fanon adaptation that’s enjoyable to watch yet still respectful to the source. It doesn’t truly reflect what Touhou is but definitely serves as a good entrance for many newcomers. No matter whether you are a Touhou fan or not, I highly recommend this series.