Holy crap, that took forever! It’s like waiting for “Gensokyo Tag Tournament” to update on danbooru!
This far into the comic, I’m starting to realize a major issue: It’s taking forever for stuff to happen. I wanted Cirno and Suwako to run into each other, have a good time, and not realize who the other was. The way I chose to set things up was that the Moriya Shrine had just appeared in Gensokyo, and so the goddesses were out scouting the potential worshippers: Suwako and Sanae in “disguise”, and Kanako more directly. But as it turns out, that setup requires a lot of time.
Also, Frein was right about focusing more on Yugi’s first nonspell. It makes it easier to stay on target and allows me to clear that nonspell in much less time and with much less danger. I still find it easier to be unfocused during some attack patterns though, particularly “Feat of Strength – Storm on Oeyama” and the nonspell that follows it.
“Feat of Strength – Storm on Oeyama” – the one with the purple bubbles descending diagonally from upper right to lower left – gives me headaches. As you can see, my capture rate is only about 25%, compared to my about 50% on the other cards (and the near 100% on the trivial card, “Hell’s Wheel of Pain”). Memorization, which is my strongest asset in games like these, seems to be useless against it.
If I perfect stages 1-3, I think I will eventually have enough lives to brute force my way past Satori and then figure out the finesse way in practice mode.
As you know, I consider the illustrator Kito to be the best. Not in terms of technical skill (although he is certainly very good), but in terms of embodying the philosophy I subscribe to as an illustrator. He is the Eric Johnson of cute. (Meanwhile, Eric Johnson’s webmaster wonders what a site like mine is doing linking to him.) It follows naturally that I would want a copy of his Summer Comic Market artbook Kito no Yorozu, although realistically I don’t have much of a chance of getting it.
Kito (樹人) is a green creature, with the “ki” (樹) in his name meaning a tree. (See 北の樹の木霊, “kita no ki no Kodama”, or Kodama of the North Tree). His mascot character, seen above, is some kind of moe tree whose name, I believe, is Kinoko. The Kodamas of Kamigawa Block should have looked like this.
Of course, no Kito post would be complete without a Toho illustration. This is the cover of Toho Utau Cirno-chan, a karaoke collection of IOSYS Toho fanmusic hits, including, of course, Cirno’s Perfect Math Class.
The song The Sparrow from the album Terra Guitarra: The Mother Night by the American folk guitar band Patchouli (Julie Patchouli, Bruce Hecksel, Willy Crow Mojo). Patchouli just won the 2010 Songwriter Award at the Unvarnished Music Festival in Minnesota.
While I’ve 1CC’d Imperishable Night and Mountain of Faith on Normal, those are the two easiest Toho games. Subterranean Animism is much harder than those. It quickly became apparent that if I was struggling to pass Satori, then Orin would be pretty much impossible.
Fortunately for losers like myself, there’s Easy Mode.
As you can see, Easy Mode makes 1CC-ing Subterranean Animism quite possible. I think I should be able to beat Utsuho in less than a hundred tries now.
Although I must say, this is somewhat difficult for Easy Mode. Phantasmagoria of Flower View, the other Toho game I have that I can’t 1CC on Normal, is pretty effortless to 1CC on Easy Mode, and I 1CC’d both Imperishable Night and Mountain of Faith on Easy Mode in one try. But Subterranean Animism has had me running into the 50-60 attempt range on Easy Mode. Apparently even Easy Mode is harder underground.
Back when they were doing the art for the Magic 2011 Core Set, French fantasy illustrator Aleksi Briclot (of ANEYEONI) fell in love with the girl he was assigned to draw, the super-powerful mythic Primeval Titan. He asked her to marry him, and she said yes. They are married happily to this day, even if she occasionally gets drunk and puts all sorts of strange lands onto the battlefield tapped.
