So, a peaceful tale about peaceful times, mankind has space colonies, but it's not Gundam rules, so we haven't dropped them on ourselves yet. But all of mankind (or at least Renko) is already dead, so not much of a point in a colony drop, I guess.
Posted on 20 September 2017, 16:11 by: Jeshua_Morbus
Score +21
I love this kind of "isolationist" stories of Touhou. They tend to be a bit darked than they seem, always alluding to things like the forgotten, the death, the lost or, more simply, the anthropophagic nature of youkai. In here, the world ended and the last place with life in all Earth is our dear and savage Gensokyo.
Because the Sanzu is "Peaceful", doesn't that mean that nothing have crossed over and reincarnated? Doesn't that mean the flow of souls are out of whack? Is it why there are no human main characters shown? Because they're dead?
@onikamikun I don't think mankind is dead. They moved to that space coloney and earth has more or less died. That's why they are doing a terraforming experiment not on mars or venus but on earth since there is nothing left. That's also why no more incidents are happening because there are no more things passing into Gensokyo as there are no more humans, youkai, or gods left on earth to pass over to cause issues. Another thing is the amount of salt passing through. Patchy talked about it being made from fire and brimstone which implies that something on earth is molten. Disasters hit earth but humans are safe on the coloney.
@GeneralSky If I had to guess, there are no human main characters because this is the distant future and yeah, dead, but that doesn't mean they didn't reincarnate. I'm pretty sure Gensokyo has it's own afterlife reincarnation system, so it wouldn't be out of whack due to the outside world. We know humans are still around, we see Yuuka buy the watering can. So at the very least there might just be less youkai attacking humans and no people wandering into Gensokyo and bringing in random new souls. If anything, it is the at its maximum stability because there are no outside forces.
Keine, like Kagerou, has acquired therianthropy, and thus is a youkai no matter how much she thinks of herself as a human. Her lifespan is indeterminate, though no matter how long she lives she'll long predecease Moukou.
The space station shown features in ZUN's album "Ruins of Torifune ~ Trojan Green Asteroid" and its accompanying Renko-and-Maribel story; like the doujin says, it was made as a kind of spacebourne ark for plants and animals from Earth, but abandoned. (Mary and Renko visit the place via Mary's powers and Mary is injured by some sort of chimera.)
The fact that it's visible in the skies of Gensyoko suggests that it's slipped into fantasy, which, taken with what Yukari says about the outside world and the station's purpose, all implies that, yes, the Outside World is dead. Torifune was meant to re-seed the planet, but ecological devastation caught up with them and their last hope was, well, forgotten.