A truly professional fanime.
Musou Kakyou: A Summer Day's Dream is a fanime based off of the popular Touhou Project games. (Its official heading is Touhou Niji Sousaku Doujin Anime, "Touhou Derived Work Indie Anime".) However, unlike most fanime, this one has a significant difference: it was produced by the well-known doujin group MAIKAZE, who managed to gain a lot of notoriety with the project by roping in some very big-name voice actresses to help out (Rie Tanaka (Sakuya), Kikuko Inoue (the narrator), and Mai Nakahara (Reimu), among others).
It's springtime in Gensokyo, and Reimu is preparing for the annual feast. But something is amiss, as she soon finds out — the Hakurei Shrine's donation box has been stolen! And it's not just there, either; the Scarlet Devil Mansion and its library have been robbed as well. With the help of Marisa and Aya, can Reimu get to the bottom of this incident before the feast is ruined?
The first episode was released at Comiket 75, on December 29th, 2008, with the second episode being released at Comiket 82 on August 12th, 2012, episode 2.5 released on May 11th, 2014, and the third episode released August 13th, 2016; it was originally planned for a total of three episodes, but the end of the third episode suggested a fourth episode. The series was originally titled the Touhou Anime Project, but was changed to its current name after ZUN, the creator of the games, expressed concern over it being mistaken for an official product.
The site for the series can be found here
(in Japanese).
This fanime provides examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: Tewi calls Aya "Shinbun" (Newspaper), even after being corrected.
- Adaptational Curves: Reisen now has visible boobs. And as of Episode 3, she's not the only one, as we can also see Patchouli's own breasts being visible through her clothes, and especially during her Bathtub Scene in said episode.
- Animation Bump: The second episode looks much better and is animated even smoother than the first episode.
- Art Evolution: From what can be seen from the trailer, there is a noticeable bump in the animation quality from episode one to episode two. Could actually justify
the overly long wait for its release.
- Blackmail: Aya does this to Marisa to get her into helping her and Reimu out, complete with pink sparkles in the background.
- The Cameo: Hong Meiling. Also, silhouettes of Cirno and Rumia appear in the Eye Catches.
- The second episode opening also features Yukari Yakumo and Utsuho Reiuji.
- Captain Obvious: Remilia and Reimu. It's really an As You Know conversation.Reimu: However, the number of residents who can make that happen overnight...
- Cerebus Syndrome: Episode 3 has this big time. A darker mood, scary imagery, and a massive boost in the stakes makes it nearly unrecognizable from the previous episodes in terms of tone.
- Conspicuously Light Patch
- Cute Little Fangs: Remilia being she's a vampire. Also Suika.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Suika can be heard humming the Theme Song when helping Reimu in the storehouse.
- Disproportionate Retribution: When Aya accidentally hits Patchouli with a book, she takes it out on Reimu, who was trying to interrogate her about her missing donation box, by busting out her Royal Flare spell card. Reimu doesn't really hold back when retaliating either.
- Then there's Youmu's reaction to have her watermelon stolen. Reisen barely avoids getting skewered through the head!
- Really, this is Gensokyo. Disproportionate retribution is the name of the game here.
- Elemental Powers: Patchouli is an elementalist after all. So far we've only seen her create an earth wall and use her Sun Sign: Royal Flare spellcard, but hopefully she'll stick around for episode two and show us why she's called the One-Week Wizard.
- Freudian Slip: Sakuya at one point almost referred to Meiling as "China", before correcting it.
- Gag Sub: There is a trollsub here, which has the same function as an abridged series.
- Genki Girl: Aya, almost aggressively so.
- Gilligan Cut: After the credits of episode two, Reimu remembers sending Suika on an errand before coming to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Reimu imagines Suika asking where she went. Cut to a drunken Suika at the shrine saying those exact words.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Patchy upon getting up after getting a book to the face. Uh oh...
- Also Reisen when she's forced to use "Lunatic Red Eyes" against Youmu. Also crosses with Red Eyes, Take Warning, as can be guessed from the name.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: By Episode 3, Alice and Patchouli are beginning to suspect that either this is happening, or the memories of the previous day are repeatedly being erased from the minds of everyone in Gensokyo so they only think this is happening.
- Heavy Sleeper: Meiling, who doesn't even wake up and notice Aya is right in front of her taking pictures.
- I Believe I Can Fly: It is Touhou after all. However, special mention must go to Aya. As a Tengu, she can be mistaken as a jet when seen from a distance.
- Jerkass: Reimu. She goes to the SDM in order to unfairly accuse Patchouli of stealing her donation box, and completely expects her to continue their conversation when Patchy clearly just got struck by a heavy book to the face.
- Leaning on the Fourth WallYuyuko: Just because I'm portrayed as a black hole doesn't mean I could eat it all.Reimu: We already figured that out at the end of episode one.
- Marshmallow Hell: In episode 2.5, Yuyuko takes Youmu into her arms and applies this trope to cheer her up, after Youmu despaired about not being able to get a watermelon back safely.
- Mysterious Watcher: A shadow peers out of the trees at the Hakurei Shrine in episode 1 and someone is listening at Patchouli's door in episode 2. Both instances involve Marisa.
- Mythology Gag: Kaguya does this half-asleep. She's holding a Sega Saturn controller (after we just went through a conversation with Yuyuko), and she's even been playing STGs and danmaku games. Aya, however, takes this further: she has the camera charge meter from her own games as she's taking a picture!
- Oh, Crap!: Reimu gets this kind of face when she realizes that her donation box is missing.
- Poor Communication Kills: In episode 2, several important bits of information are not passed along:
- Marisa finds Patchouli's supposedly lost book, but neither of them tell Remilia, Sakuya, and Reimu, who are discussing the incident.
- Aya forgets to tell Tewi that the banquet was canceled.
- Youmu never mentions to Reisen that the watermelon Tewi gave her was actually taken from Youmu.
- Puni Plush: The character design has elements of this, which looks incongruous next to the lavishly detailed backgrounds.
- Real Song Theme Tune: The opening theme is a shortened version of one of Maikaze's earlier tracks, which was part of an album they had released at the 5th Reitaisai event, 7 months before Comiket 75, when the first episode was released.
- Running Gag: Suika getting her horns caught in the door whenever she tries to go outside.
- Scenery Porn: Even though the character animation may have some problems, the background art is outstanding.
- Shout-Out: One of the books in the first shot of the Voile Library is titled Wikipedia.
- It's one of the skinniest books on the shelf.
- In episode three, when Sakuya uses her time-stopping abilities on Aya, she yells THE WORLD!
- Technical Pacifist: It's shown here that Reisen only uses her Lunatic Red Eyes as a last resort, in this case, when Youmu is more or less trying to turn her into a rabbit stew.
- Throw the Book at Them: Patchouli gets one in the face when Marisa and Aya start arguing (and she even goes 'mukyuu!' as she falls over.) It doesn't go over well with her, to say the least.
- The Ghost: Yukari,We never see her physically, other than her voice and being mentioned by Reimu and Yuyuko.
