Web Animation / Diamond in the Rough (Touhou)

Note that many tropes below are spoilers simply by virtue of being on the trope list. Since spoiler-tagging trope names is against the Spoiler Policy, these spoilers will be untagged.

Who doesn't love a good Downer Ending?

Chen: You know what's more disappointing? The fact I could have watched an intense battle, but instead, I had to watch *you*. Even if you had gone, you would have just won instantly! Where's the excitement if I know you'll win?!

Brolli: You know, nobody likes stories where the hero fails.

Chen: Yes they do: they're called tragedies!

Brolli Diamondback's story follows the typical pattern of the average Touhou Project Self-Insert Fic: average kid gets gapped into Gensokyo by Yukari Yakumo, gains superpowers, makes friends with the entire cast, goes on a grand tour of Gensokyo with nothing to stop him, falls in love, and he plans to resolve the biggest incident in the history of Gensokyo. After which, he will live happily ever after.

But wait:

What happened Brolli's life back at home? Why is everyone in Gensokyo automatically nice to him in the first place and why are they willing to do anything for him? If Brolli wasn't the first kid in Gensokyo, what happened to all of the others? Why did Yukari bring him to Gensokyo in the first place?

Part bad fanfiction Pastiche/Deconstructive Parody, part straight Deconstruction Fic, animated in the create.swf "Walfas" Virtual Paper Doll engine with a speech-bubbles-and-animated-sequences style akin to Koishi Komeijis Heartthrobbing Adventure, this is Spaztique's Diamond In The Rough: the first Walfas movie. Although originally streamed monthly as one full cut on a livestream, complete with an intermission, the movie was recut for Youtube into episode-sized portions, though the endings advertised the full movie stream around the time it premiered.

Originally written as a critique to an actual Walfas user, ColonelDiamondback, whose videos are recreated and restructured in the opening half, who has since gotten way better at writing since this movie. The original version was only made of Episode 17-20, but when fans demanded a full movie explaining the backstory, the result was a 4-and-a-half hour epic with two intermission sequences when streamed live. For more info behind how it was made, read the official companion guide, The Definitive Guide to Diamond In The Rough.

In addition to being known for playing with bad Touhou Self-Insert Fic tropes and its dark ending, its Troubled Production makes it the Walfas equivalent to Apocalypse Now, with some complaining that the film would never get done.

Watch the series here. For the Aladdin Fan Webcomic, click here.

Note: To eliminate confusion, the character will be referred to as Brolli, and the author of the character will be referred to as Colonel Diamondback.

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Tropes:

• Accomplice by Inaction: According to both Yukari and Tenshi, the fact that most of Gensokyo not only does nothing to stop the gappies, but also help them is what's causing the biggest problems in Gensokyo. In Episode 15, Reimu and Marisa finally tire of it and decide to bring the pain to Yukari.
• The Ace: Implied with Miko.
• Achilles in His Tent: It turns out in Episode 8 that Reimu doesn't resolve incidents anymore, and the Gappies might be to blame...
• All There in the Manual: Brolli never does read the manual, leaving the audience to figure out Gensokyo for ourselves.
• Amusing Injuries: Not counting the more serious ones, Brolli gets electrocuted by Marisa's reactor and shot by Reimu during a training montage.
• Anti-Villain:
  • Tenshi wants to end the constant corruption of Gappies, even though her plan involves stretching Gensokyo so thin that it will force everyone to side with or against Brolli, leading to Gensokyo-wide war.
  • Yukari wants to prolong Gensokyo's lifespan after a recent trend in stagnation in human/youkai duels. She wants to make Brolli into a Big Bad to remind Gensokyo the consequences of its complacency, as well as give everyone somebody to fight so the magic never dies.
• Anyone Can Die
• Arc Welding: The first half make sense of ColonelDiamondback's original videos and tie them together. The last half spends the rest of its time tearing them down.
• Arc Words:
  • "Exisential threats must be eliminated by any means necessary."
  • "I will be different."
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • In Episode 10, Yukari asks Brolli, "Do you even remember why you came here? Or why you're staying?" Brolli's motivation was already pretty flimsy to begin with, but Brolli's speechless reaction hints he really doesn't know why he's even in Gensokyo.
  • Yukari gets yet another in Episode 16 when she asks Marisa if she wants to stop these gappies, why has she aided every single one up to Brolli?
  • In Episode 20, Miko asks Brolli a series of questions he really should have asked himself earlier, like why did he need four beasts when he only used one? And why didn't he use them earlier when they were nigh invincible?
  • During full streams of the movie, the Intermission Sequence asks increasingly difficult questions to the audience.
• Art-Style Dissonance: It's a dark story about the downfall of a young boy trying to find his powers in a mythological world and the consequences that come with it... yet it's told using a Touhou dressup Flash game.
• The Atoner: Brolli begins showing shades of this after the destruction of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. By the end, he's a full-blown Atoner.
  • So does Shinki, who partially led to the destruction of Makai.
  • And finally Vic, after his trip through Gensokyo.
• Audience Participation: The Ustream chat allowed for people to interact with Spaztique while he's making the series or with eachother during the screenings, either riffing Brolli's antics or quoting video games.
• Author Avatar: Brolli is this for ColonelDiamondback. Same for Vic (avatar for LikeThisRLYMatters), and Stevo and Spaz for StevotheHuman and.... Spaztique. Averted with Jack Diehard and Arturo.
• Babies Make Everything Better: Subverted: Reisen announces she's pregnant just a few hours prior to the incident that kills Brolli.
• The Bad Guys Win: Or more like Gensokyo wins. Despite saving everyone by ending the incident in a draw, Brolli never got revenge on Tenshi or Yukari. Tenshi successfully made most of Gensokyo pay for its blind trust of outsiders, and although Yukari did not get her ongoing war, she has stirred up Gensokyo enough to prolong its lifespan.
• Badass Boast: Aya gets one in Episode 19.
  Aya: I know exactly what you're going for: we have to choose between saving Gensokyo or this harmless boy, except you've forgotten one small fact that voids this *entire* plan: GENSOKYO IS STRONG!!! One human boy makes no difference in a land of legends. If he's supposed to spell our doom, then just imagine what *we* could do!
• Behind the Black: Justified example with Komachi. Everyone was turned away, and she initiates things with a long-range sneak attack. Also a subversion, in that Komachi points out she could CLEARLY hear despite being off-screen.
• Berserk Button:
  • Telling Marisa you hate Reimu or you think she hates Reimu.
  • Telling Reimu you plan on changing faiths because you don't like her.
• invoked Black Hole Stu: A gradual Deconstruction. As the story goes on, we hear about the balance of Gensokyo tipping in favor of anyone who blatantly disobeys Spell Card rules, and Brolli is slowly becoming the most influential person in Gensokyo, getting away with virtually anything he desires. By Episode 12, it turns out Tenshi's plan was to wait until Brolli became a Black Hole Stu to trigger an incident that would stop gappies from ever getting that far again, preventing further tragedy. If it's not spelled out enough, Episodes 15 and 16 reveal Yukari engineered this whole thing to keep the long-term ecology of Gensokyo in check since everyone has become too complacent with outsiders, and if kept unchecked, the people of Gensokyo could accidentally aid somebody truly evil. Finally, in Episode 19, Brolli finally realizes this is what he's becoming, and if he survives the incident, he will become Gensokyo's Big Bad. The climax finally plays it for utter horror, both to Brolli and his allies as the balance tips in Brolli's favor: half of Gensokyo is willing to kill and die for him, and if Brolli wins, he'll take over Gensokyo..
• Big Bad: Tenshi is responsible for most of the problems that occur in the story. Or Yukari, considering she's the reason why the Gappies keep ruining everything.
• Big Damn Heroes: In Episode 18, most of the Touhou cast for Youkai Mountain. In the same episode, Brolli plays this for Reisen while Alice and Yukari both manage to do this for Brolli.
• Bittersweet Ending: Despite the tragedy, the balance to Gensokyo has been restored seemingly permanently, leaving Jack Diehard and all future outsiders wanting to use Gensokyo to gain power harmless. More so, Gensokyo will eventually recover and become stronger than ever. Brolli may have died and lost everything, but by taking responsibility for his actions and letting himself die to save Gensokyo, he earns his redemption and gets one more chance.
• The Blank: In many of the promotional materials, characters have blank faces. According to Word of God, it's symbolic of how many Self-Insert Fic writers put all details into their Author Avatar and none into the canon cast.
• Blast Out: In Episode 19, Brolli deduces Yukari doesn't want Gensokyo to kill him, but each other over him, and all of his allies will lose in the final battle. If he does win, he will control Gensokyo.
  • Episode 20 is this: In the span of twenty minutes, the following happens:
    • In the Kappa Valley, Alice, Miko, and Reisen gun down the survivors of the Kappa Valley, Marisa shoots down Alice and Miko while trying to kill Brolli, Tenshi shoots down Reisen, Tenshi and Brolli kill eachother, and then Nitori gets Aya and Momiji arrested.
    • At the Moriya Shrine, Reimu, Sakuya, Youmu, and Suika shoot down Kanako, Sanae shoots down Suika, Sakuya knives Sanae, the Myouren Temple gun down Reimu, Youmu, Sakuya, Kasen, and Keine, and Momiji and her wolves gun down a huge bulk of the Myouren Temple.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Youkai in general. Mainly Yukari.
• Break the Cutie: Also overlaps Break the Badass and Break the Haughty. By the end of the movie...
  • Reimu is utterly traumatized, worried the events will repeat again.
  • Marisa's impotent rage at Yukari is more powerful than ever after seeing Yukari break Reimu.
  • Aya and Momiji are let go from the Tengu army after being framed for war crimes.
  • Sanae is undergoing a massive crisis of faith (and Tenshi's parting blasts didn't help).
  • Suwako feels guilty over her actions to help kill Brolli.
  • Sakuya realizes everyone betrayed her to kill the only gappy she ever saw mature.
  • Reisen has hit rock bottom and regrets ever having left the moon (and this is before learning that she's about to lose her child).
  • Tewi regrets being such a jerk to Reisen, all before Reisen not only hits rock bottom, but Eirin forces her to break the bad news...
  • Eirin regrets letting Brolli near Reisen after all that happened.
  • Yukari is just plain burned out by everything that's happened: her efforts to prolong Gensokyo’s lifespan were greatly stunted, and now she has to start back at square one.
  • The Beasts are forever trapped in Brolli's dead body.
  • Brolli himself is utterly broken upon realizing that not only did he cause all of the above, but he had no other choice.
  • Although we don't see them after the incident, it's a safe bet that Alice and Miko aren't exactly having a cheerful time either.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Marisa breaks it in her battle with Komachi.
  Marisa: Let me guess: this is the part in the trailer for this movie where you tell me, "You're tampering with forces you don't understand!"
  • And she does it again in Episode 7 with the scene transitions.
  • Yukari gets a sinister fourth wall break in Episode 20 after blackmailing Brolli into fighting Tenshi over control of the balance, telling him not to disappoint the audience while looking at the camera.
  • During the final fight between Brolli and Tenshi, Tenshi points out Brolli's life bar at the top of the screen.
• Broad Strokes: The events of A Majcher Mistake as told by Yukari are far more than meets the eye.
• But I Can't Be Pregnant!: In Episode 16, Reisen (or rather, Reisen through Tewi) reveals she is pregnant, despite being a different species from Brolli. Brolli worries if it's possible for a human and a youkai to have children and consults Eirin, and she says it is possible if the youkai and human are of equal power levels.
• Butt-Monkey: Brolli. Played for Laughs at first, where he is eaten, electrocuted, teased, bitten by Remilia, throws up, gets pied, and more. However, as things turn dark, it starts to get less silly.
• Call-Back: All over the place!
  • Brolli/Chen: "Brute force, is there anything you *can't* solve?"
    • Called back again after the Scarlet Devil Mansion is destroyed, when Brolli has a change of heart and denounces brute force.
  • In Episode 20, pretty much everything: Momiji's sketch of Brolli, Marisa's copy of Brolli's soul which can power Master Sparks, Brolli's lightsaber, Momiji's comment about how Aya is only good for recon and danmaku photos, the Myouren temple army, and MUCH more!
    • Early on, Reimu says if she could only get the chance to slap a Gappy Stu, she would take it. When Brolli freaks out that he's the only one who can resolve the incident, she finally gets to slap Brolli.
    • Early on, Marisa suggests Brolli pack a projectile weapon, and the other characters comment swords will be nigh useless in a barrage fire duel. During the incident, when Brolli's powers fail, he finally realizes why swords were a bad choice: he's fighting enemies who shoot from long ranges.
    • Marisa tells Brolli that if worse came to worse, Reimu would kill a Gappy if it meant resolving an incident. It later turns out Reimu is the only one who wouldn't kill a Gappy to resolve an incident, while it's Marisa's own suggestion to kill Brolli to save the Kappa Valley. Then, in Episode 20, she tries just that: killing Brolli to save the Kappa of the Kappa Valley.
• Cerebus Retcon: What begins as a scathing critique of someone's/a typical Touhou Gappy Fic turns into a Deconstructive Parody. Then, by Episode 13, it takes a sharp turn south...
  • Early on, the fact Brolli has flimsy motivation over staying in Gensokyo is pretty amusing, but as paranoia and the threat of death looms closer and closer, it becomes apparent that a kid has ruined his life by jumping into a dangerous fantasy world with no clear objective. In the full screenings, the intermission points out that Gappy fics romanticize running away from home.
  • Many first-time viewers expected Tenshi to be the Big Bad, and the people hoped at least the other youkai hunters could beat her. Then they realized Tenshi was actually one of Brolli's best friends before the incident, and then things got kind of awkward.
  • Remember the cat Brolli kicked off the couch at the beginning? It died after Brolli spent his time in Gensokyo without feeding it.
  • Jack Diehard seems like a poke at what would happen in a Gappy Stu never got the chance to go to Gensokyo, only to reveal a troubled psychology underneath, and it only gets darker as the story goes.
  • Rumia's appearances are pretty cool and humorous in a dark way, until you learn Yukari is sending her to hunt Brolli for straying away from her.
  • Mokou seems pretty friendly at first, aiding Brolli in any way she can, but near the end, and especially during the resolution, it becomes clear she just doesn't care either way: since she's immortal, tiny events like these don't matter.
  • Tewi constantly pranking and belittling Reisen can be funny at first, until Brolli dies and Reisen is driven into catatonic depression, and then Eirin forces Tewi to tell Reisen she won't be able to deliver her child with Brolli.
  • In addition to the previous example with Tewi, there is a gag where Tewi pranks Reisen, it cuts to the outside of the House of Eternity, and we hear Reisen's scream. While that's pretty funny, it happens again in the epilogue, but when Tewi delivers the news that Reisen is going to miscarry Brolli's child.
  • Momiji's sketch of Brolli is pretty hilarious, and Nitori's refusal to throw it away showcases how helpless she is. Then, Nitori uses it to help the survivors of the Kappa Valley Massacre hunt down Brolli and kill him, fed up with him herself.
  • Early on, Yukari warns Brolli not to defeat Tenshi in fear it will destroy the balance, nor get close to Marisa because she could corrupt Brolli. It seems like she's trying to protect Brolli, and in reality, she was: Yukari kept him alive to destroy the balance. She knew Marisa would kill Brolli to save the balance, and she was waiting until she knew Brolli couldn't back out of defeating Tenshi for him to fight her.
  • The Myouren Temple's army of youkai seems pretty amusing when you consider it's ran by Buddhists. In its first fight scene, it acts like a Red Shirt Army against EX-Rumia. In the climax, the incident resolvers are betrayed by the Myouren Temple, and rather than act as a Red Shirt Army, it's played realistically as the incident resolvers are massively outgunned.
  • Aya reassures Momiji that the truth always comes out in the end. Then Aya's article, which was supposed to expose the truth, causes a giant war based on a lie that Colonel Diamondback is becoming too powerful to stop, and the resulting conspiracy to kill him gets her court-martialed with virtually every villain getting away scot-free.
  • Remilia asking Sakuya to partake in the incident seems like a candidate for a Heartwarming Moment, right? In the Epilogue, it turns out Remilia just wanted to get rid of her with the rest of the incident resolvers since she cared for Brolli, cooperating with the Myouren temple to ambush her. Kick the Dog doesn't begin to describe the jackassery of Remilia here.
  • Throughout the movie, Yukari is constantly stealing food from people, even to the point where Miko points this out. It turns out that's the reason she gaps in children: she's basically stealing more food from the outside world by importing humans, letting them live and die in Gensokyo, and then eating the corpse.
  • Brolli's beasts make several references that they were sealed for eternity, even though that clearly wasn't the case. In the end, they're sealed in Brolli's dead body for eternity, and it's infinitely worse than they could have ever imagined.
• Cessation of Existence: The ultimate fate of the consciousness associated to a soul after it has been burned in Hell if the consciousness associated with it has not learned their lesson. This is the fate of Arturo and the implied fate of many Gappies before him.
• Chekhov's Armoury: The entire climax is a giant string of Call Backs.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Remember Brolli's classmate Vic from Episodes 1 and 9? He's part of the reason Tenshi causes the giant incident that eventually kills Brolli.
• The Chosen One: Averted. During the Aura Check scene, Brolli thinks he's The Chosen One based on Marisa and Patchouli's concerned reactions, but it turns out he's not. Rather, his ability is self-awareness.
• Crapsaccharine World: Double subverted. On one hand, Gensokyo really is a nice place if you're strong enough to survive in it. On the other hand, everyone is going to kill you if you're considered too strong... Finally triple-subverted during the incident when you find out what happens when somebody does become too strong: they could effectively take over Gensokyo and bend it to their will.
• Crisis Crossover: When looked at from the perspective of the separate Touhou Project games and the Walfas community, it is this.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: When Kaguya and Tewi are threatening Brolli, he kills the former by stabbing her with an empty syringe causing an air embolism ^note Which is a bubble in your blood, that big enough, can prevent blood from circulating in your body, leading to death., which causes her to gasp for air before convulsing on the floor and dying. Brolli says it's okay because she is immortal.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Unarmed Brolli vs. Rumia.
  • Chen and Ran vs. Ferin and Lepus.
  • Reimu vs. Overpowered Brolli.
  • In a deleted scene (and implied in the full movie), Sakuya vs. Tenshi.
  • From Episode 14, Ferin vs. Yumeko.
  • In Episode 20, Reimu vs. the fairies surrounding the Moriya Shrine, the entire Myouren Temple vs. Reimu, Sakuya, Youmu, Suika, Kasen, and Keine, and Momiji and her tengu vs. the Myouren temple.
• Curse Cut Short: Meiling says: "TASTE THE RAINBOW, MOTHERF-" before being shot by Marisa's Master Spark.
• Dark Fic: Starts out pretty edgy, using mostly Touhou canon against a man's Marty Stu self-insert, but once the incident starts, things start to go worse for said Marty Stu and the girls.
• Darker and Edgier: Deconstructed in the full film. In Episode 16, it turns out one of the reasons Yukari is gapping over children is to expose Gensokyo to real evil to discourage residents from going too far. Once the residents tire of these horrible events, they will fight harder to keep Gensokyo a peaceful fantasy wonderland and ensure nothing this bad will ever happen again.
• Deader than Dead: Arturo, the previous Gappy, whose soul was burned in hell and his consciousness utterly destroyed.
• Death by Irony: Brolli, a sword collector, is stabbed through the neck with Tenshi's sword.
• Death Montage: In Episode 17, we get to see several of the previous gappies getting chucked into Hell, despite trying to be different.
• Death Is the Only Option: In order to save Gensokyo, Brolli must die to end "The Gappy Era." Otherwise, he'll have to spend the rest of his life fighting to take over Gensokyo. Going home is not an option.
• Death of a Child: Arturo and Vic killed several of human children in Gensokyo prior to Brolli's arrival.
• Decon-Recon Switch: Inverted. The first half spends most of its time actually putting the Gappy Fic tropes together, only to smash them all to bits in the second half.
• Deconstruction Fic: So much so that it now has its own page. Amusingly, for most of it's deconstruction it simply turns to Touhou canon.
• Deconstructive Parody: At first. The first half gets you to point and laugh at all of Brolli's antics and everyone's surrounding reactions as they illustrate where many Touhou Self-Insert Fics go wrong. The latter half totally changes this.
• Deconstructor Fleet: Name a Touhou Self-Insert Fic trope, and this movie will try to mock it; particularly anything involving Wish-Fulfillment and what it would be like to know the Touhou cast. So numerous in what it tries to take apart that it has its own page
• Death Seeker: Vic is this, after accidentally murdering children from the Human Village while trying to find Arturo and kill him.
• Despair Event Horizon: Brolli begins the story on the far side of it, presumably because he lost to Tenshi. During the climax, we find out why: his presence became so powerful that it began destroying the very fantasy world he wanted to save: his allies were killing people to save him, while the rest of Gensokyo betrayed eachother to find ways to kill him. He tries to stop Tenshi, knowing Gensokyo would be better off merely killing him instead of fighting her, but he's unarmed and powerless compared to Tenshi. The film opens on his last moments, wailing in agony.
  • Vic crosses this upon not only murdering his old friend Arturo, but accidentally killing several children while getting undeserved revenge of Yuuka and then being hailed as a hero for it.
  • Reisen crosses the line so far it's unlikely she will take lots of time to recover. She already had a canonical bad history of abuse but took it in stride, then got to know someone who initially only wanted her attention for free stuff but whom she honestly loved and who really learned to love her back, only to see her beloved get his reputation viciously taken apart, then get killed in a massive war and framed for war-crimes post-humously even though he was, if often stupid, ultimately innocent and wanted to help. THEN she is informed that the baby she got from him will be a miscarriage...
• Devil in Plain Sight: Yukari, kind of. She IS a youkai...
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: In Episode 20, after Yukari crosses the line and blackmails Brolli into fighting Tenshi to send Gensokyo back to its violent roots, Brolli tearfully tells her "Fuck you, Yukari.".
• Doomed Protagonist: Brolli. He becomes aware of this in the second half, and becomes terrified by it.
• Doublespeak: Yukari's idea for Gensokyan utopia is a Forever War between humans and youkai.
• Downer Ending: Played with. It seems to be a Foregone Conclusion at the start, But the epilogue shows more insight into it. See Bittersweet Ending above.
• Driven to Suicide: Vic is nearly driven to suicide until Jack's idiocy and obsession with going to Gensokyo to fix all of his problems gives him a change of heart.
• Drunk with Power:
  • Brolli, after gaining his powers.
  • Almost all of the Gappies.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Episode 20 is chockful of this.
  • Special mention goes to Brolli: despite running out of weapons, having his powers disabled, having half the people he knew betray him, realizing the incident was caused so Gensokyo could kill him, and Yukari using Brolli to destroy the balance, he decides not to run when he has the chance, but that he'll die fighting Tenshi, ensuring everyone's efforts don't go to waste AND make Gensokyo feel safer without him. He goes out swinging and times his final shot so that Tenshi stabs him while he knocks her out.
  • Reimu, who gets cornered by the Myouren Temple and then yells to Aya that Tenshi is in the Kappa Valley.
  • Depending on who you're rooting for, Miko, Reisen, and Marisa. Marisa, fulfilling her promise to Reimu to kill Brolli if things get out of hand and her duty to protect the balance of Gensokyo, decides to go down killing Alice and Miko, only to get shot down by Reisen at the last second, who is in turn shot by Tenshi. Meanwhile, Miko blocks Marisa's Master Spark to protect Brolli.
• Dynamic Entry: Reimu gets one in Episode 15 while trying to prevent Tenshi's incident.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Vic is probably the only gappy that pulls a somewhat happy ending out of the story. Despite killing Arturo, hundreds of children, and nearly himself, he vows in Episode 16 to fix his life in the real world and leave the tragedy behind him.
• End of an Age: According to Shinki, Brolli is the final Gappy the people of Gensokyo will treat like the typical Marty Stu, either because he will end up taking over Gensokyo or dying to save it. Bad enough, but what Brolli will soon be responsible for is what shifted Gensokyo from the Makai-invasion-driven PC-98 Era to the outsiders-causing-trouble-driven Windows Era.
• Epic Movie: For a movie made with Walfas. It ends at about 3 hours or so.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Briefly seen in Episode 15 as Brolli walks through a Japanese city.
• Escapism: A main reason behind why most Gappies would want to go to Gensokyo.
• Establishing Character Moment: Every character introduction essentially does this.
  • We get the idea Brolli is The Slacker early on from his first encounter in class, but his most memorable moment early on is when he literally kicks his cat off the couch.
  • Yukari's first appearance has her popping out from a gap and cutting off Brolli from an escape.
  • Kaguya and Moukou establish the dynamic between them in their first appearance where they are seen fighting each other, even keeping score how many times they've killed each other.
  • Marisa Kirisame's outlandish coolness is established when she's testing out her Mini Hakkero on Reimu dolls while rocking out to her theme (which is a) a metal cover and b) max volume) and grilling meat.
  • Alice just getting out of bed and not tolerating any of Marisa's quips, just before assembling her dolls, who then dress her and bring her her Grimiore.
  • Komachi lazing about while guarding Brolli's seal, and then jumping up to scare the Hell out of Nazrin when she approaches before going back to sleep.
  • invoked Reimu scaring off the youkai with her voice alone and kindly welcoming Brolli to the Hakurei Shrine... and then cussing like a sailor when Brolli mentions he's a Gappy.
  • Byakuren gets an interesting introduction when she gets her followers to protect the human village from EX-Rumia, only for Miko to joke that a Buddhist monk has an army.
  • Tewi and her fellow rabbits popping up behind the wall to the bar Brolli takes Reisen, then proceeding to tease her.
• Evil Former Friend: Tenshi, according to Episode 10. She's not happy about it either, but she doesn't really have a choice in it.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: From Episode 19...
  Aya: Brolli, you're fine! Why do you still have the shocked look on your face?
  Brolli: ... You said one of your scouts didn't come back yet...
  Aya: Well of course: she's just in the Kappa Valley, and that place has the best defenses in all of-...
  *Aya goes pale with shock and drops her notepad and pen.*
  Brolli: THE KAPPA VALLEY IS DEFENSELESS!!!
• Extreme Doormat:
  • Nitori, in an attempt to deconstruct her fanon interpretation. Mokou is similar, only that she is more towards Straw Nihilist.
  • In Episode 16, Yukari believes Gensokyo as a whole has become this towards outsiders, which is why she's gapping in kids to test Gensokyo's limits of trust. Worse, she's right.
• Face–Heel Turn: Several, all in Episode 20...
  • The Moriya Shrine betrays Brolli to save themselves.
  • The Myouren Temple betrays the youkai hunters since they are allies of Brolli, who poses an existential threat to the youkai and Gensokyo's existence.
  • Nitori and the Kappa betray Brolli and anyone aiding him for putting the Kappa Valley at risk. By the same token, the incident resolvers turn on the Kappa.
  • Marisa betrays the youkai hunters for firing on the survivors of the Kappa Valley.
  • The Tengu Army turn against Aya and Momiji for seemingly disobeying orders.
  • It later turns out Remilia didn't send Sakuya to help with the incident, but to get her out of the way with the rest of the incident resolvers so she could aid in Brolli's death.
• Fake Ultimate Hero:
  • Brolli. Deconstructed when Tenshi engineers an unwinnable incident that tests the limits of his heroism.
  • Vic was this when he torched Yuuka's garden, killing the children she hid to protect from Arturo.
• The Fair Folk: This trope is itself present in canon, but in a Lighter and Softer context, and it shows in this work, especially Yukari, whose behavior resemble more of the fae, such as abducting people (the gappies) for reasons alien to human understanding other than a pastime, allowing them to live their Wish-Fulfillment fantasies, while watching them break down and die.
• False Reassurance: In Episode 15, Yukari tells Brolli he can still save Gensokyo and himself, only as long as he collects his beasts and does nothing to save his friends. Then, in Episode 20, Yukari fills in the rest of the details: Brolli will get to live on as the Big Bad, he's saving Gensokyo by generating enough human-youkai conflict to keep the magic alive, and he was told to collect his Beasts so he would have to rely on other people saving him, resulting in his allies killing anyone in Brolli's way.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: A Deconstruction of the classic "kid gets gapped by Yukari into Gensokyo, travels all over the land while meeting everyone, finds love, defeats the bad guy during the worst incident ever, and becomes the hero" plot, showing how shallow these plots really are.
• Fantastic Racism: Plenty of it, especially towards gappies. The goal of the villains is to cause the residents of Gensokyo to distrust and hate outsiders.
• Final Battle: Episode 20, between all of Brolli's allies and enemies. Plus, it appears that the battle between Brolli and Tenshi is to determine who will get the upper hand from the fallout effects of the Diamondback Incident.
• Finding Judas: Multiple examples in Episode 20, including Nitori, Sanae and the Moriya Shrine, Nue and the Myouren Temple, and even Remilia Scarlet.
• Fish out of Water: Brolli in Gensokyo, Makai, and finally urban Japan.
• Foregone Conclusion: Brolli is going to die at the end of the story, defenseless and by Tenshi's hand.
• Foreshadowing: Virtually the entire first half sets up events in the second half. For specific examples...
  • At the beginning of episode 4, Flandre and Patcholi are studying different literary concepts, such as one that describes the moment a hero's life starts to falls apart. Guess what starts to happen to Brolli near the climax. Heck, Patcholi even is about to explain said trope before Marisa crashes through the library.
  • In Episode 6, Yukari shows Brolli a film that appears to be the rest of the story in miniature: the gappy gains powers, falls in love, becomes corrupt, angers the residents, and then dies. He has already gained his powers, and he does fall in love, but he's not entirely bad. Unfortunately, neither was Vic, whose story more parallels Brolli's: he came over wanting to be different, does something horrible by accident, tries his best to right the wrong, and if he would have stayed any longer, he would've been killed by Tenshi as part of a gambit to get back at everyone else. Even worse, Brolli refuses to leave, thinking he will set things right, but...
  • In Episode 8, everything Hydrus says is later fulfilled much to Brolli's detriment.
• Forever War: In Episode 20, Yukari confirms Brolli's hunch in the previous episode: Yukari wants to keep Brolli alive so he can destroy the balance, causing a seemingly endless battle to liberate Gensokyo from Brolli, his beasts, and his allies. At the same time, Tenshi and the rest of Brolli's enemies will be seen as saviors if they defeat Brolli and his allies, causing a similar-but-different war if she wins.
• Funny Background Event: Remilia is having a pie when she first meets Brolli. After giving Brolli a tour of the mansion in hopes of persuading him to become her new butler, Sakuya is still carrying the pie around... on her head... and there's a bite taken out of it...
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The guides Yukari gives Brolli are the official universe guides, Perfect Memento in [the] Strict Sense, Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, and Symposium of Post-Mysticism, all with accurate page counts (though, Perfect Memento has a bonus section to make Brolli's time reading harder).
  • After cutting back to the outside world, the desk next to Jack's reads "Arturo Wuz Here."
  • When Brolli and Marisa are staking out Reisen, Koishi can be seen talking to some kids in the background, and then disappears upon realizing who he is. You can also see Aya interviewing Kyouko and the Myouren temple when Reisen first arrives.
• From Bad to Worse: Episode 20.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Nitori.
• Genre Savvy: Chen, for the most part. She even lampshades it.
• Genre Shift: Episode 18 turns into a full-blown war story.
• Giant Food: The Netherworld Garden, and it has to be with Yuyuko living there.
• invoked God-Mode Sue:
  • Deconstructed with Arturo, the previous Gappy Stu. His powers allow him to win any battle, but he doesn't exactly use his powers for good, or at least good in the eyes of others...
  • Deconstructed in the full film. The whole reason the incident resolvers want to protect the balance is because if it tips in favor of an outsider, they could reign over Gensokyo and bend it to their will. However, the residents of Gensokyo have been aiding outsiders a little too much lately, and each outsider is tipping the balance closer and closer to the outsiders, regardless of how amoral they are. Yukari gaps in these morally skewed children in hopes of eventually showing Gensokyo the results of blindly aiding outsiders before judging their character. When the incident hits it peak, the balance is almost in Brolli's favor: he has half of Gensokyo murdering others for him and dying for him, but Brolli, being the only gappy with self-awareness, is horrified by this and won't take any of it. He chooses to relinquish his powers and die to save Gensokyo.
• Good-Times Montage: 2 happens around the course of the series:
  • The first one happens after Brolli manages to get his powers and have fun all around Gensokyo, from flying to Heaven and beat some celestials at shogi, to going to the Old Capital and beat some Oni at drinking sake, and going to the Human Village to enjoy a concert of the Prismriver Sisters.
  • The second one happens after he goes on a date with Reisen, from experiencing a concert and dinning with the Prismriver Sisters, to opening a bar in the Old Capital, and having a stroll through the Moriya Lake. It's as shallow as how Brolli is.
• Gratuitous Japanese:
  • Averted. None of the locations are called by their Japanese names, but English translations. Danmaku is referred to as "barrage fire." Japanese Honorifics are replaced by "Miss" and "Lady." Marisa's "ze" is entirely absent, but she will resort to slang when she gets excited. Going a step further, there are also some Japanese language jokes that may get lost on non-speakers, such as some of the puns ("Nearby Noodles") and conventions (most of the characters rarely say "no," but instead say, "not really").
  • Played straight Episode 15 when Brolli leaves Gensokyo through the Hakurei Border, only to find himself stranded in Japan, unable to understand Reimu since she's been speaking Japanese this whole time.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: There are no clear heroes or villains as the story goes on.. In Episode 13, Remilia points this out.
  Brolli: I-I don't want want to serve anyone! Can't I just be friends with everyone in Gensokyo and have everyone protect me?
  Remilia: Mr. Diamondback, there are two hard truths you must recognize if you are to survive this coming incident. First, you must recognize the alliances of Gensokyo are very, very finicky. People regularly betray eachother over very petty reasons. Second, you've been here for three months.
• Gut Punch: Although Diamond In The Rough starts as a dark twist on the "kid gets gapped into Gensokyo and becomes a hero" story, the incident turns Diamond In The Rough from a kind of funny poke at Marty Stu Touhou fanfics into what's basically a scathing critique.
• Hanging Judge: According to Komachi in Episode 17, Shiki: although she'll lecture the living to help them steer clear of Hell, anyone in her court has either committed sins of such high caliber or reincarnated so many times that she will just dump them into Hell. Eventually averted; Shiki recognizes that Brolli is genuinely sorry for everything he's done and allows him to reincarnate, even though he no longer wants to.
• Happily Failed Suicide: Vic.
• Harem Nanny: Eirin and Yukari.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: It saves Brolli and Reisen's life in Episode 18.
• Heel Realization: Sanae has one after learning from Tenshi that Brolli wasn't a threat after all and was just an innocent boy.
• He's Back!: A steady string of them during the incident, including...
  • Episode 14: Sakuya.
  • Episode 15: Reimu.
  • Episode 16: Vic in the real world, and deconstructed with Brolli in that Brolli's return ignites Tenshi's incidents.
• The Hero Dies: We know from the opening Brolli will die, and the rest of the movie is a lead up to it all.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Brolli tells Marisa he wants swords... in a universe that doesn't utilize them much. Considering the swords are just for collection, it never helps him.
• Heroic Bystander: In Episode 19, the residents of the Netherworld, Hell, and Human Village all gather up to fight Tenshi's assault.
• Heroic Wannabe: Brolli, but just to gain power.
• Heroic Suicide: By the end of Brolli's battle with Tenshi, it's clear winning is not a viable option for Gensokyo's peace: he engineers a double-knockout to save Gensokyo from Tenshi and himself.
• Hesitant Sacrifice: When told he would have to sacrifice himself to end the Gappy era, Brolli responds he'd much rather let some other poor sap do it for him.
• Hijacked by Jesus: Despite taking place in the Touhou Project universe, its theme is partly inspired by Ecclesiastes.
• Honor Before Reason: In a formal duel against the beasts, Flandre refuses to break Spell Card Rules, despite her destructive fighting style. As a result, the beasts hypnotize her and then destroy the Scarlet Devil Mansion. In Episode 14, Patchouli hangs a lampshade on this and points out that vampires in Gensokyo are extremely polite.
• Hope Spot:
  • Chen wonders if Brolli may actually be different from other gappy stus, but then dismisses her thoughts.
  • Episode 15 as a whole: Reimu comes out of retirement to resolve the incident, Marisa decides to finally stop Yukari from gapping in more kids, Brolli escapes Gensokyo, and Tenshi's incident looks like it's not going to happen. Then, Brolli finds out he can't go home. Bad enough, but if Brolli returns to Gensokyo, both he, Reimu, and Marisa know it could mean the end of Gensokyo. Then Yukari convinces him he has better odds of fixing things in Gensokyo than repairing his life on the outside word, and the episode ends with Brolli going back to Gensokyo.
  • Episode 16 has one when Sanae offers to shelter Brolli during the incident. Then Tenshi pops out from under her table, and a red mist starts pouring out of the shrine.
  • Episode 19's "GENSOKYO IS STRONG!" Sequence.
  • Episode 20 has two. After Momiji attacks Tenshi, Aya warns Brolli to run before Tenshi's final spell card activates, but Brolli chooses to continue fighting Tenshi. The second Hope Spot is when it looks like Brolli can defeat Tenshi, unfortunately Tenshi's final blow stabs Brolli through the neck.
• Hopeless War: The climatic incident that's supposed to kill Brolli. Of course, it works. In Episode 20, Yukari tells Brolli it's not impossible to still win; the only stipulation is that if he does win, he will then cause a Forever War for everyone else to stop him.
• How We Got Here: The movie begins by revealing Brolli will get killed by Tenshi and spends the rest of the story counting down to how he got there.
• Humanoid Abomination: The youkai, for the most part. Especially Yukari and Rumia (so far).
• Idealized Sex: Averted in Episode 11 when Brolli has uncomfortable and awkward sex with Reisen.
• Intentional Engrish for Funny: In Episode 15, one of the untranslated signs for an electronics shop in the Japanese town Brolli walks to is in Engrish.
• It's Going Down: The entire Scarlet Devil Mansion gets destroyed by the Diamondback Beasts.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Reimu, who constantly discourages Brolli's quest for power, citing it may eventually tip the balance of Gensokyo. So, Brolli ends up cutting off contact with her for Sanae, who is much nicer.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Almost all gappies, even if they show a spec of selflessness, they are just selfish in the end. Brolli was different, because he admitted that he had a problem, though in earlier versions of some scenes, he doesn't recognize until he's dead. Also, a lot of Touhou characters shows this trait, like Yukari and Remilia.
• Jumped at the Call: It doesn't take long for Brolli to take up Yukari's offer: he jumps so quickly that he leaves his cat behind.
• Justified Title: A diamond in the rough is either an uncut diamond or something good with bad surface traits. It can refer to the original Marty Stu who evolved into a Tragic Hero, the character himself who was an ordinary kid recruited by Yukari to be Gensokyo's powerful new incident resolvers, and it's about a guy with the name Diamondback going through a lot of rough stuff.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Marisa even lampshades that she gets away with stealing Patchouli's books without any punishment (too bad that Broli decides to listen to her, instead of Reimu).
  • In A Majcher Mistake, Yuuka is definitely a Karma Houdini for causing Arturo's rampage and getting away with it... At least according to the film...
  • Vic Chaos realizing that he and Mokou are basically going to be this after torching Yuuka's flower field and killing the children hiding there is what causes him to leave Gensokyo for good. Though he will regret it for the rest of his life so that's actually a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Even though their plans didn't realize fully, Yukari and Tenshi get off the final incident scott-free.
  • Nitori and Sanae also get off incredibly lightly as does Byakuren. All of them betrayed those who wanted to help Brolli after he realized what he is doing is wrong (and seriously tried to fix the mess he had started) and then walk away in the knowledge they won't be prosecuted because they have the best scapegoat EVER. Though Byakuren and Sanae may already be regretting what they did. Nitori though? Hero of the day and the only person who knows the truth gets branded as a liar.
• Kick the Dog: Brolli has a few of these, with a memorable moment in the opening where he kicks his cat off the couch.
  • Brolli gains a little bit of humility before running off after gaining his powers without thanking Alice and Marisa. In episode 11, though, when he visits them, he thanks them. Unfortunately he then soon kicks the dog again when he badmouths Reimu, and implied that he thinks Marisa hated her. And later when he tells Reimu in her face that he's changing faiths to the Moriya shrine because he doesn't like her.
  • Attacking Reimu, even though she wasn't going to attack, but just trying to intimidate Brolli.
  • When it appears Ex Rumia is attacking the human village, Brolli ducks out so he can train, even though his powers can easily stop her. Even Marisa delivers a Flat "What" upon hearing this. Well, at least Yukari seems to be happy...?
  • The Diamondback Beasts get a malicious one in episode 13 when they trick Brolli into relinquishing them of his command, giving them free will, and then proceed to void Spell Card Rules by paralyzing Flandre and causing the mansion to collapse on top of her.
  • Yukari gets one in Episode 20, blackmailing Brolli to defeat Tenshi so he can take control of the balance, or otherwise burn in Hell like the previous gappies.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Vic had to kill Arturo, one of his few friends, to save Gensokyo. Then, Tenshi's plan to end the cycle of Gappy violence includes murdering her best friend, Brolli. Yukari bets that if pushed enough, Marisa would kill Brolli to save Gensokyo. Marisa objects, saying Brolli is different, but then the incident happens...
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Arturo, who ceases to exist while shouting "IT'S NOT FAIR!"
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Obviously, Brolli.
  • Episode 14: Ferin.
  • Episode 15: Cat Beast.
• Knight Templar: Tenshi and Yukari.
• Lampshade Hanging: Characters are often quick to point out common Touhou fanfic cliches and misconceptions on a regular basis.
• The Last Dance: Brolli's reasoning for going to the Kappa Valley in Episode 19, and his final battle with Tenshi in Episode 20.
• "Leave Your Quest" Test: Yukari regularly offers Brolli a chance to go home. Brolli refuses it each time.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Komachi's Establishing Character Moment proves that when she's not a slacker, Komachi is a force to be reckoned with.
• A Lighter Shade of Grey: In the second half, Brolli attempts to become a hero. We also realize that Reimu, Yuyuko, Sakuya, Marisa, Yuuka, Meiling, Aya, Momiji, and many more will rise to save Gensokyo at all costs. Subverted/Partially deconstructed with everyone else, who all want to do good, but end up committing heinous acts to save Gensokyo.
• Lured into a Trap: In Episode 20, both teams are lured into traps set up by the Moriya Shrine, Kappa Valley, Myouren Temple, and Scarlet Devil Mansion.
• The Main Characters Do Everything:
  • Deconstructed. So many gappies have carried the weight of Gensokyo on their shoulders that Reimu just gave up on incident resolving and decided to just hang back at her shrine, ready to give the same spell card speech and tea to the next gappy involved, knowing she'd be reduced to a background character; eventually, Reimu and Marisa grow tired of this and decide to start doing something about the situation in Gensokyo, and finally, when Brolli screams that he is the only one that can resolve the incident, Reimu slaps some sense into Brolli and yells "THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU AND YOUR NEEDS, BROLLI!!!"
  • Episode 18 subverts this when the mist renders Brolli completely useless, while the rest of the heroines find ways around their lack of powers to fight.
• The Man Behind the Man: The whole incident is actually Yukari's plan. She is never battled by anyone and receives no comeuppance.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Invoked with Marisa.
• invoked Marty Stu: A Deconstruction, showing how desperate and manipulative someone would be to want such power and what they'd do with such power. Averted with the actual Brolli, whose conflicts are mostly psychological in nature.
  • Further deconstructed with Jack Diehard, who doesn't possess Brolli's self-awareness: he is a sociopath a brat who asks Yukari to let Brolli die so he can have a chance at Gensokyo.
  • Also deconstructed, as we'll come to learn, with Vic: Vic vowed to relinquish his powers and change for the better, but now he cannot readjust to normal life.
  • Deconstructed again with Arturo, the previous Gappy before Brolli, who only goes to Gensokyo to lose his virginity, even if it means killing children with his new powers, and since nobody can oppose him, he is free to get away with what he wishes. The only solution for the people of Gensokyo is to void normal dueling rules and just kill him altogether. Or at least that's what it seems.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": In Episode 15, the celestials' fairies have this when they realize Reimu has returned to resolving incidents.
  • Also in Episode 13, Brolli and the SDM residents have this when the The Scarlet Devil Mansion collapses.
• Match Cut: All over the place, many of which contain Brolli.
  • Most famously, the opening, slowly dissolving from Brolli on the brink of death in Gensokyo to him sleeping at his desk in the outside world.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Between Brolli, a human teenager, and Reisen, a moon rabbit who is probably at best fifty years old, telling Brolli she fled from the moon during the Apollo Invasion, to which Brolli reflexively shouts she's old enough to be his mom.
• Messianic Archetype: According to Shinki, Brolli might become this, but Brolli wants none of it.
• Meta Guy: Chen.
• Mexican Standoff: In Episode 19 and the original cut, everyone debates whether or not to endanger themselves by running into the Kappa Valley or just killing Brolli to end the incident. Eventually, everyone by Reimu and Yukari are pointing their weapons at Brolli, either out of anger or because they don't have a choice. However, Reimu stops them at the last second upon remembering that Yukari set this whole thing up.
• Mind Screw: All of the accounts about what happened with Vic, Arturo, Keine, and Yuuka never match up. According to Yukari, Arturo murdered a village full of a kids and then got into a relationship with Yuuka. According to Tenshi, Arturo only killed the kids hoping he'd get sex out of the deal, but Yuuka refuses to let Arturo get away with it. Vic comes in to kill Arturo, but he accidentally kills several children Yuuka was hiding. According to Vic, Arturo only killed a few kids and Vic killed more. According to Komachi, Arturo thought what he did with Yuuka was consensual, and then remarks to Brolli that some people could just be wrong or lying. Finally, Keine appears to be completely unaware of Arturo at all.
• Missed the Call: Jack Diehard was Yukari's second pick for going to Gensokyo, and he is NOT happy to hear Brolli is still in Gensokyo.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The scene where Spaztique himself calls out Brolli is cut, replaced with Brolli's backstory. The scene can be seen here.
• The Mole: Nue
• Mood Whiplash: Common.
  • Brolli goes from wacky hijinks around his house to being confronted with Yukari.
  • After Brolli screams for help as Rumia is eating him alive, it immediately cuts to Yukari persuading her next child to join her as jaunty music plays in the background.
  • A result of messing with Komachi.
  • A Majcher Mistake, the Movie Within A Movie that shows the common patterns of a Gappy Stu.
• Morton's Fork: At the end of Episode 19, Brolli realizes his only options remaining are survive the incident and take over Gensokyo, or be killed by Tenshi and let his allies suffer a crushing defeat.
• Necessarily Evil: Yukari, who gaps in amoral, selfish children in an attempt to get Gensokyo to stop blindly aiding outsiders.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Lepus can hypnotize new mental abilities into Brolli. In Episode 8, he even names the trope.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Virtually all of Brolli's actions in the first half set up his downfall in the second half.
  • In Episode 15, it turns out Brolli could have possibly postponed the incident, left Gensokyo, and made somebody else die in his place if he had just gone home and faced the consequences of running away. Unfortunately, he's been gone for so long that he's been kicked out of school, wanted for truancy, and his parents are beyond angry, and one of Brolli's Fatal Flaws, like every other gappy, is trying to avoid the consequences of his actions. So, he decides to go back to Gensokyo and risk the incident. Of course, we know how that turns out.
  • It gets worse in Episode 17, when Komachi reveals by unlocking the seal with the beasts in it in the first place, he has set himself down a path where every unconscious decision has led to his undoing.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Yuuka actually worked to protect the human children from Arturo, only for Vic to burn them all by accident in revenge, thinking she corrupted him first.
• Not So Similar: Brolli is the first Gappy to actually care more about Gensokyo than himself and feel remorse over his actions.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Tenshi
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In Episode 8, we get a Miko vs. EX-Rumia battle that's cut off to see Brolli screwing around.
  • Between Episode 15 and 16, Marisa single-handedly took down both Chen and Ran.
• Oh, Crap!: Brolli gets a massive reaction in Episode 13 when he accidentally hands over command to Hydrus.
  • The residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion get this right before as well, before Brolli realizes it.
• The Only One: Brolli believes he's the only one who can stop Tenshi's incident. Deconstructed for the remainder of the second half: the pressure is driving him into surmounting paranoia, and when it finally begins, it turns out that he's far under-equipped and that everyone else is resolving it with him.
• Original Flavour: According to a number of reviews, every character (except Nitori and Mokou's deliberate fanon version) is portrayed very closely to canon. The only thing that stands out are the horrible acts committed by the gappies, and we find out that's exactly one of the reasons why Yukari gaps them over: in order to maintain Gensokyo's ecology as a peaceful wonderland, it must be exposed to truly heinous evil every once in a while. Once it has run its course, Gensokyo may return to being a peaceful land with non-lethal incidents over ridiculous stakes.
  • Near the beginning of the Reel 2, just before the incident, Brolli briefly escapes Gensokyo. While he's gone, the story reverts to an rather typical Touhou story as Reimu and Marisa try to prevent the incident, engaging in normal spell card duels against unique bosses. Then Yukari explains to Marisa this is the kind of nostalgia they were hoping to produce by exposing them to the gappies: in order to revert back to vanilla incidents, Gensokyo must tire of the Darker and Edgier plots.
• Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: When Brolli meets Reisen for the first time, to the point that when Brolli finally woos her, she gives him free anti-sweat medicine.
• Pass the Popcorn: When Marisa and Komachi are fighting, Chen and Ran are watching the whole thing through a T.V. With Chen even enjoying a bag of popcorn.
• Precision F-Strike: Brolli gets one in Episode 13 when he realizes he just handed over command of the beasts to Hydrus, who plans to do some nasty things to the mansion to get Brolli to Makai.
  • Brolli gets one more in Episode 20, after Yukari blackmails him into fighting Tenshi: his defeat will mean Hell, but his victory will mean plunging Gensokyo into its dark roots. Brolli's response? "Fuck you, Yukari!"
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Played for utter horror in A Majcher Mistake: Arturo crosses the Moral Event Horizon several dozens of times, but thinks he is justified since ''he'' was trying to satisfy ''his'' needs.
  • Also played with in Brolli's plot, and deconstructed just as brutally in the movie's second half.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Brolli. Though it's debatable whether he is truly villainous, a jerk, or a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. By extension, every single Gappy Stu before Vic and Brolli (and the ones to follow) that doesn't have a Heel Realization.
  • Subverted with the gappies because Yukari only gaps in children she knows will eventually crack.
  • Inverted with Brolli, who starts out as a prime candidate for turning into a power-hungry villain until he realizes the damage he could potentially do to Gensokyo. However, he realizes this just as both Gensokyo (and the viewers) are ready to watch him die.
• Read the Freaking Manual: Yukari's orders before Brolli can leave to explore Gensokyo. Naturally, he doesn't read it, and everyone keeps reminding him.
  • Nearing the second half, the story brings up certain canon facts deep in Touhou lore that most fans may have forgotten or taken for granted]]. So far, audiences have been caught off-guard by the fact Tenshi is not a masochist, Yuuka is no longer a total sadist, and Flandre fights by spell card rules.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In Episode 15, Yukari manages to get one against Reimu and Marisa.

  Yukari: Although rare, there are many exceptions to "the bad Gappy Stu." Brolli could have handled those beasts if he had stood up to them: they *would* follow his every command since they *are* him. The sad truth is that all gappies have the capacity for good. Even Arturo could have been a hero if only he had listened. But more importantly, regardless of why I gap in these children... Why haven't you planned to do anything about it? Each and every time I gap in a child, all you do is feed him tea, explain spell card rules, and then cheer him on until he dies. Meanwhile, I have a full schedule of children begging for an escape, and you two have done *nothing* to stop me... Oh... That's right... You can't do anything. Last time, it took you two and that maid to fight me while I was sleep deprived. Even if you could beat me, you've spent too much time with the gappies to do so!

  • Episode 18 has Reimu delivering one to Brolli when believes he is the only one who can resolve the incident.
• Re-Cut: The Youtube version, which cuts the movie down to 20 episodes (22 if you count the climax and epilogue being cut into a three-part video), adds a “To Be Continued” and credits screen, and removes some of the scene transitions and intermission from the full livestreamed version, though some can still be heard at the end of some episodes.
• Reference Overdosed
• Refusal of the Call: Implied with Vic.
• Retired Badass: Reimu, in a Deconstruction of Demoted to Extra: so many Marty Stus have been trying to replace her that Reimu is nothing more than "a babysitter for bratty foreigners."
  • Subverted when the incident begins.
• Retired Monster: Episode 14 gives us Shinki, who just wants to rebuild Makai after the events of Mystic Square.
• The Reveal: Several over the course of the series...
  • Episode 12 has several: Yukari sugar-coated just how bad the gappies can get, it was really Vic who was the last gappy before Brolli, Yuuka wasn't a bad person (and in fact actually wanted to help stop Arturo), the incident disgusted Tenshi so much she wanted to engineer a tragedy to stop this from happening, and most importantly, Tenshi reveals he knew Brolli was Colonel Diamondback all along, only waiting until the right moment until the people of Gensokyo had his weaknesses to begin the incident.
  • Episode 13 has more: the Diamondback beasts are not only sins incarnate, but Brolli's sins incarnate since he was actually a Colonel Diamondback from Gensokyo in at least eight timelines. He was moved to the other side of the planet to keep his self-awareness, but by using them at all, he's eroding it. We also learn Flandre is not as dangerous as everyone said she was.
  • In Episode 16, Yukari reveals the reason why she's gapping in these children: to get Gensokyo to stop submitting to outsiders so easily, and she will continue to do so until Gensokyo finally stands up for itself. And the scary part? So far, it's working, and Yukari is betting Marisa will try to kill Brolli next...
  • In Episode 17, Komachi tells Brolli Yukari's criteria for gapping children: their behaviors must be in a perfect combination that leads them to their own destruction, and they must be on their final reincarnation before Hell, meaning no gappy will ever reincarnate to stop Yukari.
  • In Episodes 18 and 19, Yukari mentions she wants to protect Brolli. Brolli then realizes that Yukari's plan isn't for everyone to gang up on Brolli, because Tenshi will do that for her and come out a hero if she wins: her plan is to keep Brolli alive long enough for everyone to start fighting eachother.
  • In Episode 20, in addition to the numerous Face–Heel Turn moments, we get one last reveal by Yukari: she's not merely just gapping in dangerous outsiders to save the balance by showing Gensokyo how dangerous they can become, but to destroy it through letting them become too powerful to be stopped for centuries. The reason she's keeping Brolli alive is so he can become Gensokyo's new Big Bad, plunging Gensokyo into its dark, bloody roots and prolonging human-youkai battles, and with it, Gensokyo's lifespan.
• Running Gag: Multiple...
  • Nobody will let up on Brolli for not reading the guide.
  • Chen watching the action from a hole in a tree.
  • "He's not a Colonel. He was gapped here by Yukari!"
  • Yukari is constantly stealing people's food; later, Miko hangs a lampshade on this by saying stealing food is the most harm she can do, despite being a boundless gap youkai. It turns out to not be far from the truth once the whole movie is seen.
• Sadistic Choice: Episode 19 has two...
  • Momoi reveals the attack on Youkai Mountain was a distraction for all of the other attacks of Gensokyo, meaning their options are to split up and save everyone, risking their lives, or kill Brolli to end the incident. At first, it doesn't seem so sadistic since most of Gensokyo is doing a good job at defending itself, until they remember Brolli plundered the Kappa Valley of its defenses for his swords and money. Luckily, Reimu reminds them that killing Brolli will only destroy the peaceful way of life Gensokyo was built upon.
  • At the end of the episode, when Brolli deduces Yukari's real plan to keep him alive so everyone fights eachother over Brolli until Brolli's allies lose, he realizes the only options are die and go to Hell while Brolli's enemies are punished, or live and become Gensokyo's Big Bad.
• Scenery Gorn: The destroyed Scarlet Devil Mansion in episode 13.
  • Makai, mixed with Scenery Porn.
  • In Episode 18, Youkai Mountain.
  • In Episode 19, ALL of Gensokyo, including the Netherworld, Hell, The House of Eternity, The Scarlet Devil Mansion, the Human Village, and especially the Kappa Valley.
  • In Episode 20, Lake Suwa and Brolli's rotting mind with the beasts trapped inside.
• Scenery Porn: The Kappa Valley, made entirely using stock props from create.swf.
  • The human village also gets many good reviews.
  • Makai, mixed with Scenery Gorn.
• The Scream: Multiple uses...
  • Episode 11 has a humorous usage when Aya walks in on Brolli and Reisen having sex.
  • In Episode 19, there's a straightly-played example when Brolli realizes his only options left are watch his allies face a crushing defeat or take over Gensokyo if he survives and literally gets the Kappa Valley's blood on his hands when wiping it off his pants. It's also voiced.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Momiji disobeys Tenma's orders to protect the Tengu Village in order to save Brolli and Aya. She is exiled at the end for doing so.
• Self-Insert Fic: This movie was based on such fics, particularly ones where the protagonist treats Gensokyo like his personal playground.
  • Also a Take That! of self insert fanfiction where the lead character is portrayed as shallow, selfish, arrogant, and lazy, using Gensokyo as a petty escape from the real world.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Yukari constantly tells Jack to look for a life in the real world instead of hoping for a quick fix like Gensokyo, but this only drives him into deeper frustration with his life to want to go to Gensokyo.
• Serial Escalation: The entire climax is essentially a steady string of plot twists and things going From Bad to Worse.
  • The production itself is an example, which the battles increasingly getting larger with each production stream. The first half of the battle of Episode 18 features frames from when Spaztique started, while the latter half was made a year later.
• Shirtless Scene: Brolli gets one when being treated by Reisen.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The opening tells the viewers Brolli dies in three months from entering Gensokyo; part of the dark tone of the film is knowing that all of Brolli's combined actions are just slowly bringing him closer and closer to destruction, even the ones that seem like they'll work in the long run.
• Shout-Out: The whole thing is one giant Arc Welding and Deconstruction of ColonelDiamondback's work, with some references to the Miniverse, plus countless references to minor details about the Touhou Project characters. Has its own page.
• Shrouded in Myth: Flandre's reputation as a homicidal maniac turns out to be untrue. She's just a normal resident of Gensokyo with a maniacal fighting style (which happens to abide by spell card rules).
• Slasher Smile: Yukari can pull this off, a notable example being her first appearance.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Begins mildly idealistically: although dangerous, Gensokyo is still a world full of brave heroes will to fight for its safety. Then, the second half takes a long, steady nosedive down the cynical end: the heroes take increasingly desperate and cruel acts to save Gensokyo that lead to pointlessly tragic outcomes, leading to the near-end of Gensokyo. It ends up somewhere in the middle when Brolli's actions save Gensokyo, even though it doesn't save the people he wanted to save.
• Social Darwinist: Yukari.
  Yukari: I believe if you're dumb enough to make a decision that will get you killed, you deserve it.
• Spanner in the Works: In Episode 20, Tenshi and Yukari were using Brolli to upset the balance: Yukari wanted to use Brolli to become Gensokyo's new Big Bad to keep it out of stagnation, while Tenshi wanted to end the increasingly-dangerous Gappy Era and punish all those who supported Gappies. Brolli engineers a double knockout, which ends up inverting this trope as both of their plans work: Gappies are now harmless and everyone who participated in the Diamondback Incident suffered the consequences.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Mind The Gap by ChibiChen, a deliberate Reconstruction of everything Diamond In The Rough took apart. Where Diamond In The Rough shows how selfish many gappies can be, how it's not possible to save all of Gensokyo by oneself, and the pursuit of power will ultimately destroy you, Mind The Gap says, "Okay, but good people still exist, you can still help everyone resolve incidents, and if you give a good person the right tools, they can do a world of good."
• Spiritual Successor: The Crossroad is a more focused Deconstruction on the Heroic Wannabe trope as opposed to all Self-Insert Fic tropes. Unlike Diamond In The Rough, it makes great use of several Walfas OCs and shows that not all OCs/Author Avatars are a bad thing. It also features Shout Outs galore to Diamond In The Rough.
• Stealth Pun: In Episode 15, Marisa, who (punchline in spoiler) hasn't said "ze" once in the entire story, gets this...
  Marisa: At least this beats watchin' gappies, eh?
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Implied with Vic.
• Stripped to the Bone: Flandre suffers this in episode 13 due to Velupe's blast disintegrating her. However, this is not the worst thing that happens to her...
• Stuff Blowing Up: The latter half is full of it, kicking off with the battle between the Diamondback Beasts and Flandre, leading to the destruction of the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
  • In Episode 18, we get the battle of Youkai Mountain, where the entire Tengu Village is being ripped to shreds.
  • In Episode 19, we see ALL of Gensokyo locked in battle, but we particularly see the Kappa Valley getting destroyed.
• Stylistic Suck: A Majcher Mistake is done with much more limited character art and animation than the rest of the movie.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Cruelly subverted.
• Supporting Harem: When you think about it, Brolli does have a harem, especially when you consider the subtext that these girls might actually be attracted to Brolli.
• Survivor Guilt: Brolli, for realizing the horrible things he did to Gensokyo. Thanks to this self-revelation, he is given a second chance.
  • Aya, after Brolli's death.
• Take a Third Option: Shinki reveals the only two end options for Brolli are to save himself at the expense of everyone else (he survives the incident, but takes over Gensokyo) or save everyone else at the expense of himself (he dies, but Gensokyo will be safe). Brolli desperately wants an option where everyone can live, but Shinki lets him know it will be impossible.
  • In the final battle, if Brolli loses, Tenshi and the enemies of Brolli will reign over everyone who blindly supported Brolli and the previous outsiders. If Brolli wins, he will regain control of his beasts and it will launch Gensokyo into perpetual war to defeat him. In the end, Brolli causes a double-knockout so that neither side wins: everyone suffers the after-effects equally.
• Take That, Audience!: The whole movie is a not-so-subtle Take That! at bad fanfic writers.
  • This exchange, after Brolli has been to the House of Eternity, the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Marisa's House, and now Alice's House...
    Brolli: How many more place are you going to keep dragging me?! I feel like we're going to go all over Gensokyo before I even unlock my powers!
    Marisa: Well, perhaps if you had started your journey knowing what you were looking for, things would have gone a lot more quickly.^note This is a poke at fanfic writers who never plan their plots and decide to have their character go on a grand tour of Gensokyo before "finding the plot".
  • From the same part, Ran and Chen are watching Brolli from their room, and Ran questions how Chen could be so interested in a boy who has done virtually nothing and voided Yukari's orders to go into Gensokyo unarmed. Chen just says she's more interested in the rest of the cast.
  • In Episode 8, Chen continues complaining about missing real action for Brolli's stupid plot.
  • Episode 12 goes on an giant attack, poking at everyone's view of Yuuka, fanon Tenshi, the series' portrayal of Tenshi, and a subtle Take That! at the people who are paranoid of Brolli, even though he's done nothing big with his powers other than petty things.
    Brolli: You mean Yuuka wasn't a bad person? This was all Arturo's doing?
    Tenshi: Yuuka may be teasing, and she was once openly hostile, but she's very docile these days.
    Brolli: But that means Yukari lied to me about Yuuka.
    Tenshi: Yukari lies about everything. In fact, *NEVER* believe a story until you know the canon facts. Everyone thinks *I* am a masochist because I started an incident just for the fun of it, so I could fight *everyone* in Gensokyo, but would a masochist *really* defend herself against the entirety of Gensokyo and then *win*?
  • The intermission sequence, which begins with some strange art and harmless movie trivia, but then the movie trivia calls out both the people who write Gappy fics and the people waiting to watch Brolli die. It ends with Yukari herself asking the audience if think they could do better than Brolli in the given circumstance.
  • In Episode 18, when Reimu yells, "Don't you get it?! Cheering this idiot on is what landed us in this situation in the first place!," she's looking directly at the camera.
• This Loser Is You: The Gappy Stus. Unless it's Vic.
• This Means War!: In Episode 15, after Yukari taunts Reimu and Marisa for not only doing nothing about the gappy problem, but aiding the very gappies they're trying to stop, they decide enough is enough; as a result, Reimu comes out of retirement to stop the incident while Marisa runs off to the Yakumo household to take down Yukari and end the gappies once and for all.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After the hellish Downer Ending, Brolli is allowed another chance for realizing what he's done.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Subverted because Brolli's swords become danmaku.
• To the Pain: In Episode 17, Komachi describes what will happen if he does not back down from the incident in graphic detail...
  Komachi: It's predictable, really, just like that ice fairy: so stubborn that her mindlessness gets her killed, only this won't be amusing to watch. Instead, when you get caught in this incident, relying solely on the things you own, you will be helpless, defenseless, watching the world crumble around you. Everyone you know and love will either die or betray you to save Gensokyo, or commit atrocity after atrocity to save you. The villages will burn, the bodies will pile high... And it will be your fault.
• Tragedy: What this work essentially is.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Brolli's defining weakness, and virtually everyone else along the way.
• Translation Convention: In Episode 15, when Brolli is stranded in Japan, all of the Japanese signs are translated <with these marks>, leaving one untranslated sign with poor Engrish.
• Translator Microbes: Implied. Everyone in this Japanese wonderland seems to speak English, and Reimu mentions (albeit behind one of Brolli's thought bubbles) that Yukari messes with the heads of the children she gaps in to make the world more understandable. In Episode 15, when Brolli actually leaves Gensokyo, Yukari's effects wear off, and Reimu speaks untranslated Japanese.
• Trapped in Another World: Deconstructed. Brolli grows more paranoid, homesick, and morally grey as he tries to gain more power in Gensokyo.
• Tsundere: Reimu.
• Two-Act Structure: The first half is a Deconstructive Parody of the typical Touhou Self-Insert Fic. The second half is a Cerebus Retcon of everything that preceded it.
• The Unfettered: The Gappies are this incarnate, showing how desperate, morally flawed, and emotionally broken these people need to be to want this much power. Marisa, according to many preview audiences, is basically a Gappy who escaped punishment: she can gain power and get away with it... But this is a subversion: she's actually The Fettered who loves to look like The Unfettered, but still wants to protect the balance of Gensokyo. Therefore, she never gains more power than she needs.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Brolli after gaining his powers.
  Alice *after saving Brolli and getting owned by Ran*: That jerk didn't even thank us.
• Unreliable Expositor: A running theme throughout the whole movie.
  • Overall, Spaztique in regards to canon vs. fanon Gensokyo, mainly to shake up fanfic writers in regards to doing the research to actually know what's right.
  • The Arturo story changes each time Brolli hears it from Yukari, Tenshi, Komachi, and finally Keine.
  • Reimu and Tenshi both say they have never lost a battle before, even though the both have fought. Finally, Komachi hangs a lampshade on this by Episode 17.
    Brolli: This is the third time I heard about Arturo, and *none* of these stories even match up!
    Komachi: One of your sins is that you are too gullible. Has it occured to you that sometimes people can be wrong or lying? Do you *really* think Reimu and Tenshi are unbeatable? I've beaten them before. There's a reason Spell Card Rules exist.
• Utopia Justifies the Means:
  • Tenshi's plan is to engineer an incident of such tragic consequences for those involved, they will never blindly aid an outsider ever again, thus fixing Gensokyo's balance permanently. This is later revealed to be Yukari's plan all along and why she was gapping in outsiders: to get the Gensokyo locals to stand up to bratty outsiders before it could result in an uncontrolled disaster.
  • In Episode 20, Yukari's previously mentioned uncontrolled disaster is just what she wanted to cause to begin a prolonged human-youkai battle, prolonging Gensokyo's lifespan.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: A Majcher Mistake portrays Arturo as an idiot who got corrupted by Yuuka's offer to sleep with her, resulting in widespread destruction, the youkai hunters killing Arturo, and Yuuka getting away scot-free. Then, Tenshi reveals the truth: Arturo was always corrupt, Yuuka was bluffing Arturo and couldn't stop him, the youkai hunters either did not want to stop him or could not stop him, another Gappy had to be brought in to kill him, and Yuuka recieves all of the punishment for the sins of the two gappies. It disgusts Tenshi so much that she plans an incident to finally get back at those blindly supporting gappies and reward those who were too cowardly to once face him.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Brolli vomits after flying all over Gensokyo with Marisa and drinking Sakuya's "soda," which is essentially lemon tea with seltzer water.
• War Fic: How the story ends if Episode 18 is apparent enough.
• War Is Hell: Episode 18 and beyond.
• We Have Become Complacent: Yukari's motivation for trying to destroy the balance.
• We Used to Be Friends: Tenshi and Brolli, as detailed in Episode 10.
• Webcomic Time: In-universe a few days have passed between some episode, three months in the entire series, while the first episode was published in August 2012.
• Wham Episode: Quite a lot.
  • Episode 2, making it clear just how dangerous Gensokyo really is.
  • Episode 6. Brolli briefly goes mad with power, only for Yukari to reveal the last gappy, his former classmate, did the same and ended up obliterating the human village's children. Also, the beasts Brolli is now in control of go against Yukari's warning.
  • Episode 12, marking the end of Reel 1: Brolli reveals he regretted coming to Gensokyo to Nitori, but still thanks her and everyone for supporting him thus far. Then, Tenshi reveals that she's not obsessed with the Colonel because she thinks he's evil, but because she's knows he's good and wants to engineer his death to get back at everyone else for their misunderstanding of Gappies. It is also revealed Yukari lied about the Arturo and Yuuka story, and it was really Vic who killed Arturo, but simultaneously got uneeded revenge of Yuuka. The resulting disaster made Tenshi so sick that she vows to unleash this incident upon Gensokyo, just as long as she can get her hands on the Colonel's weaknesses. Then, Momoi reveals that Aya's newspaper on Colonel Diamondback was released, giving Tenshi all she needs to begin the tragedy.
  • Episode 13 continues the wham: Brolli is not the first Colonel Diamondback, and the beasts are actually the collective sins of his past lives. When the Scarlet Devil Mansion crew tries to relinquish Brolli of his beasts, the beasts want none of it. They decide to call in Flandre to fight them, who nearly defeats them, but then Hydrus orders the entire Scarlet Devil Mansion destroyed.
• Wham Line: Progressively gets more and more as it goes on.
  • From Episode 12...
    Tenshi: You do know we've been talking to Colonel Diamondback this whole time, right?
  • From Episode 16...
    Sanae: *picks up a peach from under the kotatsu* Kanako? Suwako? When did we ever get peaches?
  • Episode 18 is chock full of them...
    Brolli: Professor Keine, I'm sorry about what happened with Arturo.
    Keine: Who's Arturo?
  • Reimu: The mist disabled your ability to transform!
  • Brolli: Everyone has a workaround for their powers but me!
  • Brolli: Stop treating me like a hero! Don't you get I've been using you this whole time?! I only wanted to get close to you for the medical supplies so I could get stronger. I shouldn't have gotten involved with-
    Reisen: It's okay, Brolli... I knew you did...
  • From Episode 19...
    Brolli: THE KAPPA VALLEY IS DEFENSELESS!!!
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The Arturo/Yuuka/Keine story is never cleared up. According to Word of God, it's not supposed to be: the actions of the previous gappies don't matter when you're living your own nightmare.
  • We never see Flandre getting dug out of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but it is implied she gets out after Gensokyo finally recovers.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: In Episode 14, Shinki bestows upon Brolli the power to throw swords like her maid Yumeko, and this is Brolli's response, given how he'd never just throw away his swords, even if his life depended on it...
• What the Hell, Hero?: After the Diamondback beasts blow up the Scarlet Devil Mansion to help Brolli save Gensokyo, everyone at the Mansion calls them out, including Brolli himself.
• Wipe That Smile Off Your Face: In Episode 10, Yukari gaps away Rumia's mouth when she's about to reveal something about Arturo.
• Wish-Fulfillment: Deconstructed: a mix of Be Careful What You Wish For and Wanting Is Better Than Having.
• The Worf Effect: Played with regarding Flandre: audiences were expecting Fanon Flandre to wipe the walls with the Diamondback beasts using her ability to destroy anything by squeezing her hand. There's just one major problem: they were fighting Canon Flandre, who, despite being messy in her fighting style, actively plays by Spell Card Rules and refuses to fight unfairly since Touhou vampires are polite by nature. Only when the beasts start destroying the mansion does she start to realize this is a bad idea, but by then, Lepus hypnotizes her and the rest of the beasts bury her under the mansion. Ironically, despite being canon, some fans have thought this was hypocritical to have Flandre play by the rules and then lose to the far more ruthless beasts after an episode where Tenshi points out not to believe anything until learning the canon facts.
• A World Half Full: Everything up until the incident treats Gensokyo this way. The ending: despite the horrors of the Diamondback incident, Gensokyo will recover and move on.
• World of Badass: Episode 18 onward drives home the fact Gensokyo is already full of powerful heroines.
• You Can't Fight Fate: The Reveal when Brolli talks to Komachi tells this about gappies. Yukari only picks kids who simply cannot escape their fate of getting gapped, gain undeserved powers and then die and get eaten. Even the ones trying to avoid their fates have flaws that lead them into a huge self-fullfiling prophecy. None of them never realize how much of horrible human beings they are, and every single gappy is dropped into hell: no exceptions. Even the ones that try to fight fate, like Vic, end up breaking themselves horrifically. Not even Brolli is immune: the more he tried to fight his fate, the deeper he dug himself and didn't realize until it was too late. There is no hope for gappies.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In Episode 15, Marisa helps remind Reimu she is still irreplaceable as an incident resolver, youkai hunter, and her friend. As a result, Reimu decides she'll pitch in to get Brolli out of Gensokyo and then resolve the incident.
• You Bastard!:
  • The intermission of the full film calls the audience out on waiting for Brolli's death.
  • Yukari's second-to-last line to Brolli...
    Yukari: Atta boy, Brolli. Now, put up a good fight. After all...
    Yukari looks at the screen.
    Yukari: ... You don't want to disappoint the audience, do you?
• You Can't Go Home Again: Implied in the first half: After Brolli has stayed a whole month in Gensokyo, Reimu offers Brolli the chance to go back. Brolli knows this isn't an option. When Reisen asks if he's glad he left the outside world, he briefly shows a look of disappointment.
  
  In Episode 15, it's made explicit when Brolli not only finds himself stranded in Japan upon exiting the Hakurei Border, but if he does go home, he will have nothing to return to: he's been expelled from school, wanted for truancy, his cat is dead, and his parents have essentially disowned him for running away to Japan. In a possible alternative ending, Brolli could return home, but his teenage years and young adult life would be ruined, plus he'd have to live with the fact he (thinks he) doomed a fantasy world.
  
  Even more explicit in Episode 16: the girl he's using for medicine is pregnant with his child, and Gensokyo will be doomed unless he stops Tenshi's incident. Worse, Yukari has this whole thing planned out to get the people of Gensokyo to stand up to outsiders, using Brolli as the last straw.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In Episode 20, Yukari lets Brolli know that whether he lives or dies, he's served his purpose by upsetting Gensokyo's balance; likely for the next century.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: In Episode 20, Nitori praises Aya for being partially responsible for Brolli's death and offers her shelter after Tenma exiles her. Aya is angered by the offer.

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