Fantasy Kaleidoscope ~Memories of Phantasm~ is a series of episodic fanime adaptations of the Touhou Project video game series made by Manpuku Jinja
with music by Yuuhei Satellite.
Episode 1 "~The Spring Snow Incident~" note is an adaptation of Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom, and episodes 2, 3 and 4 "~The Red Mist Incident~" are an adaptation of Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Episodes 5 and 6 "~The Flower Incident~" are an adaptation of Touhou Kaeidzuka ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View focusing on Aya, and episode 7 "~The Mysterious Giant Youkai~" adapts Hisoutensoku featuring Cirno. Episodes 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 "~The Imperishable Night Incident~" are an adaptation of Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night. Episodes 14, 15, 16 and 17 "~The Youkai Mountain Incident~" are an adaptation of Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith.
The episodes are released without voice acting: only music, sound effects and Japanese subtitles. They get fan-dubbed by amateur Japanese voice actors after their release.
Tropes for the videos as a whole:
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Yukari's gaps are made much prettier than they are in canon. The eyes are now simply eye-like patterns, and there is no sign of the arms trying to claw their way out.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Aya and Sanae both appear far before the events of the games they debuted in.
- Anachronic Order: The games adapted by the episodes aren't in their original order of release.
- Episode 1 adapts Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil in the opening* and Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom in the rest of the episode. It also has Sanae appearing at the end, even though Perfect Cherry Blossom takes place long before her debut in Mountain of Faith.
- Episodes 2-4 adapt Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism in their openings. Their Framing Device is set after Subterranean Animism, but the episodes are mostly flashbacks to Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. The Stinger of episode 4 sets up a Sequel Hook for Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object.
- Episodes 5-6 are based on Touhou 9: Phantasmagoria of Flower View. The Stinger of episode 6 sets up a Sequel Hook for Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith.
- Episode 7 reuses the opening sequence of episode 1 and is based on Touhou 12.3: Hisoutensoku.
- Episodes 8-13 are based on Touhou 8: Imperishable Night.
- Episodes 14-17 are based on Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith. The Stinger of episode 17 sets up a Sequel Hook for Touhou 10.5: Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.
- Bad Bedroom, Bad Life: Flandre's bedroom is full of destroyed furniture and toys (some of which were stabbed with knives) to indicate how being ignored for 495 years has affected her.
- Beam Spam: This fanime depicts danmaku combat in this way, in contrast to most others that use the Full-Contact Magic approach.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- In episode 1, Reimu flies in just in time to save Marisa from Yuyuko's danmaku attack.
- In episode 7, Daiyousei catches Cirno after she barely manages to dodge one of Okuu's attacks, and Suwako then stops Okuu from incinerating them both by whacking her in the head with her thrown hat.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: The English
Fan Translation starts out okay, but at one point it seems to gradually get clunkier and more awkward with each episode, before eventually devolving into this. - Blush Sticker: Many of the more childlike characters are given these.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Cirno, in every episode.
- Aya doesn't get treated very well in episode 2. And even worse in 5 and 6.
- Like with canon, Reisen. She gets her food stolen by Tewi in a Funny Background Event in episode 2 and gets poisoned by her in episode 5. Reisen was able to get Tewi back during the latter though.
- Character Exaggeration: Reimu in canon is generally a case of Good Is Not Nice and Ms. Vice Girl, with this series ramping up her jerkish side to the point of Perpetual Frowner.
- Cliffhanger: Any arc that has multiple parts has these until the final part.
- Continuity Nod: One of the shots from the first opening sequence features Reimu smacking away Sakuya's knives with her gohei in a manner heavily reminiscent of the animation used when hitting her yin-yang orb in Highly Responsive to Prayers.
- A Day in the Limelight: Episodes 5-6 are Aya's day in the limelight, and episode 7 is Cirno's.
- Demoted to Extra: Since the fanime is a Compressed Adaptation of the plots of the games, this usually happens to lower-level bosses.
- In episode 1, Letty's fight against Marisa happens entirely offscreen, and the Prismriver Sisters simply let Marisa pass without fighting her. Sakuya only appears to tell Reimu to go deal with the incident, instead of taking a direct role in events like she does in the game.
- In episode 3, Rumia flies right past Reimu and crashes into a tree, and Reimu quickly takes out Meiling in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
- In episode 8, Wriggle and Mystia are both shown knocked out immediately after the title card.
- In episode 14, the Aki Sisters, Hina, and Momiji barely even put up a fight against Reimu.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: All of the vocal or background music originates from the games. Some are less recognizable than others, such as Yukari's "Necrofantasia" written in a major scale in "The Red Mist Incident".
- Early-Bird Cameo: Numerous, but special mention goes to Aya, who is featured prominently in episodes 1 through 4 despite making her debut several games after the ones those episodes cover, as well as Sanae's participation in Imperishable Night's adaptation (even if one was to take liberties with how recent the Moriya Shrine arrival was, there's an entire game between Imperishable Night and Mountain of Faith, which is instead used for the episodes before Imperishable Night adaptation).
- Energy Ball: Reimu's Finishing Move "Fantasy Seal" involves crushing her opponents under a huge glowing yin-yang orb, which then explodes.
- Fanservice:
- The second opening features a few shots of nearly everyone in Gensokyo relaxing naked in a hot spring.
- In episode 3, there's an extended sequence where Ran and Yukari are having a discussion while once again soaking in a hotspring.
- Tewi's explanation of Kaguya's backstory in episode 9 is juxtaposed with a shot of the princess bathing.
- Fight Unscene: Considering the fan-made nature of the series, this was inevitable. As a general rule, any boss character from stage 1 through 3 of their respective game that doesn't have their fight Adapted Out entirely will be this. Stage 4 and 5 bosses tend to fare better, but are not immune. This usually comes in the form of some kind of cut or a Battle Discretion Shot.
- Fishing for Sole: Suwako pulls a geta out of a fishing hole in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene of Episode 2's intro. The fishing rod and geta are seen both equally fast near the Moriya Shrine's entrance at the beginning of the same.
- Funny Background Event:
- At the end of episode 1, Yuyuko can be seen dancing drunkenly in the background while Reimu and Marisa argue during the banquet.
- In episode 2, Nitori doesn't just fold paper airplanes, she folds paper spaceships.
- Quite a few things at the party in general, including Komachi being lectured by Eiki, or Tewi taking Reisen's portion of food.
- While Yukari steals sake from Mokou using a gap in episode 3, Cirno can be seen shooting light out of her eyes.
- Later, Mystia appears terrified of Yuyuko, probably fearing that she'll eat her, and Suwako's HAT appears red-faced and drunk for some reason.
- Mystia's concern is not misplaced: In the next episode, Yuyuko's belly is stuffed (a reference to Manpuku Jinja's logo), and Mystia is nowhere to be seen.
- Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Marisa is fond of this, having pointed at Reimu, Youmu, and Patchouli.
- Hot-Blooded: Marisa, a Large Ham who is also prone to Badass Boasting.
- I Believe I Can Fly: As is the standard for Touhou.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Sakuya is given these in this series. Especially noticeable in the trailer for the second episode of the Scarlet Devil story arc.
- Instant Runes: The energy balls that are characteristic of danmaku are created through these in this series.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: The most famous Japanese fandubs were recorded by one actress, Pika Aizawa, performing voices for every single character.
- Episode 1 has 9 different voices: Marisa, Reimu, Youmu, Yuyuko, Cirno, Sakuya, Remilia, Aya and Sanae.
- Episode 2 adds 13 voices: Suwako, Kanako, Nitori, Alice, Daiyousei, Patchouli, Koakuma, Flandre, Satori, Rin, Utsuho, Yukari and Suika.
- Episode 3 adds 4 voices: Ran, Chen, Rumia and Meiling.
- Pika became unavailable to record fandubs for episodes after 3 (it's possible she may finally have gone pro), so further episodes are dubbed by other fans.
- Mundane Utility:
- Marisa regards the breeze from Cirno's Icicle Fall attack as pleasantly cool for a hot summer's day rather than treating it like an actual threat.
- Yukari's solution for not joining the Moriya Shrine party is to use her gaps to steal sake from it while she lounges in the hot spring.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The time and effort into making full-length episodes results in Manpuku Jinja's animations being music videos more than anime.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Marisa is much more enthusiastic about solving incidents than Reimu, who only reluctantly gets involved.
- Scenery Porn: Backgrounds in these videos are among the most beautiful depictions of Gensokyo ever to appear in Touhou fanworks.
- Shout-Out:
- The English titles of the episodes reference American films —
- The title of episodes 12-13, "The Only NEET Thing to Do", parodies a 1985 short story by James Tiptree Jr. which is
much more famous in Japan than it is in the Anglosphere. - Marisa says "Yare yare da ze"note when she sees the Netherworld's giant staircase. Probably not coincidental considering Marisa's "-da ze" Verbal Tic is itself inspired by Jojo.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Yukari is fond of doing this.
- The Stinger:
- After the end credits of Episode 1, Sanae appears in Gensokyo thanks to Yukari.
- In Episode 4's epilogue, Nitori discovers Shou and Nazrin preparing to unseal Byakuren, leading into the Undefined Fantastic Object storyline.
- After Episode 6's credits, Kanako and Suwako have shown up in Gensokyo and set up the Moriya Shrine atop Youkai Mountain.
- Stock Footage: All of the EoSD-derived fight scenes and shots of other Gensokyo residents reacting to the scarlet mist that appeared in the opening sequence of Episode 1 were incorporated into Episodes 2-4.
- The footage of Reimu using Fantasy Seal against Yuyuko in Episode 1 gets reused several times. In episode 4, it's used as her Finishing Move against Remilia and Flandre, in episode 10, it's used as her Finishing Move against Eirin, and in episode 15, she uses it to punish Aya for trying to weasel out of a fight.
- Story-Breaker Power: Similar to canon, Reimu is miles above everyone else and solves the incident soon after she appears. Which is why she usually doesn't appear till near the end of an arc.
- Supporting Protagonist: While Reimu is still the focus of the PVs and is the one who solves the incidents in the end, the episodes themselves tend to focus more on Marisa and the incidents are usually witnessed from her point of view.
- Thanks for the Mammaries: At the end of episode 1, the final shot of the episode shows Reimu accidentally grabbing Marisa's chest. Many years later, at the end of the Mountain of Faith incident, the situation is reversed, with Marisa accidentally groping Reimu.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Marisa and Reimu — they bicker a lot but they also care about one another.
- World of Buxom: Any character who has been portrayed as even somewhat busty in other Touhou adaptations is hugely stacked in this one. Also Reimu ends up being larger than most other versions even while wearing a sarashi.
