YMMV / Suikakasen

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • The information revealed about Suika in the final episode can shine some new light in her decision to help heal Kasen, mainly that she might have helped her because them both being abandoned children makes them similar.
  • Yoshika trusting Seiga is either her being a Horrible Judge of Character or being Too Desperate to Be Picky.
  • How much Seiga actually cares for Yoshika or not is up for debate. On one hand, she shows genuine concern after the reikon rejects Yoshika and is moved by her reunion with Kasen and happily lets her former servant spend the rest of her limited time with her friend. On the other hand, she kills Yoshika herself and mocks her for wanting to become a hermit for Kasen's sake. Related to this is the question of if Seiga poisoning Yoshika was a Kick the Dog moment that just happened to work out for Kasen and Yoshika in the end, or if she really meant well and had no other way.
• Angst Aversion: This series shares the reputation of Joyful's other popular Touhou fanwork as a massive Tear Jerker, so hope you're fine with crying a lot! Note that while Osana Reimu only became sad in its later episodes and both series feature plenty of light-hearted moments, Suikakasen features a scene where a child abandoned by her mother nearly starves to death as early as the first episode.
• Awesome Music: The series was one of Liz Triangle's last works before their disbandment, and they went out with a bang in supplying great Background Music and ending songs. Particular mention goes to the ending theme Immortal Philosophy, a beautiful cover of Kasen's theme that originated from the PV this series is based off of.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The final chapters of Touhou Ibarakasen ~ Wild and Horned Hermit showing that pre-hermit Kasen was very evil can make some of the scenes from this series a bit uncomfortable, such as the exposition at the end of the first episode saying that her time as an oni was spent kidnapping people when canon would show that she gave her victims a far worse fate. Additionally, the scene where Kasen attempts to kill Yoshika has her temporarily gain Hellish Pupils and claws when these are default features of her canon oni form. And since Kasen's conversation with Yuugi shows that she fully intended to retrieving her arm to become an full oni again, Yoshika really helped Kasen dodge a bullet considering what she would have become again had she continued her quest to retrieve her arm without becoming a hermit first.
  • During the Good-Times Montage, Yoshika has fun as Kasen's pets begin to play around with her face. In Episode 4, several birds use jiang shi Yoshika as a perch and she's too mindless to notice or do anything.
• Iron Woobie: Kasen gets a great deal of Adaptational Angst Upgrade. She was hated by everyone in her village because she was a Creepy Child and her mother was forced to abandon her to keep the villagers from killing her, and spent days slowly dying waiting in vain for her mother to return, believing that she abandoned her. As things start to get better, she has her new life turned upside down and has to cope with figuring out who she is now. Meeting Yoshika provides genuine happiness for her, but also provides some extra misery because they are separated for 1,200 years and their reunion does not last very long, leaving Kasen to cry before wishing her friend goodbye one last time. And yet, she has the strength to keep going on.
• Les Yay: With all the scenes of Kasen and Yoshika displaying a strong bond to the point of crying Tears of Joy while together or simply talking about the other, it's not hard to see their intended friendship as a little something more.
• Love to Hate: Seiga gives the audience a lot of enjoy about her with a dark sense of humor and general creepiness that makes her fun to watch.
• Moe: Child oni Kasen is adorable!
• Nausea Fuel: Seiga prepares food for Yoshika containing human body parts and has a copy of herself slice up bits of her arm into the food. Even if it turns out to just be puppets, feel free to be ill before that last bit of knowledge is revealed.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Compared to the extra backstory and development most of the canon characters get, Yuugi is more or less a Satellite Character who exists to give Kasen and Suika someone extra to talk to, and the sole backstory information she gets is brief exposition in the first episode that really doesn't tell us much about her.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Because the Time Skip from Kasen's childhood to adulthood happens so early on, we don't get to see anything about her quest to reunite with her mother and she more or less moves on offscreen. Furthermore, despite the Ghost Reunion Ending, the fact that Kasen could in theory reunite with her mother's ghost is never acknowledged, even for so much as to get a scene where Kasen says that she has no interest in seeing her mother again.
  • Kasen and Seiga's only meeting during the series is a flashback of the My Card scene from Wild and Horned Hermit, and Seiga just watches on the sidelines during the Big Damn Reunion. There was an opportunity for Kasen to find out what Seiga had done to her friend and lash out to need to be talked out of it or show forgiveness in a meaningful way, but Kasen never notices the connection between how Yoshika ended up in Gensokyo as a Soulless Shell and Seiga. Possibly justified as the Kasen vs. Suika fight and the Big Damn Reunion both serve as climaxes in their own ways and anything more might have resulted in Ending Fatigue.
• The Woobie: Yoshika is put through the most hell out of all the characters in the story. Dying of an untreatable disease and filled with fear as her death approaches, Yoshika's only comfort is getting to meet Kasen. After going their separate ways, Yoshika gets rejected by the spirit capable of granting her immortality and is poisoned by someone she put her trust in, who then takes the liberty of converting her dead body into a Soulless Shell minion to serve her for the next 1,200 years. At the end of it all, Yoshika gets to meet Kasen one last time as her old self before dying.

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