 | "Five Strips per Week" by Akira
(2010-09-03) |
Five strips per week for two weeks. I'm little exhausted already. I'm quite amazed I was able to do that years ago. Today's comic strip took three hours to complete. one hour for rought sketch, one hour for ink, and screen tones + dialogs for one hour. Over all, I think I draw this page quite well. I wanted to make a third panel little bit romantic/sexier, but I couldn't. I need more practice.
Please write your comment to this strip at pOnju forum
 | "Looking into Touhou with detail - Patchouli Knowledge" by Totaku
(2010-09-03) |
We're finally at the half way point through EoSD by about this point. This is where things become more difficult and intense compared to how they use to be. It only becomes harder from here on out. But we eventually meet up with the 4th stage boss and another interesting charater who would play an interesting role through the series. The Great Unmoving Librarian, Patchouli Knowledge.
Patchouli Knowledge
Patchouli Knowledge working in the Scarlet Devil Mansion as the librarian and is a fond collector of books. When Reimu and Patchouli first enter the SDM this is where they first travel through. The team eventually confront her with the library and before too long she treats them as unwelcomed guests. She then challenges Reimu or Marisa into danmaku combat which proved that she was filled with alot more capable magic than she realized. However by the end she was defeated and she end up telling the team to go through the main hall and talk to the master of the mansion if she wants to deal with the mist problem.
Following after the events of EoSD, Patchouli has become invovled in a number of events mostly indirectly since she rarely leaves the mansion. Ranging from appearing in a fighting game, assiting Marisa with her magic and even developing a rocket ship for her mistress.
Patchouli herself is a magician but unlike Marisa, she is not human, she is more of a human turned youkai due to her magic. (At least based on ZUN's recent explanation). As she is well over 100 years in age so far.
Patchouli doesn't usually leave outside of the Scarlet mansion and spends most of her time within the Volie Library as she collects and sorts out books. And as it's clearly known she reads alot of them on her freetime. Part of the big reason she doesn't go outside that much is die to her poor body condition and she suffer from asthma. This supposedly also effects her magic, but that's not entirely clear....
Patchouli is also known under the title as the "One Week Magician" mainly due to her ability to control 7 elements of magic. All which are strangely enough.... based after the kanji within the days of the week. Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Gold (or metal), Moon, and Sun. Because of this, her magic is very vast and comes in alot of variations. To the point, that depending on who you pick and what shot type will determine what kind of spells Patchouli will use. This part is also what makes Patchouli a unique boss is that her magic isn't always the same depending on how you play.
Eventually in later chapters she became even more popular for a catch phase she said after being defeated by Marisa in IaMP which was "Mukyu". This of course was applied to Patchouli as if it was a trade mark to her making her more interesting.
And as mentioned before hand, Patchouli eventually allies up with Marisa during SA by lending her the ability to use her magic while staying behind at the mansion.But even before hand fanworks have shown them together as well.
Probably one of the most notable things about Patchouli Knowledge herself is that she may of been a character of insperation for the mangaka Ken Akamatsu for the manga Negima!. Considering EoSD was released during the year 2002 and Negima came out at 2003. One of the characters in Negima! who is Yue Ayase, which is known also as she has Purple, long hair, is relatively short, and spends her time reading books and even she a simlar facial expression like Patchouli. It's no wonder that perhaps Ken himself was influence by Touhou when creating such a character. It is rumored that Ken even admits at one point that Yue was influence from the series.
Another important note is that one of Patchouli's spells was evetually ripped off my Marisa in a later game.... her non-directional lasers. Which is one of two notiable spells that Marisa pretty much stole from another charater.
In the fanon world of Touhou, Patchouli is often captured as sort of a hikkimori, never leaving her library, very often. And mostly reading her books. And in many doujins she's been viewed to have a possible relation with Marisa. Mostly a like hate relations, due to Marisa's nature to burst in to come take her books that she wants to "burrow". But other times they are viewed as friends as well. The possibilities are endless between how Marisa and Patchouli interact due to the number of times they run into each other game wise. Which is why she's is consider on one of the many charaters in Marisa's "harem". Otherwise, Patch is pretty much captured just like how she was through the games.
Now as a clear reminder for everyone, here's who I covered over the course of this week... as you will have to scroll to the bottom of the Akira's comic to read.
Marisa Kirisame
Rumia
Cirno
Hong Meiling
This is it for this week. Next Monday I'll begin to cover a key charater that has reoccured over the series and served as a popular boss in EoSD. The stage 5 boss and head maid, Sakuya Izayoi
Till next time,
Totaku
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