Hello, everyone. It's time for a random blog post at 4:00 AM. This time I want to explain the phenomenon that is the Mima fandom.

The Mima fandom is unlike any other in the WTC (Worldwide Touhou Community). While you definitely see pretty devoted fandoms around certain characters, their motivations are very different.

For example, I think the Cirno fandom saw quite a boost in terms of sheer numbers after IOSYS' "Cirno's Perfect Math Classroom" appeared - before then, it was just a lot of people goofing off of the nine-ball meme. The major characters in the game have fandoms in large part because of being symbolic of the entire series. There are fringe-character fans as well as nice little islands of fandom around pretty much each of the main players.

But Mima fandom is in a class all its own. She has appeared in so many of the PC-98 games, and had such a fair amount of character development (when compared to other PC-98 bosses, that is) that she more or less represents the entire PC-98 series. She is an iconic character, then, and became a central point of focus for PC-98 fans.

Somewhere along the way, Mima fans developed a reputation for being pretty passionate about their love for the character. She has never appeared in any Windows games, and yet she is arguably the most speculated potential boss whenever a new Windows game is pending. This probably originated from PC-98 fans, but then attained memetic status. Why? Because if there's one thing the WTC will embrace like a fat kid on a Twinkie, it's potential meme material. For example, there was an incident from last year, when ZUN appeared on Ustream, and a bunch of people from /jp/ jumped on to demand Mima's return in the channel's chat. This could very possibly have just been /jp/ trolls doing what comes natural, but even so, it still underlines how viral just the Mima meme is.

I think then that what makes the Mima fanbase the way it is, is that you have a foundation of actual PC-98 fans behind the WTC's eagerness to embrace anything memetic, which has kind of snowballed into what it is today.

It's been awhile since I made my last blog post, so I thought why not make a new blog post that consist of me ripping on the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil version of Remilia's theme, Septette for the Dead Princess.

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil version of Septette for the Dead Princess.

Immaterial and Missing Power version of Septette for the Dead Princess.

All right, let's see what I can do.

Septette is a song that takes much too long to get where it's going, and when it arrives there, it does so in a underwhelming fashion. I understand that you don't need super-hyped openings like in History of the Moon, Nuclear Fusion and Wonderful Heaven for fights of Stage 6 magnitudes, because Bamboo Cutter and True Administrator both demonstrate how to start softly and build up incredibly well. The problem with Septette is that it starts soft and stays soft for far too long. I just don't feel the energy. This is it! The final showdown with the crimson vampire, the source of Gensokyo's mist problem! Where's the tension, the excitement? It just isn't there. Lunar Dial gets me far more pumped. Hell, even Meiji 17 gets me more pumped, and when the atmosphere of your Stage 6 head-of-household fight is getting upstaged by the atmosphere of your Stage 3 joke-character-door-guard fight, then something's wrong.

Septette does eventually reach a point of something tense and exciting, but it's all over in about 10 seconds, and then it slowly segues into some piano fun that, while nice, feels like it's just kinda there. It could have been a good musical "cooldown" period from having a whole bunch of tension built up, but there was never any tension built up in the first place. Look at the IaMP remix of Septette . That song kicks you in the face until you tap out, which reflects the crazy battle you're having with Remilia zipping all over the place. (It even starts quiet and builds properly! Incredible how NKZ could get it right when ZUN couldn't.) There's plenty of tension in that song, especially during the aforementioned piano fun that's been transcribed over to rock guitar. I listen to the IaMP remix and I see Remilia wailing away on a Gungnir guitar as hard as she can for a whole bunch of screaming fans. I listen to the original song and I don't really hear much of anything, just a melody that's decent to listen to but nothing special. It doesn't even feel like it tells much of a story, as opposed to Border of Life or Immortal Smoke, which are basically musical summaries of the lives of their respective characters.

Basically, Septette is a song with a respectable core idea that simply doesn't execute. It's merely passable as a stand-alone song and a rather large flop as an atmosphere-setter in comparison to every other final boss song we've ever had.

Hey, everyone. Sorry I haven't posted a blog in so long, but I've been busy lately.

Anyways, if anyone is interested, here's a link to my MAL: http://myanimelist.net/profile/gamefree2

You can send me a friend request if you want too.

Oh, and Happy Holidays to you all.

I recently discovered that I'm about to own 300 games and looking back it doesn't like to long ago that I was excited about reaching 200 games. It kinda blows my mind that in less than an year I was able to afford almost 100 hundred games. Although some were really cheap, crappy Genesis and Nes games, oh well. I guess what matters is the really good games I found this year like Final Fantasy 7 and 8, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Link to the Past, and other old gems.

Ugh. I'm getting my Wisdom teeth removed later today. I'm feeling a bit nervous about it, but I know I have to get them removed sooner or later and it might as well be now. I'm also kinda hoping any of you guys have any advice or comments you can give to me before I go.:)

And just in time for Black Friday. It's about $33.75 dollars and I'm quite happy about the amount considering I worked for 4 hours and 30 minutes. I'm most likely going to get Killzone 2 for $10 dollars, but I haven't made my final decision because I'm still waiting for GameStop to post their Black Friday ad.

In other news school is going quite well. I did well on my chemistry test and Spanish test, but poorly on my Geometry test (which I can make corrections on to recieve points back).

I'm enjoying my Digital Recording class which is one of the best classes I've ever taken :D. There are 3 students in the class (including me) with one of my favorite teacher to teach us about the equipment that recording companies use to record songs and commercials.The class is really interesting and the best part about it is that we can goof off while making our commercials and songs we produce for preparation to create a final project that each student will make by themselves.

Well, I guess that's it.

I have to decide on one of thesethree games. I don't really know what to get so I'lllet Gamespothelp me with this decision.

The games are:

Mirrors Edge: Heard it was a great game that is very different so I may want to try it out.

Eternal Darkness: Found it in a pawn shop and it may be the only chance I get to buy it.

Kirby's Air ride: I played this game so much when I was younger that I might want to buy it again.

I'm leaning more towards Eternal Darkness, but I'm still not sure what to choose.

Please help.

Now that I recently bought Super Smash Bros Melee and Tony Hawk Underground I realized that I'm so close to having 200 games in my collection. I just need ten more to make it up to 200 games.

So I just recently got Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Panzer Dragoon Orta and I was wondering which one I should play first. Maybe you guys can help me decide?

Edit: I went with Star Wars.

So sobored.

Gamespot has been really boring lately and so has school. Probably one of the highlights of my day was petting my dogs. That's how boring this week has been for me. :(:x

So how is everyone today?