Mods: Move to News? Idk if it belongs
But anyways, ZUN had been hinting last year at a new print book releasing this year, and that it'd be fortune telling related. More news about it came out in the past day or so from information appearing on the publisher's site.
The name's "東方幻存神簽 ~ Whispered Oracle of Hakurei Shrine." In the materials, "Hakurei" is misspelled as "Hakueri", hopefully ZUN catches that one before it goes to the press lol.
"神簽" refers to the fortune-telling sticks/lots common in East Asia, known in Japan as O-mikuji. ZUN actually did a little activity in Reitaisai 15 in 2018 where people drew fortune strips and whoever had the "Great Fortune" one would get an autograph. The photos are archived on the Chinese wiki here.
The release date is going to be April 1, 2025. Speculatively, it's likely set between the end of Cheating Detective Satori and the story for the new game that will be demoed at Reitaisai in May. The length is 160 pages and it's said to cover most if not all of the characters in the series.
The plot is, "Reimu was commissioned to create a set of O-mikuji and sell them at the shrine, in order to put a certain incident to rest. They record the youkai of Gensokyo and the fortune each will bring."
Personally, it seems like ZUN will be using this work to kind of end off another arc in the series' past ten years (certainly, an end to the story from WBaWC until UDoALG), wrapping things up and getting off to a refreshed start for Touhou 20.
I got this info from a Chinese post: https://www.bilibili.com/opus/1033717814058287120, if anyone knows of any inaccuracies please point them out!
"東方幻存神簽 ~ Whispered Oracle of Hakurei Shrine Announced"...are there actually "more estimated hints,clues,odds" about meant to be "Touhou 20","Touhou 19.5" or "an equal chance of either "?
As someone who can read Japanese to an extent that passage is pretty unambiguously referring to a specific fourth group, but if there is a mistranslation, it's that the "and so on" is actually meant to an "etc.," meaning that that group that uses underhanded means is but one of many groups that operate beyond the main three. Further down Yachie's profile it does say there are "four big groups," implying this fourth group is still fairly prominent, but they are not the only four groups in operation.
The corresponding and almost-correctly translated extract from
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Yachie_Kicchou (Omake-Wily Beast and Weakest Creature) is as follows...
"...The Keiga Family is an organization of beast spirits with excellent leg strength, fangs, and strong bodies
The Kiketsu Family is an organization of beast spirits that excel at surprise attacks from the ground, the water, darkness, and so on.
The Gouyoku Alliance is an organization of beast spirits that fight from the air or with overwhelming numbers, from a bird's-eye point of view.
There're also many mysterious organizations of beast spirits, such as the one(s) who excel in cowardly methods of fighting, such as traps, poisons, parasitism, camouflage, etc.
Within the Animal Realm, each of these enormous beast organizations competed for their share...".
Indeed there is is a translation mistake about " 'many organizations... such as the one (prominent)'instead of the correct 'many organizations...such as the ones(one among many').
This fundamentally confirms,fully supported from the facts Touhou 17 until now and the coming future,there is a "Major Unsettled/Loose 4th Block formed by many Animal Realm secondary-grade secondary-layer groups" but " No 4th (Concealment&Underheadedness-specialized) Major organization-family of the Animal Realm"...
Nevertheless this does not exclude " single future major or secondary or mixed characters" coming by or being involved with them,but "their main focus is not going to be their organization-family and representation because they are definitively minor-importance by organization-family-representativity ,nor they could grow by themselves by alliance or other means and be allowed as such compared with the Keiga,the Kitetsu,the Gouyouku".
