七夕坂夢幻能 ~ Taboo Japan Disentanglement Announced

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mods: pls move to News/Announcements thanks

ZUN's tenth Hifuu music CD (twelfth including UMFJ and RCS), arriving 8 years after the previous one, has been announced for sale at Reitaisai this May!

https://touhou-project.news/news/11292/

Super excited, looks like tracks  1, 2, 5, 8, and 11 will be original.

The rest are as follows:
3. HSiFS Stage 5
4. UM Stage 3 Boss
6. HSiFS Stage 5 Bosses
7. AoCF Yukari
9. WBaWC Stage 1
10. HSiFS Okina (Stage 6)

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Someone noticed that the ribbons/outline on Maribel's hat have looped themselves suspiciously like how Yukari's hat ribbon looks. A sign?

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Regarding the title, the name of track one "Morning on Tanabata Hill" implies that "七夕坂" is a location "Tanabata Hill".

So the title would be "Tanabata Hill Dream-Fantasy Ability"

[degradingwindow]

This is exciting. The way ZUN is describing it, it seems like this album will really lean in into telling a proper story. The other albums also told stories but I think that this one will really focus on making an emotional story as seen by the album cover and the song names. Having Tanabata(which indicates separation between couples) in the album title and the first song's name and Renko reaching out to a sleeping(?) Maribel has some very interesting implications as to what might happen. Since the idea of losing yourself between dreams and reality has already been established before, I believe that it might be possible that Maribel will lose herself in the dream world and Renko will have to help her in some way.

I have no clue as to what the door could represent though.

I hope it gets a Spotify release early.

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Someone made a 40 minute video on bilibili analyzing the information available so far https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1dD421W7qC

It's much too long to translate in full, so I'll put some highlights. Keep in mind this is third-hand information and may be inaccurate.

Regarding the album title:

• Tanabata Hill is a real-life location in Ibaraki Prefecture, Hitachiota City, Akatsuchicho Town
• There are legends that if one enters the hill at a certain time on the morning of Tanabata (in the old Chinese/lunar calendar, so not July 7th but the 7th day of the 7th lunar month), then extraordinary happenings will occur to that person (e.g. being possessed by a maleovolent spirit)
• 夢幻能 is literally the characters for "Dream-Fantasy Ability", but in context it refers to Mugen Noh, a type of Noh theatre. So the title means "Mugen Noh on Tanabata Hill ~ Taboo Japan Disentanglement". As wikipedia puts it:
  

  Mugen Noh (夢幻能, "supernatural Noh") involves supernatural worlds, featuring gods, spirits, ghosts, or phantasms in the shi-te role. Time is often depicted as passing in a non-linear fashion, and action may switch between two or more timeframes from moment to moment, including flashbacks.

  Sounds really familiar, hmm?
  
• Not far from Tanabata Hill is a memorial about the tobacco industry during the Meiji restoration, so there's some potential tie-in to tobacco.
• Disentanglement likely refers to Renko's quest to "disentangle" Merry from some demon or spirit that's possessed her, as punishment for them breaking the taboo of Tanbata Hill.

Regarding the cover:

• The flower on the cover is unidentified, but could potentially be a red flowering tobacco plant.
• The ribbon on Maribel's hat has not appeared in any prior art, and looks a lot like Yukari's.

Regarding the track titles and selections:

• Track 1, Morning on Tanabata Hill, serves as the initial setting. Merry and Renko likely intentionally or unintentionally pass through Tanabata Hill, triggering its taboo, leading Merry into trouble
• Track 2, Inequality of Tinker Bell. Relates obviously to Tinker Bell, but also may refer to Bell Inequality, a concept in quantum physics relating to entanglement.
• Okina's inspiration is the patron god of Noh theater, and HSiFS appears the most among the remixes in this album. It's likely Okina plays a big part in the story this time.
• Track 3, HSiFS Stage 5 "Does the Forbidden Door Lead to This World, or the World Beyond?" ties into the door on the cover and probably also the plot.
• Track 4, Smoking Dragon, likely chosen for its thematic name rather than Sannyo's character.
• Track 5, Mugen Noh ~ Taboo Marionette. Likely important, as it has part of the album name in it. Perhaps the beginning of the climax of the story.
• Track 6, Crazy Backup Dancers. Perhaps Merry or Renko are performing Noh in a frenzied or frantic method at this point
• Track 7, Yorimashi sits between dreams and reality ~ Necro-fantasia. We'll probably get some big reveal about what happened to Merry in the story here.
• Track 8's name is approximately "Lonesome Walk on a Road in Hitachi". That "Hitachi" is the same as in "Hitachiota", the city in which Tanabata Hill is located.
• Track 9, Lamentations Only Known by Jizo. Perhaps Renko prays to Jizo for help to save Merry.

[Suspicious person]

New RenMerries, yay

Most of the talk I see about tend to take the sad route

No offense to the big man, but I'm not super confident about ZUN's ability to write drama (he likes the lighthearted, slice of life route), so I'm somewhat expecting no real change to happen here. Hope I'm wrong though !

Also the suspicious door plus Okina related themes suggesting that she'll be of some relevance kinda worries me a bit. I like Yuk- uhhh, Maribel's possibilities as her power keep growing, and I feel like it'd take a bit of her agency and potential future self if whatever possibility may be are the way they are because it had Okina behind it

Also reading "8 years after the previous one" inspire some strange and unpleasant feelings within me, hmm. Are we sure NToJ isn't from 3 years ago or something ?

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Regarding the track titles and selections:

• Track 8's name is approximately "Lonesome Walk on a Road in Hitachi". That "Hitachi" is the same as in "Hitachiota", the city in which Tanabata Hill is located.
• Track 9, Lamentations Only Known by Jizo. Perhaps Renko prays to Jizo for help to save Merry.

What about tracks 10 and 11? Did the video mention those?
Tracks 8 and 9 seem interesting to me. The name of track 9 literally mentions Jizo protects who protects the spirits of dead children and that all ties up with Ebisu, that's pretty obvious but I don't really see how that might be applied to Renko or Maribel. But, researching more into the topic, Jizo is also seen as a deity that protects travellers on roads and considering the name of track 8 literally has road in it, it's safe to assume they're connected in a way.

New RenMerries, yay

Considering all the Tanabata references, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch too see a parallel between Renko and Maribel with Orihime and Hikoboshi. ZUN might be too much of a coward to have them get together but he can't hide the romantic tensions between the two.