Content Warning: Complete anti-climatic filler that goes no where and completely fails on a fundamental storytelling level. Seriously ZUN? You can do better at this. You know somethings wrong when fucking fan fic writers are better at writing fight scenes than the creator of the series they're writing for. Weak.
Not at all. While "nothing happened", the fact that the huge buildup has been swiftly cut to this means something. I believe the atmosphere here to be somewhat a fault of the translation group since they missed several important establishing points in the chapter.
If anything it's people's expectations of having a big dramatic fight scene that is out of line with the series. You know this isn't a shounen battle manga. Maybe Mamizou will dish out some shit next chapter.
This translation is pretty awkward and stilted. Some more important notes:
- The title of the chapter omits that this is Part 1 of "Yukari Yakumo's Peace".
- The talk between Marisa and Sanae about "miracles" has no emphasis on the point whatsoever and overlaps the use of 不思議 with 奇跡 which confuses the whole thing. I don't think anyone involved got the point of this. This chapter continues from the previous VFiS chapter where the Fairies made all the trees magically bloom. Sanae mentions that she thought the trees were blooming late, which was pointed out in that chapter, and Marisa's response is "well you're right, but something mysterious happened", referring to the Fairies, and mirroring what she says at the end of that chapter. Sanae uses this to springboard and say causing mysterious (不思議) things is her job, upon which they
actually comment on miracles (奇跡), and the page ends with Sanae says "speaking of mysterious (不思議) things, leading into the next page about the strange plans. "Speaking of miracles" makes no sense here and this whole context seems to have just been dropped entirely.
- Hanami*, *tn hanami means flower viewing? Really guys?
- "Previous flower viewings weren't this peaceful" -> "Flower viewing days usually aren't this quiet", i.e. usually they're more lively. Hence the solemn mood. This entire chapter is meant to evoke a sense of unease and framing it as "peace" misses out on that.
- "So you are assuming that she was kidnapped" -> "So you're
treating this as though she was". Semi-important distinction; this is how they're handling the situation, but is not necessarily Akyu's personal assumption. This is why the next bit follows...
- "That fits with the rare occurrences of previous etc": This seems to imply the human village literally changed form somehow and gives the wrong impression. Following from the previous panel, "Ever since the current state of the Human Village, assuming that a youkai caused it matches the few serious events that have occurred", or something. She's saying it's common sense within the village to treat the case as though it was the doings of a youkai.
- Aya goes through the reasoning of "when considering a world without many requirements, that would be the outside world, wouldn't it" so obviously the conclusion she makes should be "outside world" and not just "another world". She does only say "spirited away", but backtracking to just "another world" makes no sense. Also, it's somewhat important to note that Aya does use the term 異界 ("otherworld") here. The translation currently uses "other world" but nobody would ever know this is meant to be the same term. She basically says "in addition to Gensokyo, many so-called otherworlds exist".
- Akyuu suddenly mentioning a flower viewing is meant to surprise Aya, and implies that the gathering is related to the discussion. Probably could come across better.
- "Nameless devil in shadows" -> "Nameless demon that was nothing but a shadow", or something. It literally looks like a shadow.
- "Why did you mention it now" -> "Why would it appear now"; hence showing the scroll it was sealed in. Or even just "why now of all times" to keep the ambiguity.
The last few pages are also done super weird, but aren't as important in terms of narrative or mood.
Overall I feel like the intended atmosphere of the chapter has been lost a bit. It's really easy to look at this chapter after the big buildup of the previous chapters and think it doesn't make any sense, but the swift cut at the climax to this atmosphere is supposed to be disturbing.