[Music CD] 東方蘇精音 ～ Elemental Quintet.

[Chronojet ⚙ Dragon]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put it, but the creators of White Names Spoiled Past have come up with a new soundtrack.
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm31451889

This is only a crossfade demo, but they're hoping to distribute the full version of all 16 tracks, complete with a booklet containing all of the character arts as well as conceptualized dialogue and spell names to go along with it.
However, given the number of tracks, it doesn't seem like any references to an Extra stage would be included.

Here is the homepage for announcements and other information. The backstory and prologues are posted too, and it'd be great if someone could actually translate it, along with the contents of the video.

[gilde]

Oh this is rad!!

Scenario is by NRT (Takaki Nomura, the WNSP guy), music is by 辰凪刻子 (Tokiko Tatsunagi), character design is by 神門明風 (Akika Shinmon), and booklet design is by 凛風 (Rika? Rinka? dunno). Also NRT's new doujin circle is called Original History.

Storyline summary: ever since Easter this year, Gensokyo has been celebrating a variety of Easter traditions. (...Most people don't know what the traditions are supposed to be celebrating in the first place, but that's besides the point. Faith is faith.) Three months later, a bunch of strange little creatures called "ancestral sprites" (ie. undines, salamanders, kobolds, etc.) began showing up, and are seen as signs of good fortune. One night not long after the sprites' appearance, a thick fog rolls in, and...

...uh, everyone wakes up with cat ears the next morning?? And it's probably got something to do with the sprites, so our heroes pair up to investigate. Since sprites are only visible to people with an inherent affinity for them, Reimu and Sanae (who can't see sprites) are respectively pairing up with Marisa and Youmu (who can). (Also Youmu's ghost half has its own pair of cat ears.)

Stage 1 bosses are Orin and Utsuho, who are selling hot-spring eggs for Easter. Stage 2 boss is Atari Senpiki, a kaji-ga-kaka (youkai from folklore that's a wolf disguised as a blacksmith's wife). She leads a wolf pack in the Bamboo Forest, and operates a smithy that makes stuff for the kappa engineers. Ability: agitating wolves by swinging swords. Stage 3 boss is Yukine, an Eagle Ravi squad member who's staying on Earth with Ringo and Seiran. Hanging out near an abandoned gold mine that the rabbits used for a base during LoLK. Ability: freely manipulating the size of her mallet. Each boss also has a sprite partner, foisted on them a few days prior by a powerful sprite from the Youkai Mountain. Utsuho has an undine, Atari has a salamander, Yukine has a kobold. Stage 5 and 6 bosses appear to have a gnome and... a sylph, maybe?

1. Overture of the Sprites
2. Pastorale of Grey Water ~ Long for homeland.      (Partial remix of Old World)
3. Duet of Bird and Beast      (Partial remix of Nuclear Fusion and Be of Good Cheer!)
4. Passion of a Sweltering Day
5. March of the Blacksmith in the Turmoil's Center
6. Rondo of the Sacred Gold Mine
7. Waltz of the White Mallet Rabbit
8. Chorale of the Basilica di San Cristisia
9. Intermezzo of (spoiler)
10. Nocturne of (spoiler) ~ Abyssal Xanadu.      (Remix of An Instant Shorter than Planck and Schrodinger's Bakeneko)
11. Nursery Rhyme of (spoiler)      (Includes melody from traditional song Toryanse)
12. Oratio of (spoiler)
13. Quintet of (spoiler) ~ Elemental Quintet
14. Finale of the Sprites
15. Fantasia of the Maidens      (Remix of Necro-Fantasy and Necrofantasia)
16. ?

Album will be released on October 15, 2017.

[Chronojet ⚙ Dragon]

This is pretty interesting.

I'm actually pretty surprised that it's Marisa and not Reimu who's able to see those creatures, but I guess they just are that way.

...uh, everyone wakes up with cat ears the next morning??

Though I feel like this is so out of place.
It's probably the same reason why Schrodinger's Bakeneko is in that stage 5 theme?

I'm honestly pretty curious to read the dialogue when it comes out, it'll probably explain something about why all these songs are named after musical genres. NRT isn't the type to just throw something in and pass it off as an Easter egg, I reckon.

[Lollipop]

music's by Tokiko, hype is real

[gilde]

Eyyyy I know this is a necrobump but: my copy of the album arrived last month!! Many thanks to N-Forza.

I was going to do a story summary post after I finished a drawing of the bosses to go along with it, but, I've already been A.) doing other things at the same time, and B.) procrastinating, for a month now. So I figured I should probably get my butt in gear and post it already even if the drawings will have to be later. :V

The Stage 4 boss is Cris Taishan, an ancestral sprite descended from the Chinese creation god, Pangu. She rules over the Five Peaks, a group of mountains in China said to be created from Pangu's remains, each representing one of the five elements in Taoism. Ability: governing sprites.

The Stage 5 boss is Mike'emon Nekomatsu, the chief of the bakeneko on Nekodake, which is one of the five major peaks in Japan's Aso mountain range. Nekodake is host to various folk legends involving bakeneko; one of the most notable ones involves an inn staffed by bakeneko disguised as humans, who turn human visitors into bakeneko by dousing them with water. As such, Mike'emon's ability is turning people into bakeneko. Partnered with a gnome. (The kanji for "sound" in her surname is also present in the game's JP title.)

Stage 6 boss is Asohime Takamikado, patron goddess of the Aso volcanic mountain range and the various legends associated therewith. Ability: creating landforms. Partnered with an elf. (The kanji for "revival" in both her name and Mt. Aso's is also present in the game's JP title. it was staring us in the face all aloooooooong)

Remaining bgm titles:

9. Intermezzo of the Five Elements' Revival Sprites
10. Nocturne of the Bakeneko Tribe ~ Abyssal Xanadu.
11. Nursery Song of Chief Nekomatsu
12. Oratio of the Five Elements' Five Peaks
13. Quintet that Resounds Atop the High Summit ~ Elemental Quintet.

16. Score of the Players (ie. Player's Score)

The full story is as follows:

As the goddess of Mt. Aso, Asohime feels a personal responsibility to ensure the well-being of all the mythological creatures, folklore and so on that the mountains are host to. No matter how hard one tries to preserve them, however, there are always some stories and youkai whose faith will inevitably dwindle. Mike'emon's bakeneko tribe on Nekodake is one such example. Nevertheless determined to ensure the survival of Mike'emon and co., Asohime decided to bolster their faith by letting them cause an incident in Gensokyo.
The problem that arose, however, is that Mike'emon's folklore is able to exist as it does precisely because it's part of Mt. Aso, and therefore has the backing of Aso's divine nature. Since Mt. Aso is still very much a part of the modern world, it still has people worshiping it out here, but not so much in Gensokyo. And bringing the full brunt of Asohime's divinity into Gensokyo would count as an incident itself, overshadowing Mike'emon.

This is when Asohime thought: Hang on. How many people in the Outside World actually know all the details of Aso's legends? It's hardly as if every single person who visits a shrine seriously believes in the gods that reside there, y'know. But as Kanako would likely point out, even that casual patronage can keep a god's faith alive and well. Even the vague acknowledgement of something like the real Mt. Aso could be enough to support the beings associated with it.
Thus, Asohime contacted a friend of hers-- Cris, who rules over a similar set of five sacred mountains-- and asked her to help set up a makeshift "Mt. Aso" in Gensokyo. To do so, Cris chose five individuals whose names shared kanji and/or pronunciations with Mt. Aso's five peaks:

• Reiuji Utsuho (霊烏路 空) = Eboshi-dake (烏帽子岳) ("Bird" kanji)
• Kaenbyou Rin (火焔猫 燐) = Neko-dake (根子岳) ("Cat" pronunciation)
• Senpiki Atari (千疋 中) = Naka-dake (中岳) ("Center" kanji)
• Yukine (雪杵) = Kijima-dake (杵島岳) ("Mallet" kanji)
• Takamikado Asohime (高天門 阿蘇姫) = Taka-dake (高岳) ("High" kanji)

Each of these individuals would be given an elemental sprite-- a "small god," as it were-- which would serve as a magnet for faith directed towards them. Since the sudden appearance of the sprites would normally raise people's suspicions, Cris did some hype-man work to get everyone excited about Easter traditions first. When she quietly introduced the sprites, everyone assumed that they were just some sort of good-luck thing that sprang up as part of the Easter faith; this helped the five makeshift mountains receive some faith (like, "hey, that gal's got a sprite! she must be pretty lucky!") but not overly much.
Thus, even though nobody knew what they were really providing faith to, the general faith and goodwill directed at these people with names resembling the five peaks was enough to create a working replica of Aso. (The fact that Cris and her sprites were already from a holy mountain range probably helped too.)
(*So, yes, the Easter stuff was completely irrelevant in the end, besides being a red herring for the "revival" kanji in "Aso" and so forth. Any faith could've worked as a smokescreen. It's still relevant to the general theme of "faith through misinterpretation," though, which is something that NRT's cited as an inspiration for both this and WNSP.)

Cris tried to give Orin a sprite partner, but since Orin couldn't see sprites, it was a no-go. (this was mentioned in orin's profile prior to the cd's release but i didn't mention it at the time b/c i didn't realize it served as "nekodake" foreshadowing WHOOPS!!) They had to give the sprite to Mike'emon (Nekomatsu) instead, but thankfully, she didn't seem to realize that it was part of their setup for her. She clued in to the conditions in Gensokyo on her own, and went on to fill the land with mist that gave everyone cat ears. Reimu and co. obviously recognized the events as an incident at this point, but that was fine; letting Mike'emon cause a ruckus and establish a spooky tale of That One Time Everyone Kinda Turned Into Cats was the goal, so Asohime and friends were already satisfied.

(*A minor detail I like is that after fighting Yukine, she contacts Sagume to ask what the heck is up with the sprites, and Sagume is the one the protagonists learn about the "makeshift gods" thing from. For a second I was like "wait, Sagume?? openly talking about something??" but then realized, oh, the relevant event already happened so Sagume doesn't have to worry about changing its outcome. if this were an actual game that'd be a nice bit of demo foreshadowing)

Also, it turns out in the end that Mike'emon did actually realize what Asohime was up to, but she also knew that the reason Asohime wanted to keep it a secret was to let Mike'emon be proud of accomplishing the incident on her own. So she feigned ignorance. (the truth comes out in the Stage 6 conversation and mike'emon's like "nooo asohime u don't have to fight the shrine maiden for me you've already done more than enough ( /;w;)/" and asohime's like "nooo nekomatsu i'm your patron volcano goddess i wanna help you out \(;A;\ )" and it's, like, real sweet. asohime is The Mom Friend)

Then everyone's all buddy-buddy and they have drinks at the shrine like usual. The cat ears eventually wear off, but the tale of That One Time Everyone Kinda Got Turned Into Cats proudly lives on, and the goddess of Mt. Aso has forged a new bond with the youkai that she lives to protect.

TL;DR: YOU THOUGHT IT WAS JESUS??? NO!! IT WAS make a miniature replica of mt. aso to turn everyone into cats.  no really

so yah it's a nice album & i love it a lot & im gonna, draw the characters, eventually, i swear
(also nekomatsu's theme has these really high-pitched violins that sound like cats wailing in the background and i love it)

[Popcioslav]

EDIT: As of late I've got a chance to get my hands on the album, it's actually pretty great really. Especially Stage 3 boss theme