Touhou review - Forbidden Scrollery ZUN is a genius, as a man who have a family, lots of life experience and alcohol, ZUN's work drips with messages and his life views, and as a result tend to run deeper than most manga and anime, one chapter of Forbidden Scrollery is worth a deep analysis about both the lore and messages, and is more fulfilling than 10 or more chapters of any other manga. Story - 8 Suzunaan's story revolves around the book store called Suzunaan ran by the family of Motoori Kosuzu, and ties into the ongoing world of Touhou lore. Featuring stories ranging from the dangerous youkaibooks kept within Suzunaan to ongoing incidents such as the aftermath of Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom. From the way the story is told, it should be categorized as a Slice of Life, but Suzunaan accomplished what all of those sad excuses of a story could not do, it is immersive.

Well...technically that is the common appeal of the entire Touhou franchise, but in terms of manga, Suzunaan manages to convey the culture and world in it as a very believable world, even while it is very alien.

Character - 9

It is said that it is what the author don't say that shows the skill of an author best, and ZUN certainly taken that to heart. For example, without showing Yukari at all, ZUN was still able to paint her as a master schemer, like in the year-end Doomsday urban legend event, after LoLK, we know that Yukari took the lunar power stone, yet we don't know why, and after reading chapter 35, it all comes into place like a jigsaw puzzle, and makes you go "Oh, so that's why she did that", and taking in the events of the doomsday rumour, you realize that everyone was just dancing on her palm, and this was done with NO exposition or SHOWING Yukari at all. Masterful, I actually had to use my brain for once and actually piece together the story from the clues scattered all around.

Overall - 8

It is like a multi-layered sweets, the first layer is really easy to dig into, but once you dig harder and connect it to other lores you realize there is another layer underneath it all, and when you dig even deeper you find even more layers, and in your excitement to keep digging deeper into the lore, you became a Touhou fanboy, Congrats.