Chapter 38's been out for a bit, with a completely out of left field reveal and a more shocking development
The accomplice who secretely assisted Miss Miyadeguchi actually turned out to be Suika who, together with Yuugi, broke the restriction of the Underworld to help vengeful ghost girl to get out. Now as someone who hasn't made an appearance in this manga, her suddenly coming into the picture in such a manner is just completely weird and unexpected for me : as far as this manga goes, I think that does NOT reward people who kinda try to deduct what is happening as she hasn't been teased in any way whatsoever in this manga. It probably has intersting implications for Touhou fans who follow this manga, but for randos who potentially stumbled here and try to appreciate this manga for what it is, it's probably just super weird. Going by this manga being primarily a manga made for Touhou fans (who should be expected to know lore and stuff), I am willing to give it a "*shrug* why not ?" and assume that Suika and her exceptionnal intelligence gathering capabilities + connection to hell are what was behind Miss Miyadeguchi being pretty updated on the current stuff going on in Gensokyo despite having been in Hell for all her lifetime afterlifetime (assuming that Suika didn't just start helping Miss Miyadeguchi after she got sealed but before too)
Additional considerations can be made due to the fact that she's a youkai, not unlike those that were targeted by Miss Miyadeguchi, and can be said to have a rather favorable relationship with the Hakurei Shrine and Yukari : why would she ruin the putting-the-bad-guy-in-jail-and-then-beat-her-up-there operation that Reimu and Yukari's got going on ? And how did she get involved with Miss Miyadeguchi ? Also Miss Miyadeguchi's face when they say Suika looks more like a "huh." than a "heh !", kinda makes me wonder if she knew she had an outside helper.
Anyway, back to our favorite(?) vengeful spirit, since Yuugi pretty much sided with her out of pity (presumably), similar reason could be why Suika would back her up too. So whatever backstory she's gonna have, I really hope ZUN's gonna be able to make something really poignant. Like, she's been Hakurei Shrinemaidening for a while but had to go cuz of outdated values not fitting for the future direction Gensokyo was to take or something PLUS extra flavor. I'm not super confident in ZUN's ability at telling sad and griping stuff so, uh, I hope he's at least gonna make something that'll make me go like "wooooow, that's dirty, they did her bad" or something
Personally, I'm still slightly hanging on the possibility of Yukari having played a hand in Miss Miyadeguchi getting freed up still, not only cuz of previous irregulaities in PCB arc, but also because of her connection with Suika (whose motivation for getting involved is currently unsure as someone who really don't strike as a hero of justice, avenger of the wronged) : could it be possible that Yukari got Suika to get involved with Miss Miyadeguchi ? I also find it very suspicious that somehow, Yukari also got Reimu away from her Shrine on a relatively dangerous mission AND just about miss Miss Miyadeguchi as she does some reckless stuff on the surface : the Hakurei Shrine getting wasted plus the mountain going boom is such a big gaffe from her part that I kinda wonder if there's a bigger meaning behind her the Reimu - Miyadeguchi faceoff to be delayed AND Reimu SOMEHOW being isolated from the action at a critical time ...
As for the mountain going boom, honestly, it's a development that I never expected to happen, especially not in a manga : it's a pretty old part of the setting (BaiJR prolly) and supposedly under the control of Suwako, so I didn't really expect it being mentionned much earlier in the manga to be of importance. Pretty much nothing important besides the tengus joining the investigation happen during the MoF arc anyway, so the eruption kinda suggests that whatever she did at that time may be related to facilitating what's going on right now.
Now regarding Miss Miyadeguchi's actions through this series, this is obviously a much higher escalation. I personally believe that she pulled an ABC murder style approach in this manga, and her going in order of incident causers really was to justify her going to the mountain to pull out this feat. For what purpose ? Is there some secret in the mountains ? That remains to be seen ...
Anyway, with all the happenings aside, there still remains a bunch of oddities that I'm not sure are gonna get reexplored :
- Why did she KO Alice, if she is pretty much secluded and have little bearing to her endgame (of which the eruption is presumably part of)
- What shocked Hatate ?
- Why is Suika part of all this ?
Plus we're still waiting for the SDM crew to make their move, and we also gotta wait to see if we're gonna have everybody vs Miss Miyadeguchi or Miss Miyadeguchi AND a bunch of allies (such as Yuugi and Suika vs the gang)
All in all, a chapter that doesn't tell a lot BUT with potentially massive implications, considering the fact that we have a former Hakurei no Miko and a freaking volcano ERUPTION, which easily clears 90% of previous incidents in terms of dangerousness.
Also Satori's relevance seem pretty minuscule as we go forward in the series, poor baby girl
Minor takeaways :
- Sanae's Kanako, uh, boob grab ? I've always felt that Kanako has, as the cool kidz say, such a negative rizz that I feel that giving her a playable role or even trying to sexualize her still don't help her image in the eyes of the community
- Marisa's complete absence in this arc, kinda weird considering how she keep forcefully sticking her nose in all of the previous ones