Touhou 5.5: Mima's Great Defeat

Touhou 5.5: Mima's Great Defeat, known in Japan as Touhou Yuureishi (東方幽霊死), is a 1990 made-for-TV anime short film directed by Hiroshi Takajima and produced by Drillimation Studios. The film revolves around the death of Mima between the events of Touhou 5: Mystic Square and Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. The film aired on Fuji TV on August 3, 1990. The film was licensed in North America by Walt Disney Television Animation and aired on ABC's Saturday Morning Block on October 27, 1990, shortly before the 26th episode of the English version of Magical Girl Team Lucky Star aired. The film was released on VHS and Laserdisc in 1991, followed by a DVD release in 1998, then a Blu-Ray release as a bonus feature with The Touhou Project Movie in 2011.

The film was very well received and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 64th Academy Awards in 1991, but lost to Daniel Greaves' Manipulation. The film earned a 9.1 on IMDb and an 88/100 on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot
The film begins shortly after the events of Touhou 5: Mystic Square. Reimu Hakurei (Wendee Lee) and Marisa Kirisame (Jen Taylor) are depicted in their new Driller Engine 2 outfits, and at the beginning of the film, Reimu is seen exiting her home and meeting Marisa, and the two discuss Gensokyo's next fate.

While exploring a meadow, Reimu loses Marisa and encounters Mima, asking Reimu who she is, and Reimu lies to Mima that she is not Reimu, and the two argue over their actual appearance. After escaping Mima, Mima then heads into the Hakurei Shrine, only to find the snippets of Reimu's original purple hair when she cut her hair short, and then finds out that girl with the brownish-black hair was Reimu. Mima does the same thing to Marisa's home, finding a snippet of Marisa's hair as well when she did the same thing as Reimu.

While Marisa is exploring the forest trying to find Reimu, she encounters Shinki again and engages in a brief duel, but is interrupted by Reimu who finally finds her, and joins the fight as well. After Shinki is defeated again, the two head to Marisa's home, but Louise blocks the entrance to Marisa's home and engages in another duel that causes part of Marisa's home to be destroyed. She explains that her parents will "fix it later".

As night falls, a beaming light from the sky appears, causing Reimu to go outside with many others and the beaming light releases Mima, which frightens everyone but Reimu and Marisa, and begins to attack Reimu for lying over her appearance. Marisa makes an announcement near everyone that Mima is too dangerous and that children return home. As the battle between Reimu and Mima progresses, Marisa joins, but the children that Marisa asked to return home return as an angry mob and begin throwing torches at Mima on an attempt to set her on fire. The torches are ineffective as only magic can hurt Mima. After finally attacking Mima hard enough, Reimu chants the Death Prayer and uses and ofuda to seal Mima, but the ofuda causes Mima to dissolve, as a cause of "being downed by a bunch of young kids".

The next morning after the fight, Gensokyo has a huge celebration over Mima's death, and as the credits roll, various images from the feast are shown. A post-credits scene shows a small red light appearing from the horizon, setting up the events of Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Production
The film was in production for two years before being released, and began production after the release of Touhou 5: Mystic Square. The film was planned as a feature-length animated film, but the concept was scrapped as it would take years to produce a 90-minute movie based on Touhou Project, and jokingly predicted the film wouldn't release sometime until 1995. A short film came to fruition, and Takajima wanted it to be aired on TV instead of releasing the film theatrically. Entries for a contest to get a chance to be in it were advertised in Nintendo Power and Famitsu, but the contest was a failure and Drillimation got some of their previous voice actors to voice the characters instead.

Mima's Great Defeat also marked the first time Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame were given voices, who would later go on to continue their roles starting in Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Reception
The film was very well received by critics, with its reviews being mostly positive. The film currently holds an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.