← Enter the gap to go
back to the Outside World!

My obsession with a Japanese bullet-hell doujin

Play a random song
while you read →


Info Section

Content

Welcome to Touhou Project. There are many ways in which one can consume Touhou content: the notoriously hard mainline bullet hell game series (currently 19), official collabs (fighters, etc), fangames, canon manga, fan comics, fanime (fan-made anime), official music by ZUN, doujin music circles (e.g. Shibayan Records, found via e.g. music videos on Youtube), and memes (such as trendy stuff, fanon, and fumo memes).

Is it an anime?

Not really. It does have anime style, canon manga, and a lot of Japanese stuff for sure, but the community does not like when outsiders label it as "anime", and I understand that lol. The exception is that there are fan-made animes; if an official anime ever comes out (which I hope & pray for) maybe you could start calling it anime. Disclaimer: for the sake of conciseness in this passage I describe Touhou stuff with the word "anime" because of their anime style.

ZUN, the Creator

The creator of Touhou Project is called ZUN and he likes drinking beer. His real name is Jun'ya Ōta and he is a middle-aged Japanese man. His doujin group and one-man-team is called Team Shanghai Alice and he makes all the canon games, art, writing and music himself. He also notably uses trumpets a lot in his music, so his fans called them ZUNpets. You can tell that he loves his fanbase - he gives much permission to his fans to make their own fan-creations of the franchise and even sell them. He's friends with Toby Fox (the creator of Undertale/Deltarune) and BeatMARIO (famous Touhou music remixer, now a V-tuber too).

Game eras

There are two main eras: PC98 (1-5) and Windows (6 onwards). PC98 is the oldest and does not need to be played since the Windows era was a soft reboot. So people usually begin with 6 or another game in the Windows era. The Windows era can be split into 1st, 2nd and 3rd generations.

Story description

The game series' name Touhou means Eastern side because its world, Gensoukyou (lit. land of fantasy), is based on Eastern folklore, mostly the Japanese kind (but also a tiny bit of Western too). This folklore, such as of youkai (supernatural beings), was created by the human mind to rationalise the things they couldn't understand, and their belief in youkai is what makes them exist. However due to the increase in science and skepticism towards the 19th century, these youkai were facing extinction. To solve this, the most powerful youkai sages preserved the remaining youkai and superstitious humans by sealing them in a pocket dimension, Gensokyo, within the Great Hakurei Barrier. The cast is almost completely comprised of anime girls, of which most are youkai, therefore they are anime anthropomorphs (or gijinka) of Japanese folklore. Other characters are humans or half-youkai. The main characters are a traditional shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei and her ordinary magician friend Marisa Kirisame. Since youkai are dangerous to humans, Reimu invented a harmless battle system called spell card rules which everyone must follow. Reimu's job is also to exterminate youkai in order to solve any incidents caused by them and maintain the balance of Gensokyo.

The Wiki

Check out the Touhou Wiki for juicy 2hu info including games, lore, fandom, music circles, etc.

How I discovered Touhou

So how did I jump into Alice's (pun intended) endless rabbit hole?

Trivia: Although I wasn't aware at all at that early time, my first ever exposure was probably in DanTDM's Touhou Minecraft mod-showcase videos.

Bad Apple edits

It all started when I kept on seeing these "Bad Apple!!" edits floating everywhere on my YouTube recommendations. When I was first exposed to this legendary music video, I noticed how cool and unique the shadow art was (many moving black-and-white silhouettes of anime girls) and the vocal techno music playing whose Japanese lyrics talk about depression or something, made by Alstroemeria Records. I wondered why this neat little music video was so viral to the point that everyone was editing it or emulating it on everything, such as stop-motion, hardware, games like Minecraft, etc. Heck, it was so popular that it even appeared on CNN once! There's no denying it's a timeless Touhou masterpiece, and I like rewatching it every now and then to see how far I can recognize the characters. Documentary video

The 'Tiny Little Adiantium' / 'Omae wa Mou' Deadman Debacle

Incidentally, I also discovered that the 'Omae Wa Mou' trap-remix made by Deadman, used in popular Wholesome Minecraft Parrots Dancing edits, had an original music source (which Deadman controversially hadn't credited at first)! Here's a video explaining this debacle. The only good thing that came with Deadman making a Trap remix without crediting the original was that the meme and controversy surrounding it sure popularized the music, and hence it caused me to discover Shibayan Records.

The original Bossa Nova anime-girl-vocal song is called 'Tiny Little Adiantium' by Shibayan Records, which has a green-haired anime girl in front of lush greenery in the thumbnail. I was entranced by its kawaii wholesome nature. I also found a similar catchy song 'Garota de venda medicamento' with a cute bunny girl, and 'Jumpy Trail' with a cat girl. "Where are all these cute anime girls and songs from?", I wondered.

My curiosity's scarlet flame gets lit

I kept on hearing a Japanese name popping up, 'Touhou', being attached to these cute anime music videos, and I wondered what this 'Touhou' thing was, and boy was it worth the search. An old long-living Japanese bullet hell game series you say? It has a massive fanbase on the internet who make many memes and fanworks too? As an enjoyer of all things Japanese and memes, I felt I needed to dig deeper.

Fumo memes

I learned that those cute chibi anime girl plushies that always appear in Touhou-related memes are called Fumos (short for Fumofumo). The first time I was exposed to these soft anime girls was in the video skits of the Youtube channel called Bread Boys (which sometimes featured Yuyuko and Reimu fumos). But I also found these soft creatures in other memes, like when they bounce around (Yumemey), and I noticed that the Cirno fumo was especially popular. Nobody is immune to marketable plushy advertising disguised as memes, and I am no exception; I would love to have one of these fellas (I'd rather not make my family think I'm a weird boy who likes anime girl plush dolls though). ᗜˬᗜ 東方フモ ᗜˬᗜ

Undertale is a Touhou inspiration?

I found videos saying that the story, gameplay and music of Undertale & Deltarune (famous games that I've played before) are all inspired by Touhou Project. His games are also about a human in a world of monsters, fighting them in bullet-hell style. This is because Toby Fox was inspired by Touhou to make his own game. Nowadays Toby is good friends with ZUN, and they even collabed to make a music track recently called 'U.N. Owen was Hero?'.

My Touhou 6 EoSD phase

So, I watched many informative Touhou videos so that I could start to try to get my bearings in this vast world of Japanese fantasy, Gensokyo (although EoSD has some Western fantasy actually). I learned that Touhou 6 EoSD (Embodiment of Scarlet Devil) is the most influential game in the series, in terms of memes and fanworks, and at the same time it's the first Windows game (unlike the PC98 games 1-5 which were too old to access normally on Windows PCs [PS]). So I considered trying EoSD out, and I found the game's English patch free on the Internet Arcade Archive. After setting it up to work on my PC I launched the game and started playing.

And it definitely wasn't plain sailing. I had to learn a new gameplay system (except for kinda in Undertale/Deltarune which I had played before) of dodging bullets, grazing bullets, timing bombs when needed, and aiming for enemies while having to dodge their endless barrages. And believe me, it was quite the struggle, but I felt like it would be worth it so I kept on pushing forward. Many months passed by where I sometimes continued the game, and it wasn't looking so good. I managed to get an almost flawless Normal run but I kept getting hit at the Magic Library and Sakuya stages. I recorded my personal best replay and left it at that (here's this replay I uploaded on Youtube). The only 1cc (1 credit clear; beating the game without continues) I could do was in Easy mode, but EoSD is apparently the only game that doesn't give good endings on Easy. For the sake of my mental health I stopped there and took a big break from playing.

Introduced to the Meme culture

Despite not having a perfect Normal EoSD run under my belt I was still proud of my progress; at least I got a bit more lore from that experience. I was able to understand more memes, such as: Memes explanation video

Introduced to Doujin Music Circle culture

Along with growing my meme culture, I also grew my music culture since I was more acquainted to the original EoSD songs. I discovered that Shibayan Records (my first favorite music circle, that does Bossa Nova and Techno) has many EoSD remixes and I loved them. Shibayan and the others (and there are a LOT) are all what's called doujin music circles because they make music remixes out of their passion for Touhou. I discovered even more stuff since Youtube started recommending me more Touhou music circle remixes. I cherished all of this music so much that I even made many playlists (they're by no means definitive playlists; I still add tracks to them sometimes): And here's a list of some Music Circle names that I know: Music Circles introduction video

Touhou music is so big it's considered a genre!

One time on the internet I discovered a website called Every Noise at Once. It's a project that supposedly records all the sounds and music made by humans in one scrollable chart. If you like music definitely go explore it. What's neat is that Touhou, yes you heard me, Touhou appears in this page. As a Touhou music junkie I feel proud to see our and doujins' passion being represented. Here's a link to Touhou's word-cloud of music circles!

My favourite OST picks so far

An assortment of the songs that are special to me, popular or not. This is not to say that I don't like the other songs, all of the ZUN songs are good in their own right. Obviously I have yet to discover all of them, and that's what also makes the games fun.

My first fangame: Touhou Luna Nights

Earlier, when I was on the search for Touhou games to start with, I also came across the fangame Luna Nights: a famous Touhou metroidvania revolving around Sakuya and her knife-throwing time manipulation prowess. I could already feel its awesomeness just from seeing its gameplay, and more so when I listened to the OST a bit when I came across it on Youtube. And it sure was awesome when I tried it after EoSD. The enemies and bosses (especially in the later stages) may have been difficult and rage-quit-inducing, but it was worth all the time and effort. Everything down to the pixel graphics & aesthetic, music, story, gameplay, and time mechanics was superb. It all felt fresh, I kept on loving it till the end (it has some extra content too!). I would literally recommend it to anyone even people outside of Touhou (gamers and anime enjoyers), however those people should probably try out EoSD to fill themselves in the basic lore before doing so. It's on many platforms too: Windows (Steam), Switch, Xbox, and Playstation, so you don't have an excuse not to try this masterpiece.

Fan/Collab Games

When I get a bit bored of the original bullet hells I know I can turn to the fangames I know of: currently I've set my sights on Azure Reflections, Scarlet Curiosity, New World, Mystia's Izakaya, PatchCon, etc. Not to mention the official collab spin-offs: the fighting games, Touhou Lost Word, Danmaku Kagura, etc.

Discovered Moriya Shrine - Free games

I found that the Internet Arcade Archive did not have any more free games other than EoSD, so I paid my first visit to the Moriya Shrine. As I said earlier, it's an excellent place to get free stuff from. I heard many people in the Touhou community dislike Moriya Shrine because it's "piracy", but despite that I heard that the first few Windows Touhou games aren't even available unless you want to buy old CDs all the way from Japan (you can also argue that the PC98-era games are too old and so they can only be accessed with emulators, therefore game preservation requires "piracy" anyways). Besides, I believe that people who play for free are still fans because they can still be passionate about the games, and passion for Touhou is what brings all these doujin circles together. I only pirate because I'm too young to buy anything online. Anyways, from now on I'll visit the trusty Moriya Shrine for most of my Touhou needs. Moriya Shrine not only has the main games, it also has music, fangames, fan music, and other stuff.

Free music

As you know, I'm a sucker for doujin music of the Touhou games I've played, so I have used Youtube to find them. However this wasn't enough to maximize my listening pleasure; I crave having whole albums offline, so I looked into Touhou music sites. Moriya Shrine's fan music department was a bit lacking so I looked elsewhere and I found the following:

Touhou 7 PCB

As you probably have guessed, PCB (Perfect Cherry Blossom) is the next game to EoSD. I figured that since I started from 6 I may as well keep on progressing chronologically through the series to gather lore bit by bit in its intended order. In terms of gameplay improvements, PCB has better stuff: you can finally see your hitbox, the Enemy indicator at the bottom of the screen so you can aim, and the Supernatural Border that acts like a temporary force field. Not to mention that Cherry Blossoms are a nice aesthetic for weebs alike, there's also a weird catgirl, many ghosts, an elegant ghost princess and a half-ghost swordswoman, cool right? Here's my replay on Youtube.

Touhou 7.5 IaMP

Yay, it's time for a nice change of pace: a fighting game! This is the first fighter in the series and it's a collab between ZUN and Twilight Frontier. I suck at fighting games but since I love this series I tried my best to get an ending. My controls where wacky so I changed the keybinds up a bit to something more like the normal Touhou controls. I adore the art/graphics and music in this game, especially the art though - it's definitely different from what we're used to with ZUN (not that ZUN's art is bad, it has its own charm lol). Aside from Reimu the OG, Patchy is my go-to character since she's best girl. Poor Patchy being thrown around the library lol. After many attempts, I somehow managed to get a Good Ending with Patchouli (the Suika fight was rough but it was amazing!).

Also now I finally understand that MMD that had gone viral called "WE ARE JAPANESE GOBLIN".

Touhou 8 IN

Btw, I forgot to tell you that I was reading the manga 'Silent Sinner in Blue' which is also about the SDM going to the moon and I like its funny parts and the cute aesthetic - they met bunny girls too! And in a similar fashion, the 7th Touhou game called Imperishable Night is about the incident of a fake moon. Here's the replay on Youtube.

CRINGE NARUTO SPOILERS (for some reason)
A random tidbit I have with this game is that coincidentally when I was playing it, I was also watching Naruto Shippuden and the current arc was about the moon turning into a crazy red eye and putting everyone under an illusion. This is a bit comparable with the Touhou game I was playing at the same time. I looked into Reisen the bnuuy, and the stuff I read about her convinces me that she's an Uchicha - having red Sharingan-like eyes that can cause insanity and illusions (genjutsu) and manipulate the tangibility of things like Kamui does.
Also, Kaguya the moon princess/rabbit goddess is also coincidentally a character in Naruto (yes I know she's not originally from Naruto lol). I rightly suspected that Kaguya and her children have horns that look like rabbit ears. Hagoromo stayed on the Earth whilst his brother Hamura went back to the moon with their mother Kaguya, so Hagoromo also reminds me of Reisen; not to mention that he spoke to a medicine merchant too. Update: Also, an artificial moon is in The Last: Naruto the Movie! Oh and now in Boruto, Otsutsuki descendants (Momoshiki looks like he has rabbit ears!) make their own medicine pills.

Touhou 9 PoFV

This was a refreshingly different danmaku because it has a competitive aspect where you can see a split screen of another character doing what you're doing, and also dying does not always mean the end of a 1cc here since what matters is keeping the hit points. Replay

Touhou 10 MoF

You gotta love the comfy autumn aesthetic, that cute mechanic kappa girl, the fluffy "Awoo" wolf girl, photographing "Ayayaya" tengu and the frog-hairclip shrine maiden.
Replay

Reimu really be pulling a Rock in the MoF menu screen 🤨

(final boss bg) I thought I was in the End dimension for a second 🗿

Touhou 11 SA

Replay

Touhou Game 1CC Progress Chart

yes all of my 1ccs are on easy for now, pls no bulli

PC98

PS: I had tried Touhou 1 but only a little bit because I basically rage-quit when the emulator crashed (you need special software to run the games). I am aware that this game era is not a must-play but the aspect of exploring ancient games is kinda cool, so I could maybe play those when I'm done from the Windows era, dunno.

Video & Channel links

Why I love Touhou

Check out this video that explains the Beauty of Touhou. This video brilliantly summarizes what makes Touhou beautiful, and coincidentally the guy in the video has played the first three Windows games just like me! I agree with literally everything this guy says, it's crazy. So please, it's important to watch this video till the end.

How is Touhou still an indie/doujin game if it's so big?

Check out this video by PerlDrop explaining why Touhou hasn't gone mainstream yet despite being massive. As a fan you're probably wondering how noone and everyone knows Touhou at the same time. But maybe it's a good thing that it isn't mainstream; there's a certain charm in being the biggest doujin in the world after all.

"Touhou is a Success Story Creators Can Learn From"

Check out this video explaining the history of the game series in brief and what made it so beloved by fans (spoiler: it's the freedom ZUN gives to his fans).

A storytime video of how someone discovered Touhou thru EoSD

Check out this new long interesting video by a small creator relatably explaining how he discovered Touhou through the famous internet memes of Touhou 6, EoSD's characters and gameplay, and other things such as the history of vampires, Undertale and fan culture.

Touhou's Impact On Internet Culture

Check out this video giving a rundown on Touhou and its memes.

Why Touhou is inescapable

Check out this video by a Finnish weeb with a crusader avatar, explaining the inescapability of the doujin franchise, with an emphasis on Fumos ᗜˬᗜ

Little Reimu - A cute and sad Touhou fan manga

If you're up for it, go watch this video of Little Reimu to see a sub of the popular cute, funny, epic and sad fan manga. It gives a backstory to the almost-blank-slate character of Rumia, the man-eating youkai, when she was big and Reimu was little. The fanon story explains why she has a special ribbon. GensouChronicle analyzes this fanwork too.

Some Touhoutubers I know

Memes: Animation: Info: Original Music Covers: Music Circle channels:

Music archives:

Credit

Last Updated: 6/11/24

Click me to go back up!