What is Touhou?

[CPhame]

I've never played any of the shooting games, IaMP, or SWR but I've seen the characters multiple times on Nico Douga and elsewhere.  What is Touhou, and what's so great about it?  Why doesn't it have it's own anime or manga yet?  Can someone explain or point me in the right direction, please?   

[ShinMasaki]

oh dear...i feel compelled

[It is a mystery.]

Go for it, i don't know either.

[Dintrao]

<3 Touhou, I'll let Shin explain though 

[CPhame]

oh dear...i feel compelled

Do it! lol

Everytime the guys in our room shifted the conversation to Touhou, all I could was listen and try to follow along 

[ShinMasaki]

oh dear...i feel compelled

Do it! lol

Everytime the guys in our room shifted the conversation to Touhou, all I could was listen and try to follow along 

dammit, I'll bite.

Touhou started out as a brick breaker type of game, then immediately switched over to a vertical shmup. The initial draw to Touhou included its characters which were rather memorable each in their own right, the music, which most people getting into Touhou gained interest from, and the complexity of the danmaku aspect of the shooter. The reason why there is no anime of Touhou is the game series never got licensed. The characters of Touhou and the world it is in (Gensokyo) is owned by one individual Jun'ya Ota (more commonly known as ZUN). ZUN never wanted Touhou to get licensed and continues to create games and sell them at Comiket and Reitaisai.

I couldn't tell you why Touhou got as popular as it is, but it is now one of the largest phenomenons ever. At Comiket, more than 60% of the circles producing doujin are Touhou related. Touhou even has its own festival Reitaisai where everything Touhou related could be. There is even a tournament style gathering for the various multiplayer Touhou games where games like the fighters, the vs shooters and speed runs and challenges of the games are done. This tournament is called Tohgeki (not to be confused with Tougeki or SBO).

Perhaps one of the reasons why it is as popular as it is could stem from the fact that ZUN has never licensed Touhou and doesn't intend to any time soon. By that, anything that the fans want to do (aside from making an anime or revealing endings to the games...ZUN has specifically requested that the endings not be spoiled) is open to them. As such, you will find hundreds of Touhou based games including: Touhouvania, Megamari, Super Marisa Land, and many many more I could list.

There are a few official manga for Touhou including "Silent Sinner in Blue", "Eastern and Little Natural Deity", and "Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth". If you are looking for fan doujins, there are literally thousands.

Each character is individually made by ZUN as well as their back story and their theme songs. Even if you don't know the characters, chances are you have heard one of the songs from Touhou or remixes by any of the hundreds of fan music groups.

Each character has their own charm to them and everyone has a favorite character. My two are Rumia and Meiling. With well over 100 characters in the ZUNiverse, there are several scenarios that fans make up for them as there is such a large variety that can be done.

Chances are good, on any online thread, there is at least one person the knows something about Touhou. The mere level of popularity with Touhou is one of the most amazing things about it and why it is so great...because everyone can be a fan of it for some reason.

[CPhame]

snip

Questions...forming...  

Does ZUN actually make any money from Touhou?  
If there's no endings to the games, how do the fans know what's canon and what isn't?
Why IS Cirno considered the strongest?

[It is a mystery.]

Snip

Wow didn't expect that, i thought it was a company like Type-Moon or something. Interesting stuff.

[ShinMasaki]

snip

Questions...forming...  

Does ZUN actually make any money from Touhou?  
If there's no endings to the games, how do the fans know what's canon and what isn't?
Why IS Cirno considered the strongest?

He does make money from the games that he sells directly. He sees no profit from the CDs or the doujins that are sold. As it is not licensed, there are no royalties involved in any of the Touhou merchandising or anything. He makes money by being there personally selling the games and the manga he was a part of. In an interview, he was asked about this and says that he continues to make Touhou games because it is fun and he sees himself as merely a fan as well and not as a creator. He's not in it for the money, or else he would have sold out long ago.

There are multiple endings to every Touhou game. It was merely a request, one of two, that ZUN made, that nobody publicly display the endings so not to spoil the game endings for those who have not cleared the game.

Cirno is the strongest for a few reasons. As a fairy, she is perhaps the strongest of her entire race (fairies) earning the ability to be a stage 2 boss, a stage 1 mid-boss (for a full youkai), and a player character twice. That player character is a huge status point. She isn't that bright, however, and uses the term あたい when talking about herself. In Touhou 6 where she makes her debut, Cirno refers to herself as a powerful enemy and in Touhou 9 (where the whole Cirno deal exploded), one of her win quotes is "I'm the strongest".

[WYVERN LORD]

  LET THE SADLIFE COMMENCE

[Curbeh]

ShinMasaki... you... you're... a Tohwhore!?
I feel so deceived

[ShinMasaki]

ShinMasaki... you... you're... a Tohwhore!?
I feel so deceived

 

[abitofBaileys]

Is there something about the internet you don't know, Shin-sama?

[grandlordzero]

i play the games and love the music. Does that make me a toe-whore as well?

Anyway, among touhou fans, there are shit-tons of touhou memes. Cirno beeing "the strongest" is a good example of one. Ran Ran Ruu and ☢CAUTION!!☢ are as well. Pretty much every single character in the series has some sort of meme associated with them, some of them have several.

As for whats cannon, the story is shitty and pointless enough that it doesn't MATTER what is and isn't cannon. (like guilty gear, but even less serious)

The games are fun and the music is great. Just fucking enjoy it. Nothing else matters.

[CPhame]

i play the games and love the music. Does that make me a toe-whore as well?

Anyway, among touhou fans, there are shit-tons of touhou memes. Cirno beeing "the strongest" is a good example of one. Ran Ran Ruu and ☢CAUTION!!☢ are as well. Pretty much every single character in the series has some sort of meme associated with them, some of them have several.

As for whats cannon, the story is shitty and pointless enough that it doesn't MATTER what is and isn't cannon. (like guilty gear, but even less serious)

The games are fun and the music is great. Just fucking enjoy it. Nothing else matters.

Where's a good place to start?

[grandlordzero]

IaMP and SWR if you like fighters, and if you wanna try the legitimate games, id start with Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. It was the first game for windows to my knowledge.

Play the games, listen to the music, and if you love the music as much as I do, then go on youtube and find arranges/remixes of the songs you like. Ive spent days just listening to renditions of different songs. Theirs literally fucking thousands of them.

http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Touhou_Wiki

General information center. Links to mods and tools as well for making the games even more badass. Theres an entire god-damn re-texture pack for EoSD that makes the game look like 5 years newer.

[ShinMasaki]

as great as the games are, the biggest thing going for Touhou is its fanbase and everything that the fans are doing associated with the characters. The stories themselves are mostly pointless and have little value besides introducing the characters. To sum up the stories of Touhou, here's the Touhou story meme that's been circulating:

Reimu is a bitch.

The Highly Responsive to Prayers: Reimu goes on a homicidal rampage.

Story of Eastern Wonderland: Reimu seeks revenge for Mima's revenge for Reimu's previous rampage.

Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream: Reimu interferes with academia and scientific progress.

Lotus Land Story: Reimu kills a youkai who tried to help her.
She also breaks into a mansion and beat up the gatekeeper and everyone inside because for some reason she believes that would stop ghosts from going to her shrine.

Mystic Square: Reimu orphans Alice and destroys an entire world for its creator's belief in the free market.

The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Reimu places a little girl who wanted to go flower gazing under house arrest.
I would also like to add that on the way, she beats up retarded kids, violates private property, and picks a fight with an asthmatic person. TWICE.

Perfect Cherry Blossom: Reimu prevents an innocent girl from being revived.
Not to mention beating up the self-appointed guardian of an inhabited village with the stated intention of plundering it for good luck (which she then seemingly does off-camera).

Immaterial and Missing Power: Reimu breaks up parties.
Also prevents a girl from achieving her dream of reuniting her people.

Imperishable Night: Reimu strips Gensokyo of its defences against a Lunar invasion.
Not to mention the repeated killing of the elderly in the Extra stage.
Alternatively, Reimu does everything in her power to stop the heroes from resolving the incident.

Phantasmagoria of Flower View: Reimu attacks people for no good reason.

Mountain of Faith: Reimu oppresses other religions.

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody: Reimu endorses slave labor.
Not only that, but she also beats up her best friend to get out of doing chores and spends the majority of the story throwing baseless accusations at every person she meets and beating them up before they can protest.

Subterranean Animism: Reimu cuts back funding for alternative energy sources.

Undefined Fantastic Object: Reimu illegally seizes a merchant ship's cargo, then beats up Jesus.

Hisoutensoku: Reimu blames little kids for trouble because they look like they're having fun.

Double Spoiler: Reimu refuses to cooperate with important paparazzi.

And that is Reimu, the main heroine and the one the story follows, for the most part.

[LoliSauce]

Zun also writes light novels for more touhou backstory and such.

Also notable - Zun, a one man team, created EVERYTHING for each official Touhou shmup.  He programmed it, drew out the illustrations and sprites, composed the music, and designed the story and characters.  All one man.  I think this and the fact that he's always going to stay true to being an indie developer are the two biggest reasons he deserves all the popularity he has garnered.

The shmups are fun too.  I'm not much of a fan of the direction they've been heading in since Touhou 10 - Mountain of Faith, though.

[Van_Artic]

The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Reimu places a little girl who wanted to go flower gazing under house arrest.
I would also like to add that on the way, she beats up retarded kids, violates private property, and picks a fight with an asthmatic person. TWICE.

Mountain of Faith: Reimu oppresses other religions.

And that is Reimu, the main heroine and the one the story follows, for the most part.

i died from laughter

also, Meiling love <3

my favourite is Patchouli, the one and only

there was an anime by Maikaze running through December 2008, but it got canceled, then some sort of trailer came up on youtube, but no results in the end

apparently there's a new Touhou shmup coming out with Cirno as protagonist http://zepy.momotato.com/2010/07/23/touhou-128-yousei-daisensou/

[Komidol]

Short version: Touhou is a nearly limitless resource for loli's that are technically over 18 (most over several hundred), but appear to be between the ages of 8 and 12, all of which have adorable hair accessories and a generic character archetype.  It is a corner stone for developing authors, writers, and merchandise producers to make some money and test out their ability in appealing to Japanese Otaku.  

Also, there is as many side games and spinoffs of it by doujin developers as there is for Mario, so it's easy to find something (or a character if you just want to read doujins, 18+ or not) and just get into it.  Shin already explained the serious/actual stuff about how it started and ZUN, but all trolling aside what I've said isn't far off from how it is treated and what it is inside the community today.  Some people still pick up the game and start on the series that way, but it's more likely they'll hear one of the billions of doujin song remixes before doing that (if they pick up the original games at all, there are plenty of Touhou fans/knowledgiates (they should make this a word) who don't.

Regardless, Suika is my favorite drinking buddy.

[F9|Chibi]

I love Meiling the mostest.

[CPhame]

snip

Holy shit lol

[ShinMasaki]

Also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLiyglcRcCA

[Tempered]

Pretty much the music is the main appeal to Touhou. Most of the music tends to be rather catchy, though I think the music has been lacking in the last few games, with themes sounding too similarly to older themes. Funny thing is most people like touhou music without knowing it, then you tell them its touhou and their reaction is priceless.

Theres also the fact that the fandom covers just about every possibly thing you can think of. You can easily waste time just playing fan made games or reading fan made doujins. Theres about as much touhou content on the internet as there is porn it seems.

[mauve]

I don't think I could comment on Touhou without shaking my fist at Tasofro for not following up IaMP properly. Fucking sellouts.

The official stuff is fine, but goddamn the fandom is one of the most retarded I've ever seen. They're like the moe character equivalent of furries.