Touhou Explaination 2.0:

[xaszatm]

Alright, this post is sort of a response towards LilithSlave Touhou post. Given LilithSlave's rather infamous reputation among these forums (no offense) and as a fan of the Touhou series myself, I felt that LilithSlave's post describing the series was inadequate in describing the series (Well, that and I am a glutton for punishment and haven't yet been bashed on these forums). So this post will be an attempt to describe Touhou to the Escapist Community and its interesting popularity for what should be an obscure game. (While not popular as others think, there are more than enough people that know of this franchise to move away from the obscure category to the not relativity known category.)

The Franchise

Touhou is a multimedia dōjinshi (think indie) franchise created by Junya Ota, more commonly known by his nickname ZUN. ZUN (yes, all letters are capitalize. no, I don't know why.) is the sole creator, designer, writer, artist, and publisher of this franchise, although a few manga and games were helped from other people/companies.

The series currently consists of:
- 19 Video Games for PC
- 5 Completed Manga
- 1 Currently Ongoing Manga
- 7 Books (Ranging from in-character guides to actual stories)
- 7 Original CD's (Using music not found in the other material but considered part of the Touhou franchise. Comes with more stories for each song)

This is not a bad collection for just one guy.

The Games

The main part of the Touhou franchise is its video games. All games are designed to be played on a computer (mostly Windows). Touhou is a vertical top-down shooter with a greater emphasis on dodging, or "bullet hell" game. Each game has a choice between 2-4 different characters with each character getting 2-3 different types of shot. You then proceed to 6 different stages with each stage ended by a boss. There is usually an extra stage in each game to provide a harder challenge to those who completed the game.

For those who want an actual video of such...I don't know how to do hyperlinks so this is saved until someone can teach me the ropes.

This style is consistent for 10 games in the series. 3 of the other games are fighter based games, 5 or variations of bullet hell games, and 1 is a weird bullet hell/breakout game that can be excused by being the first in the series.

As stated earlier, ZUN does most of the material by himself. This includes all aspects of the games, with the exception of the fighting games.

The Books/Manga

In addition to the main game series, there are print works that go with the series as well. This consists of the manga and print works described above. The manga usually depicts various stories focused on the mundane places of the setting. While the manga can range from average to decent, many can be read without previous knowledge of other parts of the series.

The written works, by contrast, require knowledge of the games and the back stories to understand. Most of the written works are character guides along with snippets of story around said characters. All current works can be found translating in the Touhou wiki, so if you are interested, just go there.

Setting/Characters

Now, with little Justification, I would like to describe the setting here. The Touhou universe takes place in Gensoyoko, a place that is located in a different dimension compared to the real world. In this place, myths from various (mostly Japanese) legends live. This wide, open setting contributes to the REAL reason why this series has its reputation.

Another thing leading towards its relative popularity is its characters. Touhou contains well over 100 characters, each with a distinctive appearance, personality, and power. Most of these characters are bosses in the games.

Fanbase (i.e. the real reason this series is more known)

Now, if you have been paying attention (first off, I'm sorry), you would have noticed that this franchise offers a unique universe, loads of side characters that have adventures not mentioned in the main series, and a setting that is different yet related. This results in a lot of fan works as a result (I personally call this the Harry Potter fan fiction equation).

Now, fan works are nothing new to any franchise. But, for me, what separates this series from the rest is its extremely PRODUCTIVE fan works. Ranging from music remixes to videos to fan games based off an indie game, Touhou's extreme fans are literally carrying half of its popularity towards its audience.

Foreign Market (i.e. why I haven't heard of this series)

Now, you are probably wondering "This sounds popular, why haven't I heard of it if its fanbase is apparently large?" Well, first I'd be wondering how you are reading my mind and looking for the nearest tinfoil hat, but then I'd explain that this series is popular in Japan. Now, for a Japanese only indie game franchise, it is more popular than you would expect it. However, it is still and probably be as well known in foreign markets compared to Japan.

Alright...you know that was actually fun, if this is liked enough, I might do this for other relatively obscure series...

Alright Escapist Community, tear me to shreds!

 

[Condiments]

I'm not terribly interested in this, but thanks for a synopsis. I don't see why people would get angry at your for doing this. As far as I understand, Lilith Slave received flak for criticizing people about not knowing Touhou based off some Minecraft video about its universe. There is nothing wrong with informing people about such a series if they are uninformed, but its best to be understanding rather than confrontational if you want your information to be taken seriously.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

There's nothing to tear you to shreds over in this post. It was an informative little article about a franchise and the fanbase surrounding it. The reason people got annoyed at Lilith is because of the way she got so angry at the idea of people not having heard of an indie game from Japan; it had nothing to do with Touhou itself.

By the way, to embed a youtube video, you take the numbers from the end of the address, and put them into a tag that goes [ youtube=X ] without the spaces and where X=the numbers from the video.

Practical example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E9NOoR9t9w
^with this address, cut out everything up to the equals sign, and put what's left into the tag


Quote my post to see the completed tag.


Edit: By the way, here's a couple of threads that go more in depth on what you can do with bbcode:

This one is more in depth, but this one explains a few tags that the other one doesn't.

 

[Deskimus Prime]

Nice summary, much less, well, aggressive than the previous one. Could use some pictures and gameplay videos, or even some music links. Allow me to assist.

I'm a big fan of the series myself, but you can't really describe the oncoming hail of bullets as accurately as, say, a video of Yukari's Boundary of Life and Death [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZBa4Og_Kzo] (~3:08-4:55) can.

Anyway, it's a hell of a lot of fun even if you don't like shoot'em'ups, the music is phenomenal and syncs up with the bullet patterns in ways that almost defy understanding. There are moments where you just hit that Zen-like state and become one with the keyboard, and the music is blaring and the colors are flashing but you can dodge rain, you can beat this.

And then comes the attacks that just kill you before you have time to blink.

I'll dump a few more themes, if only because the music is a major draw for the series.

Emotional Skyscraper - Cosmic Mind [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI0jAW7s0YY] Touhou 12 - Stage 6 boss Byakuren Hijiri

Higan Retour - Riverside View [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0_LhyPP1Lk] Touhou 9 - Stage 6 boss Komachi Onozuka

And a few gameplay videos as well:
Touhou 11 - Extra boss Koishi Komeiji [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnxTVPTE1PQ&feature=related]
Touhou 8 - Extra boss Fujiwara Mokou [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl17uhqSuqc&feature=relmfu]

Anyway, it's very much worth checking out, even if you're put off by the sheer Japanese-ness of it all. They're solid bullet hell shmups with fantastic soundtracks, and great for people looking for a challenge.

 

[burningdragoon]

I didn't really have a problem with Lilith's post other than the length really. This one is much more pure informative though, so that's cool.

As for Touhou itself, eh... not really into bullet hell games.

<spoiler=How to embed youtube>

Step 1:
Grab the youtube video URL. Let's go with this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVok-7tDFF8

Step 2:
Grab the video parameter from the URL (the part after v=): gVok-7tDFF8

Step 3:
Put the previous thing into the Youtube BB code. It will like this: &#91youtube=gVok-7tDFF8&#93

( or if you're like me and have HTML habits, it will look like this: &ltyoutube=gVok-7tDFF8&gt )

Step 4:
Watch.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

...is this just going to be another thread slamming that user with the Pinkie Pie avatar?

Are we really such mindless lemmings that this is what we persue talking about on a video game forum?

[sub]*sigh*[/sub]

 

[evilneko]

You forgot the anime. The one episode anime. And it's a doujin anime, too.

 

[Loop Stricken]

The only thing I know, and indeed care to know, about Touhou is that
the [http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/1003868/1girl-ascot-bare_shoulders-bespectacled-blonde_hai] girls [http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/887823/1girl-o-animal_ears-bespectacled-bust-collar-colla] look [http://sonohara.donmai.us/data/98532976d8387617811efccd667cd7d6.jpg] cute [http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/783816/alternate_costume-bat_wings-bespectacled-cargo_pan] in [http://sonohara.donmai.us/data/635742c93436d6509b51fcbab321b485.jpg] glasses [http://sonohara.donmai.us/data/62136919ac3934b511e05173e5151f51.jpg]. [sub]Fair warning, links may prove unsuitable for work[/sub]

 

[aattss]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the first 5 games were for some abstract console in Japan. Anyway, these games are famous for their difficulty, and are basically the manliest games in the world where all the characters are cute little girls.

 

[M0rp43vs]

You forgot the anime. The one episode anime. And it's a doujin anime, too.

Second episode is coming, have you not heard?

Spoiler

It'll be released sometime during Reitasai, and it'll be a matter of time before it gets put on youtube

Honestly, I'm surprised you mentioned the utterly INSANE fanbase but left out a key factor of the series; It's music.
Zun(The one man behind every single thing in creating the games) may not have the best drawing skills(at best, having an so bad it's good charm) but he makes up for it by creating beautiful backdrops, bullet patterns and, more importantly, extremely catchy, awesome synth tunes to go along with the action.

And then we get the remixes made by fans which as we mentioned earlier, make the Bronies and Starwars fans seem like idle sloths. I believe the is probably a touhou remix for EVERY SINGLE genre on earth(and at least one of them is probably a remix of U.N. Owen). I've heard touhou remixes done in style of Irish folk, Ondo, All shades of metal and rock, hip hop, rap,Jazz, swing, country, Indonesian Kechak,Lady gaga, oriental orchestra, 8 bit, orchestral, and that's just ones that spring to mind.

Not including the absolutely addicting, Meme spewing comedy songs with music videos done by the likes such as IOSYS and innocent key(Cirno's perfect Math class and Marisa stole the precious thing being prominent ones).

For better reading than my sleep addled post,Give a read http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/AwesomeMusic/Touhou

If you have an aversion to TVtropes, you can go onto youtube and type Touhou music and see what comes up. I really do believe that, with a little search, anybody can find a touhou song that they will like, just because of how many they are and how good quality most of them are despite sturgeon's law

 

[Deskimus Prime]

toohoo music is awesome, etc.

There's a 1.04 TERABYTE torrent floating around of every Touhou remix currently available. There are dozens of bands who make their living off remixing Touhou songs. The scope of this fandom is mind-boggling.

I myself have about 8 gigs' worth of smooth jazz remixes that sound perfectly classy and refined to the untrained ear, even have one as my cell ringtone.

Sorry to jump in, just wanted to gush a little about the music. It's just that good.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Who is this Lilith Slave person?

 

[370999]

That was a nice informative piece Op. Heard of Touhou but you made it clearer!

 

[Mariakko]

Snip

I've heard Touhou around quite a bit with a forum I used to frequent but no one could give me a straight answer on what the bloody hell it was. I thank you for the information.

By the way, here's a couple of threads that go more in depth on what you can do with bbcode:

This one is more in depth, but this one explains a few tags that the other one doesn't.

Also thanks for that, I'm sure that page thread will come in handy.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

*Sigh* Fine, if you insist.

Scrap the Lillith bashing everyone, we're going after this Na'vi dude over here instead. Adjust your pitchforks and flaming equipment.

...

Well, shit.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

*Sigh* Fine, if you insist.

Scrap the Lillith bashing everyone, we're going after this Na'vi dude over here instead. Adjust your pitchforks and flaming equipment.

...

Well, shit.

You really should have read the OP, it contains not a call to bash LillithSlave (I think that's his/her name) but an Touhou fan trying to repair it's damaged reputation on this board. And succeeding to a lesser extant. While the genre isn't really my taste I will acknowledge that the creator can really churn out content if the information is correct.