Touhou Project

[Kung_Fu_Master]

I know there are a few people around CAA who's played the games or just know of it and if you spend even the slightest moment around Youtube you should of seen a glimpse of it but I have yet to see a thread about it. Is there a reason why we can't (If so, do tell) but if not I hearby commence the first TOUHOU thread (or at least the only living one).

What is Touhou? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou

Though I'm sure blkmage could tell you better than I could.

[Peanut]

I've been meaning to try and actually play one of these games at some point...though I know they are rather hard.

[blkmage]

It's funny you should say that, because I've never actually played a Touhou game before. Oh, I've certainly tried at least once, but I've given up on it for a variety of reasons: (1) I'm terrible at shmups and would likely get crushed by a danmaku, and (2) I'm on a Mac and Touhou games refuse to work in a virtualized environment. I do play, enjoy, and occasionally win in Touhou Unreal Mahjong though.

Actually, the reason I appear so familiar with Touhou is because I hang around /jp/ and Nico Nico Douga too much and receive a lot of exposure to the massive amount of fan works, which is something that is of note. If you stop to think about it, it's kind of amazing that a bullet hell game would get such a massive fan community producing all sorts of doujin content (tons, in fact): music, manga, games, and even animations. Touhou's big enough to get its own category on Nico Nico Douga now (along with VOCALOID and iDOLM@STER).

So, Touhou is pretty big, but what exactly is Touhou?

Touhou is a series of vertical shooters (shoot-em-ups, abbreviated shmups) which are actually a member of the subset of shmups known as danmaku. Danmaku is literally "bullet fire" and the corresponding western term is "bullet hell". Touhou is the creation of a guy called ZUN, who created the games as a response to the dire lack of games featuring shrine maidens. The first five games are for the PC-98, and all subsequent games have been made for Windows. The most recent one is Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object, released at Comiket 76 in August 2009.



In addition to its characters, Touhou is famous for its beautiful, but ridiculous bullet patterns. Essentially, the danmaku subset of shmups is all about an immense number of bullets, often forming an elaborate pattern, and your job is to manoeuvre through them (as opposed to reflex based dodging of a few, fast bullets as in other shmups). Also, ZUN is still almost solely singlehandedly responsible for everything having to do with the Touhou games, from the charmingly bad art to the awesome music and bullet patterns.

So yeah, Touhou is pretty cool. Here, have some videos.
Bad Apple!! PV: This is a PV of a Touhou song featuring some classy silhouettes of Touhou characters. It's currently the most mylisted video on Nico Nico Douga, dethroning longtime champion メルト by supercell.
Here's a clear of Touhou 8: Imperishable Night Extra Stage to show you what Touhou is all about.
Cirno's Perfect Math Class: It turns out there are no buses in Gensokyo.
Marisa Stole the Precious Things: SHANGHAI SHANGHAI SHANGHAI SHANGHAI HOLLAND HOLLAND HOLLAND HOLLAND
Touhou Pianoforte: A 25-minute medley of Touhou music on the piano.
Touhou Pianoforte II: A 23-minute medley of Touhou music on the piano.

[Kung_Fu_Master]

Well that just shows that the fandom gets you usually before the game does.

Speaking of fandom, 99% of anything seen or heard about Touhou is fanmade. This includes tons of dojin works such as animations, comics, vocal songs, jokes, and character connections that in the real Gensokyo (yeah right) have a one degree separation mainly through Reimu. Basically, if it doesn't happen in the game or some of the few official mangas, don't believe it.

Some other info on Touhou. Out of the whole series only one male humaniod character has appeared, Rinnosuke Morichika, who has no known danmaku and is only seen (officially) in Curiosities of Lotus Asia (one of Zun's few written works). Other official works include Oriental Sacred Place, Silent Sinner in Blue, and Inaba of the moon and Inaba of the earth.

Oh, and I haven't played a game either.

[TriezGamer]

I've played all of em. I'm somewhat of an addict.

Thanks for those piano medley links, blkmage -- hadn't seen those yet.

[Davidizer13]

*whimper* And that's why I don't play Touhou. I was stuck on the first part of Gradius 3 (SNES) for weeks, before even reaching the actual level, and then the plant level kicked my butt. That's probably an anomaly in terms of my shmup skill, because I do much better on other, more gimmicky shmups (R-Type, Axelay, Tyrian).

[blkmage]

So, due to the recent flurry of Touhou related activities, I decided to throw Imperishable Night on one of the last computers that was running Windows that we had in our house.

It is really hard.

[Jingo Jaden]

I beat Ran on Perfect Cherry blossom. That was fairly hard, but it is getting more and more easy. Yukari is a different animal for the time being however.

[Kung_Fu_Master]

Seeing as how this thread is not locked nor dead (Hooray), I propose a discussion.

1. Favorite character(s). Why.
2. Favorite song(theme) and/or remix (for remix state by who and what it's called so we can all look it up). Why.
3. Favorite Danmaku style and/or spell card. Why.
4. Favorite game(s).
5. Favorite Dojin/ Parody work.
and anything else you can think of to talk about.

For me it's:
1. Both Reisen and Cirno. Most under appreciated return characters.
2. The Tamusic remix of Nuclear Fusion~ Utsuho's theme
3. Hard to say for I have yet to play a game. I'll wait awhile on that.
4. Have yet to play a game.
5. I don't know. Possibly The Touhou Anime Project.

[TriezGamer]

1: In fan-works, Cirno, followed closely by Sakuya and Alice. There's very few I dislike though. Strictly from character design, I really like Flandre and Alice (using an Alice wallpaper right now, even.
2: I like a LOT of the remixes. I've always been a remix junkie. That said, I'm obsessed with most anything produced by Alstroemeria Records, and my favorite is far and away the estha mix, 'Special, but Not Special'. In general, I love most Touhou music.
3: I don't really have an opinion on this. I just enjoy the game. I probably would have an artistic appreciation for some of them if I wasn't so busy trying to survive them.
4: Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, but that's non-standard (and I would totally take anyone on in NetPlay if they happen to have a copy), for the standard series, Imperishable Night. Shoot the Bullet is really fun too.
5: The new Bad Apple!! Shadow Art PV going around is AMAZING, though I prefer the strings version.

[Kung_Fu_Master]

Hey Triez, speaking of Bad Apple, I found this the other day that you may like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0oRjey0aQE&feature=related

It keeps the string version but adds that small little touch to the art.

[blkmage]

If you like Touhou stuff, you should really consider getting a Nico Nico Douga account.

I don't quite have a favourite character just yet. I'm don't feel familiar enough with them to choose a favourite. Although, I'm kind of surprised that you'd consider Cirno underappreciated, considering things like pixiv going crazy on ⑨ day.

And I'm terrible at the shooting games, but I am pretty decent at Touhou Mahjong, which reminds me of how mahjong was depicted in Saki. So far, I'd say my favourite Touhou thing is the IOSYS video for Marisa Stole the Precious Thing; it's pretty catchy.

[Jingo Jaden]

Can't forget the legendary mcrolled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssh71hePR8Q

[blkmage]

You can watch that here in its full wwwwwwwwww'ing glory.

[Kung_Fu_Master]

Or how about the remix.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2GBhEk2KUQ

True proof that the Japan Ronald is not of this world.

[TriezGamer]

My new favorite remix

I'm biased though -- I actually play soprano sax.

[Kung_Fu_Master]

Finally got a hold of one of the games, waited a whole hour for the download and everything, but it won't play, it just brings me to the Windows media center. Is there some extra I need or something?

Edit: I have vista if that helps.

[blkmage]

Nope, you should be able to just run it. We ran Imperishable Night on a Windows 7 box perfectly.

In other news, Sakuya teaches us how to process arbitrary data streams.

[Tsukuyomi]

Hey Triez, speaking of Bad Apple, I found this the other day that you may like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0oRjey0aQE&feature=related

It keeps the string version but adds that small little touch to the art.

Ooh, violin type version 8D

Have you seen the way the shadow art version was made ^__^? They mentioned it on CNN of all things XD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXRsnT2_mVI

[Kung_Fu_Master]

Wow. With CNN ZUN now has more fans.

and I still can't run my download. -_- it makes me angry, I don't like it when I'm angry.