It has come to my attention that some individuals on Escapist have no had a chance to meet with the good Lord. And bathe in the redemption of everlasting mercy. That's okay! Allow big sister LilithSlave to teach you! With my help, your soul will go to heaven!
The thing about Touhou is, where to even begin? For starter, Touhou is a giant. It is a giant fandom of millions of people worldwide. It is at the very least the most famous indie game in Japan. And arguably the most famous indie game or series of games out of Japan, period. Beating out Cave Story in many places and instances. And along with Cave games, is currently dominating the scrolling shooter industry by a great degree.
Touhou is a series of games from the classic and wonderful scrolling shooter genre of video games. Arguably invented by titles like Space Invaders. More specifically of the Bullet Hell subgenre. And the most recent official entry is a game called Ten Desires, which was released August of last year. And is part of over a dozen official games that begun in 2006.
It is basically of the same genre as this:
A Cave shooter also famous. The two can be seen as a rivaling fandoms of sorts. With of course overlap as well. Cave shooter fans tending to be more arcade dwellers and console gamers, and Touhou fans being indie PC gamers. It is also noteworthy that Touhou is one of the biggest parts of PC gaming in Japan.
Touhou is not a single game. The official games that exist are over a dozen and there is usually at least one new game released a year. The fangames are far more plentiful, reaching into the several hundred or possibly over a thousand by now. Including some widely successful titles like Megamari and Super Marisa Land.
The games themselves look like this, and this was the first PC entry in the series.
No Touhou game is very demanding on a computer, much like the Japanese indie or "doujin" industry in general.
The official games are only of the scrolling shooter variety, with the exception of the occasional fighting games that are not made by ZUN.
The games also do not only have one consistent style and interpretation of the Bullet Hell, and do have some variety.
For instance, Great Fairy Wars requires you to learn how to intelligently freeze masses of bullets in order to succeed. Cave are not the only ones to practice a bit of variety.
The fangames are a different story, and encompass most genres of video game. Though are mostly in the platformer and jRPG genres.
One particularly famous example, New Super Marisa Land, the sequel to Super Maria Land. I've gotten this game to work in Linux before, but it is annoying.:X
There are several hundred or possibly several thousand of these creations, depending on whether you count browser games or games that aren't very good.
Most famous though, obviously, are the official, scrolling shooter titles. Three of which being Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Imperishable Night, and Perfect Cherry Blossom. It can also been seen as a part of a shoot em' up/STG revival of sorts.
There's also a great deal of Touhou mods made for various non-Touhou games made my both Japanese and non-Japanese people. Including mods for Team Fortress 2, Pokemon, Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft, and Terraria.
Touhou is noteworthy for being arguably the most famous and successful indie game out of Japan. Being likely the most common subject of material on NicoNicoDouga, Pixiv, having its own conventions in Japan, dominating Comiket, the biggest convention in Japan, for several years, several million youtube videos, several youtube memes(including ones that the My Little Pony fandom has copied), several million pieces of fanart, and hundreds of thousands of fansongs, if not over a million, and it's refreshingly mostly female cast of characters. Touhou is a multi-million if not multi-billion dollar a year industry. With every conceivable kind of merchandise being bought and sold frequently. And certainly is part of the reason that it has dominated comiket for several years.
The notable cast of characters is almost all female. Female characters are very popular in the Japanese game industry and especially in the indie scene where people don't have to worry about a Corporate interest in people who are not interested in playing as female characters. There are male characters mentioned, but are not typically shown or made important. The most famous male being Rinnosuke. It is also noteworthy for being heavily about Japanese mythology, and to a lesser degree, ancient mythology in general. The canon is that Gensokyo, the location of the Touhou games, is a pocket dimension located somewhere in a shrine in Japan that is currently sealed up. And yes, there are people that believe that Gensokyo actually exists. If you count yourself among them, I guess you can consider yourself a Shintoist.
The franchise revolves largely about thebitchy zombie Shrine Maiden Reimu, and her adventures in her duty as shrine maiden and the conflicts with various mythological beings along the way.
She is believed by many to be heavily inspired by Kiki Kaikai and the Pocky and Rocky series.
And I suppose you could consider Touhou as being somewhat like a mixture between Kiki Kaikai and DoDonPachi. Especially if you've played the older PC-98 materials, which were not much Bullet Hell games at all.
Another notable character among the great expanding known population of Gensokyo also include...
The tomboyish, macho ice fairy, Cirno. She likes picking fights for no reason other than to be aggressive, and presumably, to prove that she is the strongest. Her response to a prank by a bunch of other fairies that didn't bode well for her home, was to find them and beat them up. And thus, Cirno, as she says frequently, is the strongest fairy. Though it is arguable just how strong she actually is and her kind are capable of being. Hot headed and aggressive to the point of being labled stupid, she was given the "nine-ball" label, as ZUN himself called her dumb. And much like other Gensokyo idiots like Utsuho, it is debatable how intelligent she actually is. In some instances, she may be seen as smarter than other characters, and her intelligence seems heavily situational. An oddball with an inconsistent intelligence, maybe she's not dumb, just crazy. Some have even described her as childish, as one of her big hobbies, is freezing frogs. Just because she's a bit sadistic sometimes. She is very famous due to the "Cirno is dumb" meme.
The Flandre sisters are both very famous. And hardly anyone in Touhou is more famous than Flandre Scarlet. A vampire that people seem to actually like. Thanks to multi-million view U.N. Owen meme videos. A lot of people are introduced to Touhou through her. And her fandom is quite massive.
Marisa Kirisame. Basically known as "that other protagonist". She's Reimu's friend. She likes stealing stuff, leading to a lot of memes with her and Patchouli Knowledge and Alice. Playable in most games. And a Western witch, showing that Touhou isn't just about Japanese mythology. And another character that has people believe that Touhou is about hats. She's a very confident and aggressive person, kind of like Cirno. And somewhat of a rival to Reimu.
Among some of the more famous youtube memes or just successful videos are these.
There are others, but I think I've shared enough for now. I don't want this thread to be too hard for your browser to load.
If you are interested in buying and playing Touhou, there are several sites that selling imports. Including the rather known and advertised j-list. They also are not very expensive at all in my opinion. And if you like shooter games, it certainly isn't a bad series to get into. I do recommend it. Cave fans would recommend Cave shooters more. But both are good. And Touhou is certainly quite approachable if you are new to the Bullet Hell genre.
So there we go, I think that was a pretty good introduction.
The thing about Touhou is, where to even begin? For starter, Touhou is a giant. It is a giant fandom of millions of people worldwide. It is at the very least the most famous indie game in Japan. And arguably the most famous indie game or series of games out of Japan, period. Beating out Cave Story in many places and instances. And along with Cave games, is currently dominating the scrolling shooter industry by a great degree.
Touhou is a series of games from the classic and wonderful scrolling shooter genre of video games. Arguably invented by titles like Space Invaders. More specifically of the Bullet Hell subgenre. And the most recent official entry is a game called Ten Desires, which was released August of last year. And is part of over a dozen official games that begun in 2006.
It is basically of the same genre as this:
A Cave shooter also famous. The two can be seen as a rivaling fandoms of sorts. With of course overlap as well. Cave shooter fans tending to be more arcade dwellers and console gamers, and Touhou fans being indie PC gamers. It is also noteworthy that Touhou is one of the biggest parts of PC gaming in Japan.
Touhou is not a single game. The official games that exist are over a dozen and there is usually at least one new game released a year. The fangames are far more plentiful, reaching into the several hundred or possibly over a thousand by now. Including some widely successful titles like Megamari and Super Marisa Land.
The games themselves look like this, and this was the first PC entry in the series.
No Touhou game is very demanding on a computer, much like the Japanese indie or "doujin" industry in general.
The official games are only of the scrolling shooter variety, with the exception of the occasional fighting games that are not made by ZUN.
The games also do not only have one consistent style and interpretation of the Bullet Hell, and do have some variety.
For instance, Great Fairy Wars requires you to learn how to intelligently freeze masses of bullets in order to succeed. Cave are not the only ones to practice a bit of variety.
The fangames are a different story, and encompass most genres of video game. Though are mostly in the platformer and jRPG genres.
One particularly famous example, New Super Marisa Land, the sequel to Super Maria Land. I've gotten this game to work in Linux before, but it is annoying.:X
There are several hundred or possibly several thousand of these creations, depending on whether you count browser games or games that aren't very good.
Most famous though, obviously, are the official, scrolling shooter titles. Three of which being Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Imperishable Night, and Perfect Cherry Blossom. It can also been seen as a part of a shoot em' up/STG revival of sorts.
There's also a great deal of Touhou mods made for various non-Touhou games made my both Japanese and non-Japanese people. Including mods for Team Fortress 2, Pokemon, Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft, and Terraria.
Touhou is noteworthy for being arguably the most famous and successful indie game out of Japan. Being likely the most common subject of material on NicoNicoDouga, Pixiv, having its own conventions in Japan, dominating Comiket, the biggest convention in Japan, for several years, several million youtube videos, several youtube memes(including ones that the My Little Pony fandom has copied), several million pieces of fanart, and hundreds of thousands of fansongs, if not over a million, and it's refreshingly mostly female cast of characters. Touhou is a multi-million if not multi-billion dollar a year industry. With every conceivable kind of merchandise being bought and sold frequently. And certainly is part of the reason that it has dominated comiket for several years.
The notable cast of characters is almost all female. Female characters are very popular in the Japanese game industry and especially in the indie scene where people don't have to worry about a Corporate interest in people who are not interested in playing as female characters. There are male characters mentioned, but are not typically shown or made important. The most famous male being Rinnosuke. It is also noteworthy for being heavily about Japanese mythology, and to a lesser degree, ancient mythology in general. The canon is that Gensokyo, the location of the Touhou games, is a pocket dimension located somewhere in a shrine in Japan that is currently sealed up. And yes, there are people that believe that Gensokyo actually exists. If you count yourself among them, I guess you can consider yourself a Shintoist.
The franchise revolves largely about the
She is believed by many to be heavily inspired by Kiki Kaikai and the Pocky and Rocky series.
And I suppose you could consider Touhou as being somewhat like a mixture between Kiki Kaikai and DoDonPachi. Especially if you've played the older PC-98 materials, which were not much Bullet Hell games at all.
Another notable character among the great expanding known population of Gensokyo also include...
The tomboyish, macho ice fairy, Cirno. She likes picking fights for no reason other than to be aggressive, and presumably, to prove that she is the strongest. Her response to a prank by a bunch of other fairies that didn't bode well for her home, was to find them and beat them up. And thus, Cirno, as she says frequently, is the strongest fairy. Though it is arguable just how strong she actually is and her kind are capable of being. Hot headed and aggressive to the point of being labled stupid, she was given the "nine-ball" label, as ZUN himself called her dumb. And much like other Gensokyo idiots like Utsuho, it is debatable how intelligent she actually is. In some instances, she may be seen as smarter than other characters, and her intelligence seems heavily situational. An oddball with an inconsistent intelligence, maybe she's not dumb, just crazy. Some have even described her as childish, as one of her big hobbies, is freezing frogs. Just because she's a bit sadistic sometimes. She is very famous due to the "Cirno is dumb" meme.
The Flandre sisters are both very famous. And hardly anyone in Touhou is more famous than Flandre Scarlet. A vampire that people seem to actually like. Thanks to multi-million view U.N. Owen meme videos. A lot of people are introduced to Touhou through her. And her fandom is quite massive.
Marisa Kirisame. Basically known as "that other protagonist". She's Reimu's friend. She likes stealing stuff, leading to a lot of memes with her and Patchouli Knowledge and Alice. Playable in most games. And a Western witch, showing that Touhou isn't just about Japanese mythology. And another character that has people believe that Touhou is about hats. She's a very confident and aggressive person, kind of like Cirno. And somewhat of a rival to Reimu.
Among some of the more famous youtube memes or just successful videos are these.
Bad Apple is a somewhat recent meme that has garnered a lot of attention, even making television and a lot of news stations covering it. This video having of 2 million views, and several other Bad Apple videos exist with over a million views. There's even been several attempts to make a My Little Pony version. Of debatable quality.
Perfect Math Class is one of Cirno's many multi-million view youtube memes. There's thousands of videos about this. And a lot of them have a good darn lot of views. Including videos of over a hundred people dancing to this song at once in public.
Speaking of Cirno, this one is basically shared by Cirno and Suwako. A lot of people like to make jokes and shipping about them because of the frog freezing thing. Cirno likes freezing frogs, but Suwako is a frog, and a lot stronger than Cirno, being a goddess.
The U.N Owen meme is so big it has the My Little Pony and Team Fortress 2 folks trying to join in on the action a lot. This video clocks in at 6 million views. It is a remix of Flandre's theme, U.N. Owen was Her, done with a McDonald's commercial. Kind of a YTPMV of sorts.
I love Touhou, because, well, it has pretty much everything I love about video games in one fandom and industry. The entire video game industry could become nothing but Touhou or Touhou esque, and I would not be unhappy. Thus I have been following it religiously for years. And I'm more into Touhou than My Little Pony. Touhou is everything that I love about video games and wish to see infect video gaming in general.
U.N. Owen is a widely successful meme with several hundred videos at over on million views each.
This one is merely the song, and has nearly 2 million views.
This, like the Ronald McDonald video, too, has over 6 million.
Another McDonalds clone with over 4 million views.
And another just regular version of the song with over a million views. The songs from Touhou compete with Final Fantasy in terms of view counts.
It isn't as well that this is the case. But Touhou basically inspired the Nyan Cat meme and Utauloid basically created it. Nyan Cat was originally inspired by the original "MyonMyon" meme, which was taking a Utau clip on repeat and setting it to Touhou characters dancing. Someone decided to put a cat to that instead of Touhou, and thus, a mega-meme was born.
This video in particular has over a million views. So there you go, because of Touhou, you have Nyan Cat.
Maybe a more minor meme, but it is big enough I guess to mention. And is the most famous thing Ibuki Suika is for. Suika, famous, for not having boobs. Yes. It is a catch song, after all.
This and Overdrive are some of the other, old school, more famous Touhou songs/fanvids. This video in particular only has almost a million views. However, I'm fairly certain there are still over a million videos out there that haven't been taken down or anything. Yeah, I'm not finding them.
Perfect Math Class is one of Cirno's many multi-million view youtube memes. There's thousands of videos about this. And a lot of them have a good darn lot of views. Including videos of over a hundred people dancing to this song at once in public.
Speaking of Cirno, this one is basically shared by Cirno and Suwako. A lot of people like to make jokes and shipping about them because of the frog freezing thing. Cirno likes freezing frogs, but Suwako is a frog, and a lot stronger than Cirno, being a goddess.
The U.N Owen meme is so big it has the My Little Pony and Team Fortress 2 folks trying to join in on the action a lot. This video clocks in at 6 million views. It is a remix of Flandre's theme, U.N. Owen was Her, done with a McDonald's commercial. Kind of a YTPMV of sorts.
I love Touhou, because, well, it has pretty much everything I love about video games in one fandom and industry. The entire video game industry could become nothing but Touhou or Touhou esque, and I would not be unhappy. Thus I have been following it religiously for years. And I'm more into Touhou than My Little Pony. Touhou is everything that I love about video games and wish to see infect video gaming in general.
U.N. Owen is a widely successful meme with several hundred videos at over on million views each.
This one is merely the song, and has nearly 2 million views.
This, like the Ronald McDonald video, too, has over 6 million.
Another McDonalds clone with over 4 million views.
And another just regular version of the song with over a million views. The songs from Touhou compete with Final Fantasy in terms of view counts.
It isn't as well that this is the case. But Touhou basically inspired the Nyan Cat meme and Utauloid basically created it. Nyan Cat was originally inspired by the original "MyonMyon" meme, which was taking a Utau clip on repeat and setting it to Touhou characters dancing. Someone decided to put a cat to that instead of Touhou, and thus, a mega-meme was born.
This video in particular has over a million views. So there you go, because of Touhou, you have Nyan Cat.
Maybe a more minor meme, but it is big enough I guess to mention. And is the most famous thing Ibuki Suika is for. Suika, famous, for not having boobs. Yes. It is a catch song, after all.
This and Overdrive are some of the other, old school, more famous Touhou songs/fanvids. This video in particular only has almost a million views. However, I'm fairly certain there are still over a million videos out there that haven't been taken down or anything. Yeah, I'm not finding them.
There are others, but I think I've shared enough for now. I don't want this thread to be too hard for your browser to load.
If you are interested in buying and playing Touhou, there are several sites that selling imports. Including the rather known and advertised j-list. They also are not very expensive at all in my opinion. And if you like shooter games, it certainly isn't a bad series to get into. I do recommend it. Cave fans would recommend Cave shooters more. But both are good. And Touhou is certainly quite approachable if you are new to the Bullet Hell genre.
So there we go, I think that was a pretty good introduction.
