History YMMV / Touhou

!!YMMV pages for specific games:
[[index]]
* ''YMMV/TouhouFuumarokuTheStoryOfEasternWonderland''
* ''YMMV/TouhouYumejikuuPhantasmagoriaOfDimDream''
* ''YMMV/TouhouGensokyoLotusLandStory''
* ''YMMV/TouhouKoumakyouTheEmbodimentOfScarletDevil''
* ''YMMV/TouhouYouyoumuPerfectCherryBlossom''
* ''YMMV/TouhouEiyashouImperishableNight''
* ''YMMV/TouhouBunkachouShootTheBullet''
* ''YMMV/TouhouFuujinrokuMountainOfFaith''
* ''YMMV/TouhouChireidenSubterraneanAnimism''
* ''YMMV/TouhouSeirensenUndefinedFantasticObject''
* ''YMMV/TouhouHisoutensokuChoudokyuuGinyoruNoNazoOOe''
* ''YMMV/TouhouShinreibyouTenDesires''
* ''YMMV/TouhouShinkirouHopelessMasquerade''
* ''YMMV/TouhouKishinjouDoubleDealingCharacter''
* ''YMMV/TouhouShinpirokuUrbanLegendInLimbo''
* ''YMMV/TouhouKanjudenLegacyOfLunaticKingdom''
* ''YMMV/TouhouHyouibanaAntinomyOfCommonFlowers''
* ''YMMV/TouhouTenkuushouHiddenStarInFourSeasons''
* ''YMMV/HifuuNightmareDiaryVioletDetector''
* ''YMMV/TouhouKikeijuuWilyBeastAndWeakestCreature''
[[/index]]

!!Other YMMV:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Examples that pertain to the story, {{Fanon}}, fandom, or other non-gameplay elements]]
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Since 80-90% of material related to the series is fan-created, this happens quite a bit. We have a [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=12914835130A21108100 forum thread]] dedicated to collecting them. There are so many, it's become commonplace to consider each artist's interpretation as its own self-contained fan canon, [[AgreeToDisagree not affecting the others]], so that fans get to enjoy each interpretation for its own merits.
* AmericansHateTingle: In Japan, Reimu is consistently the most popular character in the series by titanic margins, but in the West, her GoodIsNotNice tendencies render her a BaseBreakingCharacter (where she is "merely" top 10).
* AngstDissonance: Parsee's entire existence revolves around her being miserable. This is played for laughs, [[{{Tsundere}} especially]] [[ButtMonkey by the]] [[ChewToy fandom]].
* AngstWhatAngst: There are a fair number of characters with grim or even tragic histories, and hints that a few others have their troubled sides, but very little angst occurs onscreen (with a few exceptions, mostly involving [[WhoWantsToLiveForever Mokou]]), and the tone of the series [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism tends towards carefree]].
* AwesomeEgo: A number of characters are beloved not just in spite of their arrogance, but ''because'' of it. Cirno probably tops the list, but honorable mentions include Remilia and Miko.
* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Cirno. She became overwhelmingly popular, which eventually led to a large backlash of people who got sick of seeing her absolutely everywhere. Nowadays half of the fandom still loves her, while the other half considers her overrated and wishes she would just go die in a hole somewhere.
** Sanae. Some like that she is a potential {{Foil}} for Reimu, a recent Gensokyo newcomer with connections with the outside world, and her increasingly eccentric behavior throughout the games. While detractors dislike that she is very similar to Reimu in appearance and job, her constant appearances during the Windows Two era, especially since many believe she replaced fan favorite Sakuya (despite the latter actually having ''more'' appearances and having been retired as a playable character for a while before Sanae took the third heroine position), and her focus in fan-art and works as well. This is a bit alleviated by not appearing in games between ''Ten Desires'' and ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'', with mostly positive response about her reappearance in the latter (it helps that she appeared alongside Youmu and Reisen as playables respectively).
** Reimu herself. Some believe her blunt, slothful, apathetic personality makes her a more interesting hero. Others believe she [[{{Jerkass}} takes things too far]]. [[AmericansHateTingle This seems to be primarily a Western thing]], as in Japan she's one of the most popular characters in the series.
* BrokenBase: The fandom will never stop arguing as to what's canon, whether Touhou is canonically grimdark or not, or over popular interpretations, especially in regards to new changes to Nitori and others in ''Hopeless Masquerade''.
** The ''Phantasmagoria'' games probably can cause an even bigger rift in the fandom than ''Ten Desires''. Some say it's the best thing ever happening in the series and want more versus shooters in the series, others shudder at the possibility every time a new game is announced.
** Yukkuris. Some people love them and consider them to be just as much a part of Gensokyo as the girls themselves, while others despise them and think that they're the worst thing that the fanbase has ever produced.
** The gameplay of the mainline titles. They are seen as genuinely fun and a potential GatewaySeries to other BulletHell titles, or [[ItsHardSoItSucks unfun, excessively difficult exercises in masochism]], with those who believe the latter taking the EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame route or just sticking to the [[MorePopularSpinoff fighting games]].
** ''Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia'' has also split the fanbase on a few things, including it being [[AscendedFanboy illustrated by fan artists]] with a couple of [[PantyShot panty shots]] of Aya, and having an article with Miko giving a speech that heavily references modern politics. There is one camp that finds these moments hilarious and argue that because the book is written from [[CloudCuckoolander Aya's]] [[UnreliableNarrator perspective]] it is fine, while detractors argue that such things shouldn't be a part of Touhou canon and even go so far as to claim FanonDiscontinuity.
* ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch: Interestingly, many people claimed that they do not like Touhou without actually playing the game, dismissing it as "cheap otaku pandering Shmup franchise" with [[TastesLikeDiabetes fanservice moe girls flying around]], despite canon materials barely have any fanservice, therefore the detractors maybe confused the fanmade stuff with the canon ones.
* ContestedSequel: ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom''. Some fans appreciate the addition of [[{{Checkpoint}} Pointdevice Mode]], but others point out that ZUN seems to have used this as an excuse to create [[ItsHardSoItSucks over-the-top]] enemy attacks.
* ContinuityLockout: This wasn't much of a problem during the PC-98 era and the first few games of the Windows era, since the plots of those games were largely self-contained. However, after ''Mountain of Faith'' the ContinuityCreep starts to take place, and now it's much more difficult for newcomers to understand what's going on since from that point on each game builds upon the previous one. Comments by ZUN suggest that [[TrollingCreator he feels a certain level of inaccessibility]] is core to the ''Touhou'' experience. The various manga and {{Universe Compendium}}s don't really help either, since all the manga series assume that one is already familiar with the games and their lore and the {{Universe Compendium}}s have some [[UnreliableNarrator Unreliable Narration]] at work. That said, there are many who play ''Touhou'' games just for fun BulletHell action and don't mind [[PlayTheGameSkipTheStory starting with the latest game and ignoring the plot]].
* CoveredUp: While Ran's theme, Necro-Fantasy, came first and Yukari's theme, Necrofantasia, was meant as a re-arrange, the latter is vastly the more popular, and Ran's become more associated with Charming Domination (her stage theme) instead. To a certain degree, some fan remixes and covers of the themes and leitmotifs are so memetically popular they overshadow their origins.
* CreatorWorship: ZUN, who is worshipped by fans as ''the'' father of the series, and has even had fanart drawn of him, [[TheAlcoholic rarely without him holding a beer mug or can in his hand]]. Any time he makes an appearance at {{Fan Convention}}s in the US, fans joke about going drinking with him.
* CrossesTheLineTwice:
** In ''Imperishable Night'', Reimu gives us a line that would be creepy if ''anyone else'' was saying it.
-->"Annoying rabbit! Shut up or we'll shoot the rest of your clothes off!"
** Kosuzu finding an outside world article about ebola? Not funny. Kosuzu thinking that ebola is a kind of youkai? Hilarious.
* DesignatedHero: Canonically, Reimu tends to be more... cavalier than one might hope from the hero.
** Marisa is not really any better either, though she has the benefit of not being as rude as Reimu and not being expected to be heroic unlike her shrine maiden friend.
** And depending on who you ask, Sanae was falling into this since ''Undefined Fantastic Object'' due to {{Flanderization}} of her interest in "Youkai Extermination" and other ditzy tendencies.
* DiscreditedMeme:
** Any meme having to do with Sakuya and pads is heading this way.
** Calling Aya and the main game playable characters other than Reimu and Marisa "ZUN's girlfriends" or outright ''sluts'' because ZUN gave them their share of spotlight got really old after said characters built up substantial fanbases on their own and the games' rosters became more varied over time. It's also considered to be rather disrespectful towards ZUN himself, since he's now ''married and has children''. Nowadays, as it's mostly used out of spite towards the characters, it's considered unfunny and frowned upon. [[note]]Except the rare cases where it's used in a respectful manner - such as the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BjvdBdCCxE Anime Week Atlanta Q&A Panel]], where ZUN got jokingly asked which would be the two characters that he would most prefer to be trapped in a hot spring with - to which he responded that it would be Reimu and Marisa.[[/note]]
** [=McRolled=] was responsible for boosting the popularity of [[EnsembleDarkhorse Flandre Scarlet]], [[SignatureSong her theme]], [[GatewaySeries and the series in general]], but now it's barely relevant to the Touhou fan community. [[WeirdAlEffect The irritation caused by the popularity of [=McRolled=] seeping into that of "U.N. Owen Was Her?"]] didn't help its case.
** The "Masochist Tenshi" meme has become this ever since ''Antinomy of Common Flowers'' revealed that Tenshi is, without a doubt, a child.
* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: Many fans don't consider the shooting games ''bad'', but they ''are'' designed by a man who thinks if you beat his games after only 20 hours of trying, it's ''[[NintendoHard too easy]]'', so the difficulty can [[ItsHardSoItSucks turn them off]]. To them, it's more fun to indulge in the characters, the lore, the connections to various East Asian mythologies, and the massive universe of fanworks surrounding those elements. Additionally, some fans who do play the games [[MorePopularSpinoff prefer the fighting game spinoffs]]. This is a major reason why ''Touhou'' is generally not a GatewaySeries to other scrolling shooter series, and why the general shoot-em-up community, which believes in [[PlayTheGameSkipTheStory the opposite]], tends to have beefs with the ''Touhou'' community.
* EnsembleDarkHorse: At least one per game.
** Mima of the PC-98 games has become the embodiment of this. Fans wanted her to return to the windows games after so many years.
** Shinki is probably the second most popular PC-98 only character, mostly due to EpilepticTrees about her relationship with Alice. (Being a goddess of demons and having a Sakuya {{Expy}} as a maid doesn't hurt either)
** Alice herself as she's one of the few to return in Windows games, and between her dolls, her rather normal looks (which stand out), and ShipTease with Marisa.
** Flandre, despite only appearing in a few games, is even more popular than her more prominent sister Remilia.
** Hong Meiling, Cirno, and Sanae all got primary roles in ''Hisoutensoku'' because of their popularity with the fans.
*** Hoo boy, Cirno. Despite originating as a mere stage 2 boss, her BoisterousWeakling LargeHam status made her surprisingly popular with the fanbase, though her fame really '''exploded''' in ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'' where ZUN himself turned her into a [[MemeticMutation memetic juggernaut]] with the infamous "⑨ - Baka" in the instruction manual. To this day, Cirno is one of the most popular minor characters in the series, continues appearing in the games semi-regularly as either a minor foe or even a playable character, and has had a spinoff title centered entirely on her.
** Merlin's GameBreakingBug has led to her becoming the most popular of the sisters, exemplified by being the only one of the three to make the character filter in Website/FanFictionDotNet's ''Touhou'' section.
** Lunasa's gloomy manner and responsible mindset has caused her to be popular among fanartists, even more so than Merlin in spite of that bug and her status as "the stacked sister".
** Yamame, despite not being outright popular herself, does have a fair number of fans and appearances in fan works because she belongs to a group of very popular characters [[note]]discussed in [[https://youtu.be/iAhCWh5TkiM?t=2m this video]].[[/note]]. It helps that she is a good-natured person.
** That said, ''the'' Dark Horse character of ''Subterranean Animism'' is, without a doubt, Koishi, who not only is regularily featured in the top 3 in character popularity polls, but even managed to beat both Marisa and Reimu for the top spot during the [=THwiki's=] 11th character popularity poll.
** [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Chen has become a beloved character on]] Website/FourChan, mainly thanks to bkub's [[PlayedForLaughs offbeat]] [[{{Yonkoma}} comics]].
** Since the full release of ''Ten Desires'', Futo has been gaining quite a bit of popularity too, due to her fish out of water tendencies, and being smugly cute.
** With the full release of ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'', a few of the characters introduced have quickly become likable. Most notably Clownpiece, due to her iconic American-flag-inspired clothing, and being a fairy that's actually very powerful, both in-story and [[ThatOneBoss in game]].
** Judging from the 2016 popularity poll, it seems safe to assume that the fortune teller has gained a following. Despite being a OneShotCharacter character that got KilledOffForReal, he ended up 77th place, putting him above both the Aki sisters, Yamame and Ichirin.
** On the 2017 [[TheWikiRule Touhou Wiki]] popularity poll, the first 17 spots are occupied by various recurring playable characters and antagonists. The 18th is occupied by Momiji Inubashiri, a stage 4 ''midboss'' in ''Mountain Of Faith'' with her only other appearances being in spinoffs and supplementary materials. She doesn't even have an official character portrait, and yet she outranks series mainstays like Yuuka Kazami and Patchouli Knowledge.
** On the 2018 Touhou Wiki popularity poll, Shion Yorigami hit ''15th place'', which is a surprise given how Antinomy of Common Flowers was just recently released at the time. It's more surprising that she hit the top twenty while her younger sister Jo'on Yorigami was in 54th place, making this a rare case of siblings in a series being far apart in the polls as opposed to close together.
** [[InstantWebHit Practically overnight]] after the full version of ''Wily Beast and Weakest Creature'' was released, Saki Kurokoma became a ''literal'' Ensemble Darkhorse. Her explosive popularity is mostly attributed to her cowboy-inspired design; the sheer absurdity of a cowgirl Touhou made people doubt she was real at first, and tons of "howdy" and "yeehaw" related memes sprung up around her. Her cowgirl design also made her [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff very popular amongst]] [[AmericansAreCowboys Americans]].
* EpilepticTrees: A lot of them.
** The lightning connecting the five eyes of [=YuugenMagan=] forms the vague shape of a woman. Who is this woman? The real "brain" of [=YuugenMagan=]? Someone else, controlling it? Maybe the eyes themselves are generating it, as a humanoid avatar of their collective consciousness? Or is it just a coincidence?
** Elis. No one is really certain what she is. Vampire? Magician? Demon? The stages preceding her have "Oriental Magician" as their background music... which is otherwise associated with Marisa.
** Mima's and Marisa's relationship. There's debate as to whether Mima's her teacher or mother or what. She is generally agreed to have taught Marisa some of her spells, since they have some shared or similar attacks.
** Konngara is sometimes thought to be an Oni, as she has a horn, and drinks sake while fighting, like Yuugi would do later in the series. At the same time, she lacks feet and there seems to be blood dripping from the base of her horn as though it were a spike through her forehead, so other fans suggest she might be a [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghost]]. But wait! Her boss title is "Astral Knight", so perhaps she is some sort of alien! [[http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Konngara And yet some other information]] points to the fact that she may be a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaksha yaksha]].
** Fans are divided on whether Rika and Rikako from ''Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream'' are the same person or not. Both are more scientifically-minded than most Gensoukyou residents.
** Kurumi may be related to the Scarlet sisters. Her boss theme is called "Scarlet Symphony ~ Scarlet Phoneme".
** The nature of danmaku battles in the PC-98 games, with some assuming they were lethal battles.
** The relationship between Alice and Shinki (similar to Marisa and Mima above). For that matter, any attempt to reconcile Windows Alice with her PC-98 appearance.
** Eirin's character profile says she was surprised to see Sakuya in ''Imperishable Night'', but [[RiddleForTheAges never explains why.]] {{Fanon}} has explored several possible connections between them, including Sakuya being a Lunarian, Eirin having made her Luna Dial, or the two characters being related in some way. There's also a lot of speculation about how and why Sakuya became Remilia's servant.
** Reisen's ears have what look like buttons at their base, which led to speculation that she wears fake ears. However, in ''Silent Sinner in Blue'', the other rabbits in the Lunar Defense Corps have the same buttons too, except for Reisen II, their new recruit. Perhaps the buttons are [[BlingOfWar rank insignia]] of some kind?
** A popular fan theory has Maribel and Yukari Yakumo being the same person. The basic idea is that when Maribel sleeps, she dreams she is Yukari. And when Yukari sleeps, she dreams she is Maribel. It doesn't help matters that they look very similar. Or that both have boundary-related powers. There may be some evidence suggesting she is Yukari's past time-displaced self. Although Maribel is from the future, ''Perfect Memento in Strict Sense'' mentions that a note she wrote was found in Gensokyo several centuries in the past. Another common association is with Marisa, again because they have similar appearances and in this case similar first names as well.
** Fandom has taken to associating Renko with Reimu the same way they do Maribel with Yukari.
** Her name, title, and the fact she has a shackle with a broken chain around her left arm, have all fueled speculations that Kasen Ibara is one of the four Devas of the Mountain - specifically Suika's daughter / lover, if you go by the original legend. Japanese mythology, which ZUN takes great liberties with anyway, does include oni hermits. And that's before you get to her mysterious relationship with the Hakurei Shrine or the thing with her right arm. [[spoiler:This ultimately ends up being true as not only is Kasen an oni, but she even introduces herself as being one of the Four Devas to Reimu after regaining her arm.]]
* FanMyopia: Part of this stems from the sheer volume of fan material. Of course, most of the fan material comes from Japan -- where ''Touhou'' actually ''is'' that well-known. This is perhaps why "What anime is this?" is a major FandomEnragingMisconception.
* FandomEnragingMisconception:
** Asking "What anime is this?" will lead to a lot of groans since ''Touhou'' is a video game series that (currently) has no official anime. Mistaking any of the {{Fanime}} for an official ''Touhou'' anime will get similar groans.
** Assuming that "U.N. Owen Was Her?" is officially named "[=McRolled=]" or that it originates from the video of the same name. It's also not Death Waltz by John Stump.
*** It is for the best to not call Yuuka's Phantasmagoria theme song as "Tiny Little Adamantium", "Omae wa mo", or anything you might have known from social media, for its official name is "Gensokyo Past and Present ~ Flower Land". Also, it is not wise to mention Shinabayan or anyone else as the writer of the song, for it was written by ZUN. While appreciating cover song and meme is generally acceptable in Touhou fandom, giving the artistic credit to the wrong person is completely a different thing.
** Calling Sakuya as "[[LightNovel/FateZero Sa]][[Franchise/{{Naruto}} ku]][[Manga/CardcaptorSakura ra]]" or "[[VideoGame/CorpseParty Sa]][[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica yaka]]".
** Given the enormous amount of fanworks, it is really easy for people to mistake {{Fanon}} for canon and vice-versa, which can tick off certain fans.
** Assuming that Koishi Komeiji's [[FinishingMove Last Word (I'm Going to Call You Now, So Answer the Phone!)]] in ''Urban Legend in Limbo'' is inspired or a ripoff from [[{{VideoGame/Undertale}} Chara and their genocide tendencies]] is a good way to tick off Touhou fans because of how untrue it is. Koishi Komeiji debuted in ''Subterranean Animism'' (2008) and ''Urban Legend in Limbo'' was released in May 10th 2015, while Undertale was released in September 15th 2015. Furthermore, [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125361-Undertale-Dev-Every-Monster-Should-Feel-Like-an-Individual?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=c40d1feaf5e012e2c409bb8b2e8e3b23bed299e6-1579742042-0-ATduU06wzJ0GUq0hpn5HJBb4M4SqJ3OTKviEcQ_bTSI4KzJyFliygLRyhYbNH_YzHXnAwlIcU5qKJnkWxUdCUw6XnIT8K9AVAlAW5NYrxhDGHXS9QIpFq1JV8ARccI4Yiv4tn0tK50hs-G4lgS6x9S4fxs1_EQRIu9d5rxjxepITv3VRFvxll8qe3fc-xEa5NBS9z57chP03Kudw9ltKJPXUa5wV-pbYYLJC7jYcsH1jrNk3ZaCXttpaLLPKoKfxHq-6KBywTPX5P2O2qyq-pkBA3JmN1qaYU10n3kppYIgXe9Sf_WOJ6flcGojyv_kAf7xWgcphpVxk0bUhapzTy6cARfEBwU7SI3Z1p1NAzXnb#&gid=gallery_1532&pid=1 Toby Fox (creator of Undertale) said in an interview that Undertale's bullet dodging system is inspired from Touhou]], not the other way around.
** Assuming that ''Touhou'' is a {{Hentai}} series because of [[SelfFanservice the fanworks]] will get you laughed at because of how devoid of FanService the official works are.
** Mistaking the franchise for Creator/{{Toho}} will go as well as mistaking ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' for Creator/JamesCameron's ''Film/{{Avatar}}''.
** If you are an active content creator in {{Doujin|shi}} circle, writing ''Touhou'' Doujin where Marisa [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns refers to herself with the masculine pronoun "ore"]] will immediately get you dismissed as a non-fan who's just using ''Touhou'' characters to boost your own popularity. [[note]]While Marisa's speech pattern is rather blunt and boyish, she still uses the standard mildly-feminine pronoun ''watashi''.[[/note]]
* FanworkOnlyFans: ''Touhou'' may well be the poster child for this trope. If you were to conduct a survey amongst fans asking how many have actually played the games for more than ten minutes, most of the responses would likely be "no". Most are in it for the fan comics, the fan remixes, and memes.
* FandomRivalry:
** Many fans of the shmup genre frown upon ''Touhou'' and its fanbase, especially ''Touhou'' fans who [[EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame don't play the games and instead indulge in its lore and non-game fan-produced material]], labeling them as "secondaries" who shouldn't call themselves true ''Touhou'' fans. Although, it's rare to see a ''Touhou'' fan be dismissive of fans of the genre.
** In the ''Website/{{Pixiv}}'' community, there's a rivalry between ''Touhou'' fanartists and ''[[VideoGame/KantaiCollection KanColle]]'' fanartists. If you happen to be a ''Kancolle'' fanartist who once drew ''Touhou'' fanart a lot, be prepared to have several zealous ''Touhou'' fanartists accusing you for abandoning ''Touhou'' fanart and switching sides to drawing only ''Kancolle'' fanart. Ironically, [[WordOfGod ZUN has said]] that he thinks ''Touhou'' and ''Kancolle'' go well together.
** Another one exists with fans of arcade RhythmGame players who feel that ''Touhou'' arranges being in rhythm games [[HypeBacklash is overexposure]]. It would be easier to count how many currently-serviced rhythm games, particularly arcade games of Japanese origin, ''don't'' have ''Touhou'' arranges.
* {{Fanon}}: ''Touhou'' basically ''runs'' on fanon, with enough sheer fan material in it to make the average fan's head ''explode''. Some of it [[AscendedFanon has even been actually adopted into the canon by the author]].
* FanonDiscontinuity:
** Contrary to popular belief, there is no official word declaring the PC-98 games as non-canon. However, with the differences in settings and all the FridgeLogic involved in the transition, many fans prefer to think of them as part of a separate universe from the Windows games.
** Borderline case for ''Silent Sinner in Blue''. Mainly for introducing two characters who defeated popular characters in ways that can be described as DeusExMachina at best or outright cheating at worst.
** There's also disagreement within the fandom over how much ''Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth'' counts. It's the only official ''Touhou'' production that wasn't actually written by ZUN himself, and some of the characterization differs from his - especially since it's a gag series that plays fast and loose with such things to begin with.
** Likewise, a part of the fandom postulates that Reisen's Extra Stage story from [=PS4=] version of ''Urban Legend in Limbo'' should be considered non-canon, as it's the only official content that requires a console to access and the extra stage itself is mostly filled with joke spell cards and only serves as a short preview for the incident in ''Antinomy of Common Flowers''. It helps that Iruka Unabara of Tasogare Frontier [[https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Iruka_Unabara_x_ZUN_interview claims]] that the PC version tells the complete story of ''Urban Legend in Limbo''.
** Taken UpToEleven with fans who don't acknowledge ''any'' material other than the games as {{Canon}} (and may even disregard the non-integer games, such as the fighters). Presumably this happens due to said side materials having wildly different ways of depicting the characters, the setting, relationships or any combination thereof. Then the LogicalExtreme happens with people who basically loop back and believe only in {{Fanon}} material of their own choosing to the disregard of ''everything'' else. By virtue of the stagging amounts of said ''Touhou'' fanon existing, this is actually much easier than it might sound.
* FashionVictimVillain: There's a danbooru pool titled "Hecatia's Weird Fashion Sense" devoted to mocking Hecatia's funny t-shirt and multicolored plaid skirt. It's an in-universe example too with some of the characters commenting on her weird clothes.
* FirstInstallmentWins: Averted with the whole series, but played straight with Windows era games, where ''[=EoSD=]'', ''PCB'' and ''IN'' and their casts usually have much, much larger fanbases than the later games.
** Gradually becoming [[AvertedTrope fully averted]] as time goes on. Characters from later games are shooting up to top spots and intermingling with early-Windows characters, with Koishi taking a surprising #1 in 2015, and multiple characters from Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom landing immediately in the top 25.
* FriendlyFandoms:
** The Touhou fandom is very friendly with both the ''Music/{{Vocaloid}}'' and the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' fandom.
** There is also a good overlap with the ''VideoGame/KantaiCollection'' fandom, due to both series taking elements of Japanese history and making anthromorphic personifications out of them.
** ''Touhou'' fans and ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' fans also tend to find company in one another, due to the fact that ZUN himself is a big ''[=JoJo=]'' fan and has referenced the series on numerous occasions in the ''Touhou'' games.
** Touhou fans also happen to be on good terms with ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'', largely owed to [[NamesTheSame Cirno's nickname matching up]] with the Armored Core games' resident ThatOneBoss, Nineball. And yes, there's been [[https://www.deviantart.com/thedarkbreaker/art/When-Nineball-met-the-Nineball-326306047 fanart.]]
** In a sense, this series is well liked by fans of [=YTPMV=] sources such as Advertising/TheManYourManCouldSmellLike commercials with Creator/TerryCrews and Creator/JackBlack's appearance on ''Series/SesameStreet'' due to the series' music being popular sources to remix.
* GatewaySeries: Generally averted. Most fans who play the games generally don't consider getting into other {{shoot em up}}s.
* GeniusBonus: Many spell cards are named after obscurities related to science, literature, folklore, and the like.
** Mokou's boss music, "Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke", is a reference to "the smoke that rises to the moon even to this day" of Mt. Fuji, which the Hourai Elixir was thrown into at the end of ''The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter''.
** Kaguya's third card from ''Shoot the Bullet'' references the seamless ceiling of the Kinkaku-ji temple... though whether it's truly seamless or not is disputed, as it has been ''burned in a fire''.
** Kasen's default stance in ''Urban Legend in Limbo'' is the crane stance following in on her animal themed motif.
* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff:
** While the whole series is still wildly popular in Japan, it's also popular in (of all places) in China and Taiwan, despite, at least in the Chinese case, the whole franchise being about mostly Japanese creatures[[note]]This is at least mitigated by the fact that Chinese mythology had something similar to the concept of youkai[[/note]]. It's also popular in the English-speaking world and also mildly popular in the Spanish-speaking world, mainly Spain and Mexico. Reportedly, ZUN is surprised by the size of its western fanbase. It's large enough to spawn a ''Touhou''-themed FanConvention in California.
** Though Marisa is very popular in general, often comfortably in second place in Japanese polls, she is ''extremely'' popular in the American fandom, where polling shows she resides year after year in first place, often by as big a margin as Reimu gets in Japan (sometimes more than 2nd and 3rd ''combined''). This is likely because she has a western-seeming name, her outfit is that of a stereotypical western witch, she has a boisterous can-do attitude, she's likable and becomes friends with everyone, she refuses to let the world pass her by, and she has pulled herself up from her own bootstraps to become powerful enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Reimu. She is also willing to "appropriate" ideas from other powerful magicians, similar to how America itself is an amalgamation of multiple races, cultures, and creeds. These are all traits that Americans would call ''uniquely'' American. [[OccamsRazor Or maybe because she's funny.]]
** Kaguya is much more popular in Chinese Fandom than in Japan, constantly ranking in the top 20 most popular characters there. It helps that the popular joke that Kaguya is a NEET is not as big in China compared to in Japan.
* GrowingTheBeard: In two ways, namely the gameplay and the story.
** The games themselves grew, starting roughly with the fourth game and then again with the sixth, into the game series we know today.
** The story has evolved a lot from its initial outings with the somewhat ExcusePlot of the earlier games to the somewhat more central but still largely self-contained plots starting with the Windows reboot. Then it grew again starting with ''Mountain of Faith'' where it evolved into whole connected arcs.
* HilariousInHindsight:
** Byakuren often got saddled with the nickname "Touhou Jesus" and variants. Come a [[Videogame/TheLastComer certain fangame]], and we're [[http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,13077.30.html given the ACTUAL Jesus Christ as a Touhou.]]
** The fandom's love of miko armpits is even funnier now that there's a character ''named'' Miko who also has exposed armpits.
** Yuuka Kazami is known for her sunflower motif and her tendency to be a sociopathic and violent entity in fan works. The 2015 game ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' features a sociopathic talking sunflower entity as a character who [[spoiler:encourages the player to KillEmAll.]]
** Still related to Yuuka, her most powerful spell card in ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'', 幻想「花鳥風月、嘯風弄月」 (translated as ''Phantasm "The Beauty of Nature"'') has similar name to [[LightNovel/KonoSuba one of Aqua's useless Party Trick 花鳥風月 (translated as ''Nature's Beauty'')]].
** The cast of ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'' scored fairly high in popularity polls, but nobody but the most savvy of people expected Sagume to score much higher than Clownpiece; mainly because this was preceded by ''a lot'' of fan art of Clownpiece and some fanart depicting Sagume bemoaning that she will never beat Clownpiece in popularity, plus Sagume's ability is that anything she says will become a lie -- which means one can take this as Sagume's ability actually affecting reality.
** Fans commonly depict Cirno as being used as makeshift air conditioning. In ''Visionary Fairies in Shrine'', Reimu has been letting Clownpiece stay under the shrine because her hellfires provide heating.
** In 2009, there was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRbjelU4ILs an infamous graphic mod]] for ''Subterranean Animism'' and ''Mountain of Faith'' that replaced all the bullets, as well as point items and the player's hitbox, with black squares[[note]]done by just laying black boxes over the entire graphical sheets[[/note]], [[HilarityEnsues ending as you would expect it to]]. Come ''Hidden Star in Four Seasons'', and Okina's "Black Snowman"/"Snowman of Abnormal Snowfall" attack winds up utilizing initially-black bullets... ''[[ThatOneAttack ending as you would expect it to]].''
** ''[[WebAnimation/DiamondInTheRoughTouhou Diamond in the Rough]]'', a ''Touhou'' fanwork initially released in 2012, featured an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent who [[IJustWantToBeSpecial wanted to be special]] as the main character, and described [[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds the consequences of his journey of discovery]] in the process. ''Urban Legend in Limbo'', released in 2015, featured Sumireko Usami, who is ''also'' an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent whose actions caused problems for Gensokyo.
*** This is doubly amusing, as Mokou, portrayed in ''Diamond in the Rough'' as [[spoiler:completely apathetic to Brolli's cause by the end of the series]], is instead one of Sumireko's [[OddFriendship closest friends]] in Gensokyo.
** Amaya Yukimura, the Stage 2 boss of Danmakufu 0.12m fangame ''VideoGame/JuuniJumon'', used moon-oriented danmaku a good four years before Clownpiece and Hecatia did in ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom''. Similarly, a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wdMkDdZQjQ joke Danmakufu ph3 script]] created during the demo release for ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'', meant to be a mocked-up "leaked" Extra Stage, also used moon danmaku, even using homing moons like in Hecatia's ThatOneAttack.
** Since ''Double Dealing Character'' was released, artists often depict Raiko and the Tsukumo sisters as a rival band to the Prismriver sisters. In ''Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia'', Raiko joined the Prismriver sisters as their fourth member.
** In order to appear intimidating and assert her dominance, Rumia spreads out her arms in a manner similar to a T-pose. Come 2018, and T-posing to assert your dominance has become a meme.
** The fangame ''Gensokyo no Nazo'' (based on ''VideoGame/AtlantisNoNazo'') focuses on mysterious doors that have appeared all throughout Gensokyo. This game was released in 2012, making the inclusion of teleporting doors as a plot element in ''Hidden Star in Four Seasons'' rather amusing by comparison.
** The infamous [[https://www.thpatch.net/wiki/Portal:En-4kids Mystery Project]] GameMod for the mainline ''Touhou'' games, in which the series is rewritten in a ridiculously-[[{{Bowdlerise}} bowlderized]] manner as if it was done by [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] for a theoretical western release, gave Marisa the alternative name of "Melissa [=McDonalds=]". In ''Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia'' is an Creator/AgathaChristie-styled novel written by Akyuu featuring [[WriteWhoYouKnow fictional portrayals]] of other Gensokyo residents, of which the main character, based on Marisa, is called Melissa.
* HypeBacklash:
** A majority of shoot-em-up fans, who feel that ''Touhou'' has driven attention away from other shmups, particularly those with more mechanical visual styles. An additional source of frustration for shmup fans is that [[EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame the lore, characters, and fan works are far, far more popular than the games themselves]], to the point where many ''Touhou'' fans have little to no experience with playing them; in contrast, most shmup fans [[PlayTheGameSkipTheStory see plots as only existing to give nominal reasons to shoot things]], not helped by most shooters [[ExcusePlot having little in the way of lore to begin with]].
** Non-shmup fans, who are utterly baffled by the popularity of a simple shmup series and really don't dig {{Moe}}, {{Animesque}} fanart, or the ImprobablyFemaleCast.
** People who discover ''Touhou'' through the fandom and then [[ItsHardSoItSucks get frustrated to the point of ragequit]] by the BulletHell genre.
* ItsPopularNowItSucks: The fact that fan works and characters draw in many fans, who have never played the games themselves, doesn't sit well with a lot of people.
* ItWasHisSled:
** The most likely thing you will hear about the Fortune Teller upon bringing him up is that he was KilledOffForReal by Reimu.
** Kasen's true identity is actually not this as an interview from ZUN reveals that it is meant to be obvious throughout ''Wild and Horned Hermit''. On the other hand, the flood of fanart of [[spoiler:the WalkingSpoiler that is Kasen's sentient arm and her ObviouslyEvil oni form (which reveals that she found her arm again and, with StatusQuoIsGod being in effect, changes back)]] are probably less intended.
* JustHereForGodzilla:
** A number of fans don't really play the games so much as read doujinshi or indulge in character fanart.
** Some part of the audience is here for [[AwesomeMusic/{{Touhou}} its soundtrack]].
* LGBTFanbase: Touhou Project has attracted a large following of lesbians and other LGBTQ+ women, mostly due to the massive amounts of LesYay present in both the series proper and the fandom. The fact that almost all of the characters are female and many are conventionally attractive (''especially'' in fanart) definitely helps.
* LoveToHate: ''Seija''. What's not to love-to-hate... she is a CommanderContrarian who uses others to achieve her ends while screwing them over, to begin with. LoveToHate is also something implied by her nature: her feeling is ''always'' opposed to that of others, so she falls into self-loathing when she makes people happy and actually prefers it when no one likes her.
* MagnificentBitch:
** Yukari Yakumo, the enigmatic youkai of Boundaries and the single most well-informed person in all of Gensokyo, is the closest thing [[TheHero Reimu]] has to [[GreaterScopeParagon an employer]], but also deftly manipulates the setting's various powers, both established and emergent, to ensure its continued stability. Having once [[Manga/TouhouBougetsushou led a failed invasion on the Moon]] to implicitly teach the youkai a lesson about expansionism, Yukari opts to instill fear of the unknown on [[VideoGame/TouhouEiyashouImperishableNight the Lunarian exiles]] when they decide to live as humans, faithful to the philosophy on the human-youkai relationship; she does so by setting up a convoluted KansasCityShuffle that ultimately leaves Eirin wondering ''how'' Yukari got her hands on a Lunarian wine bottle. Much later, she coerces Reimu into letting [[Manga/TouhouSuzunaanForbiddenScrollery Kosuzu Motoori]] into her circle of confidantes to keep TheMasquerade up and prevent the bookworm from eventually becoming a youkai--by first possessing her with a demonic scroll, of course. Cunning and manipulative when she does [[BrilliantButLazy bother to stay awake]], Yukari cultivates the image of being fickle, whimsical and lying, all while omitting her more charitable moments, in order to make everyone fear her.
** Okina Matara is the mastermind behind the [[VideoGame/TouhouTenkuushouHiddenStarInFourSeasons sixteenth game]]'s unusual flow of seasons, using her ability to pour energy into anything through their backs as a show of power [[AttentionWhore to remind everyone that she exists]], as well as to replace her unwitting servants. In ''[[Manga/TouhouSangetsusei Visionary Fairies in Shrine]]'', she turns a large number of fairies into stone cherries in order to draw out Hell's intentions, eventually getting a hold of one of their fairies and ordering the latter to come back to Hell's bigshots and tell of Okina's existence, effectively setting herself up as Gensokyo's deterrent against intruders. In ''[[VideoGame/HifuuNightmareDiaryVioletDetector Violet Detector]]'', she messes around with a human from the Outside World, Sumireko Usami, by splitting the latter's consciousness and body, then giving the body to a dream soul and convincing that soul that it's the real Sumireko; Okina only reveals the trick when the fake meets the real deal, and promptly strips the fake of its borrowed powers to make the duel fair. With the potential to remake Gensokyo from the ground up with her powers, Okina consistently makes her ends meet without ever truly giving away her entire hand, reinforcing Gensokyo's mysticism and safety from outside forces in the process.
* MemeticBadass:
** Cirno. She's the strongest AND a genius! Some of this seems to be finding its way into canon lately.
** Minamitsu Murasa. She's either CAPTAIN MINAMITSU MOTHERFUCKING MURASA, or she's ComicStrip/{{Popeye}}'s [[http://safebooru.donmai.us/post/show/503850/ daughter.]]
** Eiki Shiki, [[NoIndoorVoice YAMAXANADU]], mostly due to {{doujinshi}} artist bkub's comics. (Such portrayals include a Gundam and ''Batman''.)
** Yuuka Kazami, known as the "Ultimate Sadistic Creature" on pixiv.
** [[CreatorWorship ZUN himself]], who can apparently [[DrunkenMaster beat his own games while shitfaced]].
* MemeticLoser: [[TheOjou Kaguya Houraisan]]. In canon, she's an [[{{Immortality}} immortal]] lunar princess with powerful time-warping abilities, and actually one of the harder bosses in higher difficulties. In fanon, she's a NEET who can't do anything but "[[MemeticMutation HELP ME, EIRIN!!]]", though most works portray Mokou as losing to her more often than not.
** Alice Margatroid: in canon, a calm, stoic woman who prefers being alone. In fanon, is turned into a creepy loser idiot yandere for the same reasons.
** Remilia Scarlet: in canon, she's a powerful vampire. In fanon, well, the fact that she has [[http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=923358 a specific pose for cowering]] (the [[FanNickname Charisma Guard/Charisma Break]]) should tell you all you need to know. It's her [[http://d.hatena.ne.jp/yos_piyo/20080709/1215614296 low blocking animation from the fighting games]].
** Oddly enough, Cirno finds herself both in the MemeticBadass (above) and MemeticLoser situation. You have those who portray her as much more powerful and competent than she normally is, those who portray her as a complete idiot and utterly worthless, and then you have those who wish both of those factions would just shut the hell up about her.
** Reimu, who's pretty much going to be in perpetual poverty thanks to the utter lack of donations to her shrine.
* MemeticMutation: [[{{Memes/Touhou}} Many, MANY examples]], a few of which have [[AscendedFanon become actual canon]].
** FountainOfMemes: Spawned an absolutely incredible amount of memes and in-jokes for a single series. Music/{{IOSYS}} remixes in particular have a tendency to spawn more.
** WatchItForTheMeme: ''Touhou'' as a whole can claim any number of new fans drawn in by its loads and loads of memes. In fact, because of all the memes, a great number of fans were drawn to the series ''because'' of the all-encompassing fandom itself. This odd cycle of fans being attracted to the ever-growing fandom has been described as a "bizarre ouroboros" or a "positive feedback loop".
* MemeticTroll: All three of which have "God Damn It ''(character)''!" pools on [[ImageBooru Danbooru]]:
** Yukari Yakumo is portrayed in fanworks as an incredible troll, ranging from simple tricks with her gaps to pulling elaborate schemes just to piss someone (usually Reimu) off. In canon, she does do strange things and have an odd nature, but generally has a good reason for what she does.
** Tewi Inaba probably doesn't count on the basis that this is entirely canon for her.
** Seija Kijin canonically likes pissing people off and hatches elaborate schemes to overthrow the social order. Fanworks tend to dial down the scale of what she does, resulting in this trope.
* MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales: Clownpiece is a fairy that wears the American Flag as her clothes, and is a complete badass that throws moons at her enemies. Naturally, she's beloved by American fans.
* {{Moe}}: Fan depictions of the girls have a natural tendency to play up either the girls' moe-ness or badass-ness. Bonus points if they can pull off [[BadassAdorable both at the same time.]]
** Generally, ZUN tries not to give his characters stereotypical moe personalities, but the {{fandom}} will do so in the absence of any canon stating otherwise, such as with Koakuma and Momiji shortly after they were introduced. In the [[AllThereInTheManual guidebooks]], ZUN tends to go out of his way to {{Joss|ed}} many of the fans' moe portrayals, most notably when ''Symposium of Post-Mysticism'' showed Kisume to be a CreepyChild.
** Sometimes the reverse happens, such as Yuuka's picture in ''Perfect Memento in Strict Sense'' and appearance in a stage in ''Hopeless Masquerade'' (where she smiles and waves) playing up the moe rather than the vicious.
** [[MemeticMutation Kogasa is the new youkai moe~]], due to the umbrella she carries (like Yuuka - the first youkai moe~), her {{chew toy}}/{{woobie}} status, and a high level combination of moe factors. This ultimately results in fanart that looks like [[http://safebooru.donmai.us/post/show/677175/ this.]]
* NeverLiveItDown:
** Because of "I GOT CAVED BY EX-KEINE!", it will be a long time before Keine is taken seriously again. Music/{{IOSYS}} [[RunningTheAsylum effectively turning it into]] a ForcedMeme didn't help.
** Shou is portrayed by fans as always losing things because she lost her pagoda during the events of UFO. Ironic, considering her ability is to attract treasures...
** Meiling and her butt monkey rendition, not at all helped by old jokes used and Tasafro's treatment of her in the few fighters she's in.
** When Seiran was first introduced, the red stains on her mallet were assumed to be blood and the fandom immediately labelled her as AxCrazy because of that. Even when her profile stated that she'd been making mochi before she confronted the player characters (so the red stains probably aren't blood, especially since in the game itself the stains are actually purple), and she doesn't come off as particularly AxCrazy personality-wise, fans will still interpret the stains on her mallet as blood.
** The joke that Kaguya is a NEET stems from the implication that she spent hundreds of years in her mansion without leaving, despite the fact that she does so because she is a fugitive who needs to stay hidden from the envoys of the moon. Later appearances show that Kaguya is actively looking for something new to do, often holding events and going outside to kill boredom.
** [[Manga/TouhouBougetsushou Silent Sinner in Blue]] will always be known within the fandom as the infamous storyline that introduced The Watatsuki sisters, [[TheScrappy an unlikeable]] pair of [[FantasticRacism Xenophobic]] InvincibleVillain. To make the matter worse, the narrative story even implied that Watatsuki sisters were '''not''' even in the wrong and they were within their rights to clap the main characters in a CurbstompBattle manner.
* OlderThanTheyThink: [[http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20030412130319/http://nightlights.atarashi.com/zun/ A few music fan remixes]] existed at least a year before ''Embodiment of Scarlet Devil'' was announced.
* PeripheryDemographic: Touhou's primary demographic seems to be young adults, as the games are [[NintendoHard ridiculously hard]] and often have complex plots that would confuse or bore most children. Despite this, the series has a huge following of elementary-school-age children in its native Japan, though most of them [[EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame have never played the games]]. In fact, ZUN once recieved heartfelt fan mail from an elementary school girl.
* PlayTheGameSkipTheStory: While the fanbase is known for [[EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame focusing much more on characters and lore than on the core games]], there are a number of people who only play the games to enjoy some good BulletHell action. Most of these people are fans of the overall ShootEmUp genre, rather than being fans of ''Touhou'' in particular.
* PraisingShowsYouDontWatch: A lot of fans admit to having played the games either for a brief period of time or not at all, instead focusing on the fan content. This is perhaps part of why the ''Touhou'' fanbase has a [[FandomRivalry rivalry]] with the general shoot-em-up fanbase, especially shooter players who PlayTheGameSkipTheStory, and also why most ''Touhou'' fans don't bother to get into other shooter series.
* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Sanae and Aya had been panned for appearing in several games that didn't have much to do with them, and being considered annoying when they did show up. Later games and print works put those appearances in context, giving them solid motives and much funnier interactions.
* RonTheDeathEater:
** Sanae's newly discovered interest in youkai extermination (Where "extermination" really just amounts to ritualized playfighting) has led to fans [[{{Flanderization}} taking it a bit far]] and giving her a sadistic streak and a fanatical zeal for it.
** Alice, a cold but well-meaning woman, gets turned into a creepy loser who murders her lovers or love rivals often, for whatever reason.
** Koishi isn't very malicious in canon, but is often turned into a psychotic murderer by fans who take "subconscious reading" as [[AMindIsATerribleThingToRead a very bad thing.]]
** Byakuren, a MessianicArchetype, is often either depicted as a naive loony or a genocidal murderer. Or both. Mostly from suspicion that people who try to be good aren't, and further exacerbated by [=SoPM=] and the fact that she sides with youkai against humans and dodged several questions from Miko.
** Aya gets turned into a creepy peeper and possibly molester, something she's not even close to in official works.
** Reimu herself isn't exactly [[{{Jerkass}} very nice in canon]], but she does have [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold genuinely sweet moments]]. Not that you would know this from all the {{Flanderization}} she gets in fan works.
** Kaguya is rather friendly in canon and her treatment of [[{{Archenemy}} Mokou]] is closer to a SitcomArchnemesis than someone she really hates. In fanon, she's often turned into a flat-out {{Jerkass}} who makes Mokou's life hell ForTheEvulz.
** Some fans tend to forget the "compassionate" part of Eiki's CompassionateCritic status and turn her into an AxCrazy lunatic who banishes people to Hell for [[DisproportionateRetribution petty reasons]], when the entire reason she lectures people in canon is because she doesn't like sending people to Hell.
* TheScrappy: The Watatsuki sisters from ''[[Manga/TouhouBougetsushou Silent Sinner in Blue]]''. Coming from a race of extremely [[FantasticRacism xenophobic]] jerks who observe anything other than them as "impure", these two have the extra burden of being [[InvincibleVillain ungodly powerful]], capable of taking the main characters on at the same time in a CurbStompBattle and even outsmarting [[TheStrategist Yukari]]. ZUN had to concede that he would never put the two in a game because of these. And even though ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'' does feature the Lunarians, the two sisters are not even mentioned in the game with the implication that they were reduced to {{Butt Monkey}}s by the real instigators of the plot by being driven off the moon by '''fairies'''.
* {{Scrub}}: Some players tend to get very irritated and jealous if you don't think the games are absolutely NintendoHard, more so if you mention that you can 1CC the games.
** StopHavingFunGuys: Some players tend to get mad as hell if you mention you've had difficulty with the games in any shape or form.
* SelfFanservice: One important reason for ''Touhou'''s popularity is how ugly ZUN's original character illustration is, inspiring legions of fan artists to improve it. As alluded to elsewhere, he seems to have trouble drawing a girl who looks postpubescent, leaving fans to come to a consensus on what some characters should "really" look like. In a broader sense, the entire series itself has next to nothing resembling sexual or romantic content, but you would ''[[{{Rule 34}} never]]'' guess that from the fandom.
* {{Shipping}}: A ''lot'' of it in this fandom, despite how canon works strictly adhere to NoHuggingNoKissing. While [[WordOfGod ZUN]] has said he doesn't mind all the shipping the fandom does, he isn't interested in participating himself since he sees the characters as his kids. See the [[{{HoYay/Touhou}} Ho Yay]] page and the [[http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Relationshipping Touhou Wiki]] for full details and {{Portmanteau Couple Name}}s. Commonly used ShippingTropes include:
** CrackPairing:
*** Since he's almost the only straight option in Gensokyo, there are a lot of crack pairing pictures with Rinnosuke and one of the girls. Somehow, a few fans even manage to slash him despite the rather limited options. The most common person he is slashed with? ''ZUN''.
*** Wriggle is often paired up with ''[[AxCrazy Yuuka]]'', of all people. FridgeBrilliance kicks in once you realize that Yuuka's power is tied to flowers, Wriggle is a firefly, and flowers rely on insects to pollinate.
*** Mokou and Mystia, in spite of (or perhaps because of) Mokou claiming to run a [[CarnivoreConfusion yakitori stand]]. Though Mystia is a sparrow, not a chicken.
** FanPreferredCouple: Quite a few. See the [[FanPreferredCouple/VideoGames Video Games subpage]] for that article.
** IncestYayShipping: Any pair of sisters will have fanart showing them in a relationship.
** LauncherOfAThousandShips:
*** Marisa gets paired with Reimu, Mima, Alice, Patchouli, Flandre, Nitori, and ''many, many more''.
*** Not to be outdone, Reimu gets it with Marisa, Yukari, Sanae, Remilia, and others herself.
*** For supporting characters:
*** Nitori gets paired with Marisa (as mentioned above) as well as Momiji, Hina, and even Eirin.
*** Yuuka gets paired with Elly, Alice, Wriggle, and Tenshi.
** NoYay: Unless you're into giantess and/or vore, it's hard to ship Shinmyoumaru sexually with anyone due to her minimal size. It gets worse due to the implication that she's the LastOfHerKind.
** ShipMates: Reimu x Marisa shippers will pair up Alice and Patchouli for this reason (while Marisa/Patchouli fans would pair Reimu/Alice). See the example on the ShipMates page for how ridiculous this can get.
** ShipsThatPassInTheNight: Usually based on game locations (bosses for adjacent stages, a boss and the midboss of their stage) or possible common interests.
** ShipToShipCombat: Astonishingly ''{{averted}},'' for a fandom with EleventyZillion [[OneTruePairing True Pairings]]. Fans of "competing" ships are generally happy to coexist peacefully. (GirlOnGirlIsHot may have more than a little to do with this...)
* SignatureScene: Yukari's ''Barrier "Boundary of Life and Death"'' is this not only to this fandom, but also to the BulletHell genre as a whole (it's the page image in this very wiki). It's almost impossible not to come across images of it while walking around the fandom. Googling either "Touhou" or "Bullet Hell" will lead you to seeing it.
* SignatureSong:
** "U.N. Owen Was Her?", Flandre's theme, is one of the first well-known pieces from the games.
** "Beloved Tomboyish Daughter", if only because it's the theme of Cirno, one of [[EnsembleDarkhorse the most popular minor characters]].
** For the ''Touhou'' remix community, there's "Cirno's Perfect Math Class", Music/{{IOSYS}}'s arrangement of "Beloved Tomboyish Daughter" where Cirno tries to teach mathematics in her own convoluted way, and "Bad Apple!! feat. nomico" by Masayoshi Minoshima, which is best known for its silhouette music video, sheer catchiness, and appearing on damn near every modern arcade RhythmGame.
* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: The series features some pretty extensive anti-discrimination messages, yet despite that, the series never name drops the issue and instead has it told entirely through metaphors and ShowDontTell.
* SpoilAtYourOwnRisk: ZUN specifically requested that the endings to the games not be posted on the Internet to avoid spoilers; fan sites have managed to follow this request, but once in a blue moon, the content will pop up ''somewhere''. Generally though, if you're looking for the ending, you'll be able to find it.
* StopHavingFunGuys:
** Admitting to playing using a pad tends to elicit harassment from some players who think you should be using a keyboard instead.
** Mocking those who play "Easy Modo" is incredibly common, [[EasyModeMockery including in the games themselves]], and stating "it's unforgivable to play Easy Mode unless you're a grade school kid" is one of the fans' many memes. Some take it further and insist that the only difficulty mode is Lunatic. [[StopHavingFunGuys This is a symptom of the already hardcore shmup crowd.]]
*** How serious this in particular is depends on where you are on the internet. Here, Danbooru, or imageboards? Not so much. A shmup site? You better be able to 1cc Lunatic.
*** Ironically Easy mode isn't play tested that well compared to other difficulties, sometimes resulting in cards that are harder than other difficulties.
** ZUN's request to not spoil the endings is taken rather seriously.
* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel:
** People were skeptical about ''Urban Legend in Limbo'' when it was revealed to be based on the same engine as ''Hopeless Masquerade''; however when the game was released, people were pleasantly surprised to see that controls were sharper, mechanics refined, AI improved, bugs ironed out and the story proving to be a WhamEpisode.
** As for the side materials, ''Grimoire of Usami'' is this to ''Grimoire of Marisa''. ''Grimoire of Marisa'' is simply a collection of screenshots of the various patterns from the games, with snarky comments from Marisa. If you don't care about the games, it's pretty boring. ''Grimoire of Usami'', on the other hand, actually has a story about Reimu's fireworks-cum-danmaku contest and provides commentaries from various characters which showcase their personalities well. Even if you don't care about the patterns, you can still enjoy the many characters present and how they interact with each other.
* TastesLikeDiabetes: While every character can be {{moe}}, Chen may just get the most of [[SelfFanservice this treatment from the fandom]], despite her actually being rather devious and mischievous. Her mere presence can often drive Ran into massive {{nose bleed}}s with sheer cuteness in fanwork.
** CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!
* TearJerker: Several characters like Yuyuko, Byakuren, Mokou, and the Prismriver Sisters have had tragic events in their lives, [[AllThereInTheManual none of which are mentioned in or greatly affect the games proper.]]
* UnexpectedCharacter:
** Due to being a fairly minor character in a long-finished plot arc, Mokou's appearance in ''Urban Legend in Limbo'' as a playable character came right out of nowhere.
** Out of all the characters from ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'' expected to appear outside of a brief cameo in a manga series, Clownpiece was the least, but she's a major character in ''Visionary Fairies in Shrine''.
** Reisen:
*** She appears as a playable character in ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom''. Similar to Sakuya in ''Double Dealing Character'', no one was expecting to see Reisen again in a main game, especially since her last (and only) playable appearance in a main game was way back in ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View''.
*** One would be forgiven if they were surprised for her return to the fighting game scene in ''Urban Legend in Limbo's'' [=PS4=] port, since the 'aerial fighter' games so far had almost only new characters to play as apart from Reimu and Marisa.
** Tenshi's appearance in ''Antinomy of Common Flowers'' as a playable character, as her last playable appearance apart from ''Hisoutensoku'''s multiplayer was in ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody'', which released more than nine years prior. Even more so was the giant catfish from Meiling's ''Hisoutensoku'' story showing up as Tenshi's final spell card in Jo'on's [=AoCF=] scenario.
** Absolutely ''no one'' saw Yukari returning in ''Antinomy of Common Flowers'' coming. While a popular character, her last playable appearance was in ''Hisoutensoku'', and outside of a few minor appearances in the side materials, she hasn't had much of a presence in the series itself.
** Sakuya returning in ''Double Dealing Character''. She was a very prominent character when the Windows era was first starting out, but just slowly started to disappear as the series continued.
** Yuyuko being the Stage 1 boss of ''Ten Desires'' came somewhat out of left field, given that bosses are almost never reused in the mainline games.
** Saying that it was unexpected for ''Cirno'' of all people to return in ''Hidden Star in Four Seasons'' would be an understatement. Never mind that she [[VideoGame/YouseiDaisensouTouhouSangetsusei had a playable appearance already]], but she's a minor character who just so happens to be an EnsembleDarkHorse. Your milage may very on [[YouDontLookLikeYou her redesign]], however.
** It was a surprise to many when Sumireko was revealed to be the main protaganist of ''Violet Detector'', being that she debuted in [[VideoGame/TouhouShinpirokuUrbanLegendInLimbo a spin-off]] (which are usually just one-and-done things), and it hadn't even been a full year since her reappearance in ''Antinomy of Common Flowers''.
** Speaking of ''Violet Detector'', Flandre reappearing as a boss was ''very'' unexpected. Sure, she's an iconic character, but there's a canonical reason as to ''why'' she never appeared after her debut (letting a psychopath with the ability to destroy anything at will outside ''probably'' isn't a good idea).
** Kogasa's return in ''Submerged Hell of Sunken Sorrow'' was, quite fittingly, a surprise. She only exists as a joke. The joke being that [[{{Filler}} she was irrelevant to the story of every game she appeared in before then]]. Especially her debut in ''Undefined Fantastic Object'', where every character played a major role in the game's plot besides her.
* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Koishi. In-universe, she is invisible to most people, and people forget about her as soon as she leaves their field of vision. However, in real life, Koishi is so popular that she placed 1st in [=THwiki's=] 11th character popularity poll, ''beating out Reimu and Marisa''.
* ValuesDissonance: Something not readily apparent to western viewers. Byakuren was originally motivated by fear, then love (the two extremes) and used deception to make youkai and humans equal. She's an ''extremely'' lapsed Buddhist. The Japanese are also critical of the western take on "equality". If you treat the strong and the weak the same way, the strong will have an advantage. Needless to say, quite a few grimdark doujinshi turn her into some sort of evil mass murderer who genocides "weak" beings.
** The same goes for Miko, who is similarly lapsed: Taoism is about letting things be, not actively meddling in everything.
** Anyone new to Touhou series, especially western fans would find it rather difficult to see many "seemingly pre-adolescence characters"[[note]]Especially Suika Ibuki and The Three Fairies of Light[[/note]] [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl having party and]] [[TheAlcoholic getting wasted on high frequency]]. Not only most of those "seemingly pre-adolescence characters" are actually OlderThanTheyLook, the drinking culture in Japan is also different from many country in the west.
* ViewerGenderConfusion: Meira, Wriggle and Shou are sometimes mistaken for males by the fandom. Wriggle wearing pants and a tomboyish look could easily be mistaken for a boy at first glance. In Shou's case, her masculine-sounding name and appearance didn't help things either.
* ViewerNameConfusion:
** The final boss of the ninth game's name is listed as "Shikieiki Yamaxanadu", causing some people to think Shikieiki is her first name and Yamaxanadu is her last name. Actually, the first word is her full name in Japanese order, so her first name is Eiki and last name is Shiki. Yamaxanadu is more of her job title, as she is the yama (judge of the afterlife) responsible for Gensokyo (which has been described as a paradise like Xanadu multiple times).
** Some Western fans of ''Touhou'' mispronounce or misspell Marisa's name like the western name Marissa (also sometimes spelled Marisa), when it's actually a Japanese name written in kanji and pronounced "Mah-ree-sa".
* ViewerSpeciesConfusion: Saki is a Kurokoma, a type of mythical winged horse similar to a pegasus. However, when fans (particularly Western fans who couldn't read Japanese) first found out about her, many assumed that she was a bird due to her wings.
* WhatAnIdiot: On Easy difficulty, Cirno's Icicle Fall spell card has a blatant blind spot ''right in front of her.''
** PlayedForLaughs in Touhou Soccer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oiJt3ypXTs where Letty warns her to use normal level or above]]. Sadly, Cirno does not take the warning to heart...
** If you try to take advantage of the spot on normal or higher, you'll be the idiot as it'll get you shot point blank by the bullets she fires down the middle.
* TheWoobie: [[Woobie/{{Touhou}} Has a page here.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Examples in the games' gameplay]]
* AnticlimaxBoss: The TrueFinalBoss of ''Antinomy of Common Flower'' [[spoiler:The dream version of Tenshi Hinanawi who wanted to TakeOverTheWorld]] is a massive stepdown from the FinalBoss. Her spellcards are either really slow or just predictable.
** The Overdrive difficulty introduced in Patch 1.10 added one more spellcard that averts this.
* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Is Marisa a TierInducedScrappy whose narrower range of attacks make her a "hard mode" character, or is she simply DifficultButAwesome given her speed advantage over Reimu?
** Parsee, especially her "Green-Eyed Monster" spellcard. Is she [[ThatOneBoss surprisingly hard for a Stage 2 boss]], or is she simply a PuzzleBoss that's still fair once figured out?
* BreatherLevel: While the final bosses are devastating, the final ''stage'' tends to be mercifully short, often with enemies that drop full powerups. Reisen is infamous for being one of the easier stage five bosses.
** The final spellcard of Impossible Spell Card, Yukari's ''Casebook of Luck, Resilience, and Perserverance'', while harder than average, is much, ''much'' easier than anything else stage 10 throws at you, even when going for a no-item clear.
* DisappointingLastLevel:
** The general consensus is that ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'' would be a much better game if Junko, the final boss, was better designed. She's themed around having BoringButPractical attacks, and as a result, all but a few of her attacks are variations on expanding danmaku rings, which, as several big-name ''Touhou'' players have pointed out, are the easiest and quickest danmaku patterns to program. Most of them require ''extremely'' tight micrododging, which makes playing as anyone but Reimu painfully difficult and leads to a lot of clipping deaths.
** [[BrokenBase To some fans]], Okina showing up as the BonusBoss was a little uninspiring, and they think that her final fight would be better handled if it was someone else. It doesn't help her survival spell, the only one of ''HSIFS'', is considered among the worst and weakest survival spells, which leads to a player good enough to get to her fight bored for the duration of it.
* EvenBetterSequel: ''Urban Legend in Limbo'' is already considered a SurprisinglyImprovedSequel to ''Hopeless Masquerade'', and ''Antinomy of Common Flowers'' managed to improve it even further. Major mentions are the removal of the RNG-based Occult Ball system, and making projectiles deal ScratchDamage when blocked, so players can't just block everything. It also adds its own tag system, which doesn't rely on randomness and adds more depth to the gameplay.
* GameBreaker:
** Marisa in ''Mountain of Faith''. Her B-type shot has a [[GoodBadBugs glitch]] that makes it insanely powerful under the right circumstances, earning it the FanNickname of [=MarisaBugged=] or sometimes [=MarisaBroken=].
** Much less severe, but Marisa's teamup with Alice in ''Imperishable Night'' has access to another highly damaging exploit, which fans have dubbed the [[PortmanteauCoupleName Malice Cannon]].
*** Subverted in that without the exploit, they're under damaging compared to other teams for the effort needed.
** Reimu and Yukari's team in the same game, where they have perks of smaller hit boxes, a larger death bomb window, Reimu's homing shots that pack a stronger than usual punch, and Yukari's shot type (which has Ran locking on to an enemy and locking on, allowing the player to dodge easily while doing pretty nice damage). The only teams that can outdamage them need some skill/effort to pull off the set ups. There's good reasons why most 1cc runs are done with this team.
** Sakuya's shot types in ''Perfect Cherry Blossom''. First of all, Sakuya gets four bombs per life, instead of Reimu's three. Her A-type shot is a giant spread when she's unfocused, and a single-target homing shot when focused, with bombs that share the same properties. Her B-type shot, once mastered, essentially has the coverage of her A-type shot with the power of [=ReimuB=], as well as lockable options and a bomb with a very long invincibility frame. The only downsides are Sakuya's fast focused movement speed and [[ThatOneAttack Merlin's opener]].
** Marisa's B type bomb in ''Double Dealing Character'', Magic Absorber, is this due to allowing a player to farm a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tASHLAad3k ridiculous]] amount of lives if they get the timing down for it and find the right spot. [[HardModePerks Her broken-ness increases on higher difficulty levels]], due to having more material to work with.
** Sanae in ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom''. She has a mix of her ''UFO'' shot types (Cobalt Spread unfocused, Sky Serpent focused, Wily Toad as bomb). Her unfocused shot has wide spread and her focused shot homes to the first enemy it sees, both which raze stage portions and are good against bosses while focusing more dodging and less on hitting the enemy. Her bomb has good duration and damage, but more importantly, it doesn't do damage right away and it has some set up time in which Sanae is invulnerable and can jump directly into the enemy danmaku, allowing her to easily get more than the 200 graze required to get life pieces.
* GoodBadBugs:
** [[PortmanteauCoupleName MAlice]] Cannon in ''Imperishable Night''. Lasers in the earlier ''Touhou'' games were somewhat laggy in their hit Alice and Marisa rapidly, and Alice's full damage would go through, the lag on the laser covering the time as Marisa. Interestingly, without this trick the Marisa/Alice team is woefully underpowered.
** Marisa B(ugged/roken) in ''Mountain of Faith''. Whenever Marisa B has between 3.00 and 3.95 power, the central laser does ten times the appropriate damage value when unfocused.
** In ''Subterranean Animism'', Reimu C ([[AwesomeButImpractical Reimu and Aya]]) and Marisa B ([[AwesomeButImpractical Marisa and Patchy]]) can destroy the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnM-r1ewCws 3rd]] (only in the demo, she can't be destroyed in that way in the full version), [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANspUlv_odk 6th]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn-eZUYqwA4 extra stage]] midbosses just by bombing them as they appear.
** A lot of these bugs can be found [[http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,9080.0.html here]].
** One particular bug in ''Hisoutensoku'' involving Sakuya's timehax can cause [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Zdka0nucY Utsuho's suns to grow to insane sizes]].
** In ''Urban Legend in Limbo'', Byakuren can activate her "Brilliance of Mahavairocana" (normally a counter) spellcard by bouncing one of her vajras on her opponent. Creator/TwilightFrontier apparently knew of the bug and liked it so much they left it in.
** In ''Story of Eastern Wonderland'', you can shoot more danmaku if you repeatedly tap the Z button (similar to the Phantasmagoria games). This can make boss fights laughably short, especially if you're playing as Reimu-C.
* GrowingTheBeard:
** ''Lotus Land Story'', where most of the standard ''Touhou'' gameplay features were introduced.
** ''Embodiment of Scarlet Devil'', with the introduction of the Spell Card system.
* ItsHardSoItSucks: Many fans who got into ''Touhou'' through {{Fanon}} or MemeticMutation first find the games to be stupidly hard, if not impossible, whether through watching videos of Lunatic difficulty and Extra Stage runs (which are ''always'' the most viewed videos of ''Touhou'' gameplay on any sufficiently popular video host) or trying the games themselves, getting overwhelmed by the bullet counts, and burning through all three continues before they even finish Stage 3. On Easy. As a result, the series has a reputation as an exercise in sheer masochism; this is despite ''Touhou'' being easier than most arcade shoot-em-ups (''including'' non-danmaku games), but most casual ''Touhou'' fans are generally not aware of other shmup series.
* ItsShortSoItSucks:
** A popular opinion of ''Ten Desires'', which ZUN intentionally made easier to attract a wider audience.
** Mostly averted. Despite each game taking on average no more than 30 minutes to complete, the series has a very big following, especially for a {{shmup}} series.
* MemeticBadass: The series itself is notorious for its high apparent difficulty, particularly amongst ShootEmUp newcomers.
* MorePopularSpinoff: While the series is known for its iconic mainline games, as far as playing and enjoying the games go, many fans find the fighting game spinoffs more fun due to generally being more familiar with fighting games than BulletHell shoot-em-ups.
* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: The sound that plays when you get an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKEiDZ5btR8&t=27s extra life.]] (the one that plays when the video timer hits the 27 second mark)
** The sound effect that accompanies a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKEiDZ5btR8&t=8s captured spell card]] (when the video timer hits 8 seconds). Or the sound of a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKEiDZ5btR8&t=22s defeated boss]] (when the video timer hits 22 seconds).
** To Marisa players, the sound of a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw4gKvghXqY Master Spark being fired.]]
* ScrappyMechanic: The Occult Ball system in ''Urban Legend in Limbo'' versus mode. These balls will randomly appear in battles with one of seven random effects. Players then need to scramble through the battlefield to chase the ball around instead of actually fighting each other, because the ball is needed to perform each character's Occult Attacks. While this isn't a big deal for some characters, some other characters like Miko depend heavily on their Occult Attack to perform well in the fight. Also, although the six of the seven random effects of the balls appearing are pretty minor, the last one has the effect of slowing projectiles to a crawl, causing ranged battles to be all.but impossible.
* SequelDifficultySpike: Every now and then. The most notorious examples usually cited are ''Subterranean Animism'' for every normal entry before it, and ''Shoot the Bullet'' , ''Double Spoiler'', and ''Violet Detector'' to the entire series. ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'', however, is quickly gaining notoriety for being even harder than ''Subterranean Animism'', to the point that SaveScumming and TrialAndErrorGameplay are the main gameplay gimmicks.
* SmallReferencePools: For the ShootEmUp genre. Either this is the only shoot-em-up series most people (especially in anime-oriented communities) know, or every shoot-em-up is compared to ''Touhou''.
* SpiritualLicensee: You could call ''Double Dealing Character'' the most popular Shinobu Yagawa game in the West.[[note]]Shinobu Yagawa is best known for ''VideoGame/BattleGaregga'', ''VideoGame/ArmedPoliceBatrider'', ''VideoGame/{{Ibara}}'', and a slew of other ShootEmUp games where bombing and suiciding as advanced scoring tactics as well as gratuitous quantities of [[OneUp extra lives]] are [[SignatureStyle common elements]]. Bombing in ''Touhou'' traditionally triggers auto-pickup, and in ''DDC'', auto-pickup rewards the player with bonuses, including point bonuses, bomb fragments (8 of which make a bomb) and life fragments (3 of which make an extra life). This leads to a cycle of bombing, then dying for more bombs, then bombing some more, getting extra lives to offset the constant dying.[[/note]]
* SurpriseDifficulty:
** Players familiar with fanworks come into Cirno's fight expecting it to be a joke. [[WakeUpCallBoss Then they eat icicle shotgun]]. And, while Icicle Fall ~ Easy deserves its memetic status, the version on normal is actually fairly nasty. It's basically the same thing, except Cirno ''also'' fires a spread of larger bullets in front of her, meaning you actually have to navigate the icicles, which is harder than you'd think. Her first nonspell is also pretty brutal and '''will''' kill you if you don't know what you're doing. In fact, after the rather pathetic Rumia, Cirno is very much a WakeUpCallBoss.
** [[BrickJoke Kogasa]] returns as UFO's Extra Stage midboss, complete with an appropriate power boost. Given that her power is to surprise people, that she comes in with onomatopoeia that says "Surprise!", and the protagonist has a surprised look on her face, this SurpriseDifficulty is presumably intentional.
* ThatOneBoss: Enough examples for [[{{ThatOneBoss/Touhou}} their own page]]
* UnderusedGameMechanic:
** Most early games will show a post-game statistics screen, such as the percentage of the game completed, how many lives you lost, how many bombs you fired, how many spellcards you captured, etc. This was sadly abandoned starting from the 10th main game, ''Mountain of Faith''.
** Spell Practice was introduced in the 8th main game, ''Imperishable Night'', allowing you to practice individual enemy spellcards that you've reached; to compare, Practice Start only lets you start from the beginning of any stage you've reached. For whatever reason, it was scrapped for the 10th, 11th (''Subterranean Animism''), and 12th (''Undefined Fantastic Object'') games[[note]]the 9th game, ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'' is a versus-style shooter unlike most other main games[[/note]], but was mercifully brought back for the 13th game, ''Ten Desires'' and beyond, with the exception of ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom'', which is a checkpoint-based game anyway that in Pointdevice Mode forces you to repeat the same section until you finish it on one life.
* WinBackTheCrowd: The series did this for the ShootEmUp genre, as the genre was fading out of relevance in the late 90s and early 2000s in favor of genres with broader scopes and more fleshed-out lore. ''Touhou'' features dazzling bullet patterns with names and a strong sense of identity and characters that are each unique in their own way and give rise to the series' astronomical library of fan works and memes.
[[/folder]]
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