Touhou

I also want to express that I love Touhou. I massively respect the personal integrity and talent of its maker; its uniquely huge set of amazing female characters; its strangeness in the disparity of its setting, swinging wildly between wholesome, harmless fun and unsettling semi-grimdarkness, while never goin' overboard with either.

Its music has been 95% of my MP 3 Player for many years now, providing countless hours upon hours of entertainment and drifting-into-fantasy during boring life situations. Discovering the vastness of its setting and the infinite possibilities of its fandom while reading this thread has brought me happiness through a very dull/problematic year of my life.

I will forever be thankful of Touhou for all this. Sadly, knowing my fickle personality, I know that one day I will abandon this fandom, as I have many before it; but I will forever cherish all the memories of it, and keep on respecting all Touhou is, does and stands for.

<3<3<3

A Touhou lover here as well.

I don't remember exactly when I became a fan for the series but I suspect it was around 2007-2008. At first I just just drawn in to the the Bullet Hell gameplay, but afterwards I became and absolute lover of the music. As time went on and the music became more the norm for me, I really started to become fascinated with the characters, lore and world-building. To me it just seems to be something really special ZUN has managed to create. Also if I recall correctly so was there one fanvid that really caught my attention, and from that point I was hooked.

Also, it was Touhou that introduced me to TV Tropes.

And what I find most impressive about the series is for how long it has managed to keep me intrigued as a fan to it. I think the only that rivals it is my fanboying of Taro Yoko. Others I have fallen out of due to various reasons, but most often due to flat out decay. Most recently my relationship with the Shin Megami Tensei has started to turn sour due to how the series has been handled these past few years and what is becoming of it. But Touhou somehow amazingly never seem to fall into that. No matter what, I always seem to return to it regardless of what is happening around it.

edited 10th Jul '16 10:03:31 AM by matteste

I am obsessed. Enough said.:P

Simpsons reference aside, here's a more serious write up of how I joined the series.

For me, the first thing I ever knew about the series (this was back in 2009) was from this video which featured a remix of Flowering Night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykhbLhkMOfc

The song itself was catchy and upbeat, though I initially dismissed the series thinking it was some sort of waifu simulator of sorts with good music (good thing I was wrong about the former part).

The same year I stumbled upon this absolutely beautiful arrange of Blue Sea of 53 Minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mziE9ScZy9A

I was slightly surprised to discover that it was from Touhou as well, as the description of the video (which detailed the plot sypnosis for Concealed the Conclusion) depicted something which was far more complicated and intriguing than what I initially thought of the series. (I actually thought Ct C was canonica at the timel) Though I never really did much research into the series back then as I wasn't interested in Anime or the sort at the time (like many others I thought Touhou started out as an anime or something similar)

Fast forward to 3 years later, I was browsing through a thread on Neo GAF on video game remixes where someone posted a link to a 1 hour long compilation of UN Owen was Her? remixes. I somehow knew that UN Owen was a popular song on the Internet (despite never having actually listened to it before) so I went ahead and clicked the link. I didn't really liked it, but one of the related videos on the side had this song (it's a remix of Nazrin's stage and boss theme) in display.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfYbGVjnbKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLwHkhgbIi8

Upon listening to it, I was hooked. The music was unlike anything I've heard at the time,it was fast, rapid and it was catchy and memorable as all heck. And from there, I went and discovered this gorgeous remix of Girl's Sealing Club, which to date, remains one of my favourite remix of a Touhou theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs0pjmI6xAo

The image in the video of Girl's Sealing Club got me really curious, unlike the rest of the videos, it depicted a shot of 2 girls looking into the distance onto a collapsed observatory (the image in the video I linked is different as the original video was taken down). Up to that point I though Touhou had a medieval-fantasy setting and that sci-fi esque picture got me interested.

So I went ahead and read the TV Tropes entry for the characters in the series (and wrongly deduced that the characters were Sakuya and Remilia because of Mary's mob cap). Soon I got addicted to reading about the character's bios and eventually started reading entries in the Touhou Wiki all night. And from that point I started reading various fan web comics and fan art and Touhou became my favourite series of all-time.

Addendum : I never actually played any game in the series (though I do enjoy watching Lunatic 1cc runs by professionals) aside from the demos for Hopeless Masquerade and Double Dealing Character (in which I was convinced I can never get through any game in the series seeing as Kagerou's stage cost me all my lives and bombs). I ended up playing Inpossible Spell Card up to Day 10 (gave up after that) and ended up almost completing Lo LK on Normal. Almost.

Addendum 2: I was only aware of the existence of popularity of fan videos/memes such as Altroemeria Record's Bad Apple!! Remix and Marisa Stole the Precious Thing in 2013 after becoming a fan of the series.

edited 10th Jul '16 6:18:55 AM by Zansnae793

I love Touhou, I really do. I respect ZUN for creating such a wonderful setting, and its equally wonderful cast. I also admire the dedication and creativity toward this fandom.

I like pizza...

...

Yeah I like Touhou too.

The Invasion Begins...

Hilariously dark.

I know I've declared my love for Touhou before, but it doesn't hurt to say it again.

Now, enjoy this hymn...until your final breath.

I like Touhou, too. I like playing the games, the trippy spellcards with weird names, the quirky characters, the catchy music, and whatever it is that drives people to create loads of fanworks, some of it really impressive.

I first got into Touhou after somebody on TVT started a thread asking what Marisa Stole the Precious Thing is a remix of, I checked the video to see if I recognized it, I thought it was cool, and from then on it was like something slowly creeping on me, I'd now and then come back to it, then occasionally check out its parodies, then find out about the other well-known music videos, then check out the originals they're remixes are of, then find out about the characters they're the themes of, then the games they're in, and so on.

With time it was clear I knew too much about Touhou for someone who wasn't yet into it, so the decision was obvious. That was just before the first Cirno Day, so I thought I'd "officially" get into Touhou that day (by playing for the first time the SA demo or full Eo SD, can't remember), except in true spirit of the day I forgot, but whatever, I was in.

I am not nearly as much into it as I once was, but I still often reminisce about Touhou stuff, think about creating something Touhou related or think about what something would be if it were done with Touhou.

(If whoever started that thread happens to be reading this, thank you).

I very much like Touhou as well. I first got into the games back in 2012 through the crossover fangame Touhou Mother. It's been a pretty enjoyable ride since then and the series has become my 4th favourite videogame franchise (right behind Pokemon, Kirby, and EarthBound). It also got my really invested into Japanese mythology. I thought I broke my mythology craze back in high school but this series just dragged me right back in. XD

edited 10th Jul '16 10:36:13 PM by MachThreeSlug

Huh, I'm looking through the Strange Creator character intros, and they basically say that the spellcard rules were created because Remilia was being very annoying to all the other youkai, who decided to deal with this new "rascal" by imposing rules on her. And then immediately after, she does the Scarlet Mist thing as if to test out the new rules and see if they're any fun. In other words, the "vampire incident" referred to in PMiSS was Remilia herself. I seem to recall that being interpreted differently by people in this thread.

This isn't written by ZUN directly, but I'd imagine the contents aren't meant to be at all controversial or subject to interpretation, since it flat out tells you when things are unclear.

edited 10th Jul '16 11:27:32 PM by Clarste

So it wasn't because of any killings? Remilia was just being Remilia?

Well, it specifically says she "went wild" or "rampaged" until the other youkai were sick of it. That's just as vague in Japanese too. I guess technically she could have been killing people.

edited 10th Jul '16 11:33:23 PM by Clarste

That just gives me the mental image of Remilia killing someone and everyone else just does a sitcom aside glance accompanied by a laugh track.

Sakura
Mystia
Hellfire
Trinitarian rhapsody

Well, I'm a pretty new fan of the Touhou series, but it's been an interesting ride so far.

I like the characters, music, and lore.

I actually once dismissed the series as a weird game I won't care about when I first learned about it from this very website. Boy, am I glad I gave it a chance and found myself wrong.

Thank you Asterism.

I came into the fandom through TV Tropes as well because I wonder what was all the fuss about with all the music videos, manga and the games themselves. I had learned about the franchise and about the lore that surrounded it through this site.

Return of the most underrated Touhou music

I want to share these thanks! For introducin' me to these Orchestral LOLKAT songs! They're amazing!

Unsurprisingly, "taking a look at" pretty much means I translated a thing: [1]

Also, my blog now contains the option to give me money for literally no reason. In case, you know, you ever feel like that.

edited 11th Jul '16 9:31:46 AM by Clarste

I first starting getting into Touhou after reading about it on the blog of someone I vaguely knew from the City of Heroes official forums. I did some research of my own after that, and once I got my first taste of Touhou music (which was Reisen's theme, btw), I was hooked.

Anyway, here's a year-old video. After I first heard this sketch by The Frantics, I had to see if there was a Walfas version. I guess I'll have to settle for a MMD.