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With the power of bonus hour, courtesy of daylight savings' end, I hope to make it to the end of the first modern era. Touhou 12 ~ Unidentified Fantastic Object There are some very iconic tracks early on in this entry, but they tend to be more reliant on simple, repetitive motifs; there's nothing wrong with this, but in this case I prefer some of the more complex pieces. Interdimensional Voyage of a Ghostly Passenger Ship remains one of the most unique stage themes in the series with its hybrid jazz integrated into ZUN's standard style (on that note, Heian Alien gets honorable mention). Alternatively, Emotional Skyscraper ~ Cosmic Mind is essentially a standard final boss theme; however, I consider this to be the successful capturing of the "elevated" tone that ZUN didn't quite manage in Catastrophe in Bhava-Agra. Byakuren is meant to be perceived as a somewhat elevated character, and this theme communicates the ideal mood for this perception. Touhou 12.3 Hisoutensoku ~ Unthinkable Natural Law In some estimations, the peak of Tasofro's productions (technically in conjunction with 12.5, which this acts as an optional expansion to). Whether that's true or not, it does have some significant musical contributions. I consider Did You See That Shadow? as the definitive menu track for the fighting games (though not my absolute favorite), properly conveying the spirit of the Touhou Project (complete with the Eastern Story motif) while retaining the style unique to the sub-series. More importantly, however, this release features my favorite Akiyama composition, Our Hisoutensoku (Full ver.). To me, this is peak Akiyama, leaning fully into his own styles and ultimately running away with them. It remains one of my favorite pieces in the series. Touhou 12.5 ~ Double Spoiler An easy one; Bell of Avici ~ Infinite Nightmare. Overall, this entry doesn't differ that much compared to its predecessor of 9.5, but somehow I appreciate this soundtrack a little bit more. The arrangements seem darker than usual, and I wonder if this wasn't a way for ZUN to make use of compositions he didn't feel fit well into his mainline titles. That's pure speculation, though. Oriental Sacred Place will be addressed later. Touhou 12.8 ~ Great Fairy Wars I dare say this is one of the most unique games in the series, being a spin-off title that remains individual in its mechanics to this day. Because it's a spin-off entry, I'll stick with a single track for it, but it is technically large enough to warrant better treatment, and I'm sure others would have no problem picking out more tracks once familiar with the full collection. For me, Great Fairy Wars ~ Fairy Wars is the standout piece; considering it's a final boss theme, it's unusually cheerful, but still maintains the necessary intensity for its function, and as such fits the situation perfectly. ZUN's Music Collection Vol. 5.5: Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey Another EP with extremely limited option, although this being a short-notice situational release does somewhat justify it. I'm somewhat obligated to pick Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey as the only original composition of the collection, but I'll also mention this version of Tomorrow Will be Special as a noteworthy arrangement. Touhou 13 ~ Ten Desires I've mentioned my appreciated for this game's stage themes in the past, and I'll further reinforce here that I'm not very fond of the boss themes. Aside from that, it may be worth mentioning a distinction between the standard versions of these tracks and their "spirit" variations, which are the same but with emphasis on the melody or accompaniment. There's also layered edits (dubbed "complete"), and while I don't believe these are official, they are usually my preferred option for listening. Regardless, my favorite tracks are Desire Drive (of course) and Let's Live in a Lonely Cemetery; the soundtrack as a whole excels in atmospheric melodies, and as far as I'm concerned these are the strongest. Honorable mention to Welcome to Youkai Temple, specifically the standard version as the spirit variant doesn't have the same pluckiness. Oriental Sacred Place My frustration with this collection is its heavy reliance on remixes, having only one original track out of eight total. Granted, these are some of the better examples of ZUN's remixing abilities; these tracks tend to differ more from their originals than music collection arrangements normally do (possibly had something to do with the context of composition, but that's too complicated a theory for right now). I still prefer a bit more balance/variety for these releases. While I'm not that fond of the original Magus Night, the subtle differences in this collection's version make it a bit more appealing to me. ZUN's Music Collection Vol. 6: Trojan Green Astroid There's quite a few unusual tracks in this album where I figure ZUN was experimenting with expansions of his customary style. The Barrier of Ame-no-torifune Shrine is practically a trip through space in musical form, and somehow scrapes the outer limits of standard Touhou sound while still remaining recognizable. On the other hand, Trojan Asteroid Jungle is a delightfully jumpy, jazzy, yet mysterious piece, and sets the standard for the music collection style going forward. ZUN's Music Collection Vol. 7: Neo-traditionalism of Japan For all intents and purposes, the second-half/continuation of volume six, featuring many of the same musical characteristics. I've always found these two especially hard to pick favorites from. Nonetheless, my official selections are Green Sanatorium and Winds of Agartha, both very different in energy yet somehow comparable in tone. Honorable mention to Led On by a Cow to Visit Zenkou Temple, the unrecognized experimental predecessor to fellow percussion-focused piece Primordial Beat. Touhou 13.5 ~ Hopeless Masquerade Imo, HM functions as the perfect crossroads between the "first" and "second" modern eras; it features a wide variety of cameos in homage the series' history and serves as a climax to the loosely-connected stories of 10-13, but also introduces a new gameplay system and artstyle for the fighting game series. This happens to be my favorite Akiyama arrangement collection (somewhat fitting, as it was also the last); something about the instrumentation and overall style feels free-er than usual. This Dull World's Unchanging Pessimism ~ Shinkirou Orchestra is my favorite menu theme for these spin-offs, not for any reason connected to its use, but simply because I love its melody and progression. For my second pick, there are several tempting options, but the one track I listen to most from them is the remix of Akutagawa Ryuunosuke's "Kappa" ~ Candid Friend. Honorable mention to Omiwa Legend and its accordion. WHY DO THESE TAKE SO LONG?! Can y'all tell I was rushing through the last several entries? So much for an extra hour of sleep.

Alternatively, I see there are also videos presenting the position of characters per game (keep in mind, this video example only starts counting from Touhou 6)

In my honest opinion, I found KKHTA to be really, really bad. I recognize the importance it holds in the context of the history of Touhou fan content, but looked at as a piece of creative fiction in a vacuum, there's really nothing in there for me to like. Now, let me preface this by saying that gratuitous gore, cruelty and body horror are far from enough to turn me away from something. For example, I'm a fan of Saya no Uta and I even begrudgingly tolerate Elfen Lied. But all edge and no substance makes for a poor narrative experience. Also, it's been quite a while since I've last watched KKHTA so forgive me if I don't recall some details exactly. Loose internal reasoning regarding the source material setting: Certain established rules of the Touhou universe being changed in fan works is fine if the story calls for and is significantly improved by doing so. KKHTA falls flat on its face in both regards. The first thing that comes to mind is the Lunarians having a battleship capable of effortlessly killing the Dragon God. This could've not only been handled in many different ways (What was stopping Yorihime from just using her powers to find a natural counter during an actually intense fight?), but then they also just never use that thing as a weapon again? Not to mention it retroactively eliminates any tension regarding the incident cause the Lunarians just had this invincible superweapon the whole time that they were able to deploy inside Gensokyo (before the barrier had even fully collapsed??) whenever they wanted to. Another thing might be the physical hole getting punched through the Hakurei Barrier, but that's not really a big deal. (as I believe the canon status of how that works is sort of inconsistent) Koakuma: This entire plotline, more than the rest, is some Looney Tunes stuff. While I assume that the author opted to make it so that Koakuma is not Patchouli's familiar but rather just her assistant, and thus is not bound by her commands, everything else about it makes little to no sense. It's never explained how and why the Lunarians were employing an impure being (or how they even met her?) to do their bidding, why they would wait so long to send her in as a sleeper agent if Tsukuyomi and Toyohime had this grand master plan for who knows how long (given when the SDM actually appeared in Gensokyo), and most importantly why Patchouli and the rest of the characters present decided to shed 60 IQ points when Satori, who had no ostensible reason to lie in the situation that she was in, told them that Koakuma was suspicious, because assuming that she wasn't Patchouli's familiar (otherwise it makes even less sense) would mean that she really was just a random demon that just kind of showed up one day and the SDM crew really should've put their guards up at least a little bit going forward. Was the reasoning behind all this going to be exposition-dumped in the very last part? Maybe, but that would've ended up as a whole different disaster because the viewer never gets enough information to piece any of it together by themselves, at least as far as I can remember. Not really captivating in other ways either: While the art does get substantially better as the series goes on, the change is only from "horrible" to "serviceable". The action scenes are always just brutally mediocre - not animated enough to enjoy any fluid movement and good camera work, and not well-drawn enough to appreciate the detail present in individual shots. The music is good, but as far as I know none of it's original, so there's not much to be said. This leaves me wondering what the appeal might even be. If any passionate KKHTA fans are reading, I would be grateful if you could disclose in detail (so "I don't know, there's just something" doesn't really count) what about the series actually attracts you. Is it just anime girls mutilating each other? I doubt it, there's plenty other anime-style media (with better art) that's arguably just as if not more grotesque. So am I missing something? I'd like to discuss this.

...what boobs?