What attracts you to Touhou? What do you do with it?

[kanedafanatic]

Came back for more, kind of.

Maybe some of you recognize me about my introductions thread (1K views is quite a lot if you ask me): I'm living elsewhere and I'm safe. Currently doing whatever it is I'm doing. Getting a job's a goal I want to set, but I don't feel the drive to when I'm all alone, with nothing to display.

It feels like a cookie-cutter question. My intention is to have interactions, to have some form of friction, to feel like biting in life and move on forwards instead of rotting away. Something that could allow me to share my own views and tastes instead of keeping them in my head. Maybe even make some friends while at it. Sounds naive, probably is: I'll still try. It's better than staying away from anything related to my interests with a 100-feet pool and a hazmat suit. I put this setting but even if you want to ask questions yourself that are unrelated to this thread, go on. I'll reply.

Now, to begin the thread, I will answer first. Touhou is attractive to me for the fact it's very flexible. ZUN allowed us to make whatever it is to the characters or the setting and it still doesn't lose anything "Touhou" about it. You could make a literal incidents with cars, dancing, and hell, even ping-pong/ It still work out. Gensokyo is basically a sandbox to experiment ideas with, as to how which archetype would act out to whatever event is going one.

The archetypes, what about them? Jun'ya laid enough ground rules and enough content in the form of his manga plots and spin-off to tell who and what they are. What I mean by that is you can experiment further by stress-testing those archetypes in made-up stories or twisting them in a way that molds back or break it. You could make someone like Meiling have a whole-ass arc about training, DBZ-style, against other people and that'll be still within the setting. Or even, you could make an incident where yokais are strong enough for the characters to go full out and put away the Spell Cards rules for a while. That kind of stuff is interesting.

What's infuriating is that, however, I have no means to display it correctly. When you have this idea in your mind but your outputs are basically not enough to withstand the bandwidth of the idea: you just keep it in your mind and that's all. So it just... remains there, with no method to get out. It's like listening to music where your computer/phone/whatever you listen on is playing, but the cable isn't right enough to translate each note and sound. So then, you listen to stuttering, cut playbacks of you songs that doesn't feel good at all on crappy headphones.

Now then, what about you?

 

[Mi0ink]

I'm assuming this could also mean what keeps you a fan, so I'll answer something along that.

I never really thought of why I still am a Touhou-er and didn't drop it week after I became a fan (officially declared myself a fan on December 5th, 2025, so I'll say I'm still kind of a newbie). But after thinking about it, I think that your reason why and the characters (especially my precious utsuho), the 20 years of fan content we have, and the games (music too) are what keeps me a fan. Still so much for me to see and do in this series.

What do I do with it? This very account is what. Originally I was only going only use it to only download games, but I realized how much I like to ask questions, see discussion about things I like, and put my two cents out to the world (and maybe make someones day better too). Thus, here I am replying to this thread.

 

[YuyuFumo]

Mostly the games and the music, though I do find the characters to be fantastic as well. Touhou was my first introduction to shmups, a genre that I'd never touched before on the premise of them being frustratingly difficult. Learning all the different games' patterns and quirks is actually quite fun, though, to the point where I frequently go back and replay the games for the heck of it. It helps that the music is extremely pleasant to listen to, with the first few ZUN music collections being a highlight for me. Sound design is one of the most crucial parts in designing a game, with certain titles living and dying by their soundtracks; Touhou definitely hits the nail on the head, given that ZUN really only made the games to vessels for his music.

I don't really feel obliged to do much with the series since it's just a niche hobby of mine. Then again, I made an entire damn pilgrimage to the actual Moriya Shrine last time I was in Japan, so perhaps it goes a little deeper than what I like to think. A quick bucket list of what I can think includes:

• 1CCing all the mainline games, perhaps doing the side games as well.
• Visiting the Touhou bars in Osaka and Sapporo since I've gone to the one in Tokyo.
• Making pilgrimages to other locales that inspired parts of the series such as:
  • The Hashihime Shrine, tied to Parsee's backstory
  • The Tateishi Kumano Shrine, who's symbol is visible in the Palace of the Earth Spirits (they also sell Satori/Koishi/Okuu omamori/ema)
  • Denderano (AKA Rendaino), which is cited multiple times in ZUN's 'Ghostly Field Club' album
  • Mt. Ibuki and Mt. Oe, both said to have to have possibly housed the lair of the oni king Shuten-doji, who directly inspired Suika Ibuki
• Attending Touhoufest next year if my schedule allows to cosplay and meet more Touhou fans. It would also be cool to attend Reitaisai if my future job takes me to the right place at the right time, though I'd probably burn vacation to attend regardless.

 

[laselle]

the FOMO of this thing is like opium

 

[kanedafanatic]

I won't deny that when I realized this got answers, I got very uneasy. Scared of deceiving, scared of saying the wrong thing, scared of sharing. However, I'll buy that up with actually giving a personal answer, something that can correct the shot of making up examples in my introductory message.

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I discovered Touhou in a somewhat odd way. This was during the pandemic; Bad Apple!! memes were re-surging out of YouTube's algorithms and my recommendeds slowly got replaced with Touhou content. After watching a video about it, I was like "This Touhou thing looks interesting." I was curious to see how far the series has gone. So I typed up Touhou 13 thinking there wouldn't no 13th mainline game and lo-and-behold: Ten Desires! Thus began my introduction with the series. I was entering my teenage years when I basically "downloaded" the series in my mind. From there, it simply became a task running in the background.

That's why I put an importance in the characters. I see myself in all the cast, and my favorites are the one I see myself the most in. Meiling, Komachi, Satori, Marisa and principally Youmu. Growing up, I was well isolated within my own niche. School wasn't adapted to my needs because of a certain disorder that flew under the radar until recently. The characters of Touhou Project became something like archetypes to the sandbox that is Gensokyo. I could daydream for hours on end, in class, at home, or in my bed, playing interactions, stories and battles in my mind between characters or entirely new things. In other words, Touhou became part of me.

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I didn't mention the music: my library contains nearly all of the Touhou library, along with ZUN's Music Collection. it only lacks Mystic Square's soundtrack for it to be complete. It's no surprise that Jun'ya's tunes are amazing as always. I have quite a lot that I enjoy but, Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 will always remain in my personal top three. The normal .WAV variant of EoSD to it's MIDI counterparts from the former and ZUN's Dolls in Pseudo Paradise. In the Music Collection, DiPP is for me the best album out of the bunch. I get that the lore with Renko and Maribel is what fascinates people most and makes those songs hold value but, even without the plot of DiPP, those songs hit hard. Legend of Hourai and The Strange Everyday Life of the Flying Shrine Maiden are songs that I always come back to when I strike a particular feeling.

Game-wise: I tried. I have my own methods of playing but in periods of hyperfixations, I can hold my own. The furthest I have gone until now is Stage 5 for both EoSD and PCB. Given that I have daltonism, certain patterns disorientate me much more than the average player (ex: Sakuya's pivoting background of her spellcard in EoSD.) Add that and the brown-on-red projectiles, my lifes melt away. Like I said, I play the games in long periods of hyperfixation. It happens rarely but, I can go on for weeks before I tire out and go play something else. At least, I tried the games, that's the important part.

And I mean... for a niche hobby? You are really dedicated. Not only to 1CC each game, which is respectable on it's own, to travel towards Japan for the sake of seeing Touhou-related landmarks? I believe you underestimate yourself quite a bit. Then also, all of us are different. Having "downloaded" Touhou in my mind so I can daydream about it anywhere anytime is also quite huge.

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So then, what do I do? Like I've said, I never displayed my love for the series outside of just manipulating it like grey matter. Ideas came, but no methods to show it. At one point, I wanted to make art out of it: basing off Katsuhiro Otomo's style to draw Touhou characters out of it. However, I couldn't figure out anything as to how I can properly display the idea. Don't get me wrong, I am talking about the same mastermind who did the story and art direction for both the manga and anime adaptation of Akira, I never believed this would be easy. Yet, the results weren't enough satisfactory for me to continue.

Music was an idea: I wanted to get myself an competitor of the Roland SC-88Pro to ZUN's old day compositions, the Yamaha MU1000/MU2000. However, lack of funds and later on drive, I gave up.

All of this didn't stick out as much. Game development could be possible but, where to begin with my own ideas? The difference between my mind's creativity and my actual skill output is like trying to pass a dam's worth of water in a straw: it never achieves something that I can suitably be satisfied of.

So I stand there, wondering what to do. Same bust happened with cars, my real OG interest. Nowadays, it feels unbearably useless because this era of pushing limits is way past due. Now, it's sterile rules on top. I get that competition should be fair, but is it truly innovation when you thinking about how to play around the rules because everything is uniform to everyone? I don't believe so.

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This was a huge post. I know I could've replied it individually but, I believe this would've fit here instead. I replied to both answers at the same time, and gave the view on myself. Should I be proud of it, or is it too much information on my side?