WHAT'S A TOUHOU!!??##$@%GRBHFGHA!
.....Sorry about that, I didn't really have a better intro in my mind at the moment.
Wow that was awful...
Umm...
Let's just start already.
TOUHOUISM: What is Touhou?
Touhou IS NOT AN ANIME, but it does have a fan-made anime attached to it (look at the anime relations selected for more details). Touhou is, oddly enough, a series of bullet-hell shoot-em-up's made by one person who goes by the name of ZUN.
And when I say it's only one person, I mean it's only one person (for the most part). From level design to music, ZUN does everything in every single touhouexcept for a few exceptions (In Fairy Wars [a.k.a, Touhou 12.8] someone else did the art for the characters).
Now most of you are probally wondering, "But isn't Touhou a bunch of funny music videos with little anime girls in it?". While those videos are associated with Touhou, it's only part of the fanbase surrounding the games.
You see, somewhere along the way, Touhou struck a cord with people everywhere with it's great music, stunning bullet patterns, story and dialouge, and great characters (many, many great characters). After a while, piles of fan-made art, music arranges, and billions of internet memes followed with it's every growing popularity.
The Main Plot (Basic Knowledge + Extra facts)Gensokyo (幻想郷, literally Land of Illusions or Land of Fantasy; more accurately romanized as Gensōkyō or Gensoukyou) is the fictional land that the entire Touhou series takes place in. Its culture vaguely resembles that of feudal Japan, with a lot of folktale elements added on.
Gensokyo was originally a desolate, haunted region of Japan ages ago. The youkai that lived there began to terrorize the surrounding lands, and thus powerful, heroic humans were sent to exorcise and exterminate them. The off and on battle between humans and youkai continued on until 1884 A.D., when Gensokyo was sealed off from this increasingly scientific and skeptical world with the creation of the Hakurei Border. There has been little contact between those societies ever since. Today, the only known gateway between Gensokyo and this world is the Hakurei Shrine, which stands in isolation along the border on distant mountains of the far east.
Gensokyo is populated mainly by youkai, but a decent human and rabbit population lives there as well. Some of its inhabitants went there to hide, to escape, to find shelter when no one and nowhere else would accept them. Many of them just like the natural darkness. -Taken from Touhou Wiki's description of Gensokyo.
In Gensokyo, many incidents (mostly caused by Youkai) occur. All of the Touhou games (with a few exceptions) are centered around the efforts of the main characters to resolve these incidents. All of these incidents (once again, with few exceptions) however, are usually juvinille.
As an example: In Touhou 6, a scarlet mist covers most of Gensokyo. One of the main characters (depending on who you choose) decide to find the source and stop the fog. It is revealed that a (seemingly) young vampire girl simply wanted to walk outside freely during the sunlight by using the fog to cover the sun.
Extra Facts:
-Touhou 6 is the first Touhou game of the pc-98 era, and also the first one (speaking in terms of cannon) to have the spellcard battles implemented.
-There are also Touhou fighting games (Touhou 7.5, 10.5, 12.3) which ZUN made in collaberation with Tasogare Frontier. Despite being different styles of game, these are a part of cannon (The final boss of Touhou 7.5 helps one of the main protagonists in Touhou 11) as are all the other (.3,.5 or .8) games.
-The upcoming Touhou game was announced to be Touhou 13.5: Hopeless Masquerade, another fighting game made in collaberation with Tasogare Frontier.
Important Characters (Very Basic Knowledge/Fandom)
The main protagonist of the Touhou series is Reimu Hakurei, the sole shrine maiden of Hakurei Shrine, who's duty is to resolve any incidents caused by Youkai in Gensokyo.
She is often portrayed as an easygoing character, often making witty banter with her foes before (and after) fighting them. She is also assumed to be poor, when it was joked about in Touhou 6. Also, in Touhou 7 and 12, Reimu talks/jokes about looting for personal gain. It has never been confirmed if she really is poor, though.
The other main protagonist of the Touhou series is Marisa Kirisame, a human magician who is often refers to herself as an, "Ordinary Magician" ironically contrasting her actual power (She is the strongest playable character in the Touhou series). She is also Reimu's friend/rival.
Marisa starts off as an antagonist, serving under the final boss of Touhou 2, Mima, but becomes a playable character for nearly every other Touhou game following. Mima becomes a playable character too, but for only 2 following games. It is unknown as to whether or not they still have some sort of relationship to each other.
Marisa is portrayed as a very reckless, straightforward character (reflected in her gameplay style of shooting in a straight line with magical lasers). She is also one of the most hardworking characters in the series, being one of the very few characters without a natural born talent yet managing to have power equal to or greater (most times greater) than Reimu. Her most powerful spell, "Master Spark" (which is a rip-off of another character's spell), is often considered to be the strongest spell in the entire series.
There are many more characters in the Touhou Series, around 124, and all of them are fantastic. Even though I wish I could talk about them all, theres no need to, as Touhou wiki has all of them documented here: http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Character_List
There is much more information on the Touhouwiki webpage aside from the characters, so if you want to know more about this amazing series, then just head over there.
This concludes our session. CLASS DISSMISSED!!!
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No really, please check out the series (or at least the fanmade stuff). It's awsome.
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