Touhou Project
| Video game fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name | Touhou Project |
| Developer(s) | ZUN (as Team Shanghai Alice) |
| Release date | 1996 |
| External link(s) | Team Shanghai Alice official website ZUN's Twitter |
| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
Touhou Project is a series of "bullet hell" vertical shooting games created and published by the doujin circle Team Shanghai Alice (上海アリス幻樂団 Shanghai Arisu Gengakudan, formerly known as ZUN Soft). It comprises 19 games, with its first game conceived in 1996. It is notable as one of the largest fandoms represented in Comiket, as well as being one of the small number of surviving franchises of its genre.
Games
The games listed below are made by Team Shanghai Alice, and contains Touhou's canon.
- TH01: 東方靈異伝 ～ Highly Responsive to Prayers (ZUN Soft 1996)
- TH02: 東方封魔録 ～ Story of Eastern Wonderland (ZUN Soft 1997)
- TH03: 東方夢時空 ～ Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream (ZUN Soft 1997)
- TH04: 東方幻想郷 ～ Lotus Land Story (ZUN Soft 1998)
- TH05: 東方怪綺談 ～ Mystic Square (ZUN Soft 1998)
- TH06: 東方紅魔郷 ～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (2002)
- TH07:東方妖々夢 ～ Perfect Cherry Blossom (2003)
- TH07.5: 東方萃夢想 ～ Immaterial and Missing Power (collaboration with Twilight Frontier 2004)
- TH08: 東方永夜抄 ～ Imperishable Night (2004)
- TH09: 東方花映塚 ～ Phantasmagoria of Flower View (2005)
- TH09.5: 東方文花帖 ～ Shoot the Bullet (2005)
- TH10: 東方風神録 ～ Mountain of Faith (2007)
- TH10.5: 東方緋想天 ～ Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (collaboration with Twilight Frontier 2008)
- TH11: 東方地霊殿 ～ Subterranean Animism (2008)
- TH12: 東方星蓮船 ～ Undefined Fantastic Object (2009)
- TH12.3: 東方非想天則 ～ 超弩級ギニョルの謎を追え, also known as Hisoutensoku (collaboration with Twilight Frontier 2009)
- TH12.5: ダブルスポイラー ～ 東方文花帖, Double Spoiler (2010)
- TH12.8: 妖精大戦争 ～ 東方三月精, Fairy Wars (2010)
- TH13: 東方神霊廟 ～ Ten Desires (2011)
- TH13.5: 東方心綺楼 ～ Hopeless Masquerade (2013)
- TH14: 東方輝針城 ～ Double Dealing Character (2013)
- TH14.3: 弾幕アマノジャク ～ Impossible Spell Card (2014)
- TH14.5: 東方深秘録 ～ Urban Legend in Limbo (collaboration with Twilight Frontier 2015)
- TH15: 東方紺珠伝 ～ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (2015)
- TH15.5: 東方憑依華 ～ Antinomy of Common Flowers (collaboration with Twilight Frontier 2017)
- TH16: 東方天空璋 ～ Hidden Star in Four Seasons (2017)
- TH16.5: 秘封ナイトメアダイアリー 〜 Violet Detector (2018)
- TH17: 東方鬼形獣 ～ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature (2019)
- TH17.5:東方剛欲異聞 ～ Gouyoku Ibun (2019)
Aside from these games, there are also a myriad of fan-made games of various genre ranging from platformers to puzzle games.[1]
ZUN
ZUN is the only known member of Team Shanghai Alice, and considered to be the creator of Touhou Project. His real name is Jun'ya Ota (太田順也 Ota Jun'ya), and is known to have worked in Taito Corporation (a Japanese video game company). He is known to be fond of beer, and is rather reclusive. Despite his reclusiveness, he has given some lectures and interviews.[2] Outside of Touhou Project, ZUN has produced a few standalone games,[3] and also took part in the production of several of Taito's games.[4] ZUN has collaborated with the artists Alphes [5] and Moe Harukawa [6] for promotional art, official manga, and art for the fighting games.
Fanworks
Touhou Project is best known outside Japan for its prodigious amount of fanwork. While a typical Japanese fandom will have its fair share of doujinshi and written work, Touhou ups the ante with fan-made music remixes, fan-made video clips (often video clips of said remixes), fan-made games of various genres, and even two fan-made anime OVAs.[7][8] Most of these products are released in Comiket, although fans outside of Japan can buy them via online shops. Touhou also had its own annual convention, Hakurei Jinja Reitaisai, usually held in March or April. In 2011's summer Comiket, fans estimated that circles selling Touhou fanstuffs will number at a staggering 2808, more than any other fandom represented in Comiket by a large margin.[9]
One of the most striking aspect of Touhou fandom is the wealth of music remixes. ZUN himself has released 11 soundtrack albums,[10] and fan circles have created over two hundred remix albums.[11] To put the sheer number of remix CDs in perspective, there is a torrent 1.9 terabytes in size comprised of thousands of Touhou remixes,[12] outstripping the likes of Final Fantasy.
Fans outside Japan largely limited themselves to fanart and fanfiction, although fan remixes of Touhou music do surface from time to time in international forums. The Touhou Project subcategory on fanfiction.net contained 659 fics and 124 crossovers[13] in July 2011. However, there are also a relatively small number of Touhou stories created before the establishment of the subcategory in fanfiction.net, and not included in the subcategory.
Shipping
There are a vast number of ships for Touhou Project, due to the large number of characters and enormous fanbase. ReiMari (Hakurei Reimu and Kirisame Marisa, the two most common playable characters in the games) is the dominant ship, but there are many, many more.[14] Another popular ship is Kirisame Marisa/Alice Margatroid. Because almost all the characters in the games are female, the shipping is overwhelmingly yuri.
Touhou Wiki's Relationshipping page lists many of the well-known ships, along with their ship names on Pixiv.
Challenges
Games
- Danmaku!!, a card game
Essays & Meta
Archives & Fannish Links
- Touhou Wiki & Touhou Project Wiki
- Touhou Patch Center, a fan wiki for supplying translations for the Touhou games into multiple languages
- 東方Wiki, the Japanese fandom Touhou wiki
- /r/touhou, the Touhou subreddit
- Touhou Lossless Music Collection, a collection of fan music
References
- ^ http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Fangames
- ^ http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/ZUN#ZUN_Speaks
- ^ http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/ZUN#Doujin_Games
- ^ http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/ZUN#Works_with_Taito_Corporation
- ^ https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Alphes
- ^ https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Moe_Harukawa
- ^ http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Musou_Kakyou:_A_Summer_Day%27s_Dream
- ^ http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou_Project_Side_Story
- ^ http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2011/07/25/comiket-80-touhou-vs-fujoshi/
- ^ http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/ZUN#Music_Soundtracks
- ^ http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/List_by_Groups
- ^ "TLMC v.19 (2018.01.01)". tlmc.eu. January 1, 2018. Archived from the original on 2022-06-10. Retrieved April 3, 2019.
- ^ http://www.fanfiction.net/game/Touhou_Project/10/0/0/1/0/0/0/0/0/1/
- ^ Relationshipping page at TouhouWiki, accessed Feb. 5, 2014.