Well, actually it is a game series - an Arcade game series of the genre Danmaku. This means you will have to dodge bullets... a lot of them. Usually flying in beautiful patterns of death. They were created by one
Here are some examples is you want to hear it: Lullaby of Deserted Hell -- Faith is for the transient people
Not to forget, most of the songs I put on the mp3 player tool by now were Touhou songs.
It's the kind of genre I never suspected I could love - but there is no game and there never will be a game - that I love more than this series. And they aren't easy, too.
There are two kinds of them: The main kind are bullet-dodging games (as seen below), where you have to get the patterns and survive. Your hitbox is a tad smaller than the character, and in every TH after part 6 you get a hitbox when you are flying slowly. You get a maximum of four lives at the beginning, and if one bullet touches you, you lose a life.You get so-called "bombs" which inflict damage on your bosses and clear out all the bullets on the field, but you gotta be careful, because you only have a limited amount of them.
There are also two fighting game spinoffs, which are also unique, because there is a lot of ranged combat and magic, next to other things.
Now, what I like so much about it is the story-aspect (which is more defined by the songs); all characters have got their detailed and lovely as well as sometimes sad backstory. Normal people, shrine maidens, gods, demons, elves, makai, youkai, insane vampires, the princess of the dead, humans who turned completely immortal just to get revenge... A lot of it was actually written by the fans.
Touhou is set on a little japanese "island" - it was once a hub to all sorts of demons, and humans went there to drive them out. One of the greater youkai (Yukari, the keeper of all borders) worked together with a human shrine maiden in order to build an impenetrable barrier and the only one who can cross it is Yukari. So, basically, Touhou is always "today" - but Gensokyo never met most inventions.
Let's take one random character (and there are many of them)... Parsee Mizuhashi - her song-name "Green Eyed Jealousy" (ZUN apparenlty likes Shakespeare) explains a lot already. She actually envies all who can cross the one bridge she has to guard (the bridge to the underworld - and thus, in her grief she attacks everyone who wants to cross it - and she has coped with her feelings for so long, she can by now control other people's jealousy...
"Jealousy only begets further jealousy, so as she went mad from her own, she became able to fan the flames of jealousy in the hearts of others."
Usually, ZUN sells those games at japanese conventions, but since there is a huge demand for them in Japan, it gets sold there quite a lot - getting it in the western hemisphere however, proves quite difficult and only real fans have them (daaamn, I gotta order those), but since ZUN is such a nice guy, he doesn't mind if people download it online, unlike companies. Quite the opposite even - he never wanted to get those games to get so famous. I think he just wants his next beer, that's all.
Sadly, my wonderful download link with English translations broke, I will try to find something for you guys.
Well, the game's music (which is quite good at telling stories all by itself) and the fan's interpretations caused this to become very, very popular. Especially in Japan of course, where there are full concerts for this. If you know all the characters you will notice that there always are Touhou fans and imagery in avatars, topics etc. on every other site. And now what is interesting is the sheer amount of fan-art and other fan-stuff for it.
Well, I hope at least one of you read it (unlikely as it is), but it was a bit of fun writing this down anyway.
Some examples: (Also check out my signature and Sayor's signature ;D)
This was all fan-made by people just because they love it.
Last edited by Sold Out on Wed Apr 20, 2011 3:23 am; edited 4 times in total