Touhou/Headscratchers

• Yukkuris. Specifically, The Factory. The place is basically Yukkuri Hell... but for all the Touhou cast who hate them or see them only as food, there's some pretty major folks who like them. Sanae, for instance, absolutely adores the little moeblobs, while Reimu is often shown acting like a doting mother to yukkuris, and there's probably more I'm just not familiar with. So... basically, I'm not sure how this place could last an hour before being leveled by a pissed-off Touhou character in Mama Bear mode.
  • It's just a meme, you should really just relax.
    • Yeah, take it easy.
  • I like it how this was the 1st one that made you have the Ball to make a "Headscratchers" Page of Touhou, I thank you for making Headscratchers / Touhou
  • Yukkuri fandom is really one of those things that depends on the fanartist. There are basic accepted 'rules' to how certain yukkuri types behave, but there's no one consensus on who reacts to what they do, and how they do so (with Akyuu's elevation to some sort of Memetic Murderess possibly being the sole exception -- though that Just Bugs Me, too, why did Akyuu become the sadistic yukkuri killer? Why not Reimu or someone more prominent?)
  • Yukkuri fandom changes Touhou characters as they please, therefor it is not surprising that factories exist; Touhou inhabitants are simply robbed of their original personalities and made into sadistic monsters. Memes have never been about following the canon.
  • But isn't it exactly the same for human and animal in our world? Some human love animal, some keep them as pet, some thinks of the prospect of animal eating is despicable, but on the other side... well...
    • Animals aren't verifiably sapient (if not terribly bright) creatures that can actually talk and communicate with humans/youkai.

• How the bloody hell did this series become so popular? For a bullet hell game - hell, for any kind of game really - it has inspired an insane amount of fanfiction, art, parody work and so on. I just don't understand where the hell it stems from.
  • I've tried to explain this in the main Touhou entry under Self Fanservice. I firmly believe that if ZUN had been a good artist, the Touhou games would have just languished in obscurity.
    • Are you insinuating Touhou is a special case of So Bad It's Good?
      • No, it's actually Let's See You Do Better. ZUN's art technique is genuinely bad, but his underlying design sense is sound: for example, the characters all have distinctive silhouettes, because he puts a silhouetted character on the cover of all the games, and this is what makes the "Bad Apple!" shadow art video possible. And even when he makes incredibly stupid-looking costume choices, like Okuu, the fanartists are still able to make her look cool.
  • The fact that it's made up entirely of fantasy moe girls might have something to do with it too.
    • But it was the fandom who made the characters moe (not to mention good looking). ZUN tends to write most of them as jerkasses to one degree or another.
  • I think another part of the reason is that Gensokyo is a compelling setting in which to tell stories that don't need to be confined to the shmup game genre: a Fantasy Kitchen Sink where All Myths Are True, based on Japanese folklore. It's the same reason that made the world of Spirited Away, which resembles Gensokyo in many respects, interesting and deserving of more exploration than can fit into a movie.
  • The music of Touhou, I think, is more important than the games themselves. I became a Touhou fan after hearing some remixes of Flowering Night.
    • Funny, That's the exact same way I got into it as well.
    • I can't verify this information, though I've often heard ZUN's intention was to compose music, but created the games so that more people would listen to it (and if it's true, it's a genius plan because it worked probably much better than expected).
  • Great character design, poor artwork, encouraging fanart. Only very basic (and easily overridden as a result) personalities, encouraging fanfiction to flesh out the characters. An interesting setting, plus the previous points, encouraging fan videos. Excellent, easily-remixed music, encouraging... remixes. A friendly creator who seems to not only tolerate fanworks, but even encorporate fanon he likes into the canon. Essentially, every aspect of the series makes for a great template for fans to make their own works out of. Plus it has plenty of wordplay and references to science, history and mythology, which draws some people like flies.
  • ZUN is also pretty relaxed about copyrights and canon. He's like George Lucas if he wasn't so uptight about his creations.

• Let us talk about 9-Ball, Cirno, Ice Fairy, The Baka.
  • Has any one even known or even seen Cirno's other Spell Cards? Freeze Sign (Perfect Freeze), Snow Sign (Diamond Blizzard), Hail Sign (Hailstorm)? (The Ladder are more like Ice Sign (Icicle Fall) Hard and Lunatic)
    • yes, many people have seen her other harder-level spellcards. We just focus on Icicle Fall Easy because it's funny.
  • Why would she want to face a Daidarabocchi in Hisoutensoku?
    • Hisoutensoku's manual indicates that if she faces the Daidarabocchi, then she'll feel that there won't be anything for her to fear ever again.
    • As the self-proclaimed "Strongest", she wanted to prove her strength to herself and the world by defeating it.
  • Is Cirno really is the Strongest? If so how Strong?
    • Obviously, Cirno is 9999x stronger than anyone.
      • For a Stage 2 Boss?
    • She only ever claimed to be the strongest fairy. All signs point to her being right about that.
      • Actually, she claimed to be the strongest against Eiki in Po FV.
    • Possibly more than the strongest fairy. She could have some powers she doesn't unveil, due to danmaku limitations or her own stupidity (sorry to whoever considers her a genius as well). Probably not the strongest in Gensokyo but possibly stronger than she's considered to be.
  • Why is the icicle shotgun harder than most of her spellcards?
    • It's not. It's just very surprising if you're not expecting it.

• Why is Flandre seemingly elevated to the level of Memetic Cthulhu by the fandom? Sure, she's very powerful and destructive by human standards, but she's not the most dangerous being in Gensokyo by a long shot.
  • Because while other characters may be more powerful, none of them are as willfully destructive. Yukari might make life interesting but she's not going to destroy Gensenkyo, Flandre will do it with a smile.
  • She can destroy anything she sees, no save. Only the gap hag's ability is worse, but she's lazy and not violent by nature.
    • To further expand on this, it could be possible to consider it akin to Tsukihime's Shiki Tohno and his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, except Flandre doesn't need to physically trace the lines, or even get close. She can remotely attack the dots directly, thus allowing her to absolutely destroy anything without having to be vulnerable. It would be slightly trickier to explain how she could use it to target metaphysical concepts though.
    • Actually, it's more akin to Kira Yoshikage's Killer Queen stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. With it he can turn anything he wishes into a bomb, including people, giving an almost perfect parallel to Flandre. Later he gains the ability to make balls of propelled air into bombs when Stray Cat upgrades it, giving Flandre's range. Then there is the fact Kira is a psycho, which well..Flandre. The one who could fight Kira head on was Josuke, whom Reimu has been seen in some fanart with (including one where she wears his jacket and he...well, let's not go there). This combined with the fact ZUN is an extreme Jojo fanboy infact gives a hint of where some of Flandre's attributes came from so Tsukihime really is irrelevant here.
  • This troper thinks it started because of a misunderstanding of Flandre's character. Everybody sees the "locked in the basement centuries ago because of her fearsome power" part and thinks she's insane and bloodthirsty (no pun intended), while she's more of a nice girl with a really bad case of Does Not Know His Own Strength (being able to blow anything up by thinking about it probably helps). Then again, I may be wrong, Touhou canon is a really hard thing to figure out.
    • I blame Flan's upbringing for her becoming a Memetic Cthulhu. I think that whoever the heck was handling the two sisters' education before they started living on their own (someone must have, right?) was paranoid and, upon discovering the girl's power, decided to lock Flandre up to avoid accidents rather than attempting to handle her education properly. By the time they started living on their own, with Sakuya's help of course, it was too late to save Flandre - she already went insane from being locked up for so long, and besides, Remilia, being the spoiled brat she is, refused to lose her precious time trying to educate her anyways, as for Sakuya, ZUN knows she already has much to do. And this is why Flan is doomed to stay forever locked up in a basement, going more and more insane as time passes. If she's not Cthulhu how, she's bound to become one...
      • I believe it is canon that Remilia loves her sister and her sister loves her. So it's not likely that she just 'won't bother with her'. I believe it was canon as well that Remilia asks Patchy to be Flandre's teacher (poor Patchy, but she's the most suitable for the job). Also, if you see it the other way around, if Flan was allowed to go outside the mansion, she could cause too much troubles for her own good. Aside from that, my impression is that she is a fairly nice girl. The little problem is that she might be a bit mentally unstable and get upset easily. The BIG problem IS that she happens to possess that destructive ability. It's this bad combination that makes her look insane, in my opinion.
    • She shows up in one game and two fanbooks. It's not that difficult. Anyway, canonically she's kind of nuts, though the worst we've actually seen is her acting creepy.
    • A fanmade Touhou-themed add-on for the tabletop game Arkham Horror actually has stats for Flandre as a Great Old One, and she's probably the scariest. The description of her awakening is basically "her own insanity isn't enough to moderate her destructive power anymore". Basically, it implies that her insanity isn't the cause of her Cthulhoid status, but rather what's preventing it. As the game proceeds, she grows more and more sane. And, if not stopped, the game ends with her regaining full sanity and full control of her power. Alternate Character Interpretation, but interesting.
    • Wait...So if Flandre is Memetic Cthulhu, does that make the following statement applicable? "Flandre Scarlet danmakus 1d4 adventurers per round, unless the adventurer is a Miko or a witch."
      • Almost. Replace danmaku with breaks to pieces. "The eye of everything is in my right hand".
  • Flandre's ability is stated to destroy anything without even touching them, I am beginning to think of it on the Reality Warper level.

• This troper wonders why it has not occurred to people yet, Remilia seems to be pretty much a Reality Warper like Yukari due to her ability to manipulate fate. She is probably one of the more powerful beings in Gensokyo.
  • Probably because that power's more innately covert - you can't tell just what she's responsible for. And Remilia's combination of raw power, childishness and cheap Card Carrying Villainy lead people to assume she's not doing anything subtle.
    • So in a way she did win the Superpower Lottery but that power is still not comparable for the likes of Yukari or Reimu?
    • She did win the Superpower Lottery; triple 7s too. The problem, like with most Touhou characters, is that their abilities are far too vague in description. Manipulation of fate is essentially on the same echelon of power as Yukari's gap control, but the exact method in which it is done is inconsistent and rather difficult to interpret. Most people just assume she does it unconsciously, as their logic is "That thing's too powerful. She can't really know what she's doing with it." Ironically, they say nothing of Yukari's gaps, to which basically the same conditions apply, ostensibly acting under the assumption she's strong enough to know her own power. Once again we run into the classic Touhou fuss over whether stage placement determines a character's power level. Since we've been provided with proof this is not true (as the NOT EVEN DROP Meme states, Memetic Mutation aside) and that anyone can beat anyone under the Spellcard Rules stipulations, there's no reason to continue holding to this argument beyond the point of being a fanboy. Since I, myself, am (and no shame here) a fanboy of Remilia's, I've thought long about what ability can imply, and let me tell you, the possibilities are just as numerous as Yukari's abilities. In this troper's personal canon, Remilia is a Reality Warper through and through, but I will generally act under the premise of unrealized possibilities for the sake of the Rule of Drama if it ever comes up in a fanfic I write.
    • Yukari's ability is reigned in by A: her being lazy, B: her wanting what's best for Gensokyo, and C: a laid-back, for the lulz attitude. The combination means she is rarely an active force. Not so for Remilia, who is perfectly active and itching for something to do. It isn't a question of being strong enough to know your own power, it's a question of your personality. Imagine giving Cirno Suika's power; even if she knew exactly how it works, it isn't going to be pretty. In addition, Yukari is shown many times to be using her power in various ways, and the mechanic by which it works is relatively explicit, by Touhou standards. The only inkling we have of Remilia's fate manipulation is that she may have changed Sakuya's fate at one point by changing her name, which is about as vague as you can get. It's perfectly fine to do what you want in your own canon, but try not to badmouth people for their opinions when theirs are supported by ZUN's canon.
  • Every Touhou character has a power. The majority of these are not even mentioned in the games, or even in the other canon works. Remilia is one of those who's power you would only really know about by reading a bio on her, listing her power. Now compare it to other characters, who's power is a big part of what makes them different. One of the most obvious examples would be Yukari, but a better example would be Marisa. Yes, the witch. Her power is simply the ability to use magic. Imagine a work wherein Marisa couldn't use it. It would be bizarre. Whereas Remilia is an interesting and unique character without needing superfluous abilities; she already has a combination of super strength, speed, and potent magicks that few if any other characters mach. In fact, giving her the ability to manipulate fate would only pigeon hole her into roles. The great thing about Touhou is that you can pick and choose parts of canon you like for your own works, and no one would bat an eyelid, because the canon is so loose even ZUN seems to do so.
    • Oh, and also, the listed powers aren't absolute. Tewi has manipulation of luck, but that doesn't mean she can phase through walls using quantum tunneling. Komachi can manipulate distances, but that doesn't mean she could jump to the moon. Orin can manipulate evil spirits, but we probably wont hear anything about her using Mima as a chariot anytime soon.
      • • Eh...Komachi might be able to jump to the moon, if she ever got the time off to try.
        • Doubtful, she acted as if Yukari's ability to just warp up the mountain in SWR was something she couldn't do.
• Why did everyone start calling the visibly mature characters "old hags"? At worst, they look to be old enough to be considered Christmas Cakes(although this troper admits Yukari's outfit isn't helping any).
  • They're Really Seven Hundred Years Old Christmas Cakes ...Yeah they really look young.
  • Because it's funny. Few people legitimately consider any of the characters to be hags.
  • In a world of lolis, an adult woman is a hag :)
  • According to the Touhou wiki, it's because Eirin Yagokoro, Yukari Yakumo and Kanako Yasaka all have "ya" in their names, which, in Japanese, could be misread as "old hag".

• Okay... how exactly is Gensokyo a "peaceful paradise"? It's threatened by lethal mists, the possibility of giant man-eating cherry trees awakening, mysterious giants, and god knows what else seemingly every other week, and "youkai eating people" has only gone down from "a regular occurrence" to "almost never happening." (emphasis mine) I think the inhabitants might just have a really, really messed up idea of what a "peaceful paradise" looks like.
  • Lethal mist? What, you mean what Remilia did to obscure the sun so she could take a walk without a parasol? The Saigyou Ayakashi is hardly a threat either. Sure, it's a killer tree, but it's... still a tree. It's also kind of sealed away in the Netherworld, where everyone is already dead. Hisoutensoku was just some kind of... something, I don't really know what it's purpose was. Test run? Experiment? Either way, it's hardly something threatening. As well, all the events of the games happen with months in between, if not outright being a year. Yes, people may get eaten on occasion, but the events of games are hardly that big of a threat, unless you involve a certain nuclear raven.
    • Yes, I do mean that mist. It's All There in the Manual, but apparently when at its thickest (during the game, just in the area around the Scarlet Devil Mansion) ordinary humans and even most youkai could only survive about thirty minutes in it. On top of that, there was the risk of it spilling out into the normal world -- it's explicitly stated that they might destroy Gensokyo if it started causing trouble.
  • Nobody ever gets killed because any major dispute is resolved with danmaku. The Spell Card system was created for that very reason. Also, the only people who get eaten anymore are Outsiders who fall through the Hakurei border and don't make it to the human village or the shrine and possibly executed prisoners(I imagine they'd still have the death penalty).
    • The thing is... I'm guessing from in-game evidence that eating people is either more common than assumed, or else it died out more recently than most people think. As recently as Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Hong Meiling and Rumia bluntly threaten to eat Reimu if she loses.
      • They were either making threats they didn't intend to fulfill or were planning on eating her without killing her.
        • Or maybe they were going to eat her in another way.
      • Indeed, Akyu herself goes on about how despite the spellcard system being nonlethal, youkai will almost inevitably posture and bravado. Seems to this troper that most of the threats are akin to birds exhibitioning - a way to command respect and make yourself seem imposing without actually hurting anyone. And Meiling is probably contractually required to do those threats anyway.
      • If everyone made good on their death threats and insinuations that they just killed someone in these games, we wouldn't have Loads and Loads of Characters for very long.
  • It's written in the perspective of the characters. "A few people who are careless get eaten occasionally, but on the upside we have a nice afterlife to look forward to" is a lot better than "youkai eat humans all the time", plus all the problems inherent to the era they're in, socially. Plus, you'll notice no one in Gensokyo particularly seems to resent or dislike each other, canon-wise (And yes, Mokou/Kaguya are not particularly bitter enemies in canon. In fact, Mokou is really quite friendly). Compare that to a world where resources are running out, people war constantly, and touhou music isn't constantly playing in the background. The HORROR.
    • For all the evils of our world, that still doesn't mean Gensokyo is a nice place. Think about it: For your entire life, you're trapped in a quaint little village, unable to go outside or risk being eaten by malicious entities who see you as nothing more than a light snack. For all your life, you live under their feet and must pay respect to them at each and every opportunity (See: Perfect Memento in Strict Sense). Call me pro-human, but I fail to see why we should claim fealty to beings that would no sooner have us for lunch were it not for the efforts of Reimu to keep them in check. If the amount of humans eaten by youkai really had dropped, then there would be evidence of human expansion outside the Human Village (which there clearly isn't) since youkai would obviously have then learned to not eat them as indiscriminately as they do. On top of that, technology and science doesn't seem to advance very much in Gensokyo and seems to be infected with a bad case of Medieval Stasis. Yeah, sorry, but as shitty as the Outside World is, I'd be more at ease there than in a land where absolutely everything is out to kill you and have your corpse on the roast. At least I have a life expectancy beyond 5 minutes when I leave my hometown.
      • Nobody pays anyone else respect in Gensokyo except actual servants to their employers, and even then they get away with more than what a tenth century slave would've. The worst you're likely to get is challenged to a danmaku duel, and even then, only if you'd put up an interesting match. Youkai eating people, again, is bravado, not something that actually happens nowadays. If you don't want to meet them at all, then stay in your village, just like most people of the time would have, and none of them would touch you. As for science and such, even if we ignore the fact they recently acquired nuclear fusion, you can't miss what you never had to begin with. Considering humans have been living there as long as it's been around, without many immigrants, it's safe to say the survival rate is much higher than you seem to think. The number of Youkai that actually eat humans would be around the number of serial killers in your hometown. It's like me hearing of people being shot in new york, and declaring the entire city being unlivable due to crazed gunmen owning the streets. Finally, it's a peaceful paradise from THEIR perspective, previously a wartorn country with actually-bloodthirsty youkai, a lesser level of technology as you decry, and lacking a nice set of rules of which everyone adheres to protect the humans. If Youkai were really so bad, people would act like it. As they are, half-Youkai are accepted among human society, and even the characters who exterminate (which in Gensokyo, I might add, is the equivalent of beating someone in a race) them are at the worst indifferent, and more often quite friendly to them.
      • 1: "Nobody pays anyone else respect in Gensokyo except actual servants to their employers" Really? Perfect Memento in Strict Sense clearly states that humans in the village should pay respect to the local Youkai as if they were your superiors (And what, pray tell, have they done for us?). Make of it what you will, but that seems like concrete canon to me. 2: "Youkai eating people, again, is bravado, not something that actually happens nowadays". Alright, answer me these: Why does Perfect Memento in Strict Sense make every attempt to mention that humans are eaten by Youkai? Why does it go into detail about countermeasures against the various species (most of which have none anyway, except a .50BMG round to the face)? According to your logic, they're obviously too nice to warrant such warnings. Or was ZUN so drunk that he couldn't decide whether he should've had the youkai eat humans or not? And what about the humans from the OUTSIDE world who are spirited into Gensokyo (yes, it happens)? They have zero magical power, last we checked, so I don't think they'll be treated to a fair game of danmaku. More likely that they'll be treated to dinner, if you know what I mean. 3: "If you don't want to meet them at all, then stay in your village." Right, so, everything will be alright if you hide in your little village for your entire life, kowtow to the local Youkai that run the place and don't venture outside because you'll meet the three scary fairies in the forest. What planet, pray tell, are you on? I don't know about you, but I would go mad if I was confined to my hometown for my entire life. Surely, you have a desire to look beyond the borders of your local area and do something worthwhile with your life? And what have they done for us? Why can't they just sod off and leave us Puny Earthlings alone? Now there's some food for thought. 4: "Considering humans have been living there as long as it's been around, without many immigrants, it's safe to say the survival rate is much higher than you seem to think." ...Within the human village, I'll grant that. But what about the rest of Gensokyo? Humanity is confined to the village for a reason: Unless you can put up a nice danmaku display, I don't think any normal human will last too long beyond its walls (unless if one was to carry an AK-47, but that's another story). Ask yourself this: What if YOU took a lovely field trip to, let's say, Youkai Mountain? I bet the human survival rate would be pretty high there too, what with all the territorial Tengu flying about and all. Not to mention all the other Youkai who would probably rather not share their mountain with an intruder. Particularly a 'weak' and 'pathetic' human intruder. Particularly a much-reviled Outsider who, as an Outsider, has no spell cards and is therefore not bound by the danmaku rules. Logic, therefore, clearly dictates that you'd be lunch within seconds. Is that really your idea of a high survival rate? Surely, you jest! 5: "Finally, it's a peaceful paradise from THEIR perspective" Hmm, interesting. Well, if it's from the perspective of the ultra-powerful Youkai who run Gensokyo behind the scenes, that makes perfect sense. Derp. 6: "If Youkai were really so bad, people would act like it" Yes, you know, because it's totally safe to complain about those who can quickly and easily kill you, your family, and everyone around you to grind your bones for bread. The bastards. Either the Youkai are really good, or really bad. But in light of what I've said previously, I'm gravitating more toward the latter. On top of all of that, if Gensokyo really was a really really safe 'peaceful paradise' where children can run around with chocolate smiles and absolutely everyone gets along to the point of excessive shipping, then why, pray tell, is there only one major human settlement? By your incessant assertions that Youkai apparently don't feast on humans anymore, it should therefore be clearly safe enough for people to move out and start new lives; after all, human nature demands exploration of what is beyond our limits, be them geographical, technological, or whatever. And with exploration comes inevitable expansion. That's how modern society came to be. But since there obviously isn't very much exploring or expanding happening, it can only be assumed that any and all human explorers in Gensokyo who couldn't defend themselves were most likely eaten by wild youkai. Incidentally, that's how Gensokyo came to be in the first place - only the humans 'spiritually' strong enough to hold their own survived to found the village. Ergo, Gensokyo as a whole is not a 'sanctuary' as the more optimistic of the Touhou fandom seems to believe; bar the human village, Gensokyo is about as safe as walking in a minefield with magnetic boots - you'd be stupid to want to go there, you'd be stupid to think you want to go there, and you'd have to be stark raving mad to think it's even remotely safe for the average person. Unless, of course, you are one of the mines in the minefield to begin with. Then it becomes a bloodbath. An enjoyable (or delicious, in Gensokyo's case) bloodbath.
      • 1: Japanese society has a "respect your elders" policty, and Youkai are typically far older than you are. Common courtesy. 2: Aside from the whole "youkai asking me to make them sound more fearsome" thing, there's also the fact she has centuries of memories of the days when they DID eat people. As for people being spirited in, that hasn't got anything to do with it being a paradise for the people there; someone in China getting robbed doesn't stop you enjoying video games. 3: You appear to think that they're modern humans. They aren't. They are medieval ones- the same people that wouldn't go past a ten kilometer radius of their homes in a lifetime unless they were forced to. Also, youkai don't run the human village. One of them is a school teacher and a protector, and that's about it. As for them sodding off and leaving humans alone, are you saying anyone who doesn't conform to your idea of conduct should pack up and leave the place they created, because you can't stand them? Well, good news- become a hermit, live forever. You can beat up any youkai you meet, and won't have to deal with equally obnoxious humans, either. 4: Consider that the Moriya shrine, which actually has a reasonable number of (human) visitors is situated at the top of the mountain, and would thus require humans to go past all those Tengu (after passing the friendly harvest gods, the nice misfortune eater, and the affable kappa) to get there. Plus, it's not good business sense to alienate your customers. 5: Eh, I meant that more as in the general populace, including the humans. One of the big things your points rely on is the contrast between your life and theirs, but my point was that's not the correct comparison to make. You should be comparing them to the lives of village dwellers from way back yonder, when you'd toil in the fields for your lord for a small portion of what you harvest, die at what we consider middle age from a minor cut, perhaps get pulled into a war against a people you've never heard of, and such. Compare that to a place that allows a little girl to run away from her parents, and instead of getting eaten by an animal or starving, becoming an independant at an age when most children would be starting to learn their parent's craft, getting her own house and essentially not having to work again. 6: Even if we ignore that ZUN wrote that it was a peaceful paridise, not a PoV statement, there's still a fair problem with that first part: no one argues against it, even those WITH the power to protect themselves or those outside the youkai's each. Not Reimu, not Miko, not any of the ghosts or shinigami or even human sympathetic Youkai like Yukari or Byakuren. I also disagree with the dichotomy you have there- why can't they be, like humans, a shade of grey? Like humans, they all have differing personalities, motives, natures, and goals, from hyperactive faries to stagnant magicians. As for your next point, there's a simple alternative to "youkai eat everyone who steps outside the village, rawr": Gensokyo is small. Like, one major body of water small. I don't know how tightly packed villages in ancient Japan were, nor the exact size of the place, but it is entierly likely they don't have the room to make another village. Considering the stable population and prevailing sit-and-drink-tea attitudes, they don't even have much reason to go to the effort of expanding. You can say what you'd like about the founding of the place, but that doesn't change what it is now. A lot of areas in Australia were colonised to give Britain's criminals a place to live since it was overpopulated, and now it has a relatively low criminal population. You can argue all you like about lack of expansion or how women mostly wear skirts or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that by all interactions we've seen, life in Gensokyo is pretty enjoyable. I mean, I wouldn't want to live there; I probably wouldn't survive the lack of electricity and culture shock, but if I was, say, a medieval japanese orphan and you gave me the choice to live in a place where I could learn to fly and earn my living through a manner of my choosing, the offer would seem darn tempting. I might be eaten by a youkai? Well, the most likely alternative is working every day remaining in poverty, until dying from sickness or infection; or perhaps war, an accident, or heck, possibly even getting eaten by wild animals. You're certainly less likely to be eaten than to die in a car accident, but that never stops you driving anywhere or walking near roads, does it?
      • Alright. You have me on many of the points outlined above, chiefly because many of them are trivial facts that I missed. However: "As for them sodding off and leaving humans alone, are you saying anyone who doesn't conform to your idea of conduct should pack up and leave the place they created, because you can't stand them?" Actually, I'm perfectly fine with the coexistence of different cultures, be them human, Youkai, martian or whatever. Only when people are being killed - as per my original assertion - do I take a side against the belligerent party, human or not. "Well, good news- become a hermit, live forever. You can beat up any youkai you meet, and won't have to deal with equally obnoxious humans, either." No thanks, Hermits are favoured Youkai snacks. "You're certainly less likely to be eaten than to die in a car accident, but that never stops you driving anywhere or walking near roads, does it?" True that, but driving is a necessity. Living in Gensokyo as an Outsider is not. That still does not detract from the fact that it is not a peaceful paradise, since conflict technically still occurs there. The only difference between conflict in Gensokyo and out here is that cards are used instead of guns: the basic motivations for conflict are likely to be the same (resources, disputes, self-interest, etc.), and the only real changes would be the reduced scale and less death. But conflicts as conflicts themselves occur nonetheless, thereby contradicting the notion of a peaceful paradise, which would obviously be too peaceful to fathom such a primal concept of 'conflict'. And what if you're not bound by the spell card rules? You won't be bound by the laws that grant you safety, and you are therefore classified as 'Fair Game' to any wild Youkai. Never mind the lack of electricity or culture shock, you'll most likely be eaten first. My question to you is this: "Is Gensokyo a peaceful paradise to YOU?" Exclude its inhabitants, do YOU think you'll be safe there if you were suddenly spirited in for whatever reason? I think you overestimate your chances. EDIT: Ignore all of that, for I think I see the actual problem between us. Apart from my crippling lack of research, it would seem that our lines of perception differ greatly and our respective walls-of-text probably came about due to one misunderstanding the other. If I'm not mistaken, you were making your argument based on the perception of the people living there (or those of a comparable era), whereas I spoke as someone who would rather not be in a position other than the top of the food chain. I'm betting that's what you were trying to say as well, but I digress. Truth be told, my real issue was actually with an earlier assertion that we currently live in a Crapsack World, and I admittedly went a little too far in retorting by exaggerating the problems of Gensokyo and everything spiralled downward from there. Maybe I'll have a go at paraphrasing my position on the issue: "The Outside World can be a nice place. Just avoid the few nasty bits here and there, and it's a safer place than Gensokyo." (One could argue that the opposite is also true) Perhaps that will clear up a few things.
      • You're correct, I was making my points based on the resident's point of view, and I can certainly agree with that paraphrased position. (As an aside, someone claiming ours is a Crapsack World when compared to Gensokyo would annoy me too). What a nice way to end a debate.
  • Oh, and also, this.

• Chen is a nekomata... so why is the black magic she uses Chinese sorcery instead of something more appropriate to traditional Nekomata abilities, like fire magic or necromancy? For that matter, about half the cast have powers that have nothing to do with the pre-existing mythical creatures they're based on. (The rest are a mixture of those not based on pre-existing creatures, and ones that are but have relevant powers)
  • Because ZUN's modus operandi tends to be to read up on a creature... and then discard and add stuff at will to make it cooler not caring at all about faithfulness.
  • Because Chen is a Chinese Nekomata. Didn't you notice that her name is Chinese and not Japanese?
    • I had noticed, but now that you mention it, it's kind of odd. To my knowledge, China doesn't have an equivalent to the Nekomata... or even the Bakeneko in general. They do have an equivalent to the Kitsune (which is a lot nastier than the Japanese Kitsune, but not as bad as the Korean Kumiho), but...
  • For what it's worth, Orin, another nekomata, (possibly) does use fire magic and necromancy, so there ya go.
    • Orin is a kasha, not a nekomata.
  • She's also Ran's shikigami. Maybe that gives her some special powers or something.

• Can someone tell me exactly what that thing is that you see floating around at the beginning of the third level in Perfect Cherry Blossom? Because it looks a hell of a lot like Kikuri (the bronze disk girl) from Highly Responsive to Prayers.
  • I thank Alice was inside the Bronze Disk, also You got to love it how they is a Crescent Moon on that Stage.

• How exactly are you supposed to pronounce Touhou anyway?
  • Toh-hoh.
  • You can hear it spoken in the untranslated "The Net Star" episode. (It also has an an instance of "Yukkuri shiteitte ne!")

• In Imperishable Night, I don't understand how some of the player-character teams cause the titular unnaturally long night. I can understand how Scarlet Team and Border Team do it (Sakuya's time-manipulation powers and Yukari manipulating the boundary between night and day), and I suppose you could say that the Magic Team just used a spell they had lying around, but the Ghost Team especially just baffles me. I don't think "Invoking death in humans" or "Peerless swordsmanship" would pull that particular trick off.
  • Youmu can cleave the moon in half. Perhaps she can do the same with the sun.
    • That... doesn't really explain it. For one, that's a fan-game interpretation of her abilities. For two, the sun is in no way destroyed or broken (indeed, if it reaches 5:00, the sun rises and you lose). I would suggest that it has something to do with the crazy slowing effect used in the Youmu boss fights, but that's just a sort of reverse Bullet Time, as a way to show just how focused Youmu is, so that doesn't explain it either. Hmmm...
  • Youmu managed to steal spring. Maybe she can steal morning.
  • Also, Yuyuko is Yukari's best friend. Maybe she just asked.
    • So that's why Reimu doesn't face the Ghost Team.
  • This troper thought Yuyuko's power was to "invoke death in anything that can die". The application becomes apparent in the title-- Imperishable (undying) Night.
  • Well, with the Scarlet and Border teams having logical methods of stopping the night, it's not too out there to think that the Magic team could employ the help of Sakuya (Marisa and Patchy knowing each other and all, which would give her some access to the SDM) while the Ghost team could employ the assistance of Yukari, who's best buddies with Yuyuko. This reasoning also explains why the Ghost team fights Marisa while the Magic team fights Reimu.

• Can you actually play these games or are you supposed to just watch the bullet vomit and then die?
  • With some practice, its actually not to difficult until stage 5.
  • Don't bother. Being good at shmups makes you a freak and a Stop Having Fun Guy.
  • There is something of a sweet spot between stop having fun guys and "Watching the bullet vomit and dying." People who actually enjoy these games because they are challenging without resorting to Fake Difficulty.

• Suddenly, Aya got pointy elf-ears. What's up with that?
  • She is a Tengu or Just Zun Art Work kicking in.
  • It's how ZUN draws ears. He just normally avoids them entirely, so the fandom notices that they look weird when they show up (yes, that does mean that Parsee's ears aren't canonical).
    • Parsee's ears are fakes. She wears them out of jealousy for cooler-looking youkai.

• What exactly does Patchouli do? She serves as the Scarlet Devil Mansion's librarian, but I can't imagine any of its residents being very fervent readers. Given the time she puts into developing new spells, perhaps she was hired as some sort of magic scientist?
  • Well, it's good to have a librarian. One way or another, the SDM has a bunch of highly valuable magical books and such, so having some sort of protection for them is ideal (even if it doesn't stop Marisa). And anyway, Patchouli's a powerful magician. Always nice to have one around, right?
  • She's a good friend of Remi. She doesn't really need to be particularly useful to justify being at the SDM.
  • According to Perfect Memento, "It is her role to resolve problems that occur in the Scarlet Devil Mansion.^[1]" Which... doesn't make much sense either, but if you were hoping for things to make sense, you're following the wrong series. Technically Patchouli isn't even a librarian, she just uses the library more than anyone else (and then some) and is probably the only person who'd bother taking care of it. It probably is just cause she's Remi's friend, really.
  • Also, in the backstory for EOSD's extra stage, Remilia remarks that, since vampires can't move in rain, the sudden rainstorm was likely caused by Patchouli's elemental magic to keep Flandre from escaping the mansion. So that's another reason for Patchouli to be there. In the case of an emergency, she can keep Flandre from escaping.
  • There are some tidbits out there that suggest the library isn't completely made up of magic books, and that there are a number of actual story books and even possibly manga that various characters take and read.

• Yukari's full name is Yukari Yakumo. Because Ran is Yukari's shikigami, she is referred to as Ran Yakumo. Why, then, is Chen always referred to as just Chen, and never as Chen Yakumo? Shouldn't she take Ran's last name, being her shikigami?
  • One possibility is that Ran takes care of a lot of Yukari's duties, and is thus upholding the Yakumo name. Chen just kind of does her own thing.
  • Because from what I have noticed Chen is not exactly YUKARI's shikigami. She is actually RAN's, as Ran is a powerful enough being to have a shikigami of her own. Yukari's family name stretches onto her servant, but it does not stretch as far as onto her servant's servant.
    • There was a doujin (whose name escapes me now) where Ran gets the Yakumo name after passing some sort of trust-fall exercise. Ran later pulls the same test on Chen who cheerfully watches her plummet to the ground and make a Loony Tunes impact crater. Needless to say, Chen didn't pass and remained the last nameless one.

• I think it best to get it out, but Mima?
  • An unhappy situation with any number of causes: a desire for a fresh start on a new platform to make the series more accessible to newcomers; an attempt to cull the growing number of playable characters to just the two oldest and most iconic; or maybe simply because Mima and Marisa were getting too similar in terms of character and temperment, making the former superfluous.
  • But Mima is older than Marisa and was just as iconic, having appeared in 4 out of the 5 PC-98 games, with the last three times as either final boss or playable character. She was the first recurring character in the series besides Reimu

• So when exactly did Suika become Iku's neighbor in heaven?
  • Some time between IaMP and SWR.
  • Suika became Tenshi's neighbor in heaven after basically shaking her down for a piece of her land.
  • After Suika's ending in SWR.

• Say doesn't Kanako look more like the PALACE ATHENE then the GUNCANNON?
  • Palace Athene, Stargazer, God Gundam, Guncannon - take your pick. It's just that the Guncannon is red. Me, I prefer "God Guncannon" just because it sounds funnier.

• One of Alice's spell cards in PCB is Blue Sign: "Benevolent French Dolls" Blue Sign. Yet, there's only a handful of blue bullets that start off the attack, before changing to gray, then red. (And on harder difficulties, green as well.) I'd be willing to accept that the sign being named after a color doesn't necessarily determine the color of the bullets if another one of her spell cards, Chalk White Russian Dolls didn't use white bullets, and was noted as White Sign.
  • Meanwhile, Scarlet Sign: "Red-haired Dutch Dolls" uses purple and green bullets, and Darkness Sign: "Foggy London Dolls" uses multicolored bullets. Seems Chalk-White Russian Dolls is the anomaly here.
  • The dolls. It's the colour of the dolls.

• Why does everyone think that Cirno can melt? SHE ISN'T MADE OF ICE!!!
  • This is fan stupid. Cirno has adventured into a superheated nuclear furnace without feeling more than a slight discomfort. There she faced a nuclear infernal raven armed with nuclear hellfire, and DEFEATED HER. I think Cirno has proven that she doesn't melt even when exposed to extreme temperatures. Of course, if you plunge her into lava, she will melt (like any creature).
    • Except maybe in early versions of Dwarf Fortress, where burning didn't cause bleeding, so it couldn't kill. Or if Temperature is turned off.
  • Because she's cute comic relief who can always use more sight gags. Ironically, the popularity gained from that role is what let her enter and battle in a nuclear reactor to begin with. Initially she's thrashing and screaming, "I can't bare it!" but as soon as she resumes her Gunbuster pose, none of it matters and she can win through the power of fighting game logic. If Cirno can be infused with literal Rule of Cool as fans demand, other ice-related traits are hardly a stretch.

• When playing Imperishable Night on easy (because it was my second attempt at the game), I got to Final B as Border Team, and was facing the spellcards that you just have to outlast. I die 3 times, then it goes on to "GOOD END 1". What happened there? Does ANYONE know if this is supposed to happen?
  • Losing to Kaguya's Last Spell just costs you a load of points, not the game. That'd be too frustrating.
    • I think they are referring to how if you use a continue you can't get a good end, IIRC.
      • You can't get to FinalB if you continue, and you can't continue once on it. That can't be it.
  • The conditions for getting the good end and extra stage in IP seems to be to simply beat Final B, since to even get there, you can't use a continue beforehand or use one during the level, except for when she directly attacks them. Since the final spell cards attacks your continues as though they were just lives, and since by that point you'll have more continues than you have chances to screw up, simply reaching them is synonymous to victory.
    • Not quite true. It's entirely possible to beat Final B without ever reaching the time point quota for a stage, resulting in a grand total of one continue. Additionally, you can lose them to her Last Spell pretty fast if you fail especially badly. It's just that at no point in the game does failing a Last Spell affect anything other than your score.

• Why does ZUN even bother putting scoring systems in the games? People who aren't good at shooters couldn't care less if they beat their best score tenfold, and people who are find Touhou scoring to be idiotic.
  • For one thing, extra lives are awarded at score intervals, so there's a non-macrogame reason to care about your score.
    • Only in EoSD and MoF. The rest of the (Windows) games have you collecting objects to increase your lives, probably because no one really like Touhou's scoring system.
  • Because there are enough people who are good at them who do in fact like trying to aim for a high score, as evidenced by the existence of scoreboards.
    • And some of us who aren't but use score as a rough approximation of how well we did at the game.

• Alice in Canon: Misanthropic hermit whose reaction to anyone who's not Marisa tends to vary from "passive-aggressive politeness" to "open hatred" -- and her reaction to even Marisa is along the lines of Vitriolic Best Buds or Tsundere. Alice in Fanon: A lonely girl who's desperate for friendship and attention, especially from Marisa. What.
  • That's not quite accurate. Alice acts reasonably nice in SA, and she has a fairly broad range of Fanon personalities, many of which are reasonably close to her canon one. If you really want to bitch about fans screwing a character over I'd suggest looking at Chen, Mystia, or Shou.
    • As for her acting relatively nice in SA, that's why I said "tends to."
  • She puts on doll shows for children at festivals and gives shelter to lost people wandering around in the forest. Jerkass Alice is as much of a Flanderization as stuttering, lonely Alice is.
    • Well, going strictly by the games, particularly the earlier Windows ones, she actually is kind of a Jerkass -- she tends to be passive-aggressive in her best moods. Also, keep in mind that although she provides shelter to people lost in the forest, she doesn't actually bother to pay attention to or interact with them in any way, just continuing to go about her business until they're ready to leave. One gets the impression that she doesn't much like people -- or at least doesn't especially care about them. Dolls, on the other hand...
  • Alice is a great example of how canon personalities aren't really set in stone. PCB, affable coward. Imperishable night, foul-mouthed tsundere. The fighting games, polite moe. Perfect memento, quiet dollmaker, who takes in those in need, and puts on shows for the villagers. Bohemian archive, sort of ditzy mad scientist, threatened Aya, inferred to be voodoo-stabbing someone. There is more basis for a moe blob Alice than a vindictive Mokou, or a lazy Meiling.
    • I'd call her more passive aggressive than affable in PCB, but you do make a good point.

• Why does Remilia even bother having Meiling as a gate-guard at all? I mean, there is just about nothing Meiling can do that Sakuya can't do (I love Meiling, by the way), and Sakuya definitely has enough time to take care of things. If Meiling is as imcompotent as the Stage 3 boss she is, surely Remilia have better tastes for someone who will act as gate guard for the feared SDM than her. Although my guess is that ZUN just needed a Stage 3 boss, so its a kind of a Gameplay and Story Segregation?
  • Sakuya is Remilia's chief maid, and her timestopping abilities are useful for more than just throwing knives at people, and is thus quite more important to Remilia. Meiling can keep most humans and youkai out of the mansion, but was just plain out of her league when it came to dealing with the main protagonists (one of whom acts as her very own Wave Motion Gun and the other of whom is just majorly powerful -- a common in-joke has one of her spellcards being "Hax Sign - You Just Plain Fucking Lose"). That's the problem with being Overshadowed by Awesome, as well as being primarily a physical fighter in a magic and Danmaku-based series.
    • So maybe Remilia should hire a more competent gate-guard that could at least stand a better chance against people such as them? Unless SDM has become too attached to Meiling as a member.
      • Care to explain where Remilia would find somebody like that? Not likely that an EX Boss is going to sign up for gatekeeper duty, is it?
        • Considering the youkai population of Gensokyo, there is going to be plenty of youkai stronger than Meiling that would love to have a job at the luxurious home of SDM, and they don't need to be an EX Boss to be like that.
          • Not really. Meiling is already a fair bit more capable than the average youkai. Combined with the typical youkai's aloofness and pride, finding someone more competent than Meiling that doesn't have ridiculous demands could be difficult.
          • Meiling is strong enough to handle the average riff-raff. It's just that the one time we've seen her in action as the SDM's gatekeeper, she was up against very much above average riff-raff. It wouldn't matter if Remilia had somehow convinced somebody monstrously powerful like Mokou to take the job, or put Flandre at the front gate that day. Hax Miko still would've gotten past her.
  • My own theory on this is that Meiling provides a friendly face for the SDM. Think about it; every other non-fairy there is either creepy and/or a Hikikomori, but Meiling is a friendly near-human, and will be seen more than the rest of them combined.
    • That is a good point, it gives Remilia a more civil side too.
    • This theory is further promoted by Perfect Memento, where it is stated that Meiling's presence makes the Scarlet Devil Mansion not seem so ominous and creepy. As one eyewitness report says, "The Scarlet Devil Mansion is terrifying, but thanks to that gate guard it feels friendly."
  • Being beaten by Reimu and Marisa isn't exactly uncommon.
  • I've always liked the theory that Meiling is just there to act as a filter--anyone who can't get past her is too boring for Remilia to bother with anyway. Just because she could handle everything or have Sakuya handle everything doesn't mean she wants to.
  • Meiling's inclusion in the fighting games is evidence that she can defeat the main protagonists if Lady Luck smiles on her. Same goes for other such characters included in the fighting games and PoFV.

• Youkai eating people. I can't figure out, one canon says this doesn't happen, another says it happens all the bloody time. Gensokyo is pretty much a confirmed happy place with White and Grey Morality and then all of a sudden we hear that Yukari spirits people in for Remilia to snack on? I don't get it. It feels almost schizophrenic. I prefer a non grimdark gensokyo, but it still bugs me.
  • This is mostly the result of ZUN changing his mind. Currently, though, youkai only really eat outsiders and hermits, and both are rare. Though a lot of them would probably like to eat humans. And Yukari getting food for Remilia is still canon.
    • It's also canon that Remilia doesn't kill the humans she "eats". She just drinks their blood. Messy, probably painful, but non-lethal.
    • You'd think with her powers she could just rob some blood banks or something instead... then again she is kind of a bitch.
  • Thats exactly my point, it feels just almost hypocritical. "Gensokyo is a wonderful place where everyone gets along, except outsiders eff them" I cant help but think ZUN hates the real world given how he made the outside world such a crapsackworld and is apparently okay with outsiders getting munched on.
    • This troper saw it as "outsiders tend not to have the necessary mad skillz to protect themselves from youkai".
    • Pretty much. I think I recall something about the Human Village originally being settled by Human Exterminators in order to keep the naturally high youkai population in check, meaning that the entire town would be filled with people that can shoot magic and fly. Since this kind of thing no longer exists in the outside world (for the most part), any outsider that ends up in Gensokyo cannot fly, shoot magic or otherwise protect themselves, and would promptly be picked off thanks to it unless they had the fortune to be found by one of the humans first.
      • I think it's actually that they don't have spellcards, and thus aren't protected by spellcard rules.
    • I'd tend to view it like most other fairy tale settings the kind where things are basically okay as long as you listen and avoid the bridge with the troll under it, don't wander around in the woods at night, and stay the hell away from the local witches territory. So you know basically cower within your village, don't venture outside, and shun contact with anything with a whiff of the supernatural about it... Actually that is pretty grimdark isn't it, why do we feed this stuff to children again?
      • • Meaning that if Yukari drops you in Gensokyo, best hope she dropped you near somebody like Keine or Mokou who'll guide you to a safe-for-humans area.
        • "This is a wonderful place where everyone gets along, except outsiders eff them" Is pretty much the standard attitude of any rural community. As for why we feed stuff like that to kids, because well until the modern world most people lived in rural communities and that's what life was like in them.
        • There's actually a passage in (I think) Perfect Memento that says outsiders that stumble into Gensokyo are cherished for their knowledge of the outside world. Make of that what you will.
  • Gensokyo is a happy place, where you're not at the top of the food chain. Those don't nessecarily have to contadict each other. The likely explanation is that Gensokyans have an outlook on death that most humans of the outside world would find pretty alien. Yuyuko's profile in IN states that "It is said that experiencing death in Gensokyo is strangely cheerful in many cases." Humans in Gensokyo are probably perfectly fine with their place in the food chain.
    • Yes, because potentially being eaten alive is totally a nice way to go. And it's not like the Puny Earthlings can complain either, since the ultra-powerful Youkai who run the show would be delighted to help themselves to a little snack...
      • That's like a vegan acting as if it would be impossible for anyone to exist who thinks eating meat is acceptable. There have been cultures where it was considered horrible to not die in battle, and they happily went along with it without any super powerful spirits eating them if they said otherwise.
  • this article from P Mi SS explains it pretty well. Basically, people very rarely get eaten nowadays, but youkai like to perpetuate the idea that they do to make themselves seem more fearsome.

• You would think after thousands of years of fighting Mokou and Kaguya would've have, y'know, gotten over it by now, but they're still bitter enemies. What's up with that?
  • They don't really have anything else to do.
  • They haven't actually been fighting that long either. Mokou re-met Kaguya in Gensokyo relatively recently after a few thousand years of assuming that she'd gone back to the moon and not really thinking about her.
    • There have only been hundreds of years. Kaguya and Mokou's first encounter was roughly 700 CE, according to Mokou's chapter of Cage in Lunatic Runagate, and they've been killing each other for only the last four hundred years.

• How old do Satori and Patchouli are supposed to look, anyway? Not sure about Satori, but Patchouli's dialogues make her seems like an adult, though her clothes are extremely childish.
  • Patchouli is a witch. The Youkai kind. Youkai witches don't age. Maybe Remmy thought she looked cute in it and she took the suggestion.

• If Danmaku and the spell card rules were supposed to be nonlethal combat measures, then how come Mokou literally DIES after every spell card?
  • The magic that keeps danmaku non-lethal doesn't work on entities with no concept of death. Or something.
  • Or Mokou, being a nobleman's daughter who predates whatever development lead to Gensokyo humans being tougher and more magically capable than "normal" humans, may simply be that fragile.
  • Maybe she doesn't bother dodging? ...Maybe she's just being melodramatic?
  • I always thought she was just burning up absolutely all of her power in each spell card, so shes killing HERSELF every single time, which is also a reason for how powerful she is.
    • Muscles grow stronger by getting severely stressed, then taking time to rest, heal, and et cetera. Mokou gets killed so often without rest that she hasn't been able to get tougher, and remains more fragile than Kaguya, who lies around all the time while being a NEET. Or maybe I'm blowing things out of my ass.
  • Mokou doesn't take very good care of herself. She starves rather than going through the trouble of getting food, because she knows she can't die. She literally lives at the edge of death, unlike most people.
  • At least in the boundary team's scenario, Reimu mentions something along the lines of "If you're immortal, I don't have to worry about accidentally blowing you up". It seems that permanently killing somebody is against the spellcard rules, but temporarily killing somebody who has the ability to recover is fine. Kaguya doesn't die in her fight because, IIRC, she doesn't reveal her immortality before the battle, so everybody still holds back against her.

• Exactly what does Kaguya's power do?
  • It can be best thought of as manipulation of stasis. Its use on Eientei was to cause time to pass, but nothing to change. Presumably its range is a bit wider, as she also used it to tear apart the spell used to stop the night.

• If "Touhou" means "Eastern", then why have I only seen people use the word "Touhou" to refer to the game and not "Eastern"? When was "Touhou" coined, anyway?
  • ? There are plenty of other things out there that use the word. Usually romanized as 'Toho' instead, admittedly.

• So.. You can buy the games right? Or actually, you're meant to buy them. Then why do fans act like they're free?
  • Torrents.
    • Buying the games outside of Japan is pretty costly. Ordering UFO from, say, Paletweb will run you $20USD for the game alone, and either $8 or $15 if you want it shipped without or with insurance respectively (to NA, at least), and that's before tax. Other places tend to charge upwards of $35 for the same game. You could buy a DS or PSP game for about the same price and get more playtime out of it than your typical Touhou game runtime of 30 minutes.

• Hisoutensoku... Ugh. Ever since the Moriya Shrine was set up, Gensokyo's been gaining technology at an absurd pace. A few kappa gizmos were cool. Steam power? Uhm, alright. Nuclear reactors? This has to be some kind of joke. A giant robot? Really? Okay, screw this setting. Gensokyo's losing all the great primitive charm it once had. I have hopes ZUN's slowly adding all this for the sake of major story developments (maybe game 13), but if not, this is just getting ridiculous.
  • Hisoutensoku is essentially a giant balloon, not an actual robot. And, as of the third chapter of Wild and Horned Hermit, the nuclear reactor isn't especially useful
  • I was always under the impression that the new technology was pretty much useless in the hands of Gensokyo's residents. It's only natural we'd see some technology from the Outside World (Sanae and Kanako appear fairly pushy about it), but I doubt anyone in Gensokyo really cares about any of it or could even use it properly. Hell, in Wild and Horned Hermit, it seems the only reason anyone aside from the Moriya Shrine girls had any interest in the nuclear reactor was because it powered the hot springs. While I understand your concern, even if we keep seeing new technology introduced, it probably won't make much of a difference.
  • Basically, introducing cold fusion to a society without light bulbs is an exercise in futility. Even the Kappa are turning out to be somewhat more primitive than previously assumed.
    • What is the point, exactly? So far as I can tell, the only reason they bother is because Sanae and Kanako think science is swell (or something). What do they have to power? Are they planning on opening up a car company? The regular fusion from the core has a bit of a similar problem. A bit off topic, though: did Hisoutensoku fall into Word Salad Philosophy at the end, or was something lost in translation? So far as I can tell the logic is as follows: -The robot does not think (being, in effect, a big balloon, and balloons do not think. Check)| -Enlightenment is achieved through the absence of thought (Okay, to each his own I guess, this still works... Check)| -Therefore, the robot is enlightened (What. Using that logic, inanimate objects qualify for "enlightened". Rocks are enlightened. People who, through lots of work, become enlightened, therefore reach the level of rocks.). I suppose I am thinking too hard about this, but I can't seem to get it out of my mind.
      • Basically, it's an attempt at making "Ignorance is bliss" sound philosophical.

• According to Subterranean Animism, Utsuho gained her power by devouring the corpse of the Yatagarasu, provided by Kanako. This begs the question: Where did Kanako obtain the body? Furthermore, if she could obtain and deliver such a body to the underground undetected, then why wasn't she able to detect Utsuho's loss of sanity, and stop her personally?
  • Utsuho lives in (a) Hell. Maybe the Yatagarasu just died and wound up there, like all the other corpses?
    • And being basically a sun god(dess), the corpse would not be affected by the flames. Rin must have found it and treated it like any other of her corpses in the first place, then Utsuho found it, you know the rest.

• Marisa is Always Second Best in Gensoukyou but don't strong magic users change into Youkai? Marisa is still human if I recall... has there been any information regarding how changing to a Youkai affects Marisa or is this why she is searching for the Hourai elixir?
  • Strong magicians CAN turn into youkai, they don't do so automatically. This article from PMiSS explains it quite well. And actually, it was Alice who mentioned being interested in the Hourai Elixir when facing Mokou in Imperishable Night; Marisa explicitly stated that she wasn't interested.
  • About that, I was checking the wikia and found this line in her Perfect Cherry Blossom profile:

On another topic, the elixir of immortality she had been developing during the winter ended up being too large for consumption. More improvement required.

• • She indeed tried to create the (or an) elixir of immortality.
  • Perfect memento in strict sense infers that yes, she may become a youkai in the future. However, how strong a magic user you need to be, and now strong Marisa actually is, are unclear (Her magic is powered by external means, and we only ever see her using it in spellcard duels, in which power is irrelevant). Alice became a youkai from extensive training and "high dexterity", and she had a grimoire which elevated her from a stage 3 boss to an ex one to help her along.

• Why are Reisen, Utsuho, and Orin called "pets"? I can understand a little with the latter two, because some of Satori's comments indicate they were originally just a bird and a cat before they gained humanoid forms...but why Reisen? Unlike Tewi she was never just an ordinary rabbit, right? It kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth...
  • It's just a quirk of the series. Despite being sapient humanoids, Reisen and the other animals are, by the series' internal logic, just that: animals. And being animals, having Reisen as a pet would be no more objectionable than owning a normal rabbit.
  • In fact, in Silent Sinner in Blue, the Lunarian sisters who owned Reisen adopt a new rabbit-youkai - and rename her "Reisen", just like you see with a Replacement Goldfish. This doesn't really bother anybody (even the original Reisen is mostly happy that some other bunny will have to cope with those two).

• Shouldn't Reimu be dying from cancer after her fight with Utsuho in Subterranean Animism due to radiation poisoning?
  • It would be more reasonable to question why she wasn't fried while grazing stars. Also, nuclear fusion isn't strongly associated with dangerously radioactive fuel and waste like nuclear fission is. On the other hand, it's not like the sun doesn't cause cancer as well though.
  • It was a danmaku duel. They were using non-lethal versions of their powers, so any burning or illness that Reimu would've suffered from the real deal doesn't apply.
  • ...Or maybe Reimu really WAS a zombie and was just using a ton of make-up to look normal? Of course, that then brings up the problem of Convection Smonvection for a rotting corpse...
  • My favourite theory is that a number of the things you dodge in that fight were the gamma rays. Yeah, that's right, dodging radiation.

• Rin/Orin Kaenbyou is called a Kasha, a cat youkai that takes dead sinners to hell. Chen, another cat youkai character, is called a nekomata because she has two tails. Rin also has two tails, and is furthermore associated with death, as is the traditional nekomata in Japanese myth. Wouldn't that make Rin a nekomata as well?
  • Maybe? Traditionally, kasha aren't actually cats.
    • No...? The other Wiki doesn't even mention kasha except as a minor disambiguation: "a cat-like monster in Japanese Mythology", and every other website that mentions them is copy-paste off the Touhou wiki's description of them. What.

• From which countries are the characters with foreign names in Touhou? We know that Chen, Hong Meiling, Seiga Kaku and others came from China, Parsee is from Iran/Persia (according with her background) and the Scarlet sisters are not from Japan, but what about Alice, Patchouli, Cirno, Mystia, etc?
  • The animal-type youkai and fairies^[2] appear to be native; the early games had all youkai have foreign names unless they had a reason not to (in fact, the EoSD characters being outsiders is a retcon). Patchouli may or may not be an example; it's suggested that Remilia binds her servant's fate to her's by changing their names, and that would certainly explain why it's so bizarre. Alice has a basically English name, though how she got to Gensoukyou is a good question. The Prismrivers... they might be of European descent (probable), but Gensoukyou only appears to absorb nearby phantasms, so they'd have to have been raised/created in Japan
  • Maybe they moved to Japan because they're monsters (or hated) in their home countries and since Gensokyo is in another dimension from ours, they can live in peace there?

• Why does Utsuho bother to comply to the spellcard rules if she wants to destroy Gensokyo? She is insane anyway so Reimu's Plot Armor should have been of no concern to her. Also how did Toyosatomini no Miko, who has just been resurrected, know about the spellcard rules? Considering Miko's mindset, she wouldn't mind going all out to kill Reimu without knowing Reimu Barrier Maiden quality. That argument also holds true for Byakuren, who was sealed away for over 1000 years, without contact to Gensokyo. Though she had a reason to hold back, she wouldn't have known about the spellcard system anyway.
  • It seems to be taken for granted anyone in gensokyo is by default aware of, and perhaps restricted to, using the spellcard rules. As to why, I don't think it's ever explained, but given the setting, there's a few plausible explanations (such as Yukari altering the border of knowledge and ignorance, for example).
  • For why Utsuho follows the rules, she seemed to be more enjoying playing the villain than being truly interested in actually destroying anything. And it's quite possible that it didn't occur to her not to follow them, Okuu being Okuu.
  • For Utsuho, it at least makes some sense. Remember, she didn't want to (utterly) destroy Gensokyo; she wanted to annex it as a part of Hell. If she kills Reimu, then the barrier would collapse and Gensokyo would wink out of existence, destroying everything. Better to simply disable the shrine maiden; that way, there's at least a Gensokyo to take over. As for the other two: for Byakuren it's at least plausible that, not wanting to kill her opponent, she's using weaker versions of her spells that coincidentally happen to fall within the bounds of the spellcard rules. And Miko simply has no excuse.
  • Remember, if any youkai tried to fight Reimu with lethal intentions, she would do the same, and that means she wouldn't hold back on using the technique that makes her completely invincible for an indefinite length of time. The spellcards rules aren't there so Reimu can stand a chance against youkai. They're there so the youkai have a chance against Reimu.
    • Debatable, considering that's from a PoV article, and ZUN likes making characters in those wrong some of the time, like a normal person would be. In any case, the spellcard rules are canonically there to allow the Youkai to fight the current shrine maiden (and by extension, everyone else) without killing her, as well as to provide a safe way for superpowered beings to resolve conflicts.

• Why no remake of the PC-98 games? I'd like to see a complete makeover with revamped gameplay, remaster bgm and graphic with some minor adjustments to the story (like old Alice and Marisa). Something like Pokemon 1st and 2nd generation. That would be wonderful. If ZUN doesn't do it, someone should!
  • ZUN prefers to keep moving forwards. Fan remakes... there's one of the second game, but doesn't seem to be anything beyond that

• Mamizou's spellcard, "Pseudo-Exorcism of the Stupid Shrine Maiden", is clearly meant as a Take That against Reimu. So why does she use it against the other three characters? Did she not have time to make "Psuedo-Sparking the Stupid Witch"? You could argue that Reimu's probably the only playable character Nue told her about, but why bother insulting Reimu when she's fighting, say, Youmu?
  • ZUN was drunk and fell asleep in the middle of it. He woke up the next morning and forgot. Or he just got lazy. I guess because extra is not stage 4.
  • Reimu is the only one that people hear much about. Most youkai assume that Marisa is one of them, Sanae is the priestess of a faith that accepts youkai, and Youmu spends most of her time in purgatory. A newcomer like Mamizou can't be expected to have prepared copies of the others' spellcards. But mostly it's that Extra isn't stage 4
  • Mamizou only turns into Reimu because the spellcard is a reference to the Cute'Em Up game KiKi KaiKai. The stage 7 boss in that game is a tanuki who disguises himself as the main character, Sayo, who is a shrine maiden like Reimu.

• This has always bugged me, but how the hell does Lunarian society survive? Consider this. Ancient civilisation, established by particularly advanced humans long before ours was even conceived. Fair enough. But wouldn't their near-immortal lifespans present to us an obvious overpopulation problem? Considering how they've been around for so long, have had their numbers supplemented by the Moon Rabbits (which, obviously, reproduce like rabbits), their absolutely stunning medical technology (which would eliminate the issue of death by disease, thereby increasing the population exponentially over time) and also bearing in mind that the Moon (not the Lunar Capital) is only 1/6 the size of the Earth, wouldn't the Moon therefore be a crowded dystopia? Do understand that no amount of super-magic or advanced technology will fix this problem - it's a sad fact of life. But that's not why I pose this question. No, I seek clarification because ZUN seems to like portraying (or at least referencing) the Touhou!Moon as if it were some kind of perfect, idealistic utopia. So then. What gives?
  • First, there likely wasn't very many original settlers. Second, they don't seem to be breeding much. Also; the Lunar Capital isn't 1/6th the size of Earth, it's a bit smaller than Gensoukyou
    • One: Even the smallest population of settlers can eventually grow to a massive population over time, especially considering that they've been around for a very, very long time (see: Humans, and viable settlements were only established around 15,000 years ago). Two: A fair point, however, if they really did not have alot of settlers with them at the start and 'didn't breed much', then the Lunar Capital would not have expanded to a bustling metropolis (which it obviously is now). Also, the Moon Rabbits. They're rabbits, and they breed like rabbits. In fact, this is one of their defining features (apart from their long ears) and cannot be considered rabbits otherwise. Since two rabbits produce an average of around 70 per year, do the math and, assuming that Lunarian society has been around for at least 100,000 years (based on the earliest known records of modern humans, which Lunarians seem to represent), would lead to a population of around 6.3 million today. While that certaintly isn't saying much, that's assuming that there is only one breeding pair (and it is highly likely that they brought more). Factor the fact that all the other rabbits would be breeding like rabbits too, the number would easily surpass 4 billion rabbits by today (remember that the Earth is barely holding together as it is, and is six times the size of the Moon). And, if the Lunarians really 'didn't breed much', they would have surely been ousted from power long ago against those kind of Rabbit numbers - even if the latter is a slave race. On top of that, they all seem to be sapient and possess a reasonable degree of intelligence, being capable of abstract thought and understanding speech (see: Reisen Udongein Inaba). This only reinforces the idea that the Lunarians probably bred more than one would like to believe in order to counteract the exponentially increasing numbers of intelligent 'servants'. Further supporting this is that it can be reliably inferred from S Si B that a future Rabbit uprising is very possible (key quote: "Time of unrest"), though perhaps for different reasons. Three: I think he meant the Moon was 1/6 of the Earth's size, not the Capital (when was the last time anyone saw a city that big, anyway?).
      • It is not a bustling metropolis. The capital is small and peaceful. And there's all kind of ways to keep one's pets from breeding. Contraceptives in the food, regularly spaying and neutering, males mysteriously disappearing, etc. Besides, it's not a stretch to assume that the 'purity' lowers the procreation rate, considering that it's like being dead. And CiLR suugests that the rabbits like to complain, but won't ever do anything because they're lazy and probably drugged
      • ^ Not a bustling metropolis? This image seems to disagree. Skyscrapers? Large-size buildings? The apparent existence of a Lunar army? I think they're all tell-tale signs of a rather large population (what kind of idiot squanders their resources building a city, yet maintains a minimal population anyway?). Also, from PMiSS: 月の都は、遙か昔から月の裏側に存在するという、大都市である。 [Approximate translation: The city of the Moon, on the far side of the Moon, is a great, ancient metropolis.]. Peaceful? Sure. Small? I think not.
      • It's entirely possible that the Lunar Rabbits don't breed with the speed that Earth rabbits are associated with. I mean, they don't have the same body as an Earth Rabbit, they don't act the same as Earth Rabbits, and unless Tewi's been reproducing like mad behind everyone's backs, I think being a youkai kind of pulls you away from those kinds of things.
      • tl;dr, but the truth is that ZUN really hasn't told us much about the Moon (apart from hammering the apparent fact that it's some kind of heavenly utopia down our throats) so the best we can do is speculate. Until we get our hands on some new Touhou!Moon material, we'll just have to wait and see. Personally, I think the Lunarians are assholes, but that's another story.

• How exactly is it that the Capital of the Moon stays hidden from sight from us Puny Earthlings?
  • The same way Gensoukyou stays hidden; it's 'on top' of the regular moon, and can't be accessed through science

• Why doesn’t yukari just use her reality warp powers to throw back all of humanity back to the middle age and then put a medieval stasis on them it would be a lot better for all the youkai in the world.
  • She could. But she's just really, really lazy. Furthermore, Yukari doesn't seem to care much even for other Youkai - so long as she wins out in the end, she won't give two cents (or whatever retarded currency they use in Gensokyo). And I don't think Yukari will be too happy with a world dominated by potentially powerful Youkai that might potentially threaten her position. Also, you know, if that were the case, we wouldn't be here typing on the internet.
  • She has limits. She wasn't able to bust her way through the moon's barriers, for instance. And she does seem to care about humans to some extent.
    • Actually, since she is a master of boundaries, she should be technically be able to breach the 'boundary' of what she can or can't do. Just a thought.
    • Unless, of course, said boundary was one of the things outside her scope to begin with.
  • A: not enough power, most likely. B: Yukari is all about preserving the balance between Youkai and Humans, not favouring either side. C: she has plenty of power, and doesn't have limits, however she limits herself for the same reason I say that people always fight in Gensokyo, they're bored because pretty much everybody is 500+ years old and you run out of things to do. Limiting herself makes things more of a challenge and fun. D: If she didn't limit herself then she would probably accidently destroy the world with unforeseen consequences after modifying say... The border of dreams and reality, then she dreams flan blows up the earth and then it happens the next morning.

• This is probably going to be a stupid question (it is, actually), but are there any actual fire-arms present in Gensokyo?
  • Nitori provides Marisa with rocket-options in SA, so there's that. The Lunarians have guns, and it's plausible that Kaguya or Reisen brought some with them
    • Alright, got it. Thanks.

• What is the Maikaze incident that leads to ZUN putting restrictions upon derivative works? Is there any theories/reasons on why ZUN do so?
  • Maikaze had nothing to do with that. It was Ufotable. Basically, a group of fans got an actual anime studio to create a Touhou short. It looked like they weren't going to keep things to a standard doujin release, and they didn't talk to ZUN about it. You can see why he'd be annoyed.
  • Then, it's just that Touhou derivative works cannot be sold in downloads aimed at overseas buyers, right? Do non-Japanese are prohibited from making them?
    • If you're asking if he's prohibiting overseas fans from making fanworks, I'm pretty certain the answer is no.

• The takedowns on Trojan Green Asteroid and Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey at Youtube are justified, but why ZUN doesn't take down all of his own music along with them (although that would be a very big problem)? Also, is it possible to import official Touhou music CDs?
  • You can indeed import the music CDs

• It might don't fit this page, but is TAMUSIC, a doujin music circle known of making Touhou Music Remixes a group of doujin musicians lead by TAM? Who are the members?
  • Yes. You can find the member list here
  • Judging from the list (which has members from different doujin circles), is it common for doujin circles to work together on such matters or people joining multiple doujin circles?

1. ↑ At the same time, it is her role to cause problems as well.
2. ↑ it's actually impossible for the fairies not to be native