Creators ZUN Platform of origin NEC PC-9801 | Designer ZUN | |
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First release Highly Responsive to Prayers; November 1996 Genres Shoot 'em up, Fighting game Games Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, Touhou: Genso Wanderer, Urban Legend in Limbo, Impossible Spell Card, Double Dealing Character | ||
The Touhou Project (東方Project, Tōhō Purojekuto, lit. Eastern Project), also known as Toho Project or Project Shrine Maiden, is a series of Japanese bullet hell shooter video games developed by the single-person Team Shanghai Alice. Team Shanghai Alice's sole member, ZUN, independently produces the games' graphics, music, and programming.
Contents
- PC 98 predecessor games
- Windows games
- Other media
- Music CDs
- Print media
- Gameplay
- Background
- In game events
- Characters
- Development
- Reception and fanworks
- Reitaisai
- References
Plots in the Touhou Project games revolve around the strange phenomena occurring in Gensokyo, a fictional realm inhabited by humans and yōkai, supernatural beings. Prior to the events of the games, Gensokyo was sealed off from the outside world by a magical barrier. The main protagonist of the series, Reimu Hakurei, is a shrine maiden who manages the border, fighting antagonistic yōkai. The first five games were produced for the Japanese NEC PC-9801 computer series; bullet hell mechanics were introduced in the second game, Story of Eastern Wonderland. The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, released in August 2002, marked a shift to the Microsoft Windows platform, bringing the games to a larger audience. Several sequels followed, including spin-off fighting games that diverged from the series' traditional mechanics.
The series was inducted into the Guinness World Records in October 2010 for being the "most prolific fan-made shooter series". The Touhou Project has spawned a media franchise including commercial fan books, music, light novels, and manga, in addition to the main series.
PC-98 predecessor games
The Touhou series of games started on the Japanese PC-98 series of computers and its first five entries are native to that platform; standard PC users are only capable of playing them through an emulator. Also, the PC-9801 series of computers was already on the decline when these games were released. Because of this, they are not well known among players. The group that published these games was called Amusement Makers.
Windows games
After Mystic Square, the Touhou Project became inactive for four years while its creator ZUN began to develop several music scores for the Seihou games. He then left the group and made Touhou games for Windows under his own group, Team Shanghai Alice. The playability of the Windows games was substantially improved compared to that of the PC-98 counterparts. Most dōjin works derived from the Touhou series are centered on these games.
Set within the 119th season, it is about the Hyakki Yagyou that happens once every 3 days.
Other media
In addition to dōjin games, Team Shanghai Alice has also expanded the Touhou universe into other media.
Music CDs
Ten music albums have been released by ZUN, each containing rearranged versions of music from the games, in addition to original tracks. These albums are Dolls in Pseudo Paradise (蓬莱人形), Ghostly Field Club (蓮台野夜行), Changeability of Strange Dream (夢違科学世紀), Retrospective 53 minutes (卯酉東海道), Magical Astronomy (大空魔術), Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey (未知の花 魅知の旅) (5.5th), Trojan Green Asteroid (鳥船遺跡), Neo-traditionalism of Japan (伊弉諾物質), Dr. Latency's Freak Report (燕石博物誌) and Dateless Bar "Old Adam" (旧約酒場). Each CD also comes with a bonus story about Secret Sealing Club (秘封倶楽部, Hifuu Kurabu) except the first and the 5.5th one.
There is also a five-volume set of soundtracks containing music from the PC-98 Touhou games titled Akyu's Untouched Score (幺樂団の歴史), in addition to original game soundtracks for Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Touhou Hisōtensoku, Hopeless Masquerade and Urban Legend in Limbo. Some of the official print media released include music CDs containing original tracks and rearranges of earlier music.
Print media
Gameplay
In the shooting games, the player's bullet power increases on a linear scale as the player collects power-ups dropped by enemies, and eventually maxes out. The player can also collect 'point' icons to earn extra lives; the amount needed grows exponentially as the player's score rises. The player can use 'focus', the shift key by default, which slows down the player's movement, makes the collision box visible, and (generally; some characters are reversed) focuses the player's attack to make it more powerful. The graze counter, missing from Mountain of Faith and Story of Eastern Wonderland, tracks how many bullets entered the character sprite but avoided the collision box, and rewards the player with a score bonus for living on the edge.
The player can use a weapon called a 'spell card', which is similar to a 'bomb' in most other shooting games. While the player has a limited number, using one makes the user temporarily invulnerable and uses a special magical attack that generally clears the screen. Each character has two cards with different names and patterns. The player can use one during a short period after being hit by a bullet (known as the 'border between life and death') to avoid loss of a life. The amount of time the player has available to use the border is usually around 0.3 seconds. Bosses also have spell cards, but with bosses the term applies to a prolonged pattern of movements and shots that lasts until the player depletes the boss' health by a certain amount or the time runs out, not a one-shot attack.
Each individual game of the main series from Perfect Cherry Blossom to Ten Desires has additional items that affect some aspect of gameplay, such as scoring or gaining extra lives/bombs. For example, Perfect Cherry Blossom has "cherry points", which are used mostly in scoring, but can grant temporary invulnerability (known as 'supernatural border'); Imperishable Night has "time points", which are essential for advancing to later stages, and also determine if the player gets to challenge a boss's 'final spell' on normal or higher difficulties; Mountain of Faith has 'faith' points, which boost the score the player receives upon gathering point items and bonuses for clearing spell cards without dying or using a spell card.
Each Touhou game has four difficulty levels—easy, normal, hard, and lunatic—with each one being harder than the previous one. Regardless of difficulty choice, there are six stages in each game and each one is harder than the previous. The only exceptions to this are Story of Eastern Wonderland, and Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on easy difficulty, both of which only have five stages.
In addition to the four main difficulties, there is an extra stage which is a long and difficult stage in which players must play through hordes of enemies, and an especially long boss fight (usually with ten spell cards). In order to reach the extra stage, one must beat the game on normal difficulty or higher without the use of a continue. The only games that allow players to reach the extra stage by completing the easy difficulty are Story of Eastern Wonderland, Mystic Square, Perfect Cherry Blossom, Imperishable Night, Fairy Wars, Double Dealing Character, and Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom. In terms of difficulty, the extra stage is around the normal difficulty level or above. In Perfect Cherry Blossom, there is also a phantasm extra stage in which the enemies that were already difficult in the extra stage have become even more challenging. Although the phantasm stage is aimed for the most experienced players, the difficulty is somewhere in between hard and lunatic. The phantasm stage is accessed by beating the extra stage and capturing at least 60 spells with any of the characters and weapon types combined.
Background
The plots of the Touhou Project revolve around the strange phenomena that occur in the fictional realm of Gensokyo (幻想郷, Gensōkyō, literally Fantasy Village or Fantasy Land), which ZUN designed with a human village in the grounds of some remote mountain recesses in Japan. Originally, it was simply called "a remote separated land of a human village in an eastern country." Long before Touhou Project's story begins, there lived many non-humans like yōkai as well as some humans in the area. After a few humans lost their way into Gensokyo, humans became afraid of approaching this area, although others settled here for the sake of yōkai extermination. However, as time went on, humans developed civilization and multiplied in number, and thus the yōkai became distressed about how this would affect the balance between humans and yōkai. Thus, 500 years before The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (EoSD), the yōkai sage Yukari Yakumo developed the "boundary of phantasm and substance," which was favored by the yōkai and protected the balance. This was called the "Yōkai Expansion Project" and made Gensokyo a phantasmal world that automatically called out to the weakened yōkai of the outside world. Other things that disappear from the outside world, like extinct animals, lost tools, and architecture, also became abundant in Gensokyo. Since Gensokyo was a plot of land in Japan that was separated by a barrier, it is Japan that is immediately outside of this barrier.
As a result of the seal, Gensokyo became inaccessible from the outside world, and similarly, those in Gensokyo were unable to leave. Gensokyo's existence could not be confirmed from the outside world, nor could the outside world be confirmed within Gensokyo. As a result, the isolated community developed its own civilization, different from that of the outside world. Although separated by a barrier, it is a bordering world to its outside, as opposed to being in a parallel universe. There are no seas in Gensokyo, since it is an inland mountain. In Gensokyo, there are few humans, and various kinds of yōkai. Some species include magicians, beasts, therianthropies, vampires, bōrei, tengu, mermaids, kappa, and yōkai (a kind of miscellaneous group). There are others species that could be yōkai depending on definition, like fairies, spirits, yūrei, onryō, poltergeists, hermits, oni, and gods.
In present Gensokyo, which is presented in all Touhou Project games since EoSD, as opposed to the outside world where unscientific phenomena were dismissed as "superstition" by the time of the Meiji era, magical and spiritual qualities prevail. The only known gateway from the outside world into Gensokyo is the Hakurei Shrine on the border of Gensokyo. The spell card rules were also established to keep up the relationship between humans and yōkai in a mock style, which was necessary for the preservation of the balance of Gensokyo. The "Great Hakurei Barrier," managed by Hakurei Miko, was constructed several decades before EoSD, which is described as a "barrier of common sense," and is thus a strong logical barrier that not even yōkai can pass through. The yōkai were at first against its construction, but then gradually understood its usefulness.
In-game events
In Gensokyo, events called "incidents" occur once in a while. An incident is an event that affects all of Gensokyo and is of unknown cause at the time it occurs. Touhou Project mainly focuses on incidents in its stories, but there are also works like Mountain of Faith that are about events other than incidents.
Frequently, incidents are due to a yōkai's whim or curiosity, and usually Reimu Hakurei would go to investigate it and then find and chastise the perpetrator. Usually, the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine resolves incidents, but there are cases where Marisa Kirisame and other imitators would resolve them. When a major incident occurs, the spirits and fairies are affected by the circumstances, the incident, and the perpetrator, and experience an increase in power for the duration incident, so there are also cases where a mere fairy defeats Reimu. It has additionally been stated that people of the village also go out to resolve incidents.
Characters
With its focus on bishōjo characters, the Touhou series possesses a large cast compared to other shooting games. While they aren't developed nearly to the standards of a story-based game, many players love them, and even obscure stage bosses who only appear once have a fanbase. One example is Hong Meiling, affectionately known as Chūgoku (China), the stage 3 boss of The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, who won a popularity contest in Japan out of all Touhou characters. Among the vast array of characters, only six named characters are male. One (Genjii) is a turtle, one is a cat (Sokrates), two (Youki Konpaku and Myouren Hijiri) are only mentioned in passing, one (Rinnosuke Morichika) is only featured in the serialized novel, and the last (Unzan) is a cloud-like entity. There is also one before all these (Shingyoku), but this character has three forms of different genders, so this character may not exactly be male.
Though each game features a collection of different characters, the main protagonist of the series is always Reimu Hakurei, joined by Marisa Kirisame after the second game. Exceptions to this include Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler (Aya Shameimaru is playable on both, and Hatate Himekaidou can become playable in Double Spoiler); Fairy Wars (which has Cirno as the sole playable character); and Impossible Spell Card (where only Seija Kijin is playable).
Development
The Touhou Project is a one-man project by a Japanese game maker, ZUN, who does all the graphics, music, and programming alone for the bullet hell games, with the exceptions of the portrait art in Fairy Wars, which is by Makoto Hirasaka, and the fighting games, Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Touhou Hisōtensoku, Hopeless Masquerade, and Urban Legend in Limbo, which were dual efforts with Twilight Frontier.
The idea of Touhou first came to ZUN during his high school years, when shrine maiden-themed games were in the minority. "It would be nice to make shrine maiden games," he thought, and often imagined the music that would go with such games. He went to college, hoping to compose music for fighting games, since they were popular at the time due to Street Fighter II. However, he decided that in order to put his music into games, it would be easier to make his own game to go with it, thus the first Touhou game, Highly Responsive to Prayers, was released in 1996. The first game was originally intended as a practice in programming. Touhou only became a shooting game series starting from the second game, because the popularity of shooting games had revived due to RayForce and ZUN had long been a fan of such games. ZUN remarked how the general theme and direction of Touhou only started coming together in the sixth game, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
ZUN develops his games with Visual Studio, Adobe Photoshop, and Cubase, according to his interview in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red.
Reception and fanworks
A prodigious amount of derivative works based on Touhou have been created since the release of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. These include dōjinshi, dōjin music, dōjin anime, and dōjin games (even though the Touhou games themselves are dōjin games). The vast scope of Touhou derivatives prompted commentary, noting that Touhou Project became an unmissable aspect of Japanese consumer generated media. These dōjin activities are mostly responsible for adding original attributes to characters that ZUN may not have intended. ZUN, for the most part, had acknowledged, appreciated, and even encouraged these derivative works by imposing very few restrictions on the use of his works. The major restrictions are on unauthorized commercial distribution (as opposed to dōjin) and the spoiling of endings; proper attribution to Team Shanghai Alice is a recommendation. ZUN stated himself that he did not want the Touhou Project game series to be officially commercialized. The first recent publication of Touhou derivative doujinshi occurred during December 2003, following the release of Perfect Cherry Blossom; seven circles sold Touhou derivative works at Comiket 65 in December 2003. At the Comiket 74 in August 2008, a total of 885 circles had Touhou derivative works on display or for sale, out of a total of 35,000 circles participating at Comiket. At Comiket 77 (December 2009), 2,372 circles were dedicated to Touhou, breaking the previous record held by The Prince of Tennis at Comiket 66 (August 2004), which had 2,130 circles. At Comiket 85 (December 2013), Touhou was still in the lead, with 2,272 participating circles selling Touhou derivatives, far outpacing those of other franchises.
The dōjin games based on Touhou include adaptations of other game series' mechanics with Touhou characters, such as Super Marisa Land and Super Marisa World (parodies of the Mario games with the titles being a play on Super Mario Land and Super Mario World, respectively), MegaMari (based on the Mega Man series), and Touhou Soccer (based on the Captain Tsubasa games by Tecmo). The music of Touhou is also very popular and many arrangement CDs can be found for sale at Comiket and other Japanese conventions.
At Tokyo Game Show 2014, ZUN announced a collaborative project with PlayStation bringing unofficial, fan-made Touhou Project dōjin games to the PlayStation 4 (PS4) and PlayStation Vita platforms. As of September 2014, Fushigi no Gensōkyō 3 (不思議の幻想郷3) by Aqua Style, Touhou Aogami Engi: The Genius of Sappheiros (東方蒼神縁起) by Strawberry Bose and Touhou Sky Arena Matsuri (東方スカイアリーナ祭) by Area-Zero have been announced for release on the PS4. The games will be published by Mediascape, under contract by Sony Computer Entertainment and ZUN, as part of a move towards embracing indie games for commercial distribution on PlayStation platforms.
Among the most popular derivatives are the series of Flash videos created by the dōjin music circle IOSYS. Many of them, one of which is "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing," are popular on otaku internet forums and Nico Nico Douga.
A major internet meme based on Touhou is "Yukkuri shite itte ne!!!" (ゆっくりしていってね!!!, often translated as "You should be taking it easy!!!"), which centers around the disembodied, deformed heads of Touhou characters, often referred to as "yukkuris". This meme originated from a disfigured attempt to draw the main characters Reimu and Marisa with Shift JIS art. Yukkuris became so popular that the phrase "Yukkuri shite itte ne!!!" won bronze for 2008's "Net Slang of the Year" in Japan. Yukkuris also appear in Internet advertisements, the anime Natsu no Arashi! and Pani Poni Dash!, and most notably, the front page of 2channel, the largest Internet forum in the world. Yuyuko Saigyouji and Reimu Hakurei also make cameo character appearances in Square Enix's game Lord of Vermilion Re:2.
Several fanmade anime had been made for Touhou. An unofficial dōjin anime project by the dōjin circle Maikaze, titled A Summer Day's Dream (夢想夏郷), is a fan-made anime adaptation with an original plot featuring Touhou characters, with four episodes released in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Albeit created by an amateur studio, the animation project notably featured high-ranking professional voice actors. Another dōjin anime by the circle Manpuku Jinja, titled Fantasy Kaleidoscope ~ The Memories of Phantasm (幻想万華鏡), was released at Comiket 80 in 2011, with one episode released based on the storyline of Perfect Cherry Blossom, and there are eight episodes as of 2016. A short derivative animated project, Anime Tenchou x Touhou Project (アニメ店長 x 東方Project) was produced by Ufotable in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Japanese goods chain, Animate, as a promotional video for the store combining the world of Touhou with Animate's mascot, Meito Anizawa.
The Touhou Project was nominated for the 11th annual Media Arts Awards held by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, under the Entertainment category, where Touhou Project eventually lost to Nintendo's Wii Sports for the Grand Prize award.
Reitaisai
The Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai (博麗神社例大祭, Hakurei Jinja Reitaisai, Hakurei Shrine's Regular Grand Festival) is the largest of the many dōjin conventions hosting only Touhou content. Although the coordinator of this convention has nothing to do with Team Shanghai Alice officially, the name "Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai" was given by ZUN himself. It first started in the year 2004 as a way for Team Shanghai Alice to publicly distribute the trial version for their upcoming games to the fans well in advance of releasing them on the internet; in addition, the 2004 Reitaisai featured a total of 114 participating circles. Since then, many Touhou derivative works are also gathered and sold there. Commencing every year in April or May, the convention has been hosted in Ōta, Tokyo in 2004; Naka-ku, Yokohama in 2005; Sunshine City, Tokyo in 2006 and 2007; and the Tokyo Big Sight in 2008 and after. The year 2010 saw the birth of Reitaisai SP, an additional Reitaisai to be held every autumn due to increasing popularity, but Reitaisai SP was canceled after 2011. The 2011 Reitaisai was originally canceled due to safety concerns after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. It was later rescheduled and held on May 8, 2011 with approximately 4,940 participating circles. In addition to events in Japan, there is another Reitaisai held in Taiwan starting in 2015.