This is the official Touhou thread. Not only is it for general Touhou players, but for the people who are unaware of this game so they can try it out. Anything you want to know about it, any problems trying to play a game, or you just want to discuss about Touhou in general, can be posted here. Everything you need about it will be here, but mostly at this first post, and I will try to update this frequently if there is anything new that is related to Touhou.
First of all:
What is Touhou!?
Touhou is a traditional bullet hell game (also known as
danmaku). It’s a doujin game that is currently being produced by Team Shanghai Alice, which is composed by one known member: ZUN. It’s popular mostly because of its amazingly beautiful danmaku patterns, but its also popular for its music, design, characters and storyline. It’s very popular over in Japan and other countries in Asia, but there is also a decent amount of people from the Western database who plays it as well.
It may also be popular because of its two fighting games:
Immaterial and Missing Power and
Scarlet Weather Rhapsody for its original fighting gameplay. These two were developed in collaboration with Twilight Frontier, and probably has the best artwork in the entire Touhou series.
Here is an example of
danmaku from
Perfect Cherry Blossom:
And a picture from the fighting game
Immaterial and Missing Power:
THE GAMES:
PC-98 Games:
These games were made by a group named “Amusement Makers”, which ZUN was a part of back then. These games aren’t very popular because when these games were released, the PC-98 computers were already in decline.
Highly Responsive to Prayers
Story of Eastern Wonderland
Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream
Lotus Land Story
Mystic Square
Windows Games:
After four years of inactivity, ZUN departed from Amusement Makers and made his own group called “Team Shanghai Alice”. This is when he started created Touhou games for Windows. These are the games that matter. These are the games that grew in popularity, and caught everyone’s attention. These are the games I recommend to play first.
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Perfect Cherry Blossom (recommended)
Immaterial and Missing Power (recommended for fighters)
Imperishable Night (definitely recommended!)
Phantasmagoria of Flower View
Shoot the Bullet
Mountain of Faith
Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (recommended for fighters)
Subterranean Animism (Only demo released)
Fan-made games
These are unofficial Touhou games. Not created by ZUN in any way, so do not consider them as official games, nor can you use these games as sources to prove any fact about Touhou.
Concealed the Conclusion (Danmaku)
Defiance of the Shrine Maiden (RPG)
PatchCon (RTS)
Super Marisa Land/World (Platform [Super Mario Parody])
MegaMari (Platform [Megaman Parody])
Touhou Soccer (Sports RPG)
Where to Read the Official Manga and Other Works Translated:
There is but one place (yes, it's legal):
Gensokyo.org (Online archive is down, but you can still download them off of here. Once archive is up, I'll update the link)
The Manga:
Though there is the official manga, he DID NOT do the artwork. He only developed the storyline and characters. I will post the manga and the artist who drew for the manga.
Sinner Silent in Blue – Aki Eda (Reimu and Marisa tries to go to the moon.)
Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth – Arata Toshihira (Displays the [comedic] life in Eientei in 4koma)
Eastern and Little Nature Deity/Strange and Bright Nature Deity - Nemu Matsukura/Makoto Hirasaka (Story about three mischievous fairies, trying to pull pranks at some Touhou characters).
The Literary Works:
Same as the manga, but of course, no pictures. More like a light novel to read about Touhou. Can be found at the Touhou Wiki to read, but I made links to them here as well.
Curiosities of Lotus Asia – First Touhou work that features a male character in Gensokyo, Rinnosuke. Stories about him.
Cage in Lunatic Runagate – Side story of SSiB, from other people’s perspective of the story
Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red – Articles and Interviews that Aya wrote.
Perfect Momento – Information about Gensokyo and characters from Hieda no Akyu (almost human) perspective.
And the Doujinshi:
Again, there is one place to read EVERY SINGLE DOUJIN MANGA translated (yes, it's legal):
Gensokyo.org (Again, the online gallery is down, so I posted the link to all of the translated doujin manga again)
The Doujin (recent releases):
There are too many to list here, but I’ll update this list to the most recent translated releases. They vary from Rocket Fuel, to Happy Flame Time, to FlipFlops, and many more.
Eastern News Kingdom - Sayakata Tea Mansion
Battle Royale Vol.1 - Acid Club East
Bewitching Kaiseki - Fusuma Teahouse
New Moon - Demour402
Yukkuri Balloon – Deep Slow
Nightbug and Flowerland - Angeltype
My Princess – Sekitou
Destruction – Tohonifun
A Chaconne in the Mist - AZ
Shining Gensokyo - Water Cushion
Snow and Poison - Hole of Yago
I Want to Listen to Arranges and Official Music:
Well, too bad, you have to buy the albums yourself. I will not say where to download them publicly (hint hint), but I will post the most recent album releases just as I do with the doujin. They vary from IOSYS, to dbu music, to UI-70, to Cool&Create, and many more.
Recent Releases:
(Too long to list! Reitaisai 5 madness! If new Touhou songs come in, I’ll post them here.)
Finally, the Flashes:
This is going to be hard to keep up, but for now I’ll only post IOSYS flash. If you know anymore flashes and their links, please post with the link if you can. Contributors are always welcome, though I won’t add other flashes here. People can visit this thread for more flashes.
IOSYS Flashes:
http://iojacket.hp.infoseek.co.jp/IO...otsukitoro.swf
http://iojacket.hp.infoseek.co.jp/IO...shi_loving.swf
http://iojacket.hp.infoseek.co.jp/IO...omebayashi.swf
http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho5_FutatsuNoTsubasa.swf
http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho5_OyomeNiShinasai.swf
http://iojacket.hp.infoseek.co.jp/IO...kazakuraen.swf
http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho5_Usatei_EX.swf
http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho5_TabooTearsYouUp.swf
http://kasokusochi.hp.infoseek.co.jp/powerofdream.swf
http://kasokusochi.hp.infoseek.co.jp/cucumber.swf
http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho7_HakureiJinja.swf
http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho7_EirinShinryoujo.swf
http://makashinsai.com/pv_boe.html
http://makashinsai.com/pv_koiiro.html
http://www.iosysos.com/mp3/IOSYS_toh...Kyou****su.swf
Other Flashes/Flash Games
Touhou Danmaku FFR
Cirno Training game, Flandre Balancing game, etc. (Thanks Kotarouchan!)
Other Important Links:
Touhou Wiki – Want to know more? Look here at the official Touhou Wiki for the Western community. Everything you need to know from character information to lyrics to a fan-made song. Also, english patches are located here as well.
Wikipedia Page - The Touhou Wikipedia page!
Pooshlmer – Where the Touhou Wiki used to live, but is now a mere Touhou imageboard. Safe for Work. NO, I WILL NOT POST THE NSFW IMAGEBOARD PUBLICLY!
Magic Archive Voile – The OTHER imageboard for people to translate doujins. Great place to stay updated with upcoming doujins. If you want to contribute and translate some doujins, post there. They always welcome new recruits.
Team Shanghai Alice - ZUN's official page for all of the Touhou games. Has patches and demo downloads.
Twilight Frontier - Makers of IaMP and SWR.
Paletweb - Probably the best place to buy Touhou games from.
The Touhou Online Thread – Another thread Midday made. If you like to play online with others, discuss it there instead.
Do You Play Stepmania?
Well good news, the links to the packs can be found here:
Touhou Pad Pack
Touhou Keyboard Pack
Touhou 2
Touhou 3 & 4
Otaku's Dream 1st Touhou Mix
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Well, that’s about it. I think I posted enough. If you think I should add anything to this first post, please tell me, and I’ll consider it. There’s always room for more info, but not too much to make this into a new Touhou Wiki within FFR. Again, this is the thread to generally talk about Touhou itself, as well as other members to discover who else plays Touhou as well, and for people to discover this amazing game and to try it out themselves.
PS: Credits goes to Midday for giving me this idea for a thread.