Let Me Tell You About Touhou
It all started with this dude named ZUN
ZUN likes beer, lolis, beer, magic and beer.
ZUN is good at two things, music and programming.
So he made a game about lolis and magic so he could get money to buy beer. He wasn’t working entirely alone at this point, he was part of a group called Amusement Makers. This game, Highly Responsive to Prayers wasn’t a straight up bullet hell shooter, that started with the next game.
Skip a few games ahead to the sixth game in the series, and my personal favorite, Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil.
ZUN had split from Amusement makers and formed Team Shanghai Alice. Team Shanghai Alice consists of one man, ZUN.
Now ZUN could take all of the money the games made an invest it in beer.
A few of the official games were made with the assistance of other people, had much better art direction, but were 2D fighters instead of bullet hell shooters.
The plots and characterization within the official games is minimal, so the meat of Touhou comes from fan works, from fan games to fan art to the unofficial anime and various manga projects.
Fangames vary from shooters similar in gameplay, to tower defence games to clones of Megaman, Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania. There is even a game similar to Earth Defense Force.
Certainly, Touhou is off-putting to many people. The games are somewhat difficult, a lot of people don’t like the whole every-character-is-a-little-girl thing and the fandom is a bit crazy, but ultimately it’s worth it.
So, help support ZUN’s alcoholism and buy the official games, or not and download them patched in English. I don’t care.
東方 Project Masterpost
東方 Project (also known as Touhou Project, Touhou, and Project Shrine Maiden) is a doujin series created by Team Shangai Alice (上海アリス幻樂団). It revolves mainly around the shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei, her witch friend, Marisa Kirisame, and the mysterious incidents that occur in their home land of Gensokyo, a fantastical parallel world powered by the disbelief of our world.
While the main series is a number of 2D vertical shooters, the huge popularity has lead to it expanding into various music CDs, manga, and fanbooks, along with a gigantic fanbase that produces fan made manga, games, and music arrange albums to the point that there is even an annual festival specifically for groups to sell their fanworks. The series is created entirely by one man, known as ZUN, who does all the programming, music composition, art, and writing (except in special cases).
All of this stuff is pre-translated into English except where noted.
v1.06: Last updated on 28/05/2013 @ 14:51
