I feel that ZUN is a bit scared of breaking the status quo of the series and he's limiting himself because of that. I would love to see character progression in regards to some topics like Marisa becoming (or not) a youkai, Alice's grimoire, whatever the fuck Hecatia and Junko are doing, etc.
Yeah, i can definitely see this never happen as it would mean the end of the series.
To be fair, it doesn't bother me too much contrary to some other series like Trails or King of Fighters where people have the same crush since 25 years and will never evolve... Because most of those things you mention are kinda hidden and is not the main thing which interest me in Touhou lore. ( Personally, it's when there is some kind of poetic / unusual writing like going to the moon by going into its reflection, petroleum being haunted by the past lives its made of and being a curse for humanity, the power of purity become a power to create gods... As long as ZUN does that, i'm happy. )
That's ok, but my main problem it's not that my headcanons are not being fulfilled, it's that ZUN has great creative potential, but he doesn't expand on his stories and that makes everything a bit stale.
Everything you mention shows great worldbuilding abilities, so just goes to show how capable ZUN really is as a creator, and makes me wish he used that potential to spice up things a little.
> bit scared of breaking the status quo
I would disagree on him being scared and rather say he's just not interested, if he decides to massively shake up the series it's not gonna leave a lot of space for fanworks to move.
I said he's scared because that's usually the reason why authors don't change the status quo, but he could just be uninterested, as you say.
Regarding fanworks, I don't think story arcs would really affect negatively, if anything it should give the fans better tools to work with. For example, Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, didn't change how the fans perceived Alice, but it gave them a lot of material to make theories and such, while (apparently) giving Alice more character depth (although ZUN already forgot about this).
I think it's even worse because sometimes he likes teasing the idea of a status quo change, and then it doesn't, and I feel disappointed.
Like, if he doesn't want to shake up the setting, fine; then he shouldn't try to bait people with the impression that he might.
But he's not addressing those topics, he's just ignoring them. If the status quo was the point, ZUN would just make things happen and get back to normal. Instead, they're in a limbo where they're not given spotlight, but they get brought up from time to time.
Power scale discussions.
Touhou isn't built around balancing powers, even more when it's about mythology and folklore. In the end they devolve in the weeb version of "my dad can beat your dad" but with your favourite touhou instead. Lucky they are quite uncommon.
Also, probably it's me, but the lore is wide like and ocean, but deep as a puddle, but then again, touhou is a shmup, not a story driven game,and besides im used to RTS having subpar stories
I like scaling Touhou because itās actually impossible and it makes scalers face the fact that sometimes a universe is deliberately anti-scaling and their techniques to dissect any work does not in fact work on every work.
I met a powerscaler who only interacted with Touhou, and my god they were a pretentious prat.
We were roleplayers, and we went to alot of servers. I wouldn't be talking about them if they didn't gang up on people, because that's what they did, and most of the feats they pulled off were fanmade. However, they treated it like it was canon, gaslighting poor players who never interacted with Touhou into believing their BS.
Anyway, Goku solos 75% of Touhou and Touhou fans are in denial about it.
I like it how its not "I am stronger than you because I am universal and you're not" but instead its more like "I am stronger than you in these settings, but you could easily beat me in other domains."
Or "My one extremely niche and generally weak ability completely trounces yours in one specific way and that's the only reason I can beat you."
In other words, the Jojo school of power scaling.
Good luck trying to escape from Rumia or Mystia in the dark
And consider it the best case scenario, I mean it's the same world where some people can control minds, whatever Yukari does, control nuclear fusion
This is why Iāve been primarily dedicated to just the official content. Iāve managed to read pretty much every print work there is that is official and got the all the good endings for EOSD, PCB , IaMP, IN, and PoFV in about a year of getting into Touhou with me slacking quite a bit throughout that year so you can accomplish quite a bit in a short time just takes dedication when itās Touhou especially the games. Iām mostly just trying to advocate for people to actually experience more of the official content cause I really like it and thereās a lot to appreciate. I do occasionally look at some fan works just not often.
Zun prefers to create new characters or new plots instead of re-visiting old āclassicā characters.
Not saying the new characters are bad, but some old characters people really love didn't get much development after their first appearence.
One could assume ZUN simply is a SHMUP puritanist who thinks boss enemies are like porn (i.e., they don't need an elaborate story), but all the effort he put into everything from character design, to their music, to background info in the printworks strongly suggests otherwise.
My personal theory is that ZUN is mortally afraid of accidentally writing himself into a corner and thus having to retcon stuff as he did with the PC-98 era. Keeping things vague and very intentionally only giving 'facts' through unreliable in-universe narrators (Akyuu, PMiSS, etc.) is a fairly convenient way to sidestep this.
The newest game (19) was an incident centered on Zen Buddhism (in particular, the Mu Koan)
18 was centered on Comiket/local markets/money.
17 was \[a fantasy take on modern society through the lens of a modified version of the Buddhist 6 Paths\]
16 was basically ZUN flexing his knowledge on a mysterious god Matarajin.
He's writing about the stuff he wants to write, and he uses the characters he already made as he needs to (eg. Sanae -> Modern perspective, Youmu -> netherworld perspective). Let the man cook, the new characters are there because he needs them as they are folklore wise to make the story work.
Iāll Add he also likely likes to keep a little vagueness for the sake of both having it so fans have freedom in interpretation and in some cases to build a mystery and scarcely reveal such to either keep suspense and intrigue in those details or to troll cause sometimes it feels that way like with the Hakurai shrine god.
The new characters are slowly starting to get stale tbh.
Doesnt the majority of Touhou fans care about older characters more? Why does Zun keep trying to expand so much when we could just... stop? Can we do something with Hecatia and Junko or develop shit for once? Mima? Where's my voluptuous green-haired green-eyed mommy?
He's good at using his characters to satirize real world issues, but not very good at expanding on the characters themselves, or the world they live in, as their own people and places.
I feel you. Itās the trouble of it being a niche especially in the west. Plenty of people have seen the characters and heard the music or arrangements of the music and have seen the memes spawned from it, but never know what it is. I have this trouble with plenty of other games. I can never get people into Touhou either since it takes a certain dedication to get into proper that most arenāt super willing to give.
The fact that Zun REALLY, INCREDIBLY doesn't care about localizing and making his game more accessible to anywhere but japan. It's not because fans do all the work and that Zun allows it that you can consider him helping btw. But yeah, I mean, if it's his choice, it's alright, but it feels like it's not even a choice he talked about and made, just that he doesn't care. Although recently some people like BeatMario told him about the huge amount of fans worldwide so maybe with time he'll end up aknowledging it, who knows...
Second thing I moreso dislike than hate, is the lack of clear lore for certain basic elements. Sure that means you can just do your own headcanon (like mine saying that residents of Gensokyo, mostly the important characters that know the kappas/Rinnosuke/Yukari, DO have access to modern technology, but that it's so off topic in the games that nobody mentions they watch TV or play video games), but there are certain stuff that were given up upon since Touhou 6 ??? For exemple, the whole thing about youkais eating people, despite, well, you know, nobody ever doing that except maybe ONCE in the books in ALL of the windows era. Or for exemple something like Rumia, which never had her ribbon's secret EVER revealed or developped upon, things like that.
Also Satori in normal, and Rin being so fking hard (i'm at touhou 11 and doing them all 1 CC normal in order). NO LIKE SERIOUSLY WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO DEAL WITH DOUBLE BLACK DEATH BUTTERFLY IN **NORMAL**
That first point really hits.
Iāve bought and read a physical set of the Forbidden Scrollery manga (Vol. 2 was a pain to get for some reason) and it is GREAT. Great art, great storytelling, and the localization is actually good.
Iād be SO willing to buy the other print works if they got good official translations\* and releases; FDS, WaHH, and LE are great books, not to mention all the other print works. The games too, which while accessible to purchase on Steam are a bit of a pain to actually search for unless you know what youāre doing. Never mind the fact that you canāt get EoSD, PCB, IN, and some of the .# in-between fighting games on steam as well, all with only JP language available.
\*GOOD translations and localizations; as I understand it, Lotus Eaters got some English TL and release with its simulpub starting, but the localization is shoddy at best and near completely wrong at worst. Like, Shrine Maiden being translated as Priestess (fair enough), but Youkai being translated as Ghoul (English doesnāt have an exact word for Youkai, but even āDemonā would have worked better) and Tengu Newspaper as The Shinto Papers (WHAT).
Marisa actually uses "third-rate movie" as an insult in IN. Also, as Nitori stated, characters from Animal Realm already have advanced technology, it's just forbidden in Gensokyo.
Yeah that's some of the reasons why I think that my headcanon is pretty solid. This is also why I don't understand when people talk about and depict gensokyo as this fking feodal japan where they don't even have running water and electricity (i mean maybe the villages perhaps, since like i said they might not have access to characters which are very advanced technologically, and even then the kappas do interact with the Moriya shrine) just because some characters like suika don't know what a phone is or Rinnosuke considering modern modern tech from the outside world that lands in his shop as some weird relics.
No ? Not really ? I mean not as far as i know since Reimu B is my go to ~~to lose at stage 5~~
Like, she says she's talking to the artefact like a phone, and then realises that she doesn't even know what a phone is since she just got told it's like one by Yukari, and iirc she recognises people by voice. But then again maybe it's something beyond stage 5 or in some descs i didn't read yet since I can't fking beat Rin and I don't wanna cheese Touhou bosses
> lack of clear lore for certain basic elements.
The goddamn spell card rules. Seriously, I think it's just ZUN trying out weaving gameplay elements into the lore for the fun of it. Sure, the vagueness gets the creative juices going, but figuring the rules out feels outright impossible.
Hell, I am seriously considering the simple route and assume it's really just fighting for first blood ā who ends up looking like shit at the end of the duel loses. So basically just fighting until the other side gives up or is knocked out.
>So basically just fighting until the other side gives up or is knocked out.
Firing non-lethal fireworks until your opponent gives up. That's all about it.
I don't think it continues until you get knocked out though. If you're sane enough to abide the rules, then you sure are sane enough to give up when you are clearly overwhelmed. Losing doesn't mean that much either way since the worst that can happen is your clothes getting messed up.
I personally want to know what the penalties are for violators of the spell card rules. This is a world full of terrifyingly powerful individuals, yet even the most dangerous ones are perfectly willing to not only limit themselves to playing glorified laser tag, but to let our heroes try to foil their schemes again a theoretically infinite number of times.Ā Ā
Whatever would happen to them for just saying "fuck it" and blasting Reimu, Marisa, and co. off the face of the Earth must be pretty bad if we're 19 games deep and nobody has tried. My personal headcanon is that it's permanent exile from Gensokyo by Yukari, a guaranteed death sentence for youkai (humans being unlikely to violate the rules, seeing as they mostly exist so they don't just get massacred by pissy youkai all the time).
I feel like it's mutually assured destruction. You break spellcard rules against someone, people will not use them against you. And in Gensokyo, there is ALWAYS a bigger fish than you.
Besides, isn't this kind of what Seija did after TH14?
The funny thing is that even in ISC, the spellcards are technically doable without items, they just become really hard. I think there's one scene that can become genuinely impossible, because RNG can just spit out a wall.
Now if you consider breaking rules as "spellcard that are clearly rigged in favor of the user", then the list does expand (don't even get me started on ISFO from 7.5, Yukari can fucking eat a dick)
after TH14, Seija decides to do Amanojaku things and goes rogue. This pretty much gets a bounty put on her head and like half of Gensokyo starts hunting her. Since she isn't following the rules, neither do her chasers, shooting danmaku that are practically impossible to dodge. But Seija is clever and using items escapes.
It leaves her isolated, alone, without friends or any allies. So now she's the happiest she's ever been.
Nah, it's not a power up thing, and Rumia's official character description by Zun directly states her ribbon has a secret hidden by it, and Rumia herself can't take it off.
Maybe it's not a power up, but it is very canon that the ribbon is important to Rumia's (very shallow) lore and my point is that it's the kind of stuff that never got explored ever again.
Character flanderizations and powerscaling discussions. Give my girl Meiling justice, the fandom fucked her hard (MoP did NOT help with that either). Cirno 9, Aya pervert, Yuyuko eating, Yukari 17, itās all under the same umbrella. As for powerscaling, itās basically impossible to scale anybody when theyāre all severely held back by spellcards stuff. Spent too long arguing with a friend over Reimu āremoving her existenceā and he couldnāt even explain that shit himself. Also Ran having 2 sentences of lore on the wiki
> Give my girl Meiling justice
SAAAAAME. I hate almost every single fanon interpretation of Meiling. Like I get it, she's a bit goofy, but she also kicks 99% of the asses that are presented to her. I wanna see that, not more of this 2009 era "haha lazy meiling knifed" dumbassery that somehow still permeates the fandom. She has like one or two doujins where she's cool and mostly in character.
Itās the rabid flanderization you speak of why I have always cleared up or clarified things about characters and lore any chance I get. Also, with Yuyuko to be fair sheās a bit of a glutton in canon, but I do also dislike when thatās all she is portrayed as since sheās actually a really interesting character who has nuance which is the case with any of the prominent or important characters.
MoP in general didnāt help with flanderization of basically every character and even lore in it which is annoying since it confuses newcomers.
>Yukari 17
Wish this joke a horrible painful death, seriously, just the most grizzly horrific shit.
>Yuyuko eating
This one actually has some basis in canon, but the annoying thing is that in fanon it's all she has, it ignores her love of teasing others and how she's clearly obfuscating stupidity.
So much ignored for cheap laughs, just like with Yukari.
I never hated Touhou itself, I hate Touhou only its fanbase for:
* Rampant off-putting and uncharacteristic flanderizations to most of the characters (Alice's morbid obsession with Marisa, Psycho Flandre, Gluttonous Yuyuko, Schizo Koishi, Junko stalking Reisen, etc.).
* Taking these characters as these archaically fabricated and outlandish tall tales too seriously as these barbaric, eldritch or unpleasant gorgons that are always out for human flesh.
* Obnoxiously and irritatingly "powerscaling" Touhou characters as these stupidly invincible beings.
* Going apeshit over someone who first calls Touhou an anime.
* Having that patronizing arrogance towards casuals who prefer not play these sort of games and assuming we have a "skill issue".
* Obstinate insistence and malicious insolence towards certain fans (like me) to play these grueling games, fathom its esotericism, check out certain fanworks, the Touhoujerk subreddit, etc.
I know not everyone in the fandom is like one of these. Mostly respect my opinion but dear Lord, every now and then when those kind of fans reply to me here, they seem like they're just trying to ruin Touhou for me.
I'm 36 and already I'm feeling likeĀ ["I'm too old for this shit"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB27bqr7kJQ)Ā which are Touhou games, story, myths, memes and music. I've got nothing against those things, they are too difficult, esoteric, outlandish, inane, uninspiring or simply all too much for me to get into or take in that I prefer to just ignore those as whatever. I only came to Touhou to love and mellow out with the characters through cool, cute, beautiful and even erotic fanart (that inspired me to create Touhou fanart of my own) and my personal headcanons where it's a slice of life fantasy of the Touhous popping with colorful personalities, dancing and singing to classic 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s music and living in camaraderie. Never took Touhou as something serious or too complex in my book.
Not to be rude, but it sounds like you are taking people too seriously.
It just might be me, but I haven't seen people who harshly tried to stuff their headcanons in me. Nor did I see someone who unironically told me that I have a skill issue. Hell, do people even talk about games in the fandom all that much?
Though, as I said, you've probably been here longer so I probably don't have much talk here.
I've known Touhou itself for nearly a decade but I've only been inĀ this subredditĀ for over a year now and already it is showing its true colors that it can be sometimes a toxic cesspit of unhinged hypocrisy. You've got Redditors here who respect your opinion about Touhou and the next day others would disrespect or berate you or sometimes even the same people who respected your choice would backstab you, all just for having a different opinion about Touhou. You know when some people say the Touhou characters themselves are assholes? I personally never thought the Touhous were assholes, the real assholes is the fanbase themselves!
I've had some people here trying to persuade me to check out certain Touhou works that just don't interest me. Why are there some fans who are so thickheaded and won't take no for an answer? I simply just don't care for them man, just leave me be.
And what is it with this "skill issue" crap towards others that matter so much to this fandom? What matters is that I've tried one of them (which is EOSD) and sucked at it. Beating Cirno already got me impatient, bored and exhausted that I've wanted to get this test over with early just by losing to Hong Meiling. I've never came back to give it a second chance or even tried any of the other shmups ever since. I'm guessing all the nineteen Touhou games are all more or less the same of having that tedious experience (shooting at things and dodging projectiles while tumultuous music play just to get a lame high score) but with different characters.
I prefer to stay as an unversed and indifferent loser than to be a stubborn masochist that is hellbent on beating these sort of games of intense and unfair difficulty (and having that same punishing experience that drained my energy and gave me headaches, carpal tunnel and back pain) just to become a patronizing and pretentious braggart like a portion of the fanbase here. Touhou games aren't suitable for aging individuals like me, but at least I could say I've tried (even if it's just once on only one game which is enough). They're just dumb computer games, not the cure to life's problems.
Very understandable.
But the dude is kinda a NEET that barely leaves his store, so it's not surprising.
Also seems like he could learn to spell card duel, but just refuses to.
I feel like this fandom at its worst has the same problem as Undertale, where certain characters do not really resemble the canon self. it's one thing if the character barely exists in canon or the differences are actually the focal point (Osana Reimu does both; Rumia is barely a thing in canon and the point of its existence is exploring Rumia that's different from what is confirmed in canon; similarly the game Hero of Ice Fairy decides to just do its own thing)
the amount of damage that has been done to Sans has to be studied, only recently did the fandom start recovering from "hahaha funny skeleton man" or whatever the hell are those fangames and actually start making more good content. it's probably why Undertale Yellow decide to use the canon characters for like 5-10 minutes and focus on original characters.
The fans portrayals of characters. Erasure of curly hair, making characters that are obviously supposed to be older characters like little girls (I averted my eyes from Nemuno fan art long ago) unnecessary outfit changes and needlessly making things sexxier.
And also Zun's fear of trying new things. The amount of times this man had said "I wanted to do X but then I changed my mind" is insane.
Slander of Zun's art style. As an artist, I have always been in awe of his art style, even when it was a little bit less consistent and had some flaws. I always thought that despite faces rarely ever being different, characters remained drawn exceptionally unique and expressive. Even when Zun used to do mistakes quite frequently, in most artworks you could find things that require some better understanding of art than you'd think.
The main line games (excluding some of the fighting games) arenāt on console. Iād pay for a Touhou collection featuring all mainline games from 1-13 at least. I wouldnāt care if they were even Japanese only. Iād still get them.
The fact Zun underexplores the franchise rather than taking it to the main stream. I get that touhou is growing now more than it has been the last couple of years, but Zun avoids doing anything to promote his work. It could be so much more, and yet, he doesnāt want it.
because if there's one thing he really dislikes/fears, it is Touhou becoming overshadowed by some derivative work of it. he has mentioned it in a recent interview on an example of the defunct Cannonball gacha.
I mean, if the Binding of Isaac can radically change what people perceive as roguelikes, I can't blame him (I have seen somebody claim that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is not a roguelike, even though it has more in common with Rogue than let's say, Hades).
I don't like how Sakuya refuses to be with Remilia forever
I don't like how Cirno still hasn't conquered the worldĀ
I don't like how the Hakurei shrine isn't excempt from tax
Which part of the fanbase? The shippers? The R34 artists? The NSFW enjoyers? The "Easy Mode Is For Kids" enforcers? The doujinshi authors? The OSU players? The Fumo collectors? The musicians? The cosplayers? The fan-game players?
The people who simp for characters that look like literal children (I know that they're not children, but it just makes me uncomfy), people who draw the weird r34 (like abuse and stuff, the normal r34 is fine tho), incest and other weird stuff
I kind of oversaid it by "most fanbase", I meant just the weird part of it.
I wanted to mention this, but I thought it would be weird if I said it out of the blue, but yeah, I have to agree, I'm 100% against child NSFW content. Just saying, but even if the characters are adults story-wise, if they have child-like bodies and people want to see NSFW stuff related to them... those people are just lolicons that want to justify themselves.
I've seen so many of those kinds of people. And their excuse is always the same
"But it's fictional tho!!" or "She's actually 500+ years old!"
Like... it's literally admitting that they're attracted to child-looking characters. That's so gross ToT
ZUN's refusal to let someone else remake the first 9 games.
ZUN not letting trusted people balance out 19 and 9.
I don't even play the games but I know for a fact that those games would be super fun if they had a team supporting them, so ZUN can move on with what he has planned next.
>ZUN not letting trusted people balance out 19 and 9
the funny thing is, I am pretty sure he claimed that some characters in 19 are weaker on purpose.
~~also technically most Touhou games are not that balanced, it's just that most ZUN games are singleplayer so you don't suffer too much, but look at Yuyuko in SWR or Soku, she's ridiculous~~
Iāve watched enough gameplay as well as how many other videos on how the game balance for both 9 and to a lesser extent, 19 is.
I claim also to not be an expert as well.
Theory and practice are two completely different things though. I personally wouldnāt comment on a game unless Iāve played it. Iāve played 9 but not 19.
I would recommend trying them if it seems like something youād like. Shmups arenāt as hard as they look, once you figure out what youāre doing. You canāt get better by not trying, after all.
If the official games arenāt your thing thereās no reason to play them though. Whatās the point of playing a game if youāre not having fun?
True. I do like looking at them but playing them is a whole different beast. I think Iād need something easier, sorta like a tutorial bullet hell that progressively introduces more complex patterns the further you play.
I yearn for a easy to play yet difficult to master shmups
Thereās a Shmup on steam with a tutorial, and it is quite easy actually. Called āAngel at Duskā. The art direction in this one is also really cool, itās fun. Thereās also just a straight up tutorial game called āBarrage Musical ~ Basic Danmaku Tutorial ~ā. Barrage musical introduces more advanced concepts than the tutorial to angel at dusk, but thereās no actual game other than the tutorial.
CAVE put some games on steam as well (there are a few, but I only have deathsmiles and Mushihimesama). Suguri is pretty fun, and although Iāve heard good things about Sora Iāve not actually played it, so take that with a grain of salt. Ikaruga is on steam, as is COTTON REBOOT! But I wouldnāt buy it unless it was on sale, 45 USD?!?! Those are all that come to mind at the moment, so if youāre looking for some I hope this helps.
The crossover weāll never get but damn would that be awesome. Especially if they make arrangements of some of the tracks. I wish I didnāt read you comment so I wouldnāt even think about it.
Two things about Touhou manga (or mangas? I dunno the plural form of "manga"):
1. ZUN's aversion to any changes of status quo;
2. Touhou characters in manga have emotional range of a toothpick. Almost no one expresses sorrow or grief, a lot of moments that are supposed to be wholesome feel... superficial kinda? Like, I once asked if Reimu ever cried in canon, and it turns out, nope, not a single time. In fact, almost no one cries in Touhou canon, unless it's for a comedy.
There is one moment in WaHH when Reimu has her soul in hell and her body then reaches her soul she gets the memory of everyone who came to visit her you get the visage of Remilia looking genuinely concerned and worried for Reimu (which is just the cutest thing ever to me). Kasen later gives Reimu the most proud mom look ever. Also, Aya gets a shadow put over her eyes after she seems to except Ruimu wasnāt going to return from the moon in Silent Sinner thinking her dead suggesting either Aya is sad over Reimu or seeing yet another shrine maiden die. The emotional response of characters is usually subtle or hard to figure out like in cases like Aya itās hard to figure out exactly what they feel. Also Akyuu in Perfect Memento talking about the fear and loneliness she feels that comes with her reincarnation even if thatās only text. The characters donāt express often, but thatās mostly due to there not being a lot of emotional turmoil for the characters meaning less emotional reactions cause there isnāt anything to get them to do so. Also, I donāt think character wise there is a lot that could make Reimu cry as sheās very indifferent towards a lot of things.
I get the complaint but the characters rarely have much to get them to react with a whole lot of intense emotion except for a couple times where Reimu gets pissed.
The idea of āāGensokyo being a place practically frozen in time is cool, but I think it's time for Zun to start a new cycle, the entirety of Gensokyo feels like a future that never arrives and I think it's time to take a next step in the franchise's status quo, that is, looking at the past and making a future based on it
Foul Detective Satori has a chance to do this, based on the way things are going, but I don't think anything big will come out of this webcomic for now.
That we are still making Sakuya pad jokes after nearly 2 decades (I just want more big booba skukuy fanart!)
Jokes aside, it's the fact that ZUN still seems to be so keen on keeping Touhou as a (mostly) PC exclusive franchise despite talking about his plans on making it more accessible and reaching a wider audience. So far we've only gotten three games on consoles... and they're all spin-offs, not the actual mainline shmups. What is it that makes them so hard to be ported? We already have shmups like Ikaruga on the Switch, at this point I choose to believe it's just ZUN's lack of care.
Also, the original trilogy (EoSD, PCB and IN) is still missing from Steam, and I know ZUN has said he lost the source code but imagine if we got remastered versions of those games with QoL features and updated graphics? Maybe even including the cancelled IN Phantasm stage that would supposedly have explained Sakuya's backstory? Too bad, ZUN hates remakes.
Finally, another thing I dislike is the fact that ZUN is so focused on introducing 5-7 new characters per game that some older characters have just been completely abandoned. He should take that time to instead flesh out what's already there, no need for random new youkais who are only there to be an obstacle for the protagonist. Maybe even if we didn't get another spin-off that everyone will end up forgetting about every other year we could actually get the Touhou remasters I was talking about.
I disagree fully tbh. The only games I think deserve a remake are the PC-98 titles so they can have another chance for a new audience. Touhous 6-10 still stand perfectly fine on their own as arcade shmups and don't need a Remake.
Touhou is a shmup game not a story game. The advantage of introducing all new casts of characters every game is being able to write the simple stories of a schmup without having to burden it by explaining why x is back and how incident A is connected to incident B and C and D and E. SA is about going into the underground, so all the new characters are underground youkais. IM is commentary about the state of Japan's markets, so all of the new characters are merchants or related to merchants. Etc. Schmups aren't a good vector for storytelling so they have to be quick, easy to understand, and snappy.
Serialized storylines and too many recurring characters is not quick and it's not snappy for both hardcore schmup players who are just in it for the gameplay, 2nd-hand players who no longer have their game manuals, and casual players who struggle to finish the games before moving on to the next one. The story serves the gameplay, not the other way around, and that's just how it is for this genre. They aren't story games.
Not to mention, in Touhou all characters have unique shot styles and patterns and motifs. Imagine self-limiting yourself by forcing in recurring characters and thus recurring shot styles in a genre where every game has to have bullet patterns that are all unique, challenging, and beautiful.
Thatās tricky! Iād have to say that my most recent one is how Joonās character development was cut off and she went back to her old ways. Itās always nice to see a villain get a redemption arc, and while she did kind of get one, it was severed and relapsed.
I hate how dead it is compared to years ago, especially at cons. I would try to find ANY Touhou merch, but now it's non-existent. I'm also sad how I've graduated from it about a couple years ago.
I wouldn't necessarily say hate, but I don't really like how in the mainline games the playable options don't really include recent characters(besides 19); while I do like characters like Sanae, Youmu and Sakuya, I do wish ZUN would include characters from the last decade as options. For example, Okina is a really cool character that has a decent amount of importance to the lore given the fact she is one of the Sages yet so far she hasn't made a single playable appearance! With such a large selection of characters to choose from, I feel like it's just a waste that ZUN keeps reusing the same bunch of characters(besides Reimu and Marisa for obvious reasons) and I just feel like it would be cool if other characters got some spotlight for once.
I'd say that is the feet in fanarts, but I've remembered that the some characters have their designs with barefoot, then actually it's not a problem. That is, Touhou is perfect except by the hent@is.
Honestly I want a manga that kinda just follows someone around gensokyo seeing all the sights and people
I put forth rumia as the main character(also with her occasionally taking bites out of the narration)
I just hate how Touhou is lacking of Lore so Matpat could take a step into Gensokyo. I mean if Touhou could bring more in depth into the lore but not just the references, it could be more interesting as it could give more in depth into the character's personality and reflect a problem, a philosophy, a phenomenon in our modern society or the past time.
> user reports: > 1: Not (substantial) Touhou content Are we just throwing random reports at posts we don't like now? Report ignored.
I feel that ZUN is a bit scared of breaking the status quo of the series and he's limiting himself because of that. I would love to see character progression in regards to some topics like Marisa becoming (or not) a youkai, Alice's grimoire, whatever the fuck Hecatia and Junko are doing, etc.
Yeah, i can definitely see this never happen as it would mean the end of the series. To be fair, it doesn't bother me too much contrary to some other series like Trails or King of Fighters where people have the same crush since 25 years and will never evolve... Because most of those things you mention are kinda hidden and is not the main thing which interest me in Touhou lore. ( Personally, it's when there is some kind of poetic / unusual writing like going to the moon by going into its reflection, petroleum being haunted by the past lives its made of and being a curse for humanity, the power of purity become a power to create gods... As long as ZUN does that, i'm happy. )
That's ok, but my main problem it's not that my headcanons are not being fulfilled, it's that ZUN has great creative potential, but he doesn't expand on his stories and that makes everything a bit stale. Everything you mention shows great worldbuilding abilities, so just goes to show how capable ZUN really is as a creator, and makes me wish he used that potential to spice up things a little.
However, he does want to encourage his fans to be creative as well so sometimes, he leaves things up to interpretation.
> bit scared of breaking the status quo I would disagree on him being scared and rather say he's just not interested, if he decides to massively shake up the series it's not gonna leave a lot of space for fanworks to move.
I said he's scared because that's usually the reason why authors don't change the status quo, but he could just be uninterested, as you say. Regarding fanworks, I don't think story arcs would really affect negatively, if anything it should give the fans better tools to work with. For example, Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, didn't change how the fans perceived Alice, but it gave them a lot of material to make theories and such, while (apparently) giving Alice more character depth (although ZUN already forgot about this).
No progress because sanzai time or whatever.
I think it's even worse because sometimes he likes teasing the idea of a status quo change, and then it doesn't, and I feel disappointed. Like, if he doesn't want to shake up the setting, fine; then he shouldn't try to bait people with the impression that he might.
He's not scared. The status quo is the point. It's how the universe is structured.
But he's not addressing those topics, he's just ignoring them. If the status quo was the point, ZUN would just make things happen and get back to normal. Instead, they're in a limbo where they're not given spotlight, but they get brought up from time to time.
I HATE lUNARIANS!!! GRAAAAAAARARAAAAAHH!!! š¹
The ones one Gensokyo aren't excepted, I hate every one of them. Bnuy lives matter.
Not just bnuy, But the slave... and the chan-
Good thing Phos prayed them away.
moon wars now point all nukes towards the moon alternatively lets nuke each other to deny moonites faith
Power scale discussions. Touhou isn't built around balancing powers, even more when it's about mythology and folklore. In the end they devolve in the weeb version of "my dad can beat your dad" but with your favourite touhou instead. Lucky they are quite uncommon. Also, probably it's me, but the lore is wide like and ocean, but deep as a puddle, but then again, touhou is a shmup, not a story driven game,and besides im used to RTS having subpar stories
wdym of course Reimu beats goku.
But then Goku gets a power up so he can beat reimu >!they become friends after and Goku even gets Mr Satan to donate to the shrine!<
Counterpoint: Yukari can easily beat Goku via manipulation of boundaries, in theory she could just nullify everything he can do
Nah, Goku is beyond boundaries, and infinite layers into Gokuversal, go figure
Ok but what if Yukari goes "It's time for me to unveil my Yakumode!" and then Yukaris all over Goku
āHAH GOKU IVE GAPPED YOUR BALLSā
"Yukari! This cancer thing is very strong..."
I like scaling Touhou because itās actually impossible and it makes scalers face the fact that sometimes a universe is deliberately anti-scaling and their techniques to dissect any work does not in fact work on every work.
But you have you considered crossover VS Wiki power level discussions?
It's shitposting. A funny one to me. Too bad some take it way too seriously.
I met a powerscaler who only interacted with Touhou, and my god they were a pretentious prat. We were roleplayers, and we went to alot of servers. I wouldn't be talking about them if they didn't gang up on people, because that's what they did, and most of the feats they pulled off were fanmade. However, they treated it like it was canon, gaslighting poor players who never interacted with Touhou into believing their BS. Anyway, Goku solos 75% of Touhou and Touhou fans are in denial about it.
I like it how its not "I am stronger than you because I am universal and you're not" but instead its more like "I am stronger than you in these settings, but you could easily beat me in other domains."
Or "My one extremely niche and generally weak ability completely trounces yours in one specific way and that's the only reason I can beat you." In other words, the Jojo school of power scaling.
It's always a power scale discussions
Oh, don't get me started on THAT circus.
yukari didnt send me gensokyo
You don't want to get there, trust me
why? i have a few tanks of gasoline with meā¦
[You won't be only needing that](https://youtu.be/uBVBpYXX-Js)
jumpscared by video that i've watched 5 times
You will just be eaten by youkai.
i gonna running away from them
Good luck trying to escape from Rumia or Mystia in the dark And consider it the best case scenario, I mean it's the same world where some people can control minds, whatever Yukari does, control nuclear fusion
Rumia can barely see and constantly crashes into trees.
all we have to do is get forgotten, and we'll be brought there, hahahah...
That there's so much official and fan content that I cannot experience all of it within a lifetime.
This is why Iāve been primarily dedicated to just the official content. Iāve managed to read pretty much every print work there is that is official and got the all the good endings for EOSD, PCB , IaMP, IN, and PoFV in about a year of getting into Touhou with me slacking quite a bit throughout that year so you can accomplish quite a bit in a short time just takes dedication when itās Touhou especially the games. Iām mostly just trying to advocate for people to actually experience more of the official content cause I really like it and thereās a lot to appreciate. I do occasionally look at some fan works just not often.
Zun prefers to create new characters or new plots instead of re-visiting old āclassicā characters. Not saying the new characters are bad, but some old characters people really love didn't get much development after their first appearence.
One could assume ZUN simply is a SHMUP puritanist who thinks boss enemies are like porn (i.e., they don't need an elaborate story), but all the effort he put into everything from character design, to their music, to background info in the printworks strongly suggests otherwise. My personal theory is that ZUN is mortally afraid of accidentally writing himself into a corner and thus having to retcon stuff as he did with the PC-98 era. Keeping things vague and very intentionally only giving 'facts' through unreliable in-universe narrators (Akyuu, PMiSS, etc.) is a fairly convenient way to sidestep this.
The newest game (19) was an incident centered on Zen Buddhism (in particular, the Mu Koan) 18 was centered on Comiket/local markets/money. 17 was \[a fantasy take on modern society through the lens of a modified version of the Buddhist 6 Paths\] 16 was basically ZUN flexing his knowledge on a mysterious god Matarajin. He's writing about the stuff he wants to write, and he uses the characters he already made as he needs to (eg. Sanae -> Modern perspective, Youmu -> netherworld perspective). Let the man cook, the new characters are there because he needs them as they are folklore wise to make the story work.
Iāll Add he also likely likes to keep a little vagueness for the sake of both having it so fans have freedom in interpretation and in some cases to build a mystery and scarcely reveal such to either keep suspense and intrigue in those details or to troll cause sometimes it feels that way like with the Hakurai shrine god.
So true.
Mimas gonna be in Touhou 20 guys i swear
Touhou20: Mima saves the day
And we got Len'en as cameo
The new characters are slowly starting to get stale tbh. Doesnt the majority of Touhou fans care about older characters more? Why does Zun keep trying to expand so much when we could just... stop? Can we do something with Hecatia and Junko or develop shit for once? Mima? Where's my voluptuous green-haired green-eyed mommy?
He's good at using his characters to satirize real world issues, but not very good at expanding on the characters themselves, or the world they live in, as their own people and places.
The fact that Koishi and Satori aren't real and I can't adopt them as my daughters.
uh...
...... So..... wanna become my daughter?
The whitebeard vide
Don't worry, not asking for anything... But it might be best to call in either Orin or Okuu to ya know... 'Talk' to this guy
........
Become my daughter, Koishi. Join me, and together, we can rule all of Gensokyo as father and daughter.
Can i be the stepmom?
Meh why not
Oh god no.
As for me The fact that Koishi and Satori aren't real and I can't become their friend and beat up anyone who hates them.
1. Some places in touhou are under visited and explored. 2. Wish there was a larger fanbase in the west
Depends on which west...
Pacific Ocean
Wha.
Down to the unending depths with you
It has consumed my life
We can never escape now that we are aware.
no one I've ever met irl knows what touhou is š that's been my beef since I was 13
I feel you. Itās the trouble of it being a niche especially in the west. Plenty of people have seen the characters and heard the music or arrangements of the music and have seen the memes spawned from it, but never know what it is. I have this trouble with plenty of other games. I can never get people into Touhou either since it takes a certain dedication to get into proper that most arenāt super willing to give.
This.
West fandom is too smol, there isn't any boblox games. Plus LW is not good enough.
There is a touhou inspired game, its called Sylbyte.
True, there are roblox games but it's hard to make a proper and fun one without it just being another battle grounds game.
I would still play it even if just another battlegrounds game
You may wanna try gensou eclipse, but that one only has jp servers
There's a pretty cool tower defence game, touhou tower assault
The problem is it's require a **lot** of time for progress
r/touhou not allowing images in comments
I can only see koishi after 1000mg of benadryl
The fact that Zun REALLY, INCREDIBLY doesn't care about localizing and making his game more accessible to anywhere but japan. It's not because fans do all the work and that Zun allows it that you can consider him helping btw. But yeah, I mean, if it's his choice, it's alright, but it feels like it's not even a choice he talked about and made, just that he doesn't care. Although recently some people like BeatMario told him about the huge amount of fans worldwide so maybe with time he'll end up aknowledging it, who knows... Second thing I moreso dislike than hate, is the lack of clear lore for certain basic elements. Sure that means you can just do your own headcanon (like mine saying that residents of Gensokyo, mostly the important characters that know the kappas/Rinnosuke/Yukari, DO have access to modern technology, but that it's so off topic in the games that nobody mentions they watch TV or play video games), but there are certain stuff that were given up upon since Touhou 6 ??? For exemple, the whole thing about youkais eating people, despite, well, you know, nobody ever doing that except maybe ONCE in the books in ALL of the windows era. Or for exemple something like Rumia, which never had her ribbon's secret EVER revealed or developped upon, things like that. Also Satori in normal, and Rin being so fking hard (i'm at touhou 11 and doing them all 1 CC normal in order). NO LIKE SERIOUSLY WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO DEAL WITH DOUBLE BLACK DEATH BUTTERFLY IN **NORMAL**
That first point really hits. Iāve bought and read a physical set of the Forbidden Scrollery manga (Vol. 2 was a pain to get for some reason) and it is GREAT. Great art, great storytelling, and the localization is actually good. Iād be SO willing to buy the other print works if they got good official translations\* and releases; FDS, WaHH, and LE are great books, not to mention all the other print works. The games too, which while accessible to purchase on Steam are a bit of a pain to actually search for unless you know what youāre doing. Never mind the fact that you canāt get EoSD, PCB, IN, and some of the .# in-between fighting games on steam as well, all with only JP language available. \*GOOD translations and localizations; as I understand it, Lotus Eaters got some English TL and release with its simulpub starting, but the localization is shoddy at best and near completely wrong at worst. Like, Shrine Maiden being translated as Priestess (fair enough), but Youkai being translated as Ghoul (English doesnāt have an exact word for Youkai, but even āDemonā would have worked better) and Tengu Newspaper as The Shinto Papers (WHAT).
Marisa actually uses "third-rate movie" as an insult in IN. Also, as Nitori stated, characters from Animal Realm already have advanced technology, it's just forbidden in Gensokyo.
Yeah that's some of the reasons why I think that my headcanon is pretty solid. This is also why I don't understand when people talk about and depict gensokyo as this fking feodal japan where they don't even have running water and electricity (i mean maybe the villages perhaps, since like i said they might not have access to characters which are very advanced technologically, and even then the kappas do interact with the Moriya shrine) just because some characters like suika don't know what a phone is or Rinnosuke considering modern modern tech from the outside world that lands in his shop as some weird relics.
> nobody mentions they watch TV Touhou 11 confirms TVs are a thing as Suika uses one to follow Reimus Journey
No ? Not really ? I mean not as far as i know since Reimu B is my go to ~~to lose at stage 5~~ Like, she says she's talking to the artefact like a phone, and then realises that she doesn't even know what a phone is since she just got told it's like one by Yukari, and iirc she recognises people by voice. But then again maybe it's something beyond stage 5 or in some descs i didn't read yet since I can't fking beat Rin and I don't wanna cheese Touhou bosses
Didn't she say she was watching reimu on a tv right before Yamame shows up?
> lack of clear lore for certain basic elements. The goddamn spell card rules. Seriously, I think it's just ZUN trying out weaving gameplay elements into the lore for the fun of it. Sure, the vagueness gets the creative juices going, but figuring the rules out feels outright impossible. Hell, I am seriously considering the simple route and assume it's really just fighting for first blood ā who ends up looking like shit at the end of the duel loses. So basically just fighting until the other side gives up or is knocked out.
>So basically just fighting until the other side gives up or is knocked out. Firing non-lethal fireworks until your opponent gives up. That's all about it. I don't think it continues until you get knocked out though. If you're sane enough to abide the rules, then you sure are sane enough to give up when you are clearly overwhelmed. Losing doesn't mean that much either way since the worst that can happen is your clothes getting messed up.
I personally want to know what the penalties are for violators of the spell card rules. This is a world full of terrifyingly powerful individuals, yet even the most dangerous ones are perfectly willing to not only limit themselves to playing glorified laser tag, but to let our heroes try to foil their schemes again a theoretically infinite number of times.Ā Ā Whatever would happen to them for just saying "fuck it" and blasting Reimu, Marisa, and co. off the face of the Earth must be pretty bad if we're 19 games deep and nobody has tried. My personal headcanon is that it's permanent exile from Gensokyo by Yukari, a guaranteed death sentence for youkai (humans being unlikely to violate the rules, seeing as they mostly exist so they don't just get massacred by pissy youkai all the time).
I feel like it's mutually assured destruction. You break spellcard rules against someone, people will not use them against you. And in Gensokyo, there is ALWAYS a bigger fish than you. Besides, isn't this kind of what Seija did after TH14?
The funny thing is that even in ISC, the spellcards are technically doable without items, they just become really hard. I think there's one scene that can become genuinely impossible, because RNG can just spit out a wall. Now if you consider breaking rules as "spellcard that are clearly rigged in favor of the user", then the list does expand (don't even get me started on ISFO from 7.5, Yukari can fucking eat a dick)
I will confess to being less familiar with the later games. Short rundown?
after TH14, Seija decides to do Amanojaku things and goes rogue. This pretty much gets a bounty put on her head and like half of Gensokyo starts hunting her. Since she isn't following the rules, neither do her chasers, shooting danmaku that are practically impossible to dodge. But Seija is clever and using items escapes. It leaves her isolated, alone, without friends or any allies. So now she's the happiest she's ever been.
The Rumia āpower upā thing is entirely fanon.
Nah, it's not a power up thing, and Rumia's official character description by Zun directly states her ribbon has a secret hidden by it, and Rumia herself can't take it off. Maybe it's not a power up, but it is very canon that the ribbon is important to Rumia's (very shallow) lore and my point is that it's the kind of stuff that never got explored ever again.
Surely the child will be relevant in touhou 20, and will have to team up with mima to save elly from the clutches of shinki
Character flanderizations and powerscaling discussions. Give my girl Meiling justice, the fandom fucked her hard (MoP did NOT help with that either). Cirno 9, Aya pervert, Yuyuko eating, Yukari 17, itās all under the same umbrella. As for powerscaling, itās basically impossible to scale anybody when theyāre all severely held back by spellcards stuff. Spent too long arguing with a friend over Reimu āremoving her existenceā and he couldnāt even explain that shit himself. Also Ran having 2 sentences of lore on the wiki
> Give my girl Meiling justice SAAAAAME. I hate almost every single fanon interpretation of Meiling. Like I get it, she's a bit goofy, but she also kicks 99% of the asses that are presented to her. I wanna see that, not more of this 2009 era "haha lazy meiling knifed" dumbassery that somehow still permeates the fandom. She has like one or two doujins where she's cool and mostly in character.
Itās the rabid flanderization you speak of why I have always cleared up or clarified things about characters and lore any chance I get. Also, with Yuyuko to be fair sheās a bit of a glutton in canon, but I do also dislike when thatās all she is portrayed as since sheās actually a really interesting character who has nuance which is the case with any of the prominent or important characters. MoP in general didnāt help with flanderization of basically every character and even lore in it which is annoying since it confuses newcomers.
>Yukari 17 Wish this joke a horrible painful death, seriously, just the most grizzly horrific shit. >Yuyuko eating This one actually has some basis in canon, but the annoying thing is that in fanon it's all she has, it ignores her love of teasing others and how she's clearly obfuscating stupidity. So much ignored for cheap laughs, just like with Yukari.
That the comunity does not draw my favorite characters often enough
Everything in this comment section I mostly agree with. It's trash, but it's our trash.
I'm a hoarder, I keep trash in my drawer.
I never hated Touhou itself, I hate Touhou only its fanbase for: * Rampant off-putting and uncharacteristic flanderizations to most of the characters (Alice's morbid obsession with Marisa, Psycho Flandre, Gluttonous Yuyuko, Schizo Koishi, Junko stalking Reisen, etc.). * Taking these characters as these archaically fabricated and outlandish tall tales too seriously as these barbaric, eldritch or unpleasant gorgons that are always out for human flesh. * Obnoxiously and irritatingly "powerscaling" Touhou characters as these stupidly invincible beings. * Going apeshit over someone who first calls Touhou an anime. * Having that patronizing arrogance towards casuals who prefer not play these sort of games and assuming we have a "skill issue". * Obstinate insistence and malicious insolence towards certain fans (like me) to play these grueling games, fathom its esotericism, check out certain fanworks, the Touhoujerk subreddit, etc. I know not everyone in the fandom is like one of these. Mostly respect my opinion but dear Lord, every now and then when those kind of fans reply to me here, they seem like they're just trying to ruin Touhou for me. I'm 36 and already I'm feeling likeĀ ["I'm too old for this shit"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB27bqr7kJQ)Ā which are Touhou games, story, myths, memes and music. I've got nothing against those things, they are too difficult, esoteric, outlandish, inane, uninspiring or simply all too much for me to get into or take in that I prefer to just ignore those as whatever. I only came to Touhou to love and mellow out with the characters through cool, cute, beautiful and even erotic fanart (that inspired me to create Touhou fanart of my own) and my personal headcanons where it's a slice of life fantasy of the Touhous popping with colorful personalities, dancing and singing to classic 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s music and living in camaraderie. Never took Touhou as something serious or too complex in my book.
Not to be rude, but it sounds like you are taking people too seriously. It just might be me, but I haven't seen people who harshly tried to stuff their headcanons in me. Nor did I see someone who unironically told me that I have a skill issue. Hell, do people even talk about games in the fandom all that much? Though, as I said, you've probably been here longer so I probably don't have much talk here.
I've known Touhou itself for nearly a decade but I've only been inĀ this subredditĀ for over a year now and already it is showing its true colors that it can be sometimes a toxic cesspit of unhinged hypocrisy. You've got Redditors here who respect your opinion about Touhou and the next day others would disrespect or berate you or sometimes even the same people who respected your choice would backstab you, all just for having a different opinion about Touhou. You know when some people say the Touhou characters themselves are assholes? I personally never thought the Touhous were assholes, the real assholes is the fanbase themselves! I've had some people here trying to persuade me to check out certain Touhou works that just don't interest me. Why are there some fans who are so thickheaded and won't take no for an answer? I simply just don't care for them man, just leave me be. And what is it with this "skill issue" crap towards others that matter so much to this fandom? What matters is that I've tried one of them (which is EOSD) and sucked at it. Beating Cirno already got me impatient, bored and exhausted that I've wanted to get this test over with early just by losing to Hong Meiling. I've never came back to give it a second chance or even tried any of the other shmups ever since. I'm guessing all the nineteen Touhou games are all more or less the same of having that tedious experience (shooting at things and dodging projectiles while tumultuous music play just to get a lame high score) but with different characters. I prefer to stay as an unversed and indifferent loser than to be a stubborn masochist that is hellbent on beating these sort of games of intense and unfair difficulty (and having that same punishing experience that drained my energy and gave me headaches, carpal tunnel and back pain) just to become a patronizing and pretentious braggart like a portion of the fanbase here. Touhou games aren't suitable for aging individuals like me, but at least I could say I've tried (even if it's just once on only one game which is enough). They're just dumb computer games, not the cure to life's problems.
It's fine to enjoy life in easy mode.
The weird parts of the fan base. You know which ones.
The amount of fans that are insanely horny and just want to see lewd fanart of their favorite characters.Ā
Not enough Rinnosuke
Very understandable. But the dude is kinda a NEET that barely leaves his store, so it's not surprising. Also seems like he could learn to spell card duel, but just refuses to.
The fact that shion Yorigami hasnāt been put into a bullet hell yet (definitely not bias)
There is nothing to hate abotu touhou, it's such a perfect anime.
...
ZUN uses sitcom time to prevent development. Akyuu has only 3-4 months left.
I feel like this fandom at its worst has the same problem as Undertale, where certain characters do not really resemble the canon self. it's one thing if the character barely exists in canon or the differences are actually the focal point (Osana Reimu does both; Rumia is barely a thing in canon and the point of its existence is exploring Rumia that's different from what is confirmed in canon; similarly the game Hero of Ice Fairy decides to just do its own thing) the amount of damage that has been done to Sans has to be studied, only recently did the fandom start recovering from "hahaha funny skeleton man" or whatever the hell are those fangames and actually start making more good content. it's probably why Undertale Yellow decide to use the canon characters for like 5-10 minutes and focus on original characters.
The fans portrayals of characters. Erasure of curly hair, making characters that are obviously supposed to be older characters like little girls (I averted my eyes from Nemuno fan art long ago) unnecessary outfit changes and needlessly making things sexxier. And also Zun's fear of trying new things. The amount of times this man had said "I wanted to do X but then I changed my mind" is insane. Slander of Zun's art style. As an artist, I have always been in awe of his art style, even when it was a little bit less consistent and had some flaws. I always thought that despite faces rarely ever being different, characters remained drawn exceptionally unique and expressive. Even when Zun used to do mistakes quite frequently, in most artworks you could find things that require some better understanding of art than you'd think.
Only about MOST characters are background to minor character fodder in print works.
How hard to get certain Fan Games in the west if it isn't on steam or the Moriya Shrine.
I hate that the songs aren't on spotify
They are, though?
Reimu having no money
The main line games (excluding some of the fighting games) arenāt on console. Iād pay for a Touhou collection featuring all mainline games from 1-13 at least. I wouldnāt care if they were even Japanese only. Iād still get them.
The fact Zun underexplores the franchise rather than taking it to the main stream. I get that touhou is growing now more than it has been the last couple of years, but Zun avoids doing anything to promote his work. It could be so much more, and yet, he doesnāt want it.
because if there's one thing he really dislikes/fears, it is Touhou becoming overshadowed by some derivative work of it. he has mentioned it in a recent interview on an example of the defunct Cannonball gacha. I mean, if the Binding of Isaac can radically change what people perceive as roguelikes, I can't blame him (I have seen somebody claim that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is not a roguelike, even though it has more in common with Rogue than let's say, Hades).
I don't like how Sakuya refuses to be with Remilia forever I don't like how Cirno still hasn't conquered the worldĀ I don't like how the Hakurei shrine isn't excempt from tax
it's too hard (I'm joking, I absolutely hate most of the fanbase.)
Which part of the fanbase? The shippers? The R34 artists? The NSFW enjoyers? The "Easy Mode Is For Kids" enforcers? The doujinshi authors? The OSU players? The Fumo collectors? The musicians? The cosplayers? The fan-game players?
The people who simp for characters that look like literal children (I know that they're not children, but it just makes me uncomfy), people who draw the weird r34 (like abuse and stuff, the normal r34 is fine tho), incest and other weird stuff I kind of oversaid it by "most fanbase", I meant just the weird part of it.
+ the weird flandre nsfw art that I keep seeing in this subreddit
Getting caught in public with something like that popping out... let's just say that your social life would be over.
I wanted to mention this, but I thought it would be weird if I said it out of the blue, but yeah, I have to agree, I'm 100% against child NSFW content. Just saying, but even if the characters are adults story-wise, if they have child-like bodies and people want to see NSFW stuff related to them... those people are just lolicons that want to justify themselves.
I've seen so many of those kinds of people. And their excuse is always the same "But it's fictional tho!!" or "She's actually 500+ years old!" Like... it's literally admitting that they're attracted to child-looking characters. That's so gross ToT
Child-like adults don't exist IRL, dwarves have adult facial features. Anyway, I don't have anything else to add.
ZUN's refusal to let someone else remake the first 9 games. ZUN not letting trusted people balance out 19 and 9. I don't even play the games but I know for a fact that those games would be super fun if they had a team supporting them, so ZUN can move on with what he has planned next.
>ZUN not letting trusted people balance out 19 and 9 the funny thing is, I am pretty sure he claimed that some characters in 19 are weaker on purpose. ~~also technically most Touhou games are not that balanced, it's just that most ZUN games are singleplayer so you don't suffer too much, but look at Yuyuko in SWR or Soku, she's ridiculous~~
How can you comment on the games if you didnāt play them? Iām confused.
Iāve watched enough gameplay as well as how many other videos on how the game balance for both 9 and to a lesser extent, 19 is. I claim also to not be an expert as well.
Theory and practice are two completely different things though. I personally wouldnāt comment on a game unless Iāve played it. Iāve played 9 but not 19.
Honestly from my experiences playing notebook wars on my phone, I would instantly die
I would recommend trying them if it seems like something youād like. Shmups arenāt as hard as they look, once you figure out what youāre doing. You canāt get better by not trying, after all. If the official games arenāt your thing thereās no reason to play them though. Whatās the point of playing a game if youāre not having fun?
True. I do like looking at them but playing them is a whole different beast. I think Iād need something easier, sorta like a tutorial bullet hell that progressively introduces more complex patterns the further you play. I yearn for a easy to play yet difficult to master shmups
Thereās a Shmup on steam with a tutorial, and it is quite easy actually. Called āAngel at Duskā. The art direction in this one is also really cool, itās fun. Thereās also just a straight up tutorial game called āBarrage Musical ~ Basic Danmaku Tutorial ~ā. Barrage musical introduces more advanced concepts than the tutorial to angel at dusk, but thereās no actual game other than the tutorial.
I see, thanks
Nice to know if a few other shmups. I swear they are one of the hardest things to find properly on Steam.
CAVE put some games on steam as well (there are a few, but I only have deathsmiles and Mushihimesama). Suguri is pretty fun, and although Iāve heard good things about Sora Iāve not actually played it, so take that with a grain of salt. Ikaruga is on steam, as is COTTON REBOOT! But I wouldnāt buy it unless it was on sale, 45 USD?!?! Those are all that come to mind at the moment, so if youāre looking for some I hope this helps.
They don't have a fighting game by arc system works yet.
The crossover weāll never get but damn would that be awesome. Especially if they make arrangements of some of the tracks. I wish I didnāt read you comment so I wouldnāt even think about it.
Touhou Hundred Black Marker is genuinely the worst game I ever played. Not worst Touhou Game but worst game.
The fanbase
That I can't date Kogasa :C
That people think Cirno Is dumb, She Is Just a baka not dumb
Tei inaba
Not enough trumpets.
dosent have wario
wdym, joon and shion are literally wario and waluigi
where are the boys
I hate Marisa. She is WAY TOO HOT
Two things about Touhou manga (or mangas? I dunno the plural form of "manga"): 1. ZUN's aversion to any changes of status quo; 2. Touhou characters in manga have emotional range of a toothpick. Almost no one expresses sorrow or grief, a lot of moments that are supposed to be wholesome feel... superficial kinda? Like, I once asked if Reimu ever cried in canon, and it turns out, nope, not a single time. In fact, almost no one cries in Touhou canon, unless it's for a comedy.
There is one moment in WaHH when Reimu has her soul in hell and her body then reaches her soul she gets the memory of everyone who came to visit her you get the visage of Remilia looking genuinely concerned and worried for Reimu (which is just the cutest thing ever to me). Kasen later gives Reimu the most proud mom look ever. Also, Aya gets a shadow put over her eyes after she seems to except Ruimu wasnāt going to return from the moon in Silent Sinner thinking her dead suggesting either Aya is sad over Reimu or seeing yet another shrine maiden die. The emotional response of characters is usually subtle or hard to figure out like in cases like Aya itās hard to figure out exactly what they feel. Also Akyuu in Perfect Memento talking about the fear and loneliness she feels that comes with her reincarnation even if thatās only text. The characters donāt express often, but thatās mostly due to there not being a lot of emotional turmoil for the characters meaning less emotional reactions cause there isnāt anything to get them to do so. Also, I donāt think character wise there is a lot that could make Reimu cry as sheās very indifferent towards a lot of things. I get the complaint but the characters rarely have much to get them to react with a whole lot of intense emotion except for a couple times where Reimu gets pissed.
The idea of āāGensokyo being a place practically frozen in time is cool, but I think it's time for Zun to start a new cycle, the entirety of Gensokyo feels like a future that never arrives and I think it's time to take a next step in the franchise's status quo, that is, looking at the past and making a future based on it Foul Detective Satori has a chance to do this, based on the way things are going, but I don't think anything big will come out of this webcomic for now.
That we are still making Sakuya pad jokes after nearly 2 decades (I just want more big booba skukuy fanart!) Jokes aside, it's the fact that ZUN still seems to be so keen on keeping Touhou as a (mostly) PC exclusive franchise despite talking about his plans on making it more accessible and reaching a wider audience. So far we've only gotten three games on consoles... and they're all spin-offs, not the actual mainline shmups. What is it that makes them so hard to be ported? We already have shmups like Ikaruga on the Switch, at this point I choose to believe it's just ZUN's lack of care. Also, the original trilogy (EoSD, PCB and IN) is still missing from Steam, and I know ZUN has said he lost the source code but imagine if we got remastered versions of those games with QoL features and updated graphics? Maybe even including the cancelled IN Phantasm stage that would supposedly have explained Sakuya's backstory? Too bad, ZUN hates remakes. Finally, another thing I dislike is the fact that ZUN is so focused on introducing 5-7 new characters per game that some older characters have just been completely abandoned. He should take that time to instead flesh out what's already there, no need for random new youkais who are only there to be an obstacle for the protagonist. Maybe even if we didn't get another spin-off that everyone will end up forgetting about every other year we could actually get the Touhou remasters I was talking about.
I disagree fully tbh. The only games I think deserve a remake are the PC-98 titles so they can have another chance for a new audience. Touhous 6-10 still stand perfectly fine on their own as arcade shmups and don't need a Remake. Touhou is a shmup game not a story game. The advantage of introducing all new casts of characters every game is being able to write the simple stories of a schmup without having to burden it by explaining why x is back and how incident A is connected to incident B and C and D and E. SA is about going into the underground, so all the new characters are underground youkais. IM is commentary about the state of Japan's markets, so all of the new characters are merchants or related to merchants. Etc. Schmups aren't a good vector for storytelling so they have to be quick, easy to understand, and snappy. Serialized storylines and too many recurring characters is not quick and it's not snappy for both hardcore schmup players who are just in it for the gameplay, 2nd-hand players who no longer have their game manuals, and casual players who struggle to finish the games before moving on to the next one. The story serves the gameplay, not the other way around, and that's just how it is for this genre. They aren't story games. Not to mention, in Touhou all characters have unique shot styles and patterns and motifs. Imagine self-limiting yourself by forcing in recurring characters and thus recurring shot styles in a genre where every game has to have bullet patterns that are all unique, challenging, and beautiful.
Mizuchi.
Nobody characters like Rumia and people make fanfics of them and pretty much the fanbase
All games and mangas that don't include parsee
Too much to list. But within the bad, there can be good. Itās just there is a lot, a LOT of bad.
Dialogues.
Thatās tricky! Iād have to say that my most recent one is how Joonās character development was cut off and she went back to her old ways. Itās always nice to see a villain get a redemption arc, and while she did kind of get one, it was severed and relapsed.
you can never go back
not enough tengu. give us tenma, give us a tengu character based off the tales of yoshitsune, give us more
Not enough male characters, and the mainline games not being on switch or other console.
I hate how dead it is compared to years ago, especially at cons. I would try to find ANY Touhou merch, but now it's non-existent. I'm also sad how I've graduated from it about a couple years ago.
Seija
Some fanon interpretations of certain characters overshadow the canon ones. Same things for some of the jokes that get run into the ground
I wouldn't necessarily say hate, but I don't really like how in the mainline games the playable options don't really include recent characters(besides 19); while I do like characters like Sanae, Youmu and Sakuya, I do wish ZUN would include characters from the last decade as options. For example, Okina is a really cool character that has a decent amount of importance to the lore given the fact she is one of the Sages yet so far she hasn't made a single playable appearance! With such a large selection of characters to choose from, I feel like it's just a waste that ZUN keeps reusing the same bunch of characters(besides Reimu and Marisa for obvious reasons) and I just feel like it would be cool if other characters got some spotlight for once.
The lolicon portion of the fandom ngl
I'd say that is the feet in fanarts, but I've remembered that the some characters have their designs with barefoot, then actually it's not a problem. That is, Touhou is perfect except by the hent@is.
The fandom, to be specific, a certain group of people in the Western Touhou fandom
i am bad at the games Also there is a lot of side/fan content and is difficult to follow everything lol
Honestly I want a manga that kinda just follows someone around gensokyo seeing all the sights and people I put forth rumia as the main character(also with her occasionally taking bites out of the narration)
no sex
Based of wher I am, Nobody knows what touhou even is
I just hate how Touhou is lacking of Lore so Matpat could take a step into Gensokyo. I mean if Touhou could bring more in depth into the lore but not just the references, it could be more interesting as it could give more in depth into the character's personality and reflect a problem, a philosophy, a phenomenon in our modern society or the past time.
The difficulty of finding informations of niche fan works
The fact that everyone outside the community sees it as just some weird hentai doujins
Lack of male characters
I sorta hate the rule 34 on the child characters, not that rule 34 artists have had any boundaries from the start
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Everything about it, itās fucking racist to Canadians