The Truth Behind Touhou’s Characters Inspirations
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- Have you ever wondered about the inspirations behind the characters in The Touhou Project? Some fans can probably spot the obvious ones, but we'll be taking a deeper dive into everything ZUN potentially pulled from when creating Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
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Music Used
A Dream More Scarlet than Red - ZUN
Apparitions Stalk the Night - ZUN
Tomboyish Girl in Love - ZUN
Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 (Dolls in Psuedo Paradise) - ZUN
Locked Girl ~ The Girl's Sealed Room - ZUN
Lunar Clock ~ Luna Dial - ZUN
Septette for a Dead Princess - ZUN
U.N. Owen Was Her? - ZUN
Scarlet Chamber ~ Eastern Dream... - ZUN
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:37 Rumia
2:39 Cirno
4:56 Meiling
5:34 Patchouli
6:47 Sakuya
8:12 Remilia
10:19 Flandre
11:53 Phantasm Stage 
Игры
Just a few things to add.
I planned this video back in 2022. Originally, I wanted to fund a fan translation of Sarai that I would reveal at the end of this video for people curious enough to read. However, translations are more expensive than I was expecting. On the bright side, the first 9 volumes are translated, which goes through the main bits ZUN pulled from in this video.
Also, this should have been obvious, but I'm not attacking ZUN with this video. Everyone pulls inspiration from something. Nothing is truly original. And in the case of how blatant he was with these early works, you have to keep in mind that there was no way he would have considered that his work would blow up in the way that it did. Especially in the case of PC98 which was just a college circle project he did.
This video is doing really well, so you can expect more like this one. I'm not sure if I'll go back and do PC98 just yet, or if I'll move up to PCB first.
Also, in case you're wondering, Reimu and Marisa will be covered in PC98.
Where can I find Sarai translations? I checked the internet and only managed to find 1st book
I also wanna know where I can find Sarai translated.
yap yap
We haven't been able to find the first 8/9 volumes *anywhere.* T-T And the fan translation would have been great, but, yeah, expensive. You'd probably need to crowdfund something like that.
{Daciana} MAIDS~ >*.*
The fact that a series with some of the most beloved characters came about from ZUN being chronically drunk and basically just winging it is its own poetry.
He's a silly boi
A drunk silly boy like one of his oni.
What a goofy goober.
Touhou is proof that if you doujin hard enough, you too can have your own thing
Like "Otherside Picnic", which, according to some rumors, was originally a Renko/Maribel fanfic.
@@leonidtimofeev1178Their hair color certainly match
When a doujin work has its own fan doujin, nevermind an entire fan convention dedicated to it, you know you've made it.
So's Clamp. Hell, they even got to animate their JoJo doujin about Jotaro and Kakyoin's baby.
@@leonidtimofeev1178no way, that’s actually crazy
i like how zun's inspirations r either porn, jojo or classical works of literature and music
my mans got variety
just like average cultured person should
It seems random, until you realize there's a consistent thematic throughline of everything he does being totally based.
Speaking of music, he also pulls from modern music too, like songs from 20th century, VG music, and even newer music. He referenced Snow Halation for a stage theme in TH 18 and a track Toby Fox composed for a boss theme in the same game for example
@@Giovansbilly What was the track?
The big lesson to be learned here is that you should never be afraid to publish your fanfic, no matter how weird the AU is
AU got so popular he realized people would be asking about the characters.
My question is.
Is Touhou's success a product of its time? Could something like this happen again in modern times
@@BluecoreG We saw something similar happen with Kemono Friends. However, that potential ended up getting wasted super hard.
@@GensouChronicle I know what is in the past is in the past, but man that hits hard to think about that.
The original Kemono Friends anime was so good.
@@BluecoreGif you mean in terms of general Doujin stuff, there has been a lot of them getting very popular like Fate Stay/Night, but i haven't heard of anything recent getting somewhat mainstream.
I guess it kind of makes sense why ZUN is so chill with other people making Touhou derivatives, considering how Sticky his own Fingers were
Yeah. It's a doujin game at the end of the day.
Oh you're sneaky
Arrivederci moment
Ahh, I see what you did.
Fun fact the credit theme name "crimson belvedere" its translate in Italian as crimson "beautiful view". Just a cute detail that i saw❤️
That's nice
So, basically the Windows era of Touhou started out as a massive joke. ZUN truly is a funny man.
Anyways, glad ZUN found what to turn and base Touhou on and the now existing beloved characters. Though, I am curious what would’ve happened to the series if he just stuck with throwing in random references of what he liked. Touhou probably wouldn’t feel the same.
I mean Araki was just using his favorite albums for names and Kojima is releasing albums disguised as a 60 buck game
Makes sense Touhou 6 would have a few remnants of the PC-98 era's DNA. In the grand scheme of the project's history, EoSD feels a lot like a transition period both in gameplay (no unique gimmick) and storytelling (simple and mostly self-contained).
For Touhou 7, ZUN actually appears to have referenced Kichikuou Rance's "Redeye" character, a character who focuses around a red, mind controlling eyeball.
Satori
@@davidmapping4041but Satori appeared in the eleventh Touhou game, Chireiden.
@@user-jz4hz8rk6m the design of her third eye is a copy of red eye
There aren't many video contributors in Japan who explain and introduce Touhou in such depth, so I'm very happy that you, who are overseas, continue to produce such high-quality Touhou videos. I always enjoy it！
RUclipsで東方についてこれほどまでに深く解説、紹介をしている人は日本にもそうはいないので、こういうハイクオリティーな東方動画を見続けられるのはとてもうれしいです。いつも楽しませてもらってます！
Thanks!
それな！
All i know is the detached sleeve trend was started by reimu and nobody can convince me otherwise
Bro, you only have 18 videos, and they are very informative and absolute bangers. Heck, if you uploaded more consistently, you'd be the Ohara of Touhou videos. You are possibly the biggest Touhou RUclipsr doing this sort of thing, I hope that many people can be introduced to you and Touhou through you.
I'd love to upload more. Unfortunately, I work full time and have a ton of other responsibilities. Maybe one day I'll be able to upload more often.
@GensouChronicle Ah, yeah makes sense. I do hope you are successful on your channel, you seem very passionate and knowledgeable about what you do and not many people expand the Touhou niche. Have a nice day 😎.
So you're saying... EoSD was just a big shitpost on ZUN's part... "contrarian for the lulz..." that's amazing.
Edit: ZUN really went all out on the inspirations with Remi, and Flan with Agatha Christie. Makes me realize how... doujin EoSD was! It really shines a new light on how I'll look at it...
a quick mention, for Sakuya there is also Muse from Seihou project, who predates here by 5 years. but they are merely seen as lookalikes rather than inspirations.
Another Jojo reference I noticed (which might be a bit of a stretch) is Meiling's name probably being a reference to Reimi Sugimoto from Part 4, since their kanji/hanzi are identical, just swapped places (美鈴)
I have more stretch.
Touhou is reference to Josuke surname
9:37 - ZUN also claims in the extra material she's lying. The funny thing is, given her age, she could pass herself off as a direct descendant, as Țepeș died 526 years before EoSD's release.
But yeah, EoSD is basically a PC98 game in disguise. The nonsensical dialogue, lack of certain features present in PCB (no focus hitbox and no boss marker, though unlike PC98 focus does change your shot... by squishing it, rather than changing it more drastically), the patterns are less structured and a bit more about RNG, especially with the rank still being a mechanic (hahaha books go brrr).
Even without comparing to PC98, there's a lot of things it's missing: no real gimmick (4 and 5 have the dream gauge, 3 is a phantasmagoria, 2's gimmick is being turbo janky and 1 is an Arkanoid instead of a shmup), the backstories in the extra material are pretty short even for the Scarlet sisters (possibly because in PC98 he spent those sections instead on tips on how to beat the bosses) and the Great Hakurei Barrier doesn't even exist yet. When ZUN said PCB set boundaries, he was being very serious.
If Zun taked, i will too.
Thanks ZUN.
🏃
I read that as "if zun gets naked, i will too" until i looked again
@@helllss9571 LOL.
The eosd credit theme is so nostalgic to me, remembering the emotion, when I had beaten my first touhou game.
This video is sorely missing 1 important component of EoSD and that's Rin Fujiki's novel "Shanghai Genya Nanairo no Mangekyou-shu" (Fantastic Nights in Shanghai: Seven-Colored Kaleidoscope Edition). It's a side story/prequel of the more well known Suzaku Juugo series, books about a titular blind Japanese detective around the late 1800s/early 1900s. Dolls in Pseudo Paradise (also heavily inspired by the vibes of Shanghai Genya) was released together with EoSD back in 2002. Anyway, Meiling's theme comments reference that book (calling Shanghai a "magic city") and DiPP goes further into partially quoting it: opium smoke and whatnot. The non-album version of the DiPP cover image (with the blonde murderer) mentions everything changing "like a kaleidoscope" in English.
The book itself is a series of melancholy vignettes about Shanghai during the era of the French Concession (Meiji 17, 1884, falls squarely into it), a time and place where Eastern and Western culture clashed. Freak shows, clowns, youkai, magic...all of it features in the book. ZUN explains his doujin circle's name's origin as coming from that aesthetic. Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 itself was originally composed for DiPP and was actually rearranged for EoSD, per a comment by ZUN. I strongly believe the theme itself was named after and intended to belong to the murderer - a French (or French-Chinese?) girl from Shanghai who fell into a hole in a peach tree into Gensokyo (like falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland). A literal Shanghai Alice. The opium party speaks for itself.
Of course there's lots of other refs to that book (and other Suzaku Juugo books) in PCB and IN. Like Chen and Ran's name, Alice's whole color deal, Shanghai and Hourai dolls, etc. EoSD was really aesthetically inspired by mystery novels, which ZUN was an avid reader of at the time. The "sealed room" (formerly secret room) in Patchouli's theme nods at "sealed room" mysteries, a genre which Christie popularized with "And Then There Were None". I'm very surpised you didn't mention the book's offensive original title, a reference to a nursery rhyme about the deaths of 10 people. Flandre jokes about it (using "Indians") and DiPP's title has to be a deliberate homage to the plot of "And Then There Were None", which features 10 figurines (dolls) of "Indians" at a table disappearing in accordance with the deaths of 10 people. "Everything Becomes 'F: The Perfect Insider'" was another big inspiration. There's a mansion surrounded by water, a killer on the loose, a rogue computer system called Red Magic (which is written on Sakuya's clothes in EoSD and is one of Remilia's spell cards). There's way too much to fit in a comment. Oh and DIO's mansion seeming bigger and more meandering than it is (thanks to the power of Kenny G's stand) appears to be referenced by Patchouli telling Reimu (who asked why the mansion looks bigger inside than from the outside) that "there's someone who likes to play with space [here]". Sakuya's card, "Clock Corpse", may also be an extremely on-the-nose reference to the way Kakyoin died.
Not gonna knock you on that though. I know how hard it is to research these things. Still, great video. All art is derivative. That is the spirit of doujin - the spirit of indie too. People can (and have) made videos/posts like this for Undertale and even Araki's own works, which frequently blur the line between copying and referencing. I think it's completely fine and more common than anyone realizes. As long as you're in a different lane (genre, medium, purpose, etc.), aren't punching down and change it up a bit then no harm is done.
Thanks for the info
Thanks for the info, it's appreciated. One thing I've noticed they are also based on a bit is the Castlevania series, with most of them being subtly related with some of the more obscure or less popular characters for the western world.
New fan favorite yapping session just dropped 🗣️‼️‼️
New gensou chronical video
What's interesting is that in the early interviews
ZUN said without hesitation: Touhou itself is a kind of secondary creation
1:45 POLSKAAA BIAŁO CZERWONI! TAK, MY POLACY AKCEPTUJEMY NASZĄ RODACZKE RUMIĘ, CHWAŁA POLSCE!!! RUMIA, BÓG, HONOR, OJCZYZNA!
3:14 About half of Pixiv would disagree with that statement
Half of the internet as a whole, in fact
Touhou itself doesn’t have stuff like sexual assault or gore though it’s one of the many reasons why I love it so much.
@Ayahuasca98 insanely low standard like only that?
@@forgetfullsanity one has to lower their standards to hell
Itikai, the artist for the game Bombergirl has an old Pixiv account filled with dark, edgy, gore-filled Touhou doujin
The level of detail in the research is commendable. Goes far beyond anything I could manage to find on my own.
Also, I just love the very nature of it. Geniuses, great creators and artists are also human, like us, less than stellar ones. The fact that there's so much referencing behind what comes at first glance says a lot about ZUN and his passions, and that, in that regard, he is very much like the rest of us.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The Sakuyahime bit is probably inspired by her article in Akyuu's own Genso Chronicle, where one of the theories she made was that she was a former lunarian (as far as we know the moon houses the Eight Million Gods).
I've seen all these random facts being thrown out here and there over the years. ZUN's inspirations also have been coming to the general conciousness lately. His manga inspirations for example are what ties everything together for example. That being said tho.
This is the first time I see someone tieing everything together. That's amazing.
I'd love you to continue this kind of videos. Please don't leave it at EoSD.
I know it may be overwhelming so please take your time and if you need a break please do so. Just don't stop making these please.
HE HAS FINALLY BLESSED US WITH ANOTHER VID
It would be interesting if you also talked about Reimu's Windows era outfit, where is ZUN get inspiration from and why she wears detached sleeves
Theory: Rumia is the antichrist and her ribbon is preventing her from using her full power, thus making her an opening boss over a final boss.
Thank you for this video
It actually really cheered me up
ZUN has really good taste in media, I guess it’s no wonder Touhou turned out so well.
Thanks for the video, I learned a lot.
A great video like always
I appreciate that
How interesting. I did not know about most of these references. Thanks for the video, Gensou Chronicles!
Been waiting for someone to make a video like this, but I guess it would have to be you -- who else after all?
The end segment and hearing the credits song unintentionally made me remember just how important EoSD, was to me becoming a Touhou fan. I honestly have to agree that the end credit in EoSD has to be some of the best. It's been a weird, yet wild ride in this fandom for the... Soon two years I've been in it, and it has honestly changed my life, be it as silly as that is.
Connecting with others via something you both like is truly a powerful thing, and something that pulled me towards a better life over all.
Glad to see you back dude, this video was fire. Hope to see more stuff soon, but don’t get burned out!
Awesome vid! I feel like a lot of this information is the sort stuff I thought I knew after offhandedly hearing about it at some point (and many others are likely aware of on a cursory level), but probably couldn't really explain if someone asked. it's nice to have it compiled together with some research to back it up. Looking forward to later installments =)
Well you said you might talk about this one day in a previous video and you did. As always good stuff. Can't wait for more.
It’s sure to be a pleasant evening when GensouChronicle uploads a new video
🙏
Thank you so much for this video. I've learned a lot.
Glad it was helpful!
This is such an amazing deep dive. I am always a fan to learn more about Touhou...
Thanks!
I absolutely loved this video. It was so interesting to kind of get a glimpse into the mind of ZUN and what ingredients he put into the pot of touhou. Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it!
Y'know its a good day when GensouChronicle uploads
The whole vampire thing in EoSD could also just be inspired by general vampire stuff since Otaku culture in Japan had a bit of an obsession with vampires during that time. Vampire stuff was a bit of a fad during the early 2000s, similar to the Moe Blob era in the late 2000s & the current Isekai era that's been going on since the early 2010s up until today.
Yeah. A lot of the similarities could have been just trends within that period.
I was never big into anime or anything growing up, but still recognized Touhou everywhere. I’m not into anime but those character’s continue to stick with me. So it’s interesting to find a video talking about their origins and everything.
Good thing Touhou isn't anime.
@@GensouChronicle I didn’t know the difference back then, we used to call anything like that anime. I mean all I knew about it back then was pictures and music.
Be for real, you just put that last part in as an excuse to use Crimson Belvedere at the end, didn’t you?
Yes, but the information is interesting, I think. lol
Epic Video Dude! Genuinely one of the best videos about all the references in Touhou
Thanks! But this is only scratching the surface. There's so many more games to cover.
True I’m excited to see more from you!
I hope you make more videos detail the origins and inspiration of the cast.
I love these kinds of characters designs, because it's tied to concepts through motifs.
Might be a little bit before the next one, but I plan on it.
Awesome video. Really appreciate the linguistic analysis!
Glad you enjoyed that bit.
Finally a video on this topic in general.🥰😅👍🏻
Nice Touhou vid!
Would love to see more character inspiration videos.
Will do!
Great video as always!
Glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks for the manga recommendations, though you could put them in the description next to the characters they inspired.
0:00 Intro - sarai
0:37 Rumia - sarai + bible
2:39 Cirno - sarai
4:56 Meiling - sarai + lmao@china
5:34 Patchouli - sarai
6:47 Sakuya - sarai + jojo
8:12 Remilia - sarai
10:19 Flandre - sarai
11:53 Phantasm StageSarai - sarai
Great video, there were a lot of stuff here i didn't know.
This is one of the most goated videos I've seen in a while. I will check out your channel. I had no ideq Zun played Alicesoft games 💀.
Thanks. And yeah, ZUN is a funny guy.
I hope we get to see more character-inspiration videos in the future.
izumi takemoto's art is so cute! thank you for introducing me to it through this video
Glad you liked it. You'll see more of it if I get around to the pc98 video.
Holy shit, this is an amazing video. Such thorough research. I love learning about Touhou.
It's kind of crazy how much went into these games lol.
Excellent video
By the way is Mima based on Satan from puyo puyo? Also Marisa and witch from puyo puyo, both have star based magic with actual scientific names
About Mima, not only her design is similar but I've also noted that Mima's bomb in Th05 is very similar to one of Satan's spells (Satan cross)
wait that credit song name...
LIMBUS HONGLU CANTO CROSSOVER CONFIRMED!
Brainrot
Banger vid as always.
Thanks!
Manga, video games, novels, classical music...damn, ZUN is a really well read guy. There's just so much culture crammed into Touhou.
This has always been the most fascinating cast of characters and it's probably due to how much they both wear inspiration on their sleeves and how contrarian they are.
The more modern touhou characters have some actual cohesion in them, which is nice especially in terms of how they flesh out the story much more than old characters.
They lack that mystery though. How the heck did the SDM cast come together? What is everyone's deal? Questions like that are so much easier to answer for the newer squads. The clarity is nice, but I miss that vague-ness.
That's the good point. I never thought of it like that.
Indeed. This is the (partly) stated reason for the PC98pocalypse.
new gensouchronicle video. week saved.
HOLY FINALLY...someone said Vlad Tepes the right way, congrats :)
As someone from Romania.....I'm kinda miffed that Castlevania popularized the flat T pronunciation.
Thanks. I try to make it a point to learn to say anything I pronounce here correctly. This went as far as me attempting to learn a bit of Chinese, but pronouncing that still gives me trouble.
if reimu, then only hakurei🔥
this is a banger
Great artists truly do steal, I'm going to make a game called Northern and all the characters will be bootlegs of touhou characters.
ZUN already stole his own series and called it Seihou.
@@GensouChronicle that's why we need Northern, and Southern, we need to fill out the other two cardinal directions since Zun hasn't.
@@foxtopuscreations6046 truuuuue
Well, looks like I'm gonna be the one making Southern. Good ol' American violence it is.
I'm surprised there is no Wild West version of Touhou, even if there's one I don't know its name
Your videos are the best. Rare but well made
Hopefully they'll be less rare in the future lol.
@@GensouChronicle If they keep the same quality then I'll be very happy. The best thing I like about Touhou is that they have so many references to other media, mythology, puns with words etc. But you need to know japanese to understand it and very few overseas fans know it, let alone make videos about it. So your video is the best. I would love if this series would be in order from 1 to 19 just to see the progress of ZUN works. Touhou is such a deep layered series. Another thing that I'd love to see is a deep dive in the lore of the incidents and in general of the works. So a deep explanation of all the games, books and mangas. It would be a fun series to do
Where is the original article at 0:12 from? I'd love to know, it's important to me. Thanks.
It's an image someone made. There's no source written on it. You could probably do some googling and find it.
AWESOME video
mate you fucking nailed it. fantastic video.
Thanks. Hopefully I get to Touhou 7 in a reasonable amount of time.
Banger video ❤
🙏 Thanks!
New peak just dropped
EoSD has a lot of references. It's a really fun game to play through too. Excellent video it will be interesting to see all the pc98 ones and all the media references thrown into those games.
I'm not looking forward to compiling all that lol
Now we know why ZUN used to say that what he was doing was"no different from fan work"
Touhou IS a dojin series at the end of the day
Well. Watching this as a Touhou fan artist does really give me a weird feeling. "He's just like me for real" that's all I can say about this.
Every time I draw, make music, animate or whatsoever, I will always remind myself of how ZUN created a world that all of us came to adore.
It's koubu!
@@GensouChronicle I know that I don't possess even half of ZUN's dedication, let alone being paid for what I do. But none of that will ever stop me from doing what I must.
Nice vídeo 🥰
This is knowledge I needed
Wake up new GensouChronicle banger
What was ZUN playing back in the day lmao
Shin Megami Tensei and eroge
I would also add to Sakuya final format Yumeko itself who had her bases on Hanoun from SMT. We all know ZUN had at least two maids before her, but we can't deny she was some kind of proto-Sakuya, which, allied to the reference shown in this video format and confirms the actual Sakuya we have from EoSD and beyond
Both have blades as their main weapon (swords for Yumeko, knifes for Sakuya), both have some kind of movement that make them untangible (Yumeko goes invisible, Sakuya stops time), both serves a "red devil" (Shinki/Remilia) and so on
Sakura stole Dio's time stop I'm going to implode out of anger
She stole it and make it better by having no limitation
Damn ZUN was into Peak back then!
If I remember correctly, Sakuya's spell cards also heavily reference Japanese mystery novels, and one of them I think was very similar to And Then There Were None.
This is the first time I've heard of PC98 being so heavily inspired. They're rather unpopular so consider me excited for that video
It would be cool to see a video about your experience as a Touhou game developer
Great work on the video, I was planning on doing a video about the same topic but I guess you beat me to it. I am very interested in what you dig up on the PC-98 characters. I cover PC-98 Touhou a lot in my channel but I always look more into how they fit into Touhou canon. It will be nice hearing about the pieces of media that inspired their creation.
I'm definitely not gonna be jumping right into the PC98 one just yet lol. This video was tiring. I'm honestly leaning towards finishing out the Early Windows Trilogy first.
I love this franchise ❤️
RANCE MENTIONED
who?
@@poipoimaster142the GOAT
@@poipoimaster142 Some shitty character from a shitty eroge series
I'm not even surprised at this point. It's like, every famous Japanese indie game developer or story writer has some or a lot of influence from Alice Soft games, specially Rance.
It's just that good.
@@EinSilverRoseRance X considered the biggest VN game
That's why it's still has no translation
very cool
7:08 Nudge looks like she was drawn by the detective conan mangaka to me, maybe its just the glasses lol
Nicely researched.
Interesting note about Meiling: Her surname, Hong, was also the name of a group of merchants in Canton that had the exclusive right to trade with Europeans.
Moonbitch sighted at 5:54
Very good explanation on how intricate and goofy the Touhou worldbuilding is. Not sure if Town of Rumia is the real namesake for the character or is that just a coincidence, I gotta go and visit it next time I'm over there.
Flandre's theme song and that one spellcard reference a book, but that name you said clearly is not the real name of it, Google "And then there were none" to learn more 😉
I can assure you that Rumia is more than likely not based on the town lol. It's more of a joke within the community.
And yeah, the demonetization name.
9:50 - OK, this comment from Zun is fascinating to me. "Nobody's dead and who's the princess?" It's the battle theme for an aristocratic little girl vampire, I always assumed she was the "dead princess" of the title. You named the song and created the character, man, how did you not pick up on that!?
2:09 truly zun moments
8:45 that was Zeppeli and Dio talking about bread, don't do the mentor character dirty, man.
Damn. I guess I need to reread Jojo.