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.
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~ >*.*
@@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.
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.
For Touhou 7, ZUN actually appears to have referenced Kichikuou Rance's "Redeye" character, a character who focuses around a red, mind controlling eyeball.
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.
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...
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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
Touhou itself is a huge "let's make final bosses and BBEGS ordinary characters" theme going on. Put a random 1st boss in any other setting, and she would be God Emperor.
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 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.
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.
makes me want to commend zun even more for limiting the "skinship" after so many years. a franchise born in part from nsfw, breeding (fanmade) nsfw and afaik the lewdest we’ve had is what, a very devoted grape lady? some average breast size increase in recent zun styles? a few vague implications like alice sleeping at marisa’s place? liked that vodeo. see you next time.
I always read "U.N. Owen Was Her?" as an implication that Flandre, like U.N. Owen, is the culprit of a murder mystery -- i.e. a reference to her destruction powers and general homicidal tendencies.
@@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
I don't even play Touhou but this is fascinating to learn where these designs come from. Really easy to stumble upon Touhou works when you consume Japanese media
There is another argument to be made in favor of Flandre/Marx connection, though I'm not sure it was intended for the release of EoSD. In Touhou 17.5, which is the only other game Flandre appears into AFAIK, she is the only one able to defeat Yuuma. And interestingly enough, Yuuma's power is very similar to Kirby's. The fight is basically Kirby vs Marx but Kirby is the evil one. Just a neat connection I find interesting to bring up
Meiling is my fave(ignore the username and avatar...) I wish there was more for her. Nothing against you, I've seen inspiration threads for touhou before and Meiling never gets anything, so I knew it was slim, but yea. Meiling aside, great work, super informative and I loved the vid. I knew about the maid manga and jojo, but a lotta I didn't know Gonna have to learn to get used to Scarlet chamber ~ eastern dream, 15+ years of muscle memory to fight off
For the bit at 10:35 it's worth noting that "doo" and "dou" are different. It's FuranDOOru and DOUrimugurei. Written and pronounced differently, you can see it in the Kanji in the video at 10:45 ドー (DOO) ドウ (DOU) Similar, yes, but not the same.
They aren't, actually. It's just a different way of writing it. When you elongate an 'o' the second takes on a 'u' sound. This also happens with an elongated 'e' where the second takes on an 'i' sound.
@@GensouChronicle I swear I was explicitly taught to avoid this. This is Japanese after all where if something is written a certain way it is pronounced that way. It's written differently because it is pronounced differently. Making me question my own sanity but it has been a couple years since I dropped learning Japanese so maybe it was revealed to me in a dream, who knows
That would explain why some PC-98 characters haven't shown up again if a lot of them are just straight rips. He's gotten better at it lately with everything being Myth and Legend based now.
Polish people be talking about indeed the naming after the Polish city, (I do not deny) but what about Flandre literally also being called after a region? 🥲🥲 Great video! I learned a lot! Keep going dude
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
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).
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！ TH-cam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！
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 TH-camr doing this sort of thing, I hope that many people can be introduced to you and Touhou through you.
@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 😎.
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.
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)
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
@@ВоваМ-х9з the design of her third eye is a copy of red eye
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.
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...
What's interesting is that in the early interviews
ZUN said without hesitation: Touhou itself is a kind of secondary creation
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.
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.
New gensou chronical video
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).
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
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.
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
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.
How interesting. I did not know about most of these references. Thanks for the video, Gensou Chronicles!
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
Manga, video games, novels, classical music...damn, ZUN is a really well read guy. There's just so much culture crammed into Touhou.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Indeed. This is the (partly) stated reason for the PC98pocalypse.
What was ZUN playing back in the day lmao
Shin Megami Tensei and eroge
Damn ZUN was into Peak back then!
Finally a video on this topic in general.🥰😅👍🏻
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
new gensouchronicle video. week saved.
mate you fucking nailed it. fantastic video.
Thanks. Hopefully I get to Touhou 7 in a reasonable amount of time.
Touhou itself is a huge "let's make final bosses and BBEGS ordinary characters" theme going on. Put a random 1st boss in any other setting, and she would be God Emperor.
if reimu, then only hakurei🔥
The music at 6:38 reminded be the beginning of lagtrain
had seemingly not heard the patchouli theme before
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
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
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.
Glad to see you back dude, this video was fire. Hope to see more stuff soon, but don’t get burned out!
makes me want to commend zun even more for limiting the "skinship" after so many years. a franchise born in part from nsfw, breeding (fanmade) nsfw and afaik the lewdest we’ve had is what, a very devoted grape lady? some average breast size increase in recent zun styles? a few vague implications like alice sleeping at marisa’s place?
liked that vodeo. see you next time.
Thanks!
Thank you so much for this video. I've learned a lot.
Glad it was helpful!
It would be cool to see a video about your experience as a Touhou game developer
Great video, there were a lot of stuff here i didn't know.
Me just just zeroing at the hitbox feeling off, then just realized OG TH6 didn't have those.
I always read "U.N. Owen Was Her?" as an implication that Flandre, like U.N. Owen, is the culprit of a murder mystery -- i.e. a reference to her destruction powers and general homicidal tendencies.
What I'm getting from this video is that EoSD was actually designed by Seija after finding a pile of manga.
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
cool, now I think Crino pretends to be a fairy by putting floating ice crystals on her back pretending to be wings
5:52 THATS! one of the moon queens! Momohime something or other! ZUN!
Banger video ❤
🙏 Thanks!
I don't even play Touhou but this is fascinating to learn where these designs come from. Really easy to stumble upon Touhou works when you consume Japanese media
Yeah, it's pretty much everywhere without you realizing it.
There is another argument to be made in favor of Flandre/Marx connection, though I'm not sure it was intended for the release of EoSD.
In Touhou 17.5, which is the only other game Flandre appears into AFAIK, she is the only one able to defeat Yuuma.
And interestingly enough, Yuuma's power is very similar to Kirby's.
The fight is basically Kirby vs Marx but Kirby is the evil one.
Just a neat connection I find interesting to bring up
That's pretty funny actually
She also appeared in Touhou 9.5 and 16.5
Meiling is my fave(ignore the username and avatar...) I wish there was more for her. Nothing against you, I've seen inspiration threads for touhou before and Meiling never gets anything, so I knew it was slim, but yea. Meiling aside, great work, super informative and I loved the vid. I knew about the maid manga and jojo, but a lotta I didn't know
Gonna have to learn to get used to Scarlet chamber ~ eastern dream, 15+ years of muscle memory to fight off
There's a Japanese novel called 上海幻夜 in which the protagonist in the first chapter may be the prototype of Meiling.I hope that helps.
1:44 POLSKA MENTIONED
AWESOME video
For the bit at 10:35 it's worth noting that "doo" and "dou" are different. It's FuranDOOru and DOUrimugurei. Written and pronounced differently, you can see it in the Kanji in the video at 10:45
ドー (DOO) ドウ (DOU)
Similar, yes, but not the same.
They aren't, actually. It's just a different way of writing it. When you elongate an 'o' the second takes on a 'u' sound. This also happens with an elongated 'e' where the second takes on an 'i' sound.
@@GensouChronicle I swear I was explicitly taught to avoid this. This is Japanese after all where if something is written a certain way it is pronounced that way. It's written differently because it is pronounced differently.
Making me question my own sanity but it has been a couple years since I dropped learning Japanese so maybe it was revealed to me in a dream, who knows
Japanese kana only have one pronunciation. I specifically romanized it as 'doo' to show the elongation.
This confirms that ZUN is also a weeb - I mean, it was obvious, but good to have rigorous confirmation
I wish a certain frog TH-camr bothered to pronounce the character names correctly.
You wish him to correctly pronounced the character's name when he still pronounce ZUN as 'zhan'
Nice vídeo 🥰
Love your stuff.
First!
This is knowledge I needed
very cool
Wait, Crimson Boulevard - Eastern Dream has a different name?
Yup! I only learned recently myself.
Please do a Perfect Cherry Blossom version
Oh man this Sarai manga looks great, it's just too bad it seems really hard to access it nowadays
That would explain why some PC-98 characters haven't shown up again if a lot of them are just straight rips. He's gotten better at it lately with everything being Myth and Legend based now.
To be fair, the PC98 era was just a college thing he did for fun. Ripping existing work for that isn't nearly as bad.
babe wake up, new touhou lore vid dropped
More to come.
@@GensouChronicle 🙏 looking forward to it
9:12 I thought is Alucard from Mobile Legends
Polish people be talking about indeed the naming after the Polish city, (I do not deny)
but what about Flandre literally also being called after a region? 🥲🥲
Great video! I learned a lot! Keep going dude
I actually didn't know that namesake, huh...
This guy thinks he's Hieda No Hakyuu!!!! But she just died this year!!!
She took Ibuprofen. She's okay now!
@@GensouChronicle Kosuzu must be rolling around in joy
tbh the only thing ik about thouh is the dojin but i like the lore as i watched 3 vid and its kinda cool
I love my simple Chinese Girl wife.
Rare spotting of properly pronouncing Țepeş
Also Genshin did the same thing, taking inspiration from Touhou.
It did? I've barely played Genshin, so I'd be interested in hearing what it took inspiration from.
I love touhou content!
Yooo I gotta read Sarai 👀
Where do I get that version of eosd that’s shown in the gameplay? Mine doesn’t look like that
No idea. I've had this version for 16 years.
Is it true that these characters was inspired by some other works? Did zun say that?
He admitted it in some of these cases. In the cases he didn't, I made sure to use qualifying language to make it obvious which ones he did.
Anyone know where can i read the "Sarai" manga ? I searched for it on some manga scan website but didn't find it
( ofc i don't wanna go to Japan lol )
second i believe
third
touhou 6 is goofy
How is Rance Pop culture? Its more obscure than Touhou
It used to be pretty well known back in the late 00s. Especially in Japan.
10:53 0_o
What kind of game is that???
Eroge
@@GensouChronicle
I see…
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?
Excellent video
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
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
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.
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).
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！
TH-cam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 TH-camr 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 😎.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
@@StudioRevoct 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
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.