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(Added some Seihou.)
Line 101: Line 101:
[[VIVIT]] • [[Milia]] • [[Mei and Mai]] • [[Gates]] • [[Marie]] • [[Erich]] • [[Vivit (Erich's Daughter)|Vivit]] • [[Marisa Kirisame]] • [[Reimu Hakurei]]
[[VIVIT]] • [[Milia]] • [[Mei and Mai]] • [[Gates]] • [[Marie]] • [[Erich]] • [[Vivit (Erich's Daughter)|Vivit]] • [[Marisa Kirisame]] • [[Reimu Hakurei]]
| style="background:#E8E8E8;" width="30%" | '''<big>[[Kioh Gyoku]]</big>'''<br />
| style="background:#E8E8E8;" width="30%" | '''<big>[[Kioh Gyoku]]</big>'''<br />
[[Yuuka Kazsmi|Yuuka]] &bull; [[Morgan]] &bull; [[Muse (Seihou Character)|Muse]]
[[Yuuka Kazami|Yuuka]] &bull; [[Morgan]] &bull; [[Muse (Seihou Character)|Muse]]
|  width="30%" | '''<big>[[Banshiryuu]]</big>'''<br />
|  width="30%" | '''<big>[[Banshiryuu]]</big>'''<br />
[[VIVIT-r]] &bull; [[Hirano Sakurasaki]] &bull; [[Gyoku]] &bull; [[Yuuta Kirishima]] &bull; [[The Tri Stars]] (Tolia &bull; Ilia &bull; Felia) &bull; [[Lagunas]] &bull; [[Yuitia]] &bull; [[Icarus]] &bull; ([[Unnamed VIVIT look-alikes]]✱)
[[VIVIT-r]] &bull; [[Hirano Sakurasaki]] &bull; [[Gyoku]] &bull; [[Yuuta Kirishima]] &bull; [[The Tri Stars]] (Tolia &bull; Ilia &bull; Felia) &bull; [[Lagunas]] &bull; [[Yuitia]] &bull; [[Icarus]] &bull; ([[Unnamed VIVIT look-alikes]]✱)

Revision as of 21:33, 1 June 2014

Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame reminisce about characters they've encountered, from the Silent Sinner in Blue Prologue.

The Touhou Project features a great number and variety of characters. Over the course of 22 games, literature and even music CDs, the cast has grown to having over 160 characters. Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame are considered the protagonists of the Touhou Project, due to the fact that they are almost always the playable characters in the games. Others usually reappear in later games, as support characters, bosses or with some other role in the story line, even as a simple cameo. However, due to a few differencing points in the series, some of the characters were never mentioned again (like almost all of the PC-98 ones).

List of Characters

Touhou Project

Here is a list of all Touhou Project characters, categorised by their first game or publication appearance (Characters with * after their name do not have an official name). NB, the "generations" (term unofficial) for the games are split according to this image.

Protagonists
Reimu Hakurei

Reimu Hakurei
Along with: Yin-Yang OrbHakurei God

Marisa Kirisame

Marisa Kirisame

PC-98
Highly Responsive to Prayers

SinGyokuYuugenMaganElisSarielMimaKikuriKonngara

the Story of Eastern Wonderland

GenjiiSoEW 1st Stage Midboss✱ • RikaSoEW 2nd Stage Midboss✱ • MeiraSoEW 3rd Stage Midboss✱ • Five Magic Stones✱ • SoEW 4th Stage Midboss

Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream

EllenKotohimeKana AnaberalRikako AsakuraChiyuri KitashirakawaYumemi Okazaki • (SokratesRuukotoMultiMimi-Chan)

Lotus Land Story

LLS 1st Stage Midboss✱ • OrangeKurumiLLS 3rd Stage Midboss✱ • EllyLLS 4th Stage Midboss✱ • YuukaLLS Extra Stage Midboss✱ • MugetsuGengetsu

Mystic Square

MS 1st Stage Midboss✱ • SaraMS 2nd Stage Midboss✱ • LouiseAliceYukiMaiMS 5th Stage Midboss✱ • YumekoShinkiMS Extra Stage Midboss

Windows 1st Generation
the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

RumiaDaiyousei✱ • CirnoHong MeilingKoakuma✱ • Patchouli KnowledgeSakuya IzayoiRemilia ScarletFlandre Scarlet • (Rin Satsuki)

Perfect Cherry Blossom

Letty WhiterockChenAlice MargatroidShanghai DollHourai DollLily WhiteLyrica PrismriverLunasa PrismriverMerlin PrismriverYoumu KonpakuYuyuko SaigyoujiRan YakumoYukari Yakumo • (Layla PrismriverYouki KonpakuSaigyou Ayakashi)

Immaterial and Missing Power

Suika Ibuki

Imperishable Night

Wriggle NightbugMystia LoreleiKeine KamishirasawaTewi InabaReisen Udongein InabaEirin YagokoroKaguya HouraisanFujiwara no Mokou

Phantasmagoria of Flower View

Aya ShameimaruMedicine MelancholyYuuka KazamiKomachi OnozukaEiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu

Windows 2nd Generation
Mountain of Faith

Shizuha AkiMinoriko AkiHina KagiyamaNitori KawashiroMomiji InubashiriSanae KochiyaKanako YasakaSuwako Moriya • (TenmaMishaguji)

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody

Iku NagaeTenshi Hinanawi

Subterranean Animism

KisumeYamame KurodaniParsee MizuhashiYuugi HoshigumaSatori KomeijiRin KaenbyouUtsuho ReiujiKoishi Komeiji

Undefined Fantastic Object

NazrinKogasa TataraIchirin KumoiUnzanMinamitsu MurasaShou ToramaruByakuren HijiriNue Houjuu • (BishamontenMyouren Hijiri)

Touhou Hisoutensoku

Goliath DollGiant Catfish✱ • (HisoutensokuTaisui Xingjun)

Double Spoiler

Hatate Himekaidou

Ten Desires

TD 1st Stage Midboss✱ • Kyouko KasodaniYoshika MiyakoSeiga KakuSoga no TojikoMononobe no FutoToyosatomimi no MikoMamizou Futatsuiwa

Hopeless Masquerade

Hata no Kokoro

Windows 3rd Generation
Double Dealing Character

WakasagihimeSekibankiKagerou ImaizumiBenben TsukumoYatsuhashi TsukumoSeija KijinShinmyoumaru SukunaRaiko Horikawa

Print Works & Music CDs
Touhou Kourindou

Rinnosuke MorichikaTokiko✱ • Marisa's unnamed father

Touhou Sangetsusei

Three Mischievous Fairies (Luna ChildStar SapphireSunny Milk) • Tsuchinoko✱ • Sake Bug✱ • Unnamed bake-danuki

Touhou Bougetsushou

ReisenGateguards of the Lunar Capital✱ • Watatsuki no ToyohimeWatatsuki no YorihimeLord TsukuyomiMizue no UranoshimakoIwakasaKonohana-SakuyahimeIwanagahime

Touhou Ibarakasen

Kasen IbarakiUnnamed dragon✱ •‎ Unnamed dapeng✱ • Unnamed raijuu✱ • Shirou SendaiUnnamed kuda-gitsune✱ • KumeKandaUnnamed okuri-inu✱ • Unshou

Touhou Suzunaan

Kosuzu MotooriKosuzu's Grampa✱ • TupaiEvil Dragon

Fanbooks

Giant Toad✱ • DaitenguDragon

Music CDs

Unnamed girl on Dolls in Pseudo Paradise jacket✱ • Maribel HearnRenko UsamiHieda no Akyuu

Seihou Project & Project Blank

Here is a list of all Seihou Project and Project Blank characters by "Shunsatsu sare do?" and RebRank respectively, categorised by their first game or publication appearance. Note that they aren't Touhou characters, but Seihou did contain guest appearances by ZUN himself, and that Seihou characters aren't part of Project Blank, but do officially contain Seihou characters.

Seihou Project
Shuusou Gyoku

VIVITMiliaMei and MaiGatesMarieErichVivitMarisa KirisameReimu Hakurei

Kioh Gyoku

YuukaMorganMuse

Banshiryuu

VIVIT-rHirano SakurasakiGyokuYuuta KirishimaThe Tri Stars (Tolia • Ilia • Felia) • LagunasYuitiaIcarus • (Unnamed VIVIT look-alikes✱)

Project Blank
Samidare

C22C23SylphidAnaretaSMD-00xYukiMaiGatesVIVIT

RefRain

MiriaTeeMewsCelessIrisVermillionCitrusSeedlessVIOLET

Other

Here is a list of other related character to the all Touhou Project characters by "Shunsatsu sare do?", categorised by their first game or publication appearance. Note that they aren't Touhou characters, but did contain guest appearances by ZUN himself.

Other
Non-Touhou by ZUN

Beerko

Uwabami Breakers

Isami AsamaTatsumi HakkaisanRumi ArieUB 3rd Stage Midboss✱ • Amakasu Barley Tenji

Torte Le Magic

Torte • Chou • Cointreau

General Information

With its focus on bishoujo characters, the Touhou series possesses a large cast compared to other shoot 'em up games, maybe even those of shooting games, and are notoriously female. Most Touhou characters reside in a fictional landlock region called Gensokyo, where humans and youkai both live. The youkai often prey on the humans while the humans try to exorcise them. A character's most common role in a Touhou Project game is being a boss. With this, they'll have titles and a theme song associated with them. Midbosses however tend to not have a theme. Many characters also have unique abilitie, and almost all Windows canon characters have at least one ability named in the fashion of "capable of ~~" (~~程度の能力), showing their strength and power with various capabilities.

Though each game features a collection of different characters, the main character of the games is always Reimu Hakurei, joined by Marisa Kirisame. The only games where this is not the case are Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler; Aya Shameimaru is playable on both, and Hatate Himekaidou can become playable in the latter. The same thing applies in Fairy Wars and Impossible Spell Card, which has Cirno and Seija Kijin as the sole playable character in their respective games.

PC-98 Games

Cover of Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, featuring PC-98 characters that appear in the game.

The major difference in the canon for the series starts from the release of the first game for windows, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. ZUN decided to develop for the Windows platform instead of for the PC-98, which is the point at which he stated. Besides the Returning characters from the PC-98, none of the other characters from the PC-98 canon have reappeared within the Windows canon, although cases such as Mima's appearance on the case of Akyu's Untouched Score vol.4 exist. The returning characters' appearance, personality, and storylines are all significantly different, although some traces and connections seem to remain.

PC-98 characters tend to have a title and music theme, but no ability has being explicitly stated to most characters. They also don't have articles and interviews that appear in the fanbooks, and that they also don't appear in any manga.

Windows Games

Another minor pivotal point exists with the release of Mountain of Faith, marking the "2nd Windows generation". While previous games had independent storylines, the plots of Mountain of Faith up to Ten Desires were connected (e.g. The events of Ten Desires were triggered by the construction of the Myouren Temple, which in turn was triggered by the Palanquin ship being released by the geyser by Utsuho Reiuji's power.) However, Double Dealing Character contains no storyline related to the previous games, so it could mark another minor pivotal point for a possible "3rd Windows generation".

The character appearances trend also resets. For example, Sakuya Izayoi was a stage 5 boss in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil who later became playable in Perfect Cherry Blossom up to Phantasmagoria of Flower View, but has not made an appearance after that in any danmaku Touhou game up until Double Dealing Character.

  • Fighting Games

A consistent cast can be seen in the fighting games. Rather than inventing a new set of characters, only one or two new characters were added with the rest coming from previous games. So far, only four characters had first appeared in a fighting game.

  • Photography Games & Puzzles

In Shoot the Bullet, Double Spoiler and Impossible Spell Card, characters from previous games are used. Shoot the Bullet contains most characters from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil to Phantasmagoria of Flower View, while Double Spoiler adds the cast from Mountain of Faith up to Undefined Fantastic Object. Impossible Spell Card contained s variety of characters, mostly from Ten Desires and Double Dealing Character.

  • Literature

The cast of Touhou characters also grows with the addition of the novels and comics. Only Aya Shameimaru and the Three Fairies Of Light were later featured in a game. Touhou literature seems to be directly connected with the Windows games as events that happen within the literature are transferred over to the Windows games and in vice versa. Perfect Memento in Strict Sense and Symposium of Post-mysticism and Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red have in-universe articles and interviews about individual characters, along with The Grimoire of Marisa having spell cards related to the characters.

Seihou Games

Cover of Kioh Gyoku, featuring Seihou characters that appear in the game.
Note: This section is part of the Seihou Project by the Doujin circle "Shunsatsu sare do?".

Characters of the Seihou Project were created by "Shunsatsu sare do?" and have nothing to do with the Touhou Project, although they also do have their own theme music. The Seihou Project however contained characters from the Touhou Project, named Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame and Yuuka Kazami. Even in Touhou, references to Seihou characters are extremely rare, with one coming from Dolls in Pseudo Paradise.

It appears that each games contains most characters from the previous. Unlike Touhou characters, Seihou characters are designed to be very Western, which is the opposite of Touhou; even their names are western. They also have more frequent male characters that appear in the shoot 'em ups. Since Seihou is set in the future, the characters are also designed to have a futuristic feeling with then, along with having their own aircraft. However, unlike Touhou characters, most character don't have any titles or abilities associated with them and most characters' species are human.

Character Designs

An example of in-game introduction to a character's name (namely Raiko Horikawa): top, title; middle, character's name in Japanese; bottom, the romaji of the name in Japanese naming order.

Names

Generally, almost all names for each character are written in the Japanese script, either in hiragana, katakana or kanji. Names generally start with the surname followed by the first name. When translated to a western language (often unofficially), such as English or French, the naming order is switched, for example "Saigyouji Yuyuko" (西行寺 幽々子) becomes "Yuyuko Saigyouji". The names may not truly be actual names in real life, as they may contain kanji to represent the character overall, for example Yuyuko (幽々子) literally translates to "ghostly child".

ZUN has provided romaji and kana versions for most of the Windows characters; the latter only included if the name's in kanji. On some rare occurrences, he'd include official English translations of the name. There have been instances in error of romaji however, such as those listed here. Some characters only have one name, notibly the PC-98 characters, such as Rika and Shinki. There are even those that have no name, such as Tokiko.

Fans of both of the western and eastern fanbase have given alternative fan-names for the characters based on their characteristics, such as the Five Magic Stones. For western languages, unofficial romaji may be used for convenience; for example, "Byakuren Hiziri" was officially used, but "Byakuren Hijiri" has not being officially used yet. In the Chinese language, conversion from kanji to hanzi depends on the variant of the Chinese language whether it accepts the hanzi/kanji or not. In cases like Yuyuko's name, since the noma () doesn't exist in the Chinese language, it's best to re-use the previous hanzi (e.g. 幽幽子).

Designs

Despite there being many species of youkai, almost all the characters take a humanoid form, and are notoriously female. Their designs are notoriously colourful and are based around their characteristics, culture and appearance in a game or manga. It's also notorious that almost all characters have some kind of head wear, such as ribbons or non-human attributes, and that they tend to have a skirt. However for characters to not have these attributes is somewhat rare, such as Yuuka Kazami not having a hat and Fujiwara no Mokou wearing trousers respectively.

The designs would be based around the species a certain character has, such as Nitori Kawashiro being a kappa and has a backpack to represent a tortoise's shell and Raiko Horikawa having a drum since she's a tsukumogami. This also relates to animal-based characters, such as Chen having cat ears, Ran Yakumo having nigh tails due to being a Kitsune and Mamizou Futatsuiwa having a large tail due to being a bake-danuki.

Some characters however have not even been given an official portrait, such as Layla Prismriver and Youki Konpaku. This leads to fans theorising their appearances.

Male characters

It's seldom to see male characters appear in the Touhou Project as they are either not named (Various humans shown in Hopeless Masquerade), not humanoid (Genjii, Sokrates, Unzan) or do not have official appearances (Youki Konpaku, Marisa's unnamed father, Tenma, Myouren Hijiri). However, the one with the most recurring appearances is Rinnosuke Morichika, who is mocked in the fanbase base on this. Another male character with a name and an official appearance is Unshou. There is also one before all of these, called Shingyoku, but this character has three forms, so this character may not exactly be male.

However, it has been theorised that ZUN might've had trouble designing male characters due to the number of female characters – such as statements like "it would be weird to have an old man as the last boss in Touhou" for Myouren been originally the final boss of Undefined Fantastic Object – but later confirmed that he feels that "boys get in the way of the game" and that "boys would just ruin the balance of the series."[1] He prefers females to fight in the games.

PC-98

Amongst the PC-98, only some characters had a full portrait of themselves from head to feet. The PC-98 had a 16-colour limit, where one obvious feature was that most PC-98 characters had the same eye and hair colour; the only characters who have different eye and hair colour are Elis, Konngara and SinGyoku's "male" form. Also, ZUN has stated that he won't go back to doing 16-colour graphics.[2]

Drawings
Some characters that don't appear in Symposium of Post-mysticism (with ZUN) by TOKIAME.

ZUN takes on most of the drawings for the characters that appear in the Touhou games. His distinctive ways of drawing is different compared to other artists. However, ZUN had alphes to draw the character in the fighting spin-off games when collaborating with Twilight Frontier. ZUN had various artists to draw the manga, such as Aki★Eda for Silent Sinner in Blue manga. Makoto Hirasaka drew the Touhou Sangetsusei mangas, but also drew the characters for Fairy Wars since the game is based on the manga.

Reception & Fandom

While they aren't developed nearly to the standards of a story-based game, characters for the Touhou Project is one of the major reason the series has got increasingly popular. Many fans love them, and even obscure stage bosses who only appear once have a fanbase. One example is Hong Meiling, who is the stage 3 boss of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and won a popularity contest in Japan out of all Touhou characters.[3] Various image dumping sites such as Pixiv and deviantArt have a vast number of illustrations of the Touhou, and Seihou, characters, being common places for Internet users to seek such illustrations.

Despite the Touhou Project being a doujin game, a prodigious amount of derivative works that have Touhou characters have been created since the release of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. These include doujinshi, anime and fangames. These doujin activities are mostly responsible for adding original attributes to characters that ZUN may've not intended.

Yukkuri

The Yukkuri shiteitte ne! is a very common meme amongst the fanbase. They're involving giant, disfigured heads resembling those of Touhou characters. It originated on 2ch on October 13, 2007, when an anonymous user tried to make Shift JIS art of Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame and failed horribly. Another anonymous user thought the failed attempt was humorous and drew the infamous original picture.

PC-98 & Seihou

Since the PC-98 games and the Seihou Project are relatively obscure and have canon differences, the characters in and after Embodiment of Scarlet Devil are more widely recognised and popular amongst the fanbase. PC-98 characters are however shown with Windows-based character as though the two canon are merged as one. Seihou characters are also shown with Touhou characters at times.

Fan-made

There are hundreds of Touhou OCs (Original Characters) scattered around the Internet, mostly often ignored. Some fan-made characters have become memes in Japanese (and in the case of Meimu, Chinese) Touhou fandom. They're popular enough to be drawn by multiple artists and have them with official Touhou characters.

See Also

External Links

(note that they use fanart for pictures of characters who didn't appear in Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody or Touhou Hisoutensoku.)

References

  1. ZUN's AWA Q&A Panel
  2. Akyu's Untouched Score vol.3: Comments
  3. "Touhou Saimoe 2 official website and contest results" (in Japanese). Livedoor. Retrieved 2007-01-11.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)