On January 27 2012 13:14 tyr wrote: I like how this thread is 95% about music when there is no new touhou game release around. :D
Okay. So what is Touhou? The gameplay is cool and if you're not into bullet hells it also gets boring after a while. The art is terrible but fans draw awesome pictures which is why the characters are likable. Let's not talk about the plot. Only the music is then left and I believe ZUN got that right. Of course people remix this too as people draw fanmade pictures and mangas but this is actually good in it's original form as well. My conclusion: Touhou = music.
personally I think what makes Touhou so great is how it provides a very, very basic general plot and setting for the story. At the same time, ZUN puts no restrictions on how far fans can take the characters, which is very unusual, especially for a copyright maze like Japan. So for the wide variety of interpretation that one can take on every single character and every detail, produces an almost infinite maze of variation. This is why things like the relatively simple Apparitions Stalk the Night can be morphed into virtually anything, and why its not just one man deciding how the series goes, but rather the entire fandom influences the man. Take Cirno for example. People thought she was stupid because of Icicle Fall, Easy. ZUN designates her as a 9. Shit hits the fan.
Haha yeah, he does indeed put a lot of thought into what he does. I think a problem with lacking quality in for example art is because he's a jack of all trades.
On January 27 2012 13:14 tyr wrote: I like how this thread is 95% about music when there is no new touhou game release around. :D
Okay. So what is Touhou? The gameplay is cool and if you're not into bullet hells it also gets boring after a while. The art is terrible but fans draw awesome pictures which is why the characters are likable. Let's not talk about the plot. Only the music is then left and I believe ZUN got that right. Of course people remix this too as people draw fanmade pictures and mangas but this is actually good in it's original form as well. My conclusion: Touhou = music.
personally I think what makes Touhou so great is how it provides a very, very basic general plot and setting for the story. At the same time, ZUN puts no restrictions on how far fans can take the characters, which is very unusual, especially for a copyright maze like Japan. So for the wide variety of interpretation that one can take on every single character and every detail, produces an almost infinite maze of variation. This is why things like the relatively simple Apparitions Stalk the Night can be morphed into virtually anything, and why its not just one man deciding how the series goes, but rather the entire fandom influences the man. Take Cirno for example. People thought she was stupid because of Icicle Fall, Easy. ZUN designates her as a 9. Shit hits the fan.
Haha yeah, he does indeed put a lot of thought into what he does. I think a problem with lacking quality in for example art is because he's a jack of all trades.
Reupload to imgur or something, it's annoying to copy paste all the links :p Anyways yeah he has gotten better, the zombification aside. However I believe this is also part of his minimalistic ideas. Like, why should he practice drawing when people will draw awesome fanart the instant the game is released anyway? If he wanted to, and practiced every day, I'm sure the artwork is his games would be incredible by now.
Of course ZUN has also sperged out on his setting a few times. Like inPerfect Memento in Strict Sense. Also his upcoming book Symposium of Post-Mysticism. I enjoy the minimalist charm that the games present, but I also love that he also has a bunch of stuff fleshed out in the background that makes the setting feel big and gives some internal consistency. Like how in PCB Reimu makes a small comment about how she's worried about seeing so many fireflies in Gensokyo hinting that a reason they're showing up is because they might be dying out in the real world. It's subtle, but it shows Gensokyo's nature that things the real world forgets or transforms into myths and fantasy often end up in Gensokyo.
I'm a huge geek about world settings though. Which is probably why I read every damn book in an Elder Scrolls game or enjoy the convoluted "Nasuverse" setting. I think I read all of Perfect Memento in Strict Sense in 2 days.
On January 28 2012 02:22 Arolis wrote: Of course ZUN has also sperged out on his setting a few times. Like inPerfect Memento in Strict Sense. Also his upcoming book Symposium of Post-Mysticism. I enjoy the minimalist charm that the games present, but I also love that he also has a bunch of stuff fleshed out in the background that makes the setting feel big and gives some internal consistency. Like how in PCB Reimu makes a small comment about how she's worried about seeing so many fireflies in Gensokyo hinting that a reason they're showing up is because they might be dying out in the real world. It's subtle, but it shows Gensokyo's nature that things the real world forgets or transforms into myths and fantasy often end up in Gensokyo.
I'm a huge geek about world settings though. Which is probably why I read every damn book in an Elder Scrolls game or enjoy the convoluted "Nasuverse" setting. I think I read all of Perfect Memento in Strict Sense in 2 days.
I feel like that his most recent book though is more just to flesh out the religious dispute going on here. Because Taoism wasn't really featured in Japanese history, the dispute between Taoists and Buddhists that went on in Chinese history tends to be unknown by Japanese people. Similarly, Shinto was never really fleshed out as a concept until the rise of the Meiji-era, as it was mostly integrated with Buddhism in Japanese history until the 19th century. So to differentiate the Shinto (Moriya) vs. Buddhist (Myouren) vs. Taoist (i dunno, Shoutoku?) is probably something he wants to do to flesh out the concepts a bit better. I mean all we know is that Moriya is up to no good as usual and the Buddhists and Taoists hate each other.
I think it's too difficult to say that touhou is only one thing or another
There are just too many facets to it that almost anyone can find something within the touhou fandom that they like. All it takes is one person creating fan-made content that you like for you to be hooked I liked the comics long before I really got into music remixes.
Also I think you guys are only just scratching the surface about Zun's plots and settings. The games obviously provide a fairly basic and generic plot, but that's due to the limitation of what a gaming experience can bring. I believe he puts in a lot more effort than what it seems. Even just starting with the games, if one takes a bit of time to read the documentation, you'll learn just how much is going on behind the mind of Zun. The biggest example, I think, is the music, but most people don't even know that music documentation exists. Then there's, as Arolis mentioned, the other works that continually flesh out his characters even more.
Caller, if one could just "learn moonspeak", there wouldn't be any need for scanlators
Whyyy....... That song was actually quite catchy even if there lyrics were strange. This "song" ruined just about everything possible while maintaining some kind of melody and if it wasn't for the picture and video title I'd have no clue. Can't unsee >_<
I spend way too much time thinking up appropriate captions for the images I share. This says a lot about the amount of real-life responsibility I have.
This is kinda cool. Zun can actually draw. I also spent like 3 minutes staring at Zun's monitor trying to figure out language he was programming in.
Oh yea, you'll have to use your foreign language parsing skills for the rest of the documentary.
And btw, has anyone here played Katawa Shoujo. I know it's not touhou, but it sort of has some sort of relation, being oddly doujin in its creation. Would shamelessly reccomend.