2hu is old and popular, and have birthed many creatives. At this point, there's bound to be many things it has influenced and changed in the otaku and adjacent landscape, for better or worse. Which trends and changes do you think Touhou have made in media? What things have Touhou influenced? What crackpot theories do you have?Touhou doesn't have to have been the first one to do it, just that you think or sure that Touhou's the one that popularized it in a certain way.You can point out more explicit, direct examples, like karaoke machines and every Japanese Rhythm game in existence having Touhou music, although I think they don't really count as separate "trends" unless it's taken a life of its own. You can also point out more singular examples like pic related if you want.
Stuff that I can think of right now:Inarguable:- Shmups, now with more girls- The rise of NND- Meteoric rise of Doujin culture- Shitpost MADs- Black MIDI- Yukkuri- CookieVery likely:- "500 year old vampire loli" characters- Certain character designs, including detached sleeves (especially shrine maidens with detached sleeves), literally just Youmu, literally just Sakuya, literally just Reisen etc. (You) can feel free to add more examples.- Puzzle-like bullet hells- Large female-only ensemble castMaybe:- Lolibaba in general- Black Magicians in otaku media with very similar aesthetic to Marisa (this one's more arguable since Marisa's meant to look like a regular magician, but some just look like straight Marisa)- Anime/Manga being less about serious plots and character development and more about just fucking around doing nothing important (a hypothesis seemingly agreed on by Japanese media experts in a Touhou documentary)
Tsukumizu just took Reimu and Marisa and repurposed them into Chito and Yuuri for Girl's Last Tour
>>50973011>Touhou documentaryLink it, please.
>>50973207They're old documentaries made by Mag.Net. I just realized the videos have randomly been taken down by NHK. That would've been a recent takedown, too.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4_zy5ibcuUHere's the taken down youtube link of part 3 of 4. You can find the video in Internet Archive, but it won't have subs anymore since iirc the subs were in CC form.
>>50973011>literally just Youmu, literally just Sakuya, literally just Reisen etcTo be fair, those archetypes have existed and were popular before Touhou was even a thing
>>50973336There's a difference between the "archetype" (bunny girl, french maid, etc) and just looking straight like the character, sometimes with even similar character traits. All three have multiple examples of this I'm pretty sure.Youmu also doesn't really have a archetype to her but there's more than a couple of characters that look a lot like her in design and color scheme
>>50973388I think it's pretty silly to say that for example White haired maid=Sakuya And besides my original point was more about the characters rather than designs, because discussing that is redundant considering that both Sakuya and Reisen have a pretty generic design. And Sakuya in particular, has over the years basically become the maid archetype anyway. So it's not surprising to find others like that.
>>50973417Silver haired, with a blue and white color scheme (as opposed to black and white, a more traditional color scheme), and red (or blue) eyes is so much like Sakuya that I can't even. At this point I might as well just show you Sakuya fanart and you won't believe it's inspired by Sakuya.One thing to always note is how common these characters appear before and after Touhou. Interview with a Vampire existed before Touhou, but the concept of vampire lolibabas weren't exactly roaring in otaku media before the Scarlet Sisters. I only know of Tsukoyumi Moon Phase, and even the anime of that was 2 years after EoSD, and Hazuki is very different in comparison to more Remi and Flan-like modern vampire lolibabas.
>>50973452>Silver haired, with a blue and white color scheme (as opposed to black and white, a more traditional color scheme), and red (or blue) eyes is so much like Sakuya that I can'Which are all common things. And do keep in mind that Sakuya's design itself was copied from a manga (along with some other characters). Point is that if you combine various common design elements you are bound to get (at least some) Touhou characters eventually, it really doesn't have to be a conscious effort. >Hazuki is very different in comparison to more Remi and Flan-like modern vampire lolibabas.I'm not going to argue with you on that, though I probably wouldn't say that is purely because of Touhou.
>>50973572Thinking several characters just happen to look almost exactly like Sakuya is pure coincidence is more schizophrenic worthy than thinking it's regular influence, at this point. Next you're going to tell me Kiso from Kancolle looks like Murasa by pure coincidence because sailor outfits are a common design decision.Is it so hard to believe that a 25 year old character, who introduced many aspiring artists into actually drawing things back in the heyday of Comiket, was influential enough for character design influence?
>>50973626>Thinking several characters just happen to look almost exactly like Sakuya is pure coincidence I'm not saying that Touhou didn't inspire any characters, but in both of the examples you've provided the connection is dubious at best. >Kiso from Kancolle looks like Murasa by pure coincidence because sailor outfits are a common design decision.Never said anything like that, Kiso in particular is a pretty good example of Touhou influence.
>>50973789How is it dubious? Even Nudge, the Sarai character that ZUN literally traced Sakuya's EOSD sprite's skirt from, doesn't look as similar to Sakuya, as Sakuya looks similar to several modern otaku characters, especially including the two examples.Sakuya having "common tropes" (I don't know how common is it to have a white and blue french maid dress but regardless) nowadays doesn't matter much when the "trope" wasn't as widespread as it was before as it is now. Not that french maids were a trope Sakuya popularized, but her specific look.
>>50973025I think that's a stretch when you consider the fact that Reimu and Chito have nothing in common besides hair color
>>50973011>>50973388>>50973452Basically nothing about Sakuya is original. Not even blue maid outfit.(example pictured) White haired characters/maids being Sakuya is laughable. It's like saying Suigintou invented white haired goth girls and wings on goth outfits. >but the concept of vampire lolibabas weren't exactly roaring in otaku media before the Scarlet SistersThey're not exactly roaring now. Lolibabas were certainly popular before. Especially the kind that can turn to adults and back. >Youmu also doesn't really have a archetype to her but there's more than a couple of characters that look a lot like her in design and color schemeThis is true, but the more I see it, the more I think it's just an archetype I didn't notice prior to her. That and she looks hyper generic. >including detached sleeves (especially shrine maidens with detached sleeves)Debatable. Miku/vocaloids also have them and they're not design elements unique to Touhou in any way, also Reimu's sleeves are about the only shrine maiden looking thing about her. It's not that uncommon to have the sleeves kinda hanging off shrine maiden style outfits but attached by long stitches. If there's something that makes it Reimuish, it'd be hair tubes. >- Meteoric rise of Doujin cultureI'd call it a decline of making doujin works about things other than Touhou. >Large female-only ensemble castI'd say Kancolle would be responsible for this. In truth, it was a combination of exploiting the mecha musume and gijinka fandoms, the rising monstergirl fandom(which is more influenced by DQ and other rpgs), popularity of iM@S and competitors, and the formation of strategies to make people spend money on live service mobile games that led to that. >- Shmups, now with more girlsAbsolutely not. STG with humans and cute girls existed before then and one of them even inspired Touhou. Hell the Castle Shikigami series has a shrine maiden and a laser shooting witch among the mcs and came out early enough as well. Interestingly, both Fumiko from Shikigami no Shiro and Cotton from the Cotton STG series resemble Marisa's original color scheme. I wonder if there was some older influence at play.
>>50973966Even more interesting is that Shikigami no Shiro 2 also has a boss named Yukari who sort of resembles Yukari from PCB even though both games released at the same time. This Yukari also uses cards for spells and is the alter ego of a schoolgirl in a different world. https://youtu.be/nkhfa6dXln8?t=1037
>>50973833Nasu ripped off Sakuya, right down to having her serve a magical loli who is really adult aged.
>>50973966The maid outfit there isn't even similar to Sakuya's, even if the main dress has a similar color pattern. And I already said that Sakuya didn't invent french maids, or white hair, or red eyes. She obviously didn't. It's the specific combination of her design. Just like 99% of character designs out there that people copy.>They're not exactly roaring now.There are far, far, more now than before EoSD. Enough that literally even ZUN himself comments about it in SCoOW, how these days characters like Remilia aren't really special anymore as opposed to when he made her.It makes perfect sense as in EoSD, each character introduced is subverting expectations in some form (which he also says in SCoOW).The big final boss being a little girl would be a nice twist back in the days of EoSD. Nowadays it's not even a twist.>Debatable.Even Miku was made 5 years after EoSD. I'm not saying Miku's design is inspired by Reimu, nor that Miku didn't help the trend of detached sleeves take off, but there's no doubt in my mind that Reimu helped the design be popular, especially in Miko outfits.It also doesn't matter much that Reimu's outfit doesn't look like a shrine maiden. The fact that she is a shrine maiden means that people can easily take inspirations from her when making Shrine Maiden designs because she looks iconic.>I'd call it a declineNah. It's nowhere near as well documented as fanmade works, but original content has been for a long time the thing circles at Comiket sells the most. Even in the days of Touhou.If you look at circle numbers back then, people barely made fanmade work besides Touhou, despite attendance not increasing that much even before EoSD. It's all original content. Touhou helped mold the fanwork side of doujin culture by a long shot, and how people talked and approached doujins in general.>KancolleKancolle is basically proto-female only gacha. You'd be right about that part. Every shireikan and shikikan in existence owes their existence to Kancolle... but they have a male MC. We might as well say harem anime popularized big female-only casts.Big sprawling casts of female-only characters really only became a thing after Touhou, in both games and animanga. Touhou didn't invent the concept, things like Claymore exist, but it certainly heavily influenced how people approach the idea of a setting with multiple factions, each with their own schtick, and everyone being a girl for some reason or another.>STG with humans and cute girls existed before thenMost of them pretty much only used cute girls as cover posters, and the entire game was spaceships. There a couple of magical girl-ish shmups, but I wouldn't call them a trend until after Touhou existed. Madoka Magica wasn't the first dark magical girl series. SAO wasn't the first gameworld isekai. Dragon Quest wasn't the first JRPG. Laser swords weren't invented by Star Wars.You'd bet your ass if someone added these factors to whatever they're making, they're probably taking inspiration from those IPs more than niche game.
>>50973004I think there's more direct Patchoulis out there than Fern. She's just a purple-haired mage.
>>50974071>We might as well say harem anime popularized big female-only casts.Probably truer than you think. Touhou was just there, yurifags and moebuta contributed to the reduction of males in anime and the preferences for only girls because they felt threatened by ntr. Touhou could not have existed at all and we'd be at the same point.
>>50973004It did technically contribute to the creation of pop team epic and nichibros
Fun thread.
>>50973899I was thinking more of the curt, aloof, stubborn, and cynical interpretation of Reimu which makes her similar to Chito
>>50974174Harem setting with a male MC with a big female cast vs settings with only a big female cast do have a different feel to them, though, something you can usually easily tell too. Really, it's because those types of settings are literally just harem anime, but with a bigger cast. Casts tend to have different character dynamics when a male MC isn't part of the equation.There is a part of me that agrees that if Touhou didn't exist, perhaps we'd be at the same point in some way or another, but stories with a large female cast before Touhou tended to have a Male MC shoved into it due to the love for self-inserting, even if the male MC didn't do much of anything but just get overshadowed by every character in the show.Touhou I think more or less said to future authors that maybe an all female cast would actually work and people don't need self inserts.
>>50973011>- Certain character designs, including detached sleeves (especially shrine maidens with detached sleeves), literally just Youmu, literally just Sakuya, literally just Reisen etc. (You) can feel free to add more examples.Eri is literally just marisa as far as design is concerned desu
>>50974185If we want to go that path, there's more than a decent amount of people that have done Touhou before they've made it. In music, art, and more authorial stuff.From what I can remember:- Akeboshi Rockets, the band that made the opening tracks for anime like Highschool of the Dead, Gate, Jojo Part 6, and more. One of the few that still make Touhou music to this day.- Kamiya Yuu, author of No Game No Life. Reisen is also his favorite character. Is also the artist that made the loading screen for the Dankagu streams.- Kei Garou, the artist for the original Hatsune Miku.- Yuyoyuppe, sound producer for several Babymetal songs.- Morino Hon, the artist for the Black Bullet manga. Also still makes Touhou stuff to this day.- Marasy, one of, if not, THE pioneer of Youtube anime piano music covers, is now popular enough to have his own concert at the Budokan. - Yoshitaka Ushiki, creator of Yumekui Merry, created the Advent Cirno manga.- Unlucky Morpheus, a big Japanese indie rock band that sells out concerts. Still makes Touhou music to this day.- Shinotsuki Shinobu, the artist for Youjo Senki's Light Novels. - Key members of IOSYS, most notably Miko and ARM, are arguably the most popular individual people on this list in Japanese internet. IOSYS has actually made a decent amount of recent trending vtumor songs.- Takuto Kashiki, creator of Hakumei to Mikochi. Musha Prune was his doujin author name.- Tkmiz, creator of Girl's Last Tour.- Aki Eda (lol), creator of Bonnouji.- Nakatani Nio, creator of Bloom into You.There's far more than that, but that's the list I have right now. Probably half of gacha artists, and probably more than a quarter of just japanese artists in general, that exist today also came from making Touhou art and/or doujins. Shimadoriru created several FGO characters and worked in Spike Chunsoft, the Atelier Dusk trilogy artist, Raita, etc. Some stay more on the background, like TAMusic (worked on several Atelier games) and Demetori (part of Falcom JDK band). Then there are some Seiyuus that didn't really make Touhou stuff, but were just big Touhou fans and was inspired by Touhou, like Fairouz Ai (even has an entire interview of her gushing about Touhou) and Sumipe. Several if not all prominent Seiyuu that has made voice dramas for the circle Earl Gray can probably fit here, which is quite a long list. I also wouldn't be surprised the reason why circles like MAIKAZE (literally one guy that has said he goes broke everytime he releases an episode of Musou Kakyou) and Kyoto Fantasy Troupe (a chinese circle) can afford to have really big Seiyuu for their 2hu fanime is because the seiyuu themselves are Touhou fans. I'm still in shock that HanaKana voices Merry, the main character with a lot of voicelines, for the Hifuu Club anime. Later episodes of those have like an hour long runtime, too.
>>50974373Touhou isn't even series with a large female cast. It's bunch of games of small female casts fans like to imagine as a fully connected universe. Then they cry the manga use the same few characters all the time and used up characters don't appear in future games.
>>50974590so touhou isn't a series with a lot of female characters, it's a series with a lot of female characters. I see...
>>50974460Thanks for the quality post!>>50973626This one really feels like Sakuya inspired holding those "knifes".Also not sure how much Sakuya inspired the whole ninja maid/buttler thing. Sure Sarai had battle maids but I'm not sure what got inspired by Sarai besides Touhou nor how popular it was.>>50974071>I'm not saying Miku's design is inspired by ReimuWell I do think there might be some inspiration. Both Reimu and Miku have detached sleeves + school uniform inspiration on them.So they both feel based in the common trope of girl that is a Miko as a "part time job" after school.>>50973968No way! Wonder if ZUN just picked the name at the last minute or what happened there... Could be a coincidence since Yukari is a pretty normal name in Japan afaik but it feels like too much of a coincidence.
>>50974460So Touhou hasn't managed to influence anything remotely good, got it
I used to be an anime/manga nerd in the past and I must say unless you go to conventions, you can go on for years without contacting anything Touhou-related, it has very little to do with the mainstream media and stuff you mentioned like 500 year old lolis and battle maids is just zun parasitizing on otaku tropes and not the other way around. Touhou designs with its signature bath hats/tabards/bloomers combo are also way too distinct to be any usable elsewhere without people pointing at and shouting "Literally Touhou!">>50974460Imperial Circus Dead Decadence, a popular in the west japanese indie black/melodic/symphonic metal band also has roots in Touhou circle music. Although I don't think it's right to list all these things here as they are not really related to Touhou in any way. Everyone used to be into Pokemon at some point, doesn't mean everything around is influenced by Pokemon.
>>50973968Zun used to be a Taito employee in his early days, no? He could've taken some ideas from talking to this game's team. Or, alternatively, he could've pitched some of his own ideas for them.
>>50975158500 year old lolis wasn't a trope before Touhou, especially not in the way it's depicted nowadays.There's also a difference between being a fan of something and being enough of a fan something to not only actually make stuff for it, but to actively go to create a circle and physically sell your stuff in a convention.I don't know if all of them were inspired by Touhou when creating their original works, but fanwork creation, especially if you do it for years like several people on the list, is definitely life-changing. People trying to write some random fanfic that they'll post in AO3 can take serious time. Let alone the high-effort stuff Touhou fans tend to do.
