/ please wait warmly, this shrine is a work in progress :P /

What is this place?

Welcome to the Hakurei Shrine---a shinto shrine resting on the inside of the border between common sense and fantasy. This page is a shrine dedicated to the Touhou Project series, and it will contain a basic overview, links to fun stuff, and sections dedicated to our favorite characters. Kick your feet up and enjoy the ride, it'll be a doozy.

So what *is* Touhou, anyway?

Touhou seems to be something that confuses a lot of people. Is it a game? An anime or a manga? Simply put: The original source material of Touhou mainly consists of Shmup / Bullet hell games. Though, there are other official works, such as mangas and books. But all of those extra works build off of what is established in the Shmup games.

The cover of The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and a screenshot of someone fighting the extra boss.
Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, an official anthology-like book.

These games are very light on dialogue due to being designed for replay value, as well as not being in a very popular genre, which creates a massive avenue for...

..!?

Fanworks. The creator of Touhou, ZUN, is incredibly lenient with his IP. You are allowed to make games, anime, manga, merchandise, whatever, of Touhou, as long as you don't rip assets from ZUN's games. There are lots of fangames that are sold and created by large companies wanting a slice of the Touhou pie. There are a few fanmade Touhou animes, some are great and others are not. Either way, it's a testament to how dedicated this fanbase is---we don't know any other fanbases that have fanmade, fully voiced animes...

Time for the overview!

Touhou Project takes place in a closed-dome called Gensokyo. It's inside of a dome-shaped barrier which is not awfully large. This is the Great Hakurei Barrier, which was created to ensure the delicate balance between humans and youkai stays put. With the modernization of society, folklore and myths become forgotten---Gensokyo is where these forgotten things end up. All kinds of youkai inhabit Gensokyo, but it's not too violent of a place, as its inhabitants (usually) follow the Spellcard Rules. These rules are why 'danmaku', the bullets the player character dodges, are used in battle. Whoever loses in the Spellcard duel obeys the winner. The shrine maiden, Reimu Hakurei, is the main human responsible for keeping Gensokyo's balance. Naughty youkai cause 'incidents', disturbances to this balance, and she 'exterminates' them in return. A helpful graphic on the cycle of Gensokyo from the fangame Human Spirit Agency ~ a Salvgeable Tragedy . The cast is colorful and vast, with almost 200 characters across the series at this point.