A single point I feel left out is that Shinigami claiming human souls is a falsehood Shinigami themselves spread. Hermits are actually targeted by Kishin. Revealed in Wild and Horned Hermit. Also love the video. The music is amazing.
This reminds me of those Star Wars, 40k, or Lotr videos that people make where someone goes very in depth into a certain part of said series’ vast lore while clam music plays overhead. Those videos do such a good job at talking about the fantasy world building in their series and they are pleasant to just listen to, so it’s really amazing that something similar has been made for touhou
Finally, a touhou video based on its lore. Been wanting one that isn't either several years out of date or inaccurate. Touhou lore imo is the coolest part of touhou and i feel like it's sorely under-discussed about. No one likes talking touhou lore and I feel like this is a pretty decent step-off point for people i know who don't know anything about touhou. Is it perfect? No but this video is pretty damn close to perfect in it's accuracy.
I agree, Touhou lore is genuinely beautiful and manages to tie so much Japanese, Chinese, and Western mythology and religion together in a way that makes sense. It makes me anxious about making fanwork that even dares to diverge from what others interpret, though…
words cannot express just how happy this video made me, it's actual content about touhou itself, not just hundreds upon hundreds of shitposts, i can't thank you enough
As mentioned previously, this is by far the best chronicle of the Gensokyo universe location by far. Seeing that your channel is rather new, I would suggest to keep making smaller videos like the rabbit one with useful lore facts to build up your resume and subcriber count as you prepare for any bigger projects you may have in mind. This channel has alot of promise and many fans of the Touhou lore would love to see it thrive. Instant sub.
Thank you!!! And yea, I think I realized that the hard way. The long videos take so much to record and edit with my novice knowledge, so I'm planning on just doing 2hu bites for a while. I've got one other big video planned, but I'm not going to start on it for a while. Thank you for the feedback!
Hm. I thought that the Moon had a dual state, physical and magical, such that an earthling would normally only have access to the physics-based dimension, and Youkai would appear in the magical (which is far more habitable) dimension. I seem to recall reading that one of the Lunarian generals could forcibly switch you to the sciency state and leave you to suffocate without a spacesuit.
That's is still true, it's is difficult to get to the other side of the Moon even if you physically traverse there. And Toyohime did actually send some youkai to the real side to kill them.
There's something funny about how this world of magic and spirits and all sorts of crazy stuff coexists with just, the normal world we all know. Yeah, there's a super advanced society living on the dark side of the moon, which you can get to via magic paths between dimensions. But this world also has NASA, who still landed a man up there with the Apollo program in 1969, with completely conventional technology.
Lunarians: "We could totally beat the crap out of you humans if everything about you weren't so lethally toxic to us!" Also, just before LOLK: "There is nothing more toxic or deadly than a human child. A single touch could kill you!" "I'm not going to the Earthling Front, you can't make me!" "You're going down there because we need this..." "Without Dream we have no power."
As of TH 17.5, now we have an entire sea of oil that's right under the fusion reactor in former hell. How it hasn't all gone up in flames despite it being that close to a literal star is beyond me. Oh, and we also found out about the 4th animal spirit boss. She carries a comically large spoon.
Yuuma is actually the boss of the Gouyouku alliance, which is one of the three families I mentioned. Hence the name of the game being "Gouyouku Ibun". The three bosses are Yuuma, Saki, and Yachie. The fourth is still unknown.
Yooooooo, this vid straight bussin, love the choice of art! Congratulations on another absolutely awesome piece of work. Massive respect for crediting every artist in the video, and compiling the list in the description.
I love these in-depth explanations. I don't know much Touhou lore so a lot of this goes over my head but it's nonetheless engaging, and I love your music choice. Great video!
Even after 4 years of being a touhou fan, I never learned anything about the moon beside the lunarians and their problem with Kaguya Thanks for the vid sir!
Congratulations, this is one of the most accurate cosmology, I wonder if in the future you will do this video again with the information of news games and lore that the future Videogames, Manga, Music CD, etc will bring us, what I really love also is the art that you chose for the Video, it give the Fantasy, Amazing and Dream touch which fits very well with the Gensokyo Meaning, You have all my respects, I love Touhou Lore so as a Lore enjoyer this video is my new drug hehe
Late to the party, but thank you for this. I’ve been playing with the idea of a tabletop campaign based on touhou, seems like I have a lot to work with here now
That's my goal! I created this with the intention of interesting my Apocalypse World group in a Touhou-themed game, and I'm glad to hear it inspires others to do the same! I've also been working on my own RPG system entirely set in Gensokyo, if I ever finish it, I'll make it available on my channel.
I mean this in it's entirety, this is one of my most favorite videos that I have ever seen. Thank you so much for creating this enlightening academic journal of the Cosmology! You have brought me happiness, and given my knowledge of the series a solid structured framework of Gensokyo, a land that I already thought I knew so much about. I also believe this video would be an excellent introduction to anyone new to the series, your commentary was very comprehensive, and informative leaving little room for misunderstanding, and great potential for imagination. I will definitely watch your other works, and look forward to any future projects that you publish. Keep believing in the magic 🌠
Heya, amazing stuff. Touhou lore is a bit all over the place and having a video to explain the universe/plains saves a lot of people the trouble of wiki diving, or at least cuts the wiki dive down quite a bit anyways. That said would you plan to do a video on the chronology of Touhou sometime? I'd really love to see that, still have barely any idea how much time has passed/what happened during and in between the games. But yeah fucking phenomenal video, hope you're doing well
Thank you for watching, glad you enjoyed it! And yea, the purpose is definitely to make touhou lore more digestible for a general audience. As for future videos, I have several small videos planned (one releasing later this week), and a few major videos. I want to cut down on the huge videos a bit since they take much longer to edit and produce, and I would like to grow my channel a bit more first. The one major video I am planning for some time in the future is "Pantheon of Gensokyo", in which I cover all gods, divine spirits, and celestials. A "Chronology of Gensokyo" is also a fantastic idea, thank you! I'll consider it once I have produced a few more videos and finished the Pantheon of Gensokyo. It might even be worth waiting for touhou 19 to release. Thanks for the input!
P.S. For quick reference, the touhou games happen in real time. The day a touhou game releases is that the incident happens in Gensokyo. We know this because the dates of the BunBunMaru coincide with release dates of the games.
@@MegaFrog Hey, thanks so much for responding, and I'm really happy you're entertaining the idea. Genuinely super excited for whatever you decide to do next ^^
Reimu’s the girl who fights deities and is on par with the girl who had to train enough to warrant mythology, to the power far beyond the ordinary man, training with a phantom for years, said phantom being easily mistaken for the Hakurei God. Also, Reimu has innate plot armour. But the power of Gensokyo restricts her to incredible degrees. And the spell card rules.
Really high quality video. Nice music, nice art, nice narration, great work! I never completely figured out where each dimension was located so this was a bless
It's surprisingly seldom discussed! That's really the reason I made this channel, I thought it was a shame that the worldbuilding of Touhou was overlooked so often. Simply put, I decided to it myself. Glad you enjoyed the video!
loved the video, I've never watched something like this about touhou lore before so for me this is pure gold (I also wouldn't mind watching an 8 hour long video about this stuff, though not so many people would agree with me)
I'm not certain if anyone else addressed it, but in regards to Captain Murasa not being keen on returning to Makai, I thought Byakuren used the palanquin/temple as transportation between Makai and Gensokyo for youkai who want to join their temple. I don't remember where I read that, so maybe it wasn't true.
@@MegaFrog That'd be a pretty long disclaimer list. AirGensokyo is not responsible for any injuries, maiming, ends of perfect lunatic runs, or any other intentionally unspecified bodily or spiritual harm that may occur.
The moon's residents speak Japanese, and it's most related to Japanese. That being said, I could definitely understand a fanon interpretation that depicts Lunarians speaking in a form of Japanese that is very abstracted from being isolated on the moon for so long. Lunar rabbits would also likely have a unique dialect, since they rely more on telepathic communication than speech. So I think it could be a cool idea to explore! Perhaps moon-speech is more of a code than a language, a conlang made to protect their secrets from humans on earth.
31:50 I don't think Senkai is just one realm, or that it's created by Miko. My understanding is that there are multiple Senkai, each created by a different hermit. Kasen's Senkai would be a diferent Senkai than Miko's. Creating Senkai is just a standard hermit magic.
27:48 “those who came to makai and back are eternally scarred physically and mentally” Touhou 5 says otherwise. But then again, these are the two most jacked humans to exist, a powerful Youkai, and a FALSE GOD.
This is a really incredible video. Amazing scriptwriting... Regarding all the information stated, where did you get it from? Are they all from books/manga like PMiSS and SSiB?
Thank you! The information comes from a variety of official sources, primarily PMiSS. The way I describe some locations is also based on the way those locations are presented in the video games. Character information mostly comes from character profiles, which are viewable in the games' files.
There are many different ideologies of from hell to heaven is somewhere in between to everything such as the back rooms the interdimensional void the interstellar drift in the did basically all
Ooooo fascinating thanks. I liked your iceberg vid too. Make more icebergs of other stuff when you can ^_^ Actually iceberg format is used by everyone now. After watching all of this to the end, more in this style would be great too
Thanks for watching! I'm not very interested in making another iceberg. In truth I only did the touhou iceberg because it's something I care about a lot and I was surprised that there wasn't a great iceberg video already. It takes a lot of time to research, record, and edit, a lot more than I even realized. So going forward I plan to make shorter videos focused on touhou lore. I appreciate the feedback!
The advance state of the Lunatic Kingdom is puzzling to me. You'd think if one were to live without want or conflict, advancement in both technology and medicine would remain stagnant; as there would be no incentive to pursue the development of either field. Even now, advance in military technology is the result of a never ending armrace between nations. But who does the Lunatic Kingdom have to contend with? They didn't even see the Earthians as a threat until America planted a flag on the moon.
@@MegaFrog were there more wars beyond the Lunar War with Yukari, and Junko pushing them into the dream realm? From what I've read it just seems that the Lunarians are in a constant state of paranoia, not actual war.
The lunarians are so advanced because they're gods. They just *know* things that humans could never know because they're basically just better. Gods seem to have extremely advanced technology, even Keiki, who was a newborn god, came with futuristic technology basically just built into her knowledge, which was used to create the fortress in the primate spirit garden.
This video reminds me of those videos made by the channel Hata no Kokoro, which unfortunately stopped uploading 7 years ago so it's nice that this style of video is still being made for touhou Nice video by the way, finding a touhou lore video that isn't either several years old or, an introduction to touhou itself is a nice change once in a while Though there is one error I found, though it's a minor one, that being Satori's name, which isn't komeiji. Komeiji is her surname, Satori's name is just that, Satori, which yes, would make her be named after her own species Edit: also just realized you're the same person that made the touhou iceberg video, nice (◠‿・)-👍
I do realize in hindsight that I worded it strangely. I was hoping that it would come across that Komeiji was the surname, since in Japanese, people address each other by surname first. In addition, I thought it might be awkward if I said "This satori, whose name is Satori..." it felt a little immersion-breaking to acknowledge that ZUN often names characters after their species. But I do realize that it's a bit confusing now. Glad you're enjoying the videos! I hope to bring more soon, since it is a niche on RU-vid that feels very lacking right now. Thanks for watching!
7:15 Imagine this taking place in the "For All Mankind" universe. For those who don't know, For All Mankind is a TV series focusing on an alternate universe where the Soviet Union went to the moon first, which led to the space race basically going on indefinitely. As a result, humanity technologically advanced due to the extended Space race. A permanent settlement on the moon is established in the mid-70's (Jamestown Base and Svezda) and on Mars (mid-90s onwards). Now, what do you think? What would the Lunarians react if the space race goes this route? Would the Jamestown Crisis of '83 happen differently from the show? Imagine some female US/Soviet astronauts acting as diplomats. Oh boy, imagine China's Chang'e program in this timeline. If a war broke out, how would Moon Marines and Spetznaz Cosmonauts fare against the Lunar Defense Corps? Will the US and USSR come into a peaceful resolution with the Lunatic Kingdom on favorable terms?
Uhm, will the information in Yachie Kicchou's official profile: "彼女は畜生界に存在する四大組織の一つ、鬼傑組の組長である。" (Translate: "Yachie is the head of the Kiketsu Family, one of the four major organizations in the Animal Realm.") be retconned in the future or this is referring to Keiki's own recent organization when she was summoned to Primate Garden or you just missed this since you said "three primary families" instead of four and you even said "some seems to think that there is in fact a fourth beast gang that is working below the streets though this is not confirmed"?
This video is narrated from an in-universe perspective. I am talking about the world as though I am someone within the world, which is why I never reference anything that doesn't happen in-universe. The fourth beast gang is confirmed to exist only in outside materials like profiles; they are never named in-game. It seems that few people in the beast realm would know about them, so from an in-universe perspective, they would be nothing more than a conspiracy theory. In fact, I only mention them as a subtle nod to this external information.
I know that Gensokyo is a pocket dimension mirrored from the outside world Japan but I I'm just wondering; does Gensokyo have an end like some sort of sea or cliff? Is it geographically accurate as the outside world's or it's just Japan that Yukari copied?
By the aounds of it humans really should start killing all of the youkai that drags you to hell.(in touhou 19, there was an oni, that asked a new A new character to do something for her, And if she did not agree do it she'll be Stuck in hell for eternity)note she is an oni they do not lie) So with that in mind, Every living person is bound to hell for eternity. Your soul is never save unless, You commit genocide of evil youkai,
That would kind of defeat the purpose of Gensokyo, and also the youkai would kick the humans asses if they started venturing out of the human village. Humans also have no physical means of killing youkai.
