MIRRORED DUALITY // ZUN - Hartmann no Youkai Shoujo // Composer Reaction & Analysis 

The way Touhou handles music is that a single track plays through a whole fight, but the game's pace is so tight that it tends to center set pieces around swells in the music. In the normal stage sections especially, the game's pacing is so controlled in them that ZUN essentially builds the stage around the music and even adjusts how the enemy spawns flow depending on how long you spend on a section of the stage.

Funnily enough the way you explain this track with the contrast and mirrored portions also applies to the stage theme of the same boss, Last Remote. It's a song where the first half is filled with mystery, anxiety and sadness, while the second half turns into a cheerful, hopeful tune once the climax has been achieved. It's a really beautiful track, one of my favorite in the franchise and arguably one of ZUN's best compositions.

The way Touhou tracks work per stage is that there's one for the actual stage part (that's usually more or less on rails and can often be roughly timed to fit the stage length), and then another one for the boss encounter at the end which simply loops until they're defeated (which can take a variable amount of time depending on player skill). This was a boss theme, not a stage theme. Gotta say, your description of the bass kick as something "you pick up subconsciously but honestly won't remember after your first listen" was pretty funny.

Now listen to the song backwards

Koishi is a very interesting character. She is similar to a tragic monster in that while not malicious, she is dangerous and unpredictable. She is one of a race of telepathic beings known as Satori. They, unfortunately, are terrible at concealing their mind reading from others, even often directly stating that they are reading another's mind. Predictably, thus leads to them being persecuted heavily, even amongst other outcasts. While Koishi's elder sister was content with isolating herself with only the two of them and pets for company, Koishi refused to accept being so alone. She attempted to seal away her mind reading capabilities, unfortunately destroying her "person" in the process. In terms of Freudian psychology (much of the inspiration for her concept) she lost her Ego, only her Id and Superego remaining. This left her even more lonely than imagination can do justice, as you have read. Not even her own sister is entirely immune to forgetting about her. Her actions are controlled entirely by impulse and the desire to conform. As opposites without a mediator, I interpret that it's a coin toss which would come out on top. Destroying her telepathy also granted her an ability to read and manipulate the subconscious mind. As such, she can perceive and control you in a way you can't even comprehend.

20:39 not all characters are depressing, only some. The characters are based on myth, and if you've ever dived into that rabbit hole, you'll know that there are many many myths around the world that are very depressing & tragic. So naturally, there's gonna be a lot of Touhou characters that are tragic. Touhou is not a tragic series. It's not a happy go lucky series either (the premise is pretty sad & dark), but in general, characters are just hanging around & trying to just live a happy life. It's a very laid back series. We're basically just taking a little peek at their very extraordinary kind of mundane everyday life(they're mythological beings, after all), one character at a time. That's what it's all about. Sometimes some character gets a little too rowdy, but it's usually easily dealt with & it's not a big deal or epic in any way(also dealing with that rowdy-ness is essentially what the plot of almost every game is about). There's also no real "protagonist", even though there are central characters like Reimu & Marisa, which are playable in every game. Everyone has their own story & life & connections, where those central characters can often times either end up being only irrelevant background characters or not even being involved at all. Pretty much every plot that doesn't take place in the mainline games are like that.

Koishi and her sister are probably the two most tragic characters in Touhou. And the Wiki didn't really sell just how tragic it is. Before she sealed her third eye, Koishi can always read minds, and because of that she is always hated. Can you imagine living a life where you always read peoples minds and the thoughts of all the people around you are always hatred towards you? This drove her to seal her third eye, and it is essentially very akin to suicide since when she seals her third eye she essentially kills her conscious self. Her third eye is all about reading the conscious mind, so sealing it not only means she no longer had access to others' conscious minds, it also means she no longer has access to her own conscious mind too. In the end, she becomes this being that is entirely based on only subconscious whims. It's hard to tell whether she could still be considered alive or dead, because depending on your definition, someone who no longer has a conscious mind could either be dead or alive. Not only that, the price she had to pay in order to no longer go through the suffering of being able to read minds is big; because she is essentially cursed to being forever lonely since nobody can easily notice her and even if she is noticed nobody will remember her after they look away. It does mean that she no longer has to deal with the suffering of reading minds and is always living in the present and is always enjoying things as they are without worry. But that also means she has to be lonely and she is essentially not really alive. (In that sense, your analysis of the song if kind of spot on. It's manic because she's very random. There's this mirror where the song is dark but then there's another section where it's bright. Koishi sealing her third eye is both a release from worry and a release from life; it's both a good and a bad thing.) This is especially tragic for her sister, Satori. Satori obviously has gone through the exact same life that her sister has, it's just that she's a little stronger mentally than Koishi that she never did what Koishi did and closed her third eye. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't take a toll on Satori, and it doesn't mean that Satori hasn't or isn't going through similar suffering that Koishi had gone through. The thing is though, because they both can read minds, they both have always been able to read each other's minds. Because of this, they have a connection deeper than any connection with another person can possibly get. And in a world where everyone hates them, that's basically their only solace (besides their pets; which they got because pets unconditionally love their masters & they can communicate with the pets by reading their minds). So losing Koishi when Koishi sealed her third eye was a big blow to Satori. Not only that, because Koishi sealed her third eye & essentially killed her consciousness, Satori can no longer read Koishi's mind since their third eye's mind reading abilities are all about the conscious mind. So now Satori can read pretty much everybody's mind except Koishi's; the one person that was her biggest solace, the one person that she had this impossibly strong bond with. And since Koishi constantly disappears, only occasionally coming back home(Chireiden), Satori is always worried about what's going on with Koishi. Not to mention every time Koishi does come back home, Satori is always worried about the possibility that maybe next time Koishi, out of a whim, will never/can't ever come back home & so disappear for good. She can never tell; since she can't read Koishi's mind, and everything Koishi does is based on subconscious whims. It's a tragedy that only people who can read minds can ever experience, yet it's close enough to a real human experience that we can understand it. Which I think is really cool because that kind of writing in fantasy, where a being's powers or nature of existence is the basis for their struggle, is not very common. Usually it's a normal human struggle that is then applied to a cool fantastical character with cool fantastical powers.

Welcome to Koishi's theme. One of Zun's more unnerving songs. koishi herself is very different between fandom and canon as a whole. once you learn koishi as a character her theme makes sense, as thats how Zun does things. Zun makes the songs, then adds characters and stages to match the songs, then makes a story, hence why touhou is basically a cd with a free game, as fans put it. Also side note, Koishi is a very popular character, as is her sister Satori. Also she has no emotion except for hope, which is touhou 13.5 story, one of the few fighting games tht aren't bullet hell.

This is Koishi Komeji theme, Hartman's Youkai Girl. Koishi being a Youkai and Hartmann being a phycologist of the unconscious mind. Koishi being able to read the unconscious thanks to her closing her "3rd eye" which is essentially another organ for her species (which everyone hates thanks to them having the ability to read minds.) After she closed her 3rd Eye, she lost the ability to read minds and think consciously, now she has the ability to read the subconscious and she only acts impulsively.

Hi Bryan! I found your channel through this video, always great to see musical professionals analyze videogame music in general and Touhou in particular. Loved your analysis of this piece (even though it's not one of my favs from the series) and would love to see more reactions from you on others from the series. If you're looking for a game to try out yourself and see how the music goes with the gameplay, I would recommend Touhou 10, Mountain of Faith (your previous reaction to a Touhou song was to the Extra stage theme from that game, Tomorrow Will Be Special, Yesterday Was Not), for a few reasons: 1. In my opinion it does the gameplay-music integration the best out of all the series, it's one of the reasons why it's my favorite game in the series. 2. Its difficulty is relatively acessible. I wouldn't say "easy" since it's still a bullet hell, but compared to other games in the series it's rather tame. 2.1. A lot of the games have unique gameplay "gimmicks" that sometimes require mastry in order to get resources or high scores. 10's gimmick (faith points) is very unobtrusive and pretty much only affects scoring, so as a beginner you can ignore it and still do well. 3. It's available on Steam - this is true for all games from 9 onwards, whereas to legally get 6-8 you would need to buy a physical CD from Japan, and 1-5 don't even run on modern computers requiring a PC-98 emulator. 4. If you can read Japanese or intend to get the fan-translation patch, its plot is fairly straightforward and doesn't really require knowledge of previous titles. Hope you take the plunge down the rabbit hole, and enjoy more Touhou music with your channel!

Very fun but definitely sounds like soundtrack music. Probably not the kind of stuff I'd listen to on its own, but I'd definitely appreciate it in the context of a game.

Please don't break the songs up to react, as they lose momentum and feel, but I think you should be open to replaying short sections you have specific comments about, or even dip into other tracks to satisfy your curiosity. Perhaps if a song has a weird start, and you want to know if it was pre-empted by the prior track, go check and bring us along for the journey :)

You didn't go back to that but your comment about the ornamental ideas at 8:23 is really spot on for the character, as usual, that was cool. Re: your surprise at getting depressing backstories despite the brightness, it's because a core theme of the series is finding joy and wonder and getting a second chance at life even as a shitty world grinds you down, and despite the wounds you carry. Like all of the few characters who self-harmed or attempted suicide, her character arc is one of healing, she found a way to be remembered, made bonds with others and is now happier than she's ever been. Touhou's world and backstories are often grim but its story is optimistic.

Koosh!! :D

Hi! Have you ever heard Season to Risk? :3?