Touhou References in Undertale 

At 9:13 I say that Koishi's theme is Satori's theme reversed. This is NOT true! Koishi's theme is a partial musical palindrome, meaning it's similar to ITSELF reversed. I was conflating that information with the fact that their color palettes are inverse. (Oops.) Someone kindly pointed this out for me. Thank you, again.

At least Toby is honest about copying his idol

Touhou is also a clone of the natural water cycle of rain precipitation, it is a crime that this social issue is rarely brought to light.

"Something as simple as a loving family is fantasy enough" Damn. You've written something very profound. Love the scope of the video by the way, and the way you wanted to touch more into the subtler similarities between both series.

Tbh if it's not straight up taking someone else's creation and branding it as your own then it's not stealing, just taking inspiration, which is what everyone does in art and elsewhere. Great video as always!

i always assumed people compare the two games because anything with more than 3 bullets on screen at a time is a "boolet heck" and nobody knows the difference.

5:55 - "Marisa copypasta" the what now Anyway, my funny piece of trivia is that the reason why Remilia drinks tea so much is because what the West knows as "black tea" is called "red tea" by China and Japan, even using the 紅 kanji in Japanese.

honestly, the more i learn about touhou, the more undertale (and deltarune by extension) really feel like love letters to every game that toby loves- touhou included. makes me appreciate it all the more. its been great getting to experience the inspiration for a big chunk of the game for myself.

7:32 "friends" "besties" probably "roommates" too

Nah undertale obviously copied YIIK: A post modern RPG

BUT COULD SANS BEAT YUKARI?????

finished the video and i just wanna say the editing is actually pretty engaging keep up the good work

he also got inspired by earthbound

The answer was obvious from the get-go, but I definitely loved seeing a more in-depth look to the minute nuances that Toby drew from to give form to his little gem. It's inspiring to see someone who definitely has a lot of appreciation for a piece of work, to be able to replicate key aspects of it with both fidelity and originality. I don't mind him stealing his heart out, honestly. Touhou will outlive us all anyway (hopefully), so it can take it all that back once we're gone from this world.

Excellent analysis. It's sometimes been hard to explain to people why Undertale feels like a love letter to all the things that make Touhou so special. I'm definitely going to be pointing them to this video to explain it.

Honesly I think deltarune is more Tohou that Undertale

Another great video. I think you really hit the nail on the head with the found family part. Touhou has a huge cast of quirky and unique characters and Undertale lets you befriend its whole cast of quirky and unique characters. It doesn't matter if the characters have only 5 seconds in the limelight or if they're the main character, it doesn't matter if they're a cheery ball of fluff or if they're heavily flawed, both Undertale and Touhou have these diverse casts of characters that are so easy to love. Undertale's presentation of letting you directly befriend everyone is without a doubt a reason for its massive success and continued fandom. Touhou, like you said, doesn't directly have you interacting with the characters yourself, but the casual banter between the characters in the games and all their interactions in the print works give enough for you to fall in love with them. Definitely why the Cute-sokyo interpretation of the world is so popular amongst fans and why there will always be speculation over what happens to outsiders, the characters feel so lovable and inviting and you want to be a part of that. And in the end, what more can we ask for than loving friends and family?

Short answer: No Long answer: This video

It's been a long while since I played undertale, and even thought I also played lots of touhou prior to Undertale, before this video I never realized how much of a big, enormous Touhou nerd Toby Fox was

undetale doesnt steal from touhou. undertale IS touhou, a fan creation of what a fan depicts and like about touhou, mishmash and integrate their own story into thei likeness. and i find that to be fair. showing love to another franchise as a fan should always be the priority, and toby fox did so. he did it so well, in fact he talks with ZUN now. and that is kind of neat to be honest.

I could write a long essay about how Undertale and Touhou are both extremely special to me, and how your video perfectly encapsulates just what I adore so much about both, but I'm really not feeling up to it right now, sorry.

Awesome video! :] I used to be into undertale as a kid and got really into touhou recently. Both of these franchises hold a special place in my heart, so having somebody explain what makes them both so good rather than just going ''ouhhh this kinda sounds like koishis theme'' is a breath of fresh air

Touhou ⛩️ Project 🍔

it's always a good day when I see a new video from you!

Two things I want to point out in regards to Deltarune, that I think make some interesting notes to go along with the video: - Character depth does seem to have a larger focus in Deltarune, but it's still primarily through optional interactions. Even Kris has a lot more going to them, but you're not going to find out some of the most interesting things about Kris as a silent protagonist unless you explore what these worlds have to offer. I think this goes very much in line with Touhou's philosophy of how it expands its characters. - I think Deltarune puts the found family dynamic even more front and center, considering not only the design of its titular RPG party, but also the Recruit mechanic giving even more weight to ACTing and sparing. Really though I just want to highlight the ending of Chapter 2 where Toriel welcomes Susie in her home with open arms, clearly acknowledging them as a friend of Kris that deserves care that Susie doesn't normally get. It's a moment that speaks a lot to me.

4:00 Remilia lore: -Terrifying -Fuck the moon -bweh

Another reference: A small snippet of U.N Owen Was Her is what makes up most of the main doomy motif of Your Best Nightmare.

Plot twist:the souls are that of touhou characters and the items from the shop is the stuff they left behind

One of the best deep dive videos regarding both of these amazing game series. Love your channel!

Next up, the parallels between Undertale and Monster Girl Quest (They're more evident than you might think)!

Posting before watching all of it so apologies if it gets mentioned in the video, but another thing that would be interesting to look at is how a lot of the world design of both undertale and deltarune takes a lot of inspiration from Homestuck, which would make sense as Toby Fox literally lived in Andew Hussie's basement while making undertale Some examples of this would be snowden being similar to The Land Of Frost And Frogs, with of course the cold location and the frogs being common enemies in the region preceding it, waterfall being similar to The Land Of Wind And Song, with the dark watery land lit by blue glowing plants with a piano puzzle, hotland and the core being similar to The Land Of Heat And Clockwork (with the song Another Medium being a remix of an unused toby fox homestuck song, Patient, which was remixed from Usagi Buzinkai's Doctor). Sans and Papyrus resemble Squarewave and Sinewave, with Sans also having some semblance to the character Caliborn (probably not actually connected, but both are short skeletal characters who become the final boss of their respective medias, have knowledge of or actively use multiple timelines, and power is conveyed via changes to the eyes (sans having a glowing eye for certain attacks, caliborns eyes being replaced by pool balls when becoming the more powerful Lord English) There has also been a niche theory that deltarune and undertale are pre/post scratch variants of each other, which would work with toby's previous statement that the two universes were related but seperate, as in homestuck 'scratching' a universe basically means resetting it, which explains why most of the npc characters are relatively similar in both games with the playable characters being the major difference Theres also stuff like how Jevils ambient theme is similar to gamzee's carnival theme, and spamton is similar to Lil Cal (mad puppet is also partially similar), and of course the infamouse admission that Alphys' glasses were based off John Egbert's Chapter 1's dark world being based on board games seems very similar to homestuck's 'early-game' where the carapacians are based on chess peaces, and the midnight crew + troll romance being based on card suits. Leaks for future chapters show mafia shadowmen, which are very similar to the Midnight Crew, and the weather forecasters having clouds for hair makes sense because of course, weather, but also it reminds me personally of the planet Skaia's clouds which can be used to foresee future events The lightworld-darkworld dynamic in Deltarune also feels sort of similar to Prospit and Derse in homestuck, with prospit (light world)being more stable between universes while derse (dark world) is more unstable and volatile to player control. This would make sense when you think about how every dark world is unique based on its surroundings (with the themes based on light world environment being akin to "prototyped" enemies in homestuck) Also King and Queen are reminscient of the prospit/derse royalty, with the King being larger, more violent, missing/concealing an arm, and having a tentacle present during their fight, while the Queen is slimmer, probably smarter, and backs down from conflict eventually (derse queen becoming Snowball in troll universe, prospit queen becoming the Windswept Questant in beta kids universe) Also during the kickstarter for Undertale, there was a payment option to have a fantroll implemented in the game. Only one person bought this package and If I'm not mistaken the character given ended up becoming So-Sorry Sorry for rambling and a lot of this is probably only tangentially connected, but its still noteworthy since Toby Fox was practically the lead musician for Homestuck and lived with the author while undertale and homestuck were both being worked on

Great analysis! I don’t really know much about Undertale besides funny skeleton man and some Touhou references, so I can’t really compare the two myself, but this video does shine some light on stuff I don’t know. Well said with Undertale doing its own thing with the Touhou experience just blended within it.

Honestly I'm glad that Undertale and Touhou have so much in common, since otherwise I'd probably have never gotten into Touhou My first exposition to Touhou was through the Marisa vs Asriel fan fight and I still remember trying to make sense of what the Touhou characters were doing/saying.

Thank you for the hard work you put into your videos, please keep them coming!

4:55 I’m pretty sure this is a reference to Grayfruit’s second Touhou video Also do you have a link to where you found that Touhou iceberg in the video?

if you take a listen to the final boss battle theme of pokemon scarlet and violet, which composed by toby fox, you would find something interesting

what's the comic that features those panels at 6:19 called?

My favourite Bethoven song got to be Zun's remix

Nice thought out analysis. I appreciate Undertale for what it is even though I'm not really into it compared to Touhou. There's something more nostalgic about Touhou that draws me in more compared to Undertale.

7:05 unless you decide to kill everyone 👀

You should make a video about zun view about our future

The unexpected F word bomb at the end really caught me off guard lmfao. But yeah I have to admit that while Undertale has lots of parts that are heavily inspired by Touhou, I won't necessarily call it stealing as Toby Fox is just putting in things he liked about his favourite games, Touhou being one of them, instead of just copying the ideas because he feels that by doing so it would make his game popular and that's the important distinction imo. When you like a game a lot and try to make a game, it's natural that you would end up incorporating some aspects of the games you like whether intentionally or unintentionally, hell I'll admit that I have a TON of shameless references to certain media in my DnD game like straight up having Subnautica aliens as a part of the wildlife the players can find and even a four armed skeleton quadruple wielding longswords and is named "General Grevious". My point is that when you make a passion project you are very likely to copy stuff from the series you love and thats fine since that's what you love, and passion projects are meant as a way for you to express what you love in some form of media. If you bar yourself from adding in something you really want to add into a passion project just because someone else has really done it then it defeats the whole point of even making a passion project since you would limit the amount of things you are expressing through the project

Nice video, as always

4:30 Gonna need that Reisen x Tewi.

I had only ever thought of the obvious things (tsundereplane, undyne's theme in genocide route). Hadn't really thought about all the deeper connections. Great video!

BEST QUOTE 11:40

Both games is a masterpiece! 👊😎 And nice video!! 👏👏

That One Toby Oc Called Apple still waiting to be mentioned once

I usually like to be a silent watcher, but this kind of things fire me up good, because I really dislike how people are so reductionists, especially when they go straight for the music, if we start pointing fingers, I can assure you, there are too many similarities in a lot of old songs from diferents eras and Zun's music, and I'm talking stuff like baroque period to japanese 80s' music, just for giving an example, there is this piece call "Allegro Moderato" from a sonata by Manuel María Ponce Cuéllar, and it has a part that is not similar to a Touhou song, IT'S IDENTICAL, so now what? this dude that died in 1948 traveled through time and space to copy a little piece of Zun's "Last Remote", NO, then what?, did Zun copy this man?, NO again. People!, in some point in time ideas will repeat, and the beauty it's how we improve on them, or how we utilize them in a way to achieve something different. Undertale reeks of Touhou music?, yes (in my opinion), but still it's own thing, and I don't think that anybody could mistake a Touhou song for a Undertale song, and it's a very ugly thing to attack the composer (Tobyfox), because he's very creative and if you listen a bit of what he's doing, he has his own identity and improves a lot; and people that attacks Undertale usually forgets that Zun himself says he took a lot of inspiration from other places, no just musically, but from art, from books, etc, and again, that's the beauty of it!. You can grab any Touhou game, and say that it's a copy of an older story, then if everything is done? what's the point in making new things?. Zun, TobiFox, or any creator for that matter are standing on the shoulders of giants, so please be nice, it's okay if you don't like something, but it's not okay to be a dick about it. Anyways too much nerdy stuff, I really love the angle that you used to tackle this, nos just the superficial part that is 2hou music gud udertail music bad1!, as always you take it a step further and enrich the discussion with eloquence and grace. Sorry for not commenting that much, but, that's also a good thing, imagine how many bibles you would have on your videos if that would be the case wwwwwwwwwwwwww. Please keep god's work.

What I found interesting about Undertale is how replayable it is. I found a similarity about how replayable the game is compared to Touhou. Undertale is only about like 1-2 hours long on a good speedrun. Touhou is built with this same replayability that Undertale is made with. You see, Undertale has multiple endings, Genocide, Neutral, and True Pacifist. Toby wanted everyone to experience these endings all at once so he made the game pretty short to compensate. Touhou is a bullet hell or Shmup as us Touhou players call it so it must be replayable because of the difficulty. Deltarune isn't as replayable though because it is longer than Undertale. Individual chapters are shorter though so you can replay chapter 1 very fast, but that's a cool similarity I found.

I'm surprised you didn't really touch on the parallels Undertale has with Subterranean Animism specifically in terms of background and setting. I mean, Flowey/Asriel's backstory clearly takes cues from Koishi's, and the area progression in Undertale approximately correlates with SA's various stages.

Toby comes across as an ironic weeb. At least he was in 2015. Idk how else to word it.

I love both franchise

Toby fox #1 ascended touhou fan

11:55 we all know Goku can beat them both

The truth is that Deltarune Asriel is ZUN if he never made Touhou. He has unfinished design documents for the angel of death from Undertale who is basically a hybrid of the final bosses of TH1 and 2. Also, who let Koishi cook? 🥶

7:33 -I see what you did there.

I'm a big fan of Babylon 5, and a constant back-and-forth in the B5 community is whether B5 copied Deep Space 9 or vice versa (there's a legitimate argument to be made both ways, since writing and production time for both would have overlapped). My preferred tongue-in-cheek answer is "Sure, DS9 copied B5. That's why it's the best Star Trek." It's great to see someone understand what makes a series great and apply it to their own series in a way that builds on the strengths of the original. Still haven't played Undertale, I'll need to get to that someday.

Honestly you could strap me to a chair and I would have a hard time NOT mentioning something from Undertale that relates to Touhou

great artists borrow and then never return.

Peak dropped

thank you for changing the title... it felt a bit clickbaity, and I felt like you intentionally made it to provoke :(

You sure did swear a lot in this one. Not that I really mind. It just sort of stood out to me in a weird way. Still a good video.

We can't let Mr undertale get away with this

👍👍👍

It does make me sad how many Touhou fans dislike Undertale fans and how many Undertale fans dislike Touhou fans. I like both Touhou and Undertale, so it really confuses me.

I love undertale and touhou

Damn, good video

To me the short answer is: of course not 😂 Cool thumb!

Touhou steals from Jojo, and I'm not complaining.

finally a good video and not just fans of each game dunking each other (a bit of an overexaggerating). They're both amazing games.

As a Touhou fan that was brought into the series from Undertale... I think it's ok :)

isn't undertale technically a fangame of mother 2 x touhou anyway?

"Good artists copy, but great artists steal." Gives me an excuse to steal more memes.

Don't care about what y'all say, making fun of Und*rtale as a 2hu fan will always be the funniest thing for me.

Undertale is Earthbound 5

Man i do like spaghetti

"Good Artists Copy" "Great Artists Steal" "Bad Artists Plagerize" "Worse Artists Peddle"

4:30 Aristocrat levels of taste. Unfortunately I hate Undertale and it's the worst shit ever but I'll watch your videos always even if your subscribers pick the worst prompt from the poll list every fucking time. Your Tolkien-Touhou vids are S tier and I would share them with friends if I weren't the only one to intrinsically understand them.

you sound a bit terse and mad throughout the video, maybe i am just misunderstanding your tone

as a music person..... all music steals, and that's OK

I like the thesis of this video. Yeah, obviously there's a lot of Touhou's DNA in Undertale, but a theft that does not make. When we make art, we make it about ideas we like, and arguably will contain DNA from a lot of our favourite sources that led us to developing the tastes we do. Some people say "there's no such thing as originality," but I think that originality is just taking what you want and spinning it all in a direction unique to you and your creation, which Toby Fox does perfectly.

Ok i agree that there are a lot of obvious similarities but some of your "proofs" are actually just commen writing.

Saying Toby Fox is stealing is just silly because he was always open about his influences and it's quite obvious how UNDERTALE/DELTARUNE is its own thing.

This is like saying terraria is 2D Minecraft

Oh, my God! Is nerd culture really so bored at the moment that we're making THIS of all things into a thing? Nobody cares. Did Toby Fox steal from Touhou? Don't know. Don't care. Doesn't matter.