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The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.

This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Touhou - Fan Anime Creations

"Memories of Phantasm"

[Source: Wikipedia] The Touhou Project, also known as Toho Project or Project Shrine Maiden, is a Japanese dōjin game series focused on bullet hell shooters made by the one-man developer Team Shanghai Alice, whose sole member, known as ZUN, is responsible for all the graphics, music, and programming for the most part. The series was inducted into the Guinness World Records in October 2010 for being the "most prolific fan-made shooter series". The Touhou Project began in 1995 when Highly Responsive to Prayers was first developed by the group Amusement Makers for the Japanese NEC PC-9801 series of computers; the game was later released in November 1996. The next four Touhou games released between August 1997 and December 1998 also were released on the NEC PC-9801. The Touhou Project was inactive for the next three and half years until the first Microsoft Windows Touhou game, The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, was released in August 2002 solely by ZUN after he split from Amusement Makers and started Team Shanghai Alice. The Touhou Project became a media franchise spanning a steadily increasing number of official games, in addition to commercial fan books, light novels, and manga. 

The plots of the Touhou Project revolve around the strange phenomena that occur in the fictional realm of Gensokyo (幻想郷 Gensōky, literally Illusion Village or Fantasy Village), which ZUN designed with a human village in the grounds of some remote mountain recesses in Japan. Originally, it was simply called "a remote separated land of a human village in an eastern country." Long before the Touhou Project's story begins, there lived many non-humans like yōkai as well as some humans in the area. After a few humans lost their way into Gensokyo, humans became afraid of approaching this area, although others settled here for the sake of yōkai extermination. However, as time went on, humans developed civilization and multiplied in number, and thus the yōkai became distressed about how this would affect the balance between humans and yōkai. Thus, 500 years before The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (EoSD), the yōkai sage Yukari Yakumo developed the "boundary of phantasm and substance," which was favored by the yōkai and protected the balance. This was called the "Yōkai Expansion Project" and made Gensokyo a phantasmal world that automatically called out to the weakened yōkai of the outside world. Other things that disappear from the outside world, like extinct animals, lost tools, and architecture, also became abundant in Gensokyo. Since Gensokyo was a plot of land in Japan that was separated by a barrier, it is Japan that is immediately outside of this barrier.

As a result of the seal, Gensokyo became inaccessible from the outside world, and similarly, those in Gensokyo were unable to leave. Gensokyo's existence could not be confirmed from the outside world, nor could the outside world be confirmed within Gensokyo As a result, the isolated community developed its own civilization, different from that of the outside world. Although separated by a barrier, it is a bordering world to its outside, as opposed to being in a parallel universe. There are no seas in Gensokyo, since it is an inland mountain. In Gensokyo, there are few humans, and various kinds of yōkai. Some species include magicians, beasts, therianthropies, vampires, bōrei, tengu, kappa, and yōkai (a kind of miscellaneous group). There are others species that could be yōkai depending on definition, like fairies, spirits, yūrei, onryō, poltergeists, hermits, oni, and gods.

In present Gensokyo, which is presented in all Touhou Project games since EoSD, as opposed to the outside world where unscientific phenomena were dismissed as "superstition" by the time of the Meiji era, magical and spiritual qualities prevail. The only known gateway from the outside world into Gensokyo is the Hakurei Shrine on the border of Gensokyo. The spell card rules were also established to keep up the relationship between humans and yōkai in a mock style, which was necessary for the preservation of the balance of Gensokyo. The "Great Hakurei Barrier," managed by Hakurei Miko, was constructed several decades before EoSD, which is described as a "barrier of common sense," and is thus a strong logical barrier that not even yōkai can pass through. The yōkai were at first against its construction, but then gradually understood its usefulness.

Trailer for a planned sequel to the 1st movie:


Music video for a possible 3rd movie:

1 comment:

  1. Those two music trailers got yanked but I have backup links:

    2nd movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALVUbBv1z4I

    3rd movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8JrtGlXXiU

    ReplyDelete