u/mashounen2003

[A polite warning: three months ago, I had originally posted on my Tumblr blog the theory on the second half of this Reddit post, then I had more thoughts on the matter and that inspired me to add a sort of introduction and improve a few details in order to share it here as well; as such, it’s very likely that I’ve ended up repeating myself here & there and this needs some heavy reworking, but I’m still confident in this being mostly coherent, so... Here it goes.]

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Some sudden thoughts on Reimu’s portrayal and the Touhou series’s tone, their evolutions, and the fans’ reactions to them.

I saw this post by u/Some_Fig_6566 on r/GensokyoLife (https://www.reddit.com/r/GensokyoLife/comments/1smicxp) –which I recently cross-posted to r/touhou (https://www.reddit.com/r/touhou/comments/1tcxcjj)– about a scene in chapter 1 of Silent Sinner in Blue where Reimu took care of an injured rabbit girl she found, with the title “A friendly reminder that Reimu is kind to both humans and youkai”. I’m very glad that this side of Reimu is starting to get some form of recognition and appreciation, after seeing so many memes and other fan-made content that seem to overlook that and instead focus excessively on the implied darker aspects of Gensoukyou and flanderise Reimu into being either miserable 24/7 or intolerant.

It’s true that Reimu’s morality –as well as the moralities of all other Touhou characters (except maybe Aunn)– is something much more nuanced and less black-and-white than one might expect upon discovering the series, and it’s true that fandoms usually aren’t emotionally ready for that kind of story and react to it by shoehorning oversimplified interpretations, where the protagonist is unambiguously “good” while the story’s antagonists are just plain “evil”, all the rough edges are sanded down and there are no complexities whatsoever. However, I've been seeing several people claiming to be the only Touhou fans who “take it seriously” and “respect the author’s intent”, who react to these fan-readings by over-correcting them, and end up pushing their own “grimdark” interpretations that are also inaccurate and oversimplified but in the opposite direction and feel a lot more like a superhero comic written by Mark Millar: Gensoukyou is a full-on dystopia, everyone hates each other and is morally grey (which then always turns out to be a rather dark shade of grey), and either Reimu is just the same kind of selfish jerk as everyone else but with powers she can abuse, or she has an utterly miserable life where everything goes wrong, every aspect of her life is decided on by others and she carries the burden of protecting Gensoukyou purely out of obligation.

(I could talk about how this phenomenon surrounding Touhou in general and Reimu in particular, with her portrayal being taken to either one extreme or the other by different sub-groups of fans, reminds me of Goku in the Dragon Ball series: he’s been characterised by Western media and fans at different points as either a stereotypical North-American comic-book superhero and “the Superman of Japan” or an insensitive brute who only cares about fighting & training and absolutely ignores & neglects his family, even though the source material doesn’t have anything like this. But that’s a topic for another time... and probably for a different subreddit as well.)

Moments like the aforementioned chapter 1 of Silent Sinner in Blue (thanks once again to u/Some_Fig_6566 for sharing that), in-universe lore sources such as Akyuu’s relatively optimistic afterword for Perfect Memento in Strict Sense (thanks to u/Grogba for reminding me of this), the peaceful resolutions of every incident with both protagonists and antagonists gathering and having a party without really holding grudges, the fact that the big thing making Touhou special and unlike any other shoot-em-ups is that it features non-lethal battles in the form of Spell Card duels... All of this together paints a picture that decidedly looks far from being something “dark and gritty”. Fan-interpretations that lean a lot more into the latter or serve as the basis for “Touhou but f***ed up” stories hardly feel like they’re truly exploring the characters’ feelings and motivations in depth, or uncovering a hidden horrible truth, or deciphering what ZUN was actually trying to tell us all along; on the contrary, they feel a lot more like they’re reading too much into things and taking one portion of the picture to run with that while ignoring the rest.

I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly was the source of those grimdark trends in the fandom. But then I understood that, while Touhou has always had the “optimistic” elements at its core, there was a long period of time until recently when, while the series was still far from truly becoming dark and gritty, new stories and contributions to the lore did get more serious and less light-hearted.

For many years since the late 2000s, Reimu’s portrayal no longer matched her description as “carefree” and similar things from out-of-universe sources such as character profiles; instead, she started consistently acting more jaded, angry and grumpy, more openly showing her dislike of her role as the Hakurei shrine maiden, being more prone to lethal violence and no longer believing that much in the Spell Card Rules she herself came up with as a method to solve incidents. Simultaneously, the themes addressed in official entries (both videogames and print works) of the Touhou series during this period tended towards, for lack of a better term, a more “pessimistic” direction: they insisted on emphasising the aspect of conflict, the troubles caused by various newcomers to Gensoukyou, the Hakurei shrine maiden’s duty to “preserve Gensoukyou’s balance” above anything else and its inevitable negative impact on Reimu’s personal life, and the apparent inherent incompatibility between the values Gensoukyou was built upon, the attempts to achieve peaceful coexistence or even establishing meaningful emotional relationships between humans and youkai in Gensoukyou that aren’t based on fear or hatred, and the nature of all youkai as beings who absolutely require not just the humans’ belief but specifically the humans’ fear to the unknown in order to survive.

Depending on how strict we are with the definition, the end of this “dark age of Touhou” (narratively speaking, not in terms of quality) could be in one of two possible moments: it could be in 2015, with Touhou 15 featuring an encounter with non-exiled Lunarians in the Lunar Capital (the first one if we only consider the videogames and ignore the print works) and the reveal that they caused the previous year’s Urban Legend Incident in Touhou 14.5, or it could be in the period between 2023 and 2025, with Touhou 19, Whispered Oracle of Hakurei Shrine and Touhou 20.

I learned about Touhou in early 2024, right when this era of the series’s canon was definitely ending; I started off by going to the very beginning of the Windows era and playing through Touhou 6 and 7, but I was also exposed to all the content made by fans on the Internet at the time. As a result, a lot of Touhou content I initially consumed wasn’t exactly dark or entirely depressing but did include lots of memes and parodies inspired by the state of the series’s canon in the last 15 years or so, with either Reimu’s life being comparable to your average Wile E Coyote cartoon where nothing goes right for her ever, or her being funny because of how unreasonably aggressive she is, or her laziness being amped up to eleven; I was already experiencing some dissonance from this, as those two first games of the Windows era that I did play had given me a rather different first impression, although I still lacked comprehensive knowledge about the series and couldn’t exactly articulate my thoughts on the matter. I looked up what happened in the next games and the print works, which allowed me to start noticing this “serious phase” the series had seemingly entered; a while later, I paid attention to the stories of the more recent entries –namely Touhou 19 & 20 and WOoHS (shout-out to “suntzuanime” for translating WOoHS into English, their work has been invaluable)–, and then I noticed those optimistic elements at the core of Touhou that had always been a part of the setting and now are starting to get more focus again [1], as well as Reimu’s unorthodox approach to incident-solving being recognised as the reason why Gensoukyou is still the way it is and didn’t collapse or turn into a more hostile or oppressive place.

[1 – I’ll admit, though, that the very first time I read Reimu’s own fortune-telling slip about herself at the very end of WOoHS, I almost cried thinking she wrote that in an attempt to cope.]

For all these changes across the history of Touhou in both Reimu’s portrayal and the general tone of the series, the out-of-universe explanation is fairly simple: as time went on, ZUN was interested in telling different stories and addressing different topics through each videogame and each print work, and so he did. So, I tried to come up with an in-universe explanation, then I noticed something that might be just a coincidence but was too good to pass up, and I came up with a theory in February 2026 (https://mashounen2003.tumblr.com/post/809576855521853440). Much more recently, that r/GensokyoLife post I linked at the beginning inspired me to polish this theory a bit and share it here, since the events of Silent Sinner in Blue are actually the point in the Touhou timeline where this started: before that, we had the series still being light-hearted and Reimu coming up with the Spell Card Rules, being rather chill in general, and casually helping a youkai recover without worrying too much about its implications; after that, it was the closest thing to a “dark and serious era” of Touhou, and probably the worst decade (a decade and a half, in my opinion) of Reimu’s life.

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The “Reimu’s Lunarian phase” theory.

First of all, what inspired me to come up with this theory to begin with was this very succinct synthesis of what happened in WOoHS, made by “anueutsuho” shortly after it was published.

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[09-04-2025]

A post by “anueutsuho” (https://anueutsuho.tumblr.com/post/780404738245181440):

>"I love it. Reimu made all these fortune-telling slips because she didn’t want the youkai of Gensoukyou to change, let alone vanish from existence. And she has extended this kindness as far out as forgettable beings like Daiyousei and Koakuma, to beings as horrible as Yachie, Jo’on, or Seija, to even beings actively harming Gensoukyou with their very existence like Mizuchi and Chimata. > >And Zanmu has so much respect for Reimu that she calls her “the Ruler of Gensoukyou”. While the fanon idea of Gensoukyou destroying itself upon Reimu’s death is inaccurate, it can truly be said that Gensoukyou would fall into chaos and despair without Reimu being the person she is. > >Not an all-destroying malice, but an all-accepting kindness. That is what Reimu is. Gensoukyou accepts everything because Reimu accepts everything."

I made that last part of the text in bold for emphasis.

(“Reimu Hakurei, Ruler of Gensoukyou.” LMAO, take that, Yukari.)

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This is kind of the big difference between Gensoukyou and the Lunar Capital, isn’t it? The Lunarians reject anything they consider “impure” and –as evidenced very recently during the events of Touhou 20– they’re obsessed with keeping their existence unchanging in their attempt to remain immortal, to such a degree that they risk destroying both Gensoukyou and themselves.

This in turn reminded me of how the late 2000s and early-to-mid 2010s were probably an era where Reimu had it rough. As “que-de-metal” already pointed out here (https://que-de-metal.tumblr.com/post/725438351395700736), this was where the events of the Touhou series and Reimu’s actual portrayal in the series’s text itself didn’t fit with her descriptions as “carefree” and “easy-going”.

Other factions like the Moriya Shrine and the other two religions showed up and threw the status quo out the window, Kasen started pestering Reimu– I mean, Wild and Horned Hermit started, Akyuu organised the Symposium of Post-Mysticism that ended with Reimu pretty much exploding after feeling betrayed by everyone, some misguided weak youkai tried to start a violent revolution, that unfortunate incident in Forbidden Scrollery #25 happened, the Lunarians dropped an Occult Orb of their own on Gensoukyou and everything went to hell twice in a row because of that... Those were some difficult 6 or 7 years. And even though things kinda calmed down in this regard after Touhou 15, it didn’t really stop there: the Animal Realm tricked Reimu and her friends into helping them and then started getting more and more involved until they tried an all-out invasion, and the actions of Gensoukyou’s resident dysfunctional polycule– the Touhou 18 gang led to more problems later on, since not only did Chimata indirectly cause the incident in Touhou 19, but her actions were also the exact reason why some youkai were in danger of disappearing and Reimu had to write all those fortune-telling slips in WOoHS in the first place.

Right before this long string of particularly complicated incidents, the Ephemeral Moon Vignette saga (Silent Sinner in Blue and Cage-in Lunatic Runagate) happened: Reimu had to start training her ability to summon gods, there was an attempt to invade the Lunar Capital, the Watatsuki sisters swept the floor with the protagonists, and Reimu had to stay on the Moon for a while to avoid a potential conflict between Gensoukyou and the Lunar Capital [2]. Right after these events, the incidents during the next 15 years or so seemed to be proof that all the youkai were indeed just as problematic as it was assumed, that it wasn’t possible to negotiate with them and the Hakurei shrine maiden shouldn’t merely solve the incidents they cause & reconciliate with them afterwards and instead should literally exterminate them, and that all the newcomers were only making Gensoukyou worse and threatening its balance. This tested Reimu’s deep desire for an inclusive Gensoukyou where humans and youkai could coexist –the reason why she came up with the Spell Card Rules to begin with–, as she tried harder to convince both everyone else and herself that she had nothing to do with youkai and her duty was to get rid of them whenever they step out of line (even though Miko saw through that mask she tried to put up near the end of SoPM); she also started saying things like “Danmaku shouldn’t be restricted by rules”, which would make a lot of people think “There’s no way this violent shrine maiden came up with the Spell Card Rules’ idea to begin with”.

[2 – I also remember reading that, in the few years immediately after Reimu came back from the Moon, there were a few passing comments once in a while on how she had started acting a bit strange. However, I can’t corroborate what was the source of that.]

I don’t think it was entirely coincidental that, at first glance, the apparent definitive solution to all these new problems was to make Gensoukyou more like the Lunar Capital, with the Hakurei shrine maiden behaving more like the Lunarians, using their methods and adhering to their ideology. To top it off, the main Lunarian who defeated Reimu & co., Watatsuki no Yorihime, was pretty much everything Reimu was supposed to be and wasn’t: she was a “super shrine maiden” who could summon all of the actual big-name Heavenly Kami during a Spell Card duel shortly after learning the rules, whereas Reimu only was able to punch back in some capacity when she summoned one kami “born from impurity” for just a brief moment near the end [3]; Yorihime is also strongly disciplined and focused on her training, not caring about how OP she already is, while Reimu is frequently accused of being lazy, admittedly doesn’t really train her mystical abilities [4] and seems to rely entirely on the fact that those powers are innate.

[3 – I had initially thought Oumagatsumi wasn’t a thing in real-life Japanese mythology (especially because “a kami born from impurity” sounds like an oxymoron) and Reimu straight-up invented an ad-hoc “kami of impurity” from whole cloth on the spot so she could counter the Lunarians with the only thing she knew they’d hate. Even though that wasn’t the case, this should be mentioned more and Reimu should get some actual credit for pulling that off with such an obscure mythological figure, regardless of Yorihime winning that battle at the end.]

[4 – Reimu doesn’t train her abilities at present, but if we try to fit PC-98 canon into the current Windows canon (using the rule of “everything from PC-98 is valid unless contradicted by something from Windows”), she had to do at least some training at some point before Touhou 6 in order to fully unlock the power of the Yin-Yang Orbs.]

Luckily, the events of the two most recent Touhou games showed that following the Lunar Capital’s example wasn’t the answer, and ultimately proved Reimu right.

In Touhou 19, Zanmu thwarts the Animal Realm’s plans to invade Gensoukyou as part of her own bigger plan to keep Gensoukyou under her own rigid control, sincerely thinking this is the best option for everyone. But upon meeting Reimu, Zanmu understands that a more flexible Gensoukyou is better, and it works because of Reimu’s way of doing things. Even the Spell Card system specifically gets validated as a method to both solve incidents and bring people together: the final battle of Touhou 19 has Zanmu defeating Reimu in the Spell Card duel itself... and then leaving Gensoukyou in Reimu’s hands anyway in the game’s story, as if Reimu was the actual winner; it could be argued that it was a battle with no losers, and both Zanmu and Reimu won, each in their own way. There’s also some symbolism going on with their respective theme songs’ titles: Zanmu’s “Kingdom of Nothingness” conveys her nihilistic view of the world, and Reimu directly counters this with “The World is Made in an Adorable Way”. As already mentioned by “anueutsuho” and others (in a more concise and articulate way than I possibly could, honestly), Zanmu greatly admires Reimu for all this, and appreciates her for being herself, not giving up while others in Touhou 19 did, and giving the same treatment to both humans and youkai; this is then reinforced by WOoHS, featuring a plot that works as a direct sequel to Touhou 19, while being published just a month before the release of the trial demo of Touhou 20.

In Touhou 20, the Lunarians’ obsession with purity leads them to take desperate measures, unsealing a “goddess of permanence and the immutable” to get Gensoukyou stuck in a time-loop, hoping that this stops the flow of impurities coming to the Moon and endangering the Lunarians’ immortality. At least two characters in the endings (namely Yuyuko and Orin, both closely linked to the afterlife in different ways) explain that keeping things unchanging to get rid of impurity, just like in the Lunar Capital, results in everyone being basically dead. Gensoukyou is what it is and stays alive because it accepts change, evolution, other possibilities, new things and people... and this is only possible thanks to Reimu, her own personality and ideas, and the particular method she invented all those years ago –around the time of the Vampire Incident– to solve disagreements while keeping Gensoukyou an inclusive and accepting place.

Touhou 20 is also a sort of “spiritual remake” of Touhou 15: they’re very different games, of course, but both games’ events include the Lunarians facing threats (Junko’s assault in Touhou 15, Yuiman’s data overload in Touhou 20) that they’re unable to deal with because they’re a stagnated society, thus needing the help of “impure” incident-solvers from Gensoukyou. As a result, both games’ plots do a very effective job at removing the “Lunar Veil” (wink wink) of perfection, efficiency & strength and revealing how fragile & unstable the Lunar Capital actually is and how far its society is from being a role model. Both games also coincide in the timeline with the two possible moments when we could say the “dark and serious era” of Touhou ended.

(While it didn’t focus on Reimu and the Hakurei shrine maiden’s role in Gensoukyou, Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia –published the year after the release of Touhou 15– did try to make a point about how trying to be like the Lunarians was a bad idea, which was even exposed in the text itself when Aya interviewed Hecatia at the very end. Sadly, the message ZUN tried to convey got lost in the middle of all of his own clunky & aged-like-milk real-life political satire and all the times throughout the book where Aya tried to “reach her final form as Tengucker Carlson” until Hecatia verbally knocked some sense into her in that same final interview.)

Something especially telling is how much Reimu changed in the years between that fateful trip to the Moon and today: after being all like “There’s only one way to solve incidents: exterminate youkai on sight!” in SoPM, she actively did something to help youkai in WOoHS. For years she tried (and failed a lot of the time anyway) to be an ultra-disciplined hardass and not listen to her own feelings, follow in the Lunarians’ steps (namely, Yorihime’s steps) so she could summon gods and be a “proper shrine maiden”, only for the correct answer to be... that she never needed any of that: she had already cracked the code (although she doesn’t know that because... Well... There are no computers in Gensoukyou, duh... Unless you count Ran) in the year 2000 or whenever the Vampire Incident took place, she was already solving incidents her own way with the help of the Spell Card Rules she created, her so-called “lazy” approach is actually what allows her to better do her job rather than being detrimental [5], and even with all the additional issues & complexities in Gensoukyou and the inner turmoil Reimu was going through in the 2010s, she only really cracked in Forbidden Scrollery #25, all the other incidents during that period were solved in the same way as the previous ones and Gensoukyou managed to stay the same and avoid both falling into chaos and emulating the Lunar Capital. Meanwhile, the Lunarians’ own methods are reaching a limit, their experiment to be eternal and unchanging starting to fail in more and more obvious ways –as evidenced in Touhou 15 and 20–, and their society is very much doomed to collapse sooner or later.

[5 – Even if we take the laziness accusations at face value, Reimu still gives her all when it’s needed and she really cares about it, which even Kasen admitted at one point. The first example of this that comes to mind for me is Touhou 14.5: at the end of the Urban Legend Incident, Reimu saved not only Gensoukyou from a very concrete threat to its whole existence, but also Sumireko from committing suicide via the Occult Orbs, even though Sumireko was the one who directly caused the incident (although only at first glance, since the Lunarians are the ones who caused it indirectly by starting the chain of events when they sent that Occult Orb from the Moon, but that wouldn’t be revealed until the next game).]

I'd love to see a new story set in the aftermath of Touhou 20, where Reimu and Yorihime meet again or even have a rematch of their battle in Silent Sinner in Blue; that could even end in a similar way as the final Zanmu vs Reimu duel in Touhou 19, with Yorihime winning on paper but with this victory not proving her or the Lunarians right. That would allow the series’s broader narrative to underscore these differences between Reimu & Yorihime and between Gensoukyou & the Lunar Capital; namely, how the methods of Reimu and Gensoukyou succeeded where those of Yorihime and the Lunarians failed.

Being open to change, possibilities and evolution, along with the aforementioned “all-accepting kindness”, is the way of Gensoukyou; deep down, it’s also what Reimu Hakurei is and believes in, and she’s both happier and more useful for Gensoukyou when she’s true to herself and follows those ideals when solving incidents. Trying to reject that, as Reimu tried for a while, is not the way of Gensoukyou; it’s the way of the Lunar Capital: a sterile, cold and void way that doesn’t really lead anywhere, only to slow and empty suffering, and ultimately, to death and oblivion.

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A very basic story concept I came up with.

Since I mentioned the events of SoPM up here, do you know what would be interesting to have in the Touhou series now?

Another symposium but better, and by “better”, I mean with Reimu present and participating from beginning to end:

>Marisa bursts into Suzunaan (as you do) and proposes Akyuu to make a new symposium but inviting Reimu to participate in it. On the one hand, more than a decade has passed since the original Symposium of Post-Mysticism and much has changed in Gensoukyou in the interim, so there’s quite a lot of material for everyone to talk about. On the other hand, it’d be an opportunity for both Akyuu and Marisa herself to thank Reimu for her efforts and formally repay her after holding the original event behind her back. > >Akyuu, who doesn’t think highly of Reimu and her methods, asks where Marisa got the idea that both of them –rather than Marisa alone– are indebted to Reimu in any way. Marisa reminds Akyuu that she and Reimu recently solved an incident where Gensoukyou was nearly destroyed by the Lunarians’ desperate actions, and that these events led to the release of Ariya Iwanaga, who would now be able to answer Akyuu’s prayers and grant her longevity; this and the successful resolution of many other incidents wouldn’t have happened if Reimu had not been her “lazy” and “sympathetic to youkai” self.

There could still be drama and heated moments in this story, mainly from Reimu being taken by surprise by this and having trouble believing this is even happening, as well as various characters probably taking this chance to either air their grievances with each other or confess feelings they were bottling on a certain matter. For example: they could finally address what happened in Reimu’s trip to the Moon, since that wasn’t really talked about in SoPM; likewise, they could unpack everything related to the Animal Realm, including how they tricked Reimu, Marisa and Youmu into helping them in the first place, which I’m sure left a few emotional scars; also, if Aya really does secretly admire Reimu as much as a portion of the fandom seems to believe, this would be the chance both for her to openly admit it and also for Reimu to point out Aya’s actual actions suggested the complete opposite.

A month ago, “Levander” (currently, the main English translator of official Touhou print works by ZUN and fan-made Touhou print works by other artists that get published as part of Strange Creators of Outer World) got an ask on their Tumblr blog “chireikiden” (https://chireikiden.tumblr.com) and provided the following answer:

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[15-04-2026]

An ask by an anonymous user for “chireikiden”:

>Are the Watatsuki sisters considered kami? Could Yorihime summon her sister Toyohime out of the blue?

The answer by “chireikiden” (https://chireikiden.tumblr.com/post/813991281994924032):

>In terms of family trees and mythologically recognizable characters, the likes of Eirin, Sagume and, indeed, the Watatsuki sisters are pretty unambiguously Heavenly Kami/gods. (By extension, we have to assume Kaguya is a Heavenly Kami as well; although the original Princess Kaguya is a fairytale character with no specific religious status, it isn’t much of a leap to call her one, even within the original Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.) > >Beyond that, the Ephemeral Moon Vignette saga (that is, both Silent Sinner in Blue and Cage-in Lunatic Runagate) make it explicit that both Reimu and Yorihime are also summoning Lunarian gods when they do their thing. With Yorihime being able to summon the likes of Amaterasu, I have to assume she could summon Toyohime too, yeah. Note that we’re putting aside any unknowable questions about whether she’d be allowed to do so without “the proper measures” or “permission” (chapter 6 of Cage-in Lunatic Runagate). > >It’s specified (most explicitly in chapter 6 of Silent Sinner in Blue) that gods, including those with physical bodies, are simply cloned when summoned into a new location. This would also apply to Toyohime. I guess that's a good reason not to try to summon her. > >----- > >That said, as a tangent: although the Lunarians’ “summonability” seems to be one of the least ambiguous things about them, there’s a lot about the Lunarians’ exact nature that gets into the territory of what I’d call “dubious by omission”: stuff that isn’t directly contradictory per se, but has been left ambiguous and starts to get more and more dubious the longer it goes without being mentioned or clarified in any way, even when the Lunarians otherwise come up. It’s really hard to see Lunarians running on very similar rules as Earthly Kami such as the ones at the Moriya Shrine or the Aki sisters, but they may have simply outgrown such concerns when they moved to the Moon and chose a new form of immortality. And of course, the ones we’re most familiar –Eirin and Kaguya– also have the Hourai Elixir as an added complication. > >I think a lot of the lore around the Moon exists in a kind of confusing state partly because Touhou 8 was a very early entry of the Touhou series from the era when the setting was still pretty unformed, yet the Ephemeral Moon Vignette saga ended up discussing it at quite some length and then more games (namely, Touhou 15 and Touhou 20) kept on coming back to the subject. But the boundaries around the status of kami being very fuzzy is appropriate for both the Touhou universe and real-life Shinto lore, anyway.

Tags added by “rosymerry” (https://rosymerry.tumblr.com/post/813991600822829056):

>The lore about kami and the Lunarians in Touhou is delightfully ambiguous. I’m currently re-reading through all material, hoping to get insights on them (particularly how Heaven relates to the Lunar Capital), but I don’t expect their status/nature will be truly clarified in canon.

A reply by “clarste”:

>Bunrei.

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The reply by “clarste” mentioning the bunrei, along with this part of Levander's answer...

>It’s specified (most explicitly in chapter 6 of Silent Sinner in Blue) that gods, including those with physical bodies, are simply cloned when summoned into a new location.

... reminded me of the following piece of Touhou lore and its possible basis on real-life Shintou religious practices:

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[25-11-2023]

A post by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/734999981348552704):

>Where’s the f***ing thing about splitting up kami, leaving each bit as whole instances of that kami, that I know I’ve read once? “Infinite chocolate” type guys. > >(By the way, this is the basis for my idea that there are variants of each Heavenly Kami in Gensoukyou and in the Lunar Capital at the same time.)

A reply by “sukimas”:

>It's in Strange and Bright Nature Deity, and then also at the beginning of Silent Sinner in Blue.

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I had read about a process in real-life Shintou religion called "kanjou", as well as the "bunrei" or "wakemitama". The whole thing reminds me so much of this bit of Touhou lore that “occasionaltouhou” and “sukimas” were talking about, that I can’t help but wonder if the lore from Strange and Bright Nature Deity and Silent Sinner in Blue was inspired by this. I'll copy-paste it here from Wikipedia; it should be a good enough summary:

>Bunrei or wakemitama [「分霊」] is a Shintou technical term that indicates both the process of dividing a kami to be re-enshrined somewhere else (such as a house’s kamidana or miniature altar), and the spirit itself produced by the division. > >Shrines conduct bunrei to distribute them to “child” shrines elsewhere. The spirit of the kami does not decrease through this act, and a bunrei functions the same way as the original spirit. The reason for conducting bunrei is often to make a kami more accessible to worshipers far from the main shrine. > >Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunrei

>Kanjou [「勧請」] in Shintou terminology indicates a propagation process through which a kami, previously divided through the process of bunrei, is invited to another location and re-enshrined there. > >It was originally a Buddhist term, referring to the request of the buddha’s sermon with a sincere heart; later, it came to mean the urging of a buddha or bodhisattva to remain in this world to preach and save other human beings, and then the concept evolved further to mean the act (and the actual words) of asking buddhas or bodhisattvas to descend to the altar during a Buddhist service. In Japan, the word entered Shintou vocabulary and gradually assumed the present meaning of enshrinement of a buddha or kami in a building for the first time. > >Inari is the kami that has been subjected to the process of kanjou more often than any other. > >Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanj%C5%8D

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In turn, this reminded me of a bunch of other cool Touhou theories and ideas proposed by “occasionaltouhou” (whom you can also find as “godmedallion” in Archive Of Our Own). Most of them are related to either the Lunarians or Iwanaga-hime, and they also inspired me to come up with my own thoughts on the matter:

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[25-11-2023]

A post by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/734950414258241536):

>To be honest, if Gensoukyou can’t survive heat death, I doubt the Hourai Elixir could either. Because, ultimately, that stuff is still fuelled by human belief in an elixir of immortality. Arguably, that’s its active ingredient.

A reply by “every1sno1fangirl”:

>Is the Hourai Elixir fuelled by human belief? I wouldn’t think so, I don’t think the Lunarians are in the same way people of Gensoukyou are.

The response by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/734998492673703937):

>Lunarians are just kami, the same as the ones who live in Gensoukyou. So yeah, they’re dependent upon human belief, the same as anything else. They’ll never f***ing admit it, though. > >(As a general rule, treat anything the Lunarians say as suspect. The instant Kaguya said they invented youkai, I knew they didn’t know s***.)

A reply by “derxwnakapsyla”:

>Now I’m just imagining a future where Gensoukyou (including all associated sub-realms) is just drifting through space, mostly unaware that the entirety of the universe is gone, because Utsuho is producing an artificial Sun and Eirin is producing an artificial Moon, so little has functionally changed for them.

The response by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/734998492673703937):

>In an empty universe, Earth remains, and it is simply vibing.

Tags added by “monikatouhou” a.k.a. “monidoll” (https://monidoll.tumblr.com/post/734998846620434432):

>I think Lunarians are now an indistinguishable mix of actual kami and newly immortal humans; this way, since technically there are humans on the Lunar Capital, its system is internally self-sustaining. At least on the timescale of centuries and millennia, it should be stable enough; millions and billions of years is probably too long of a time to consider here in the first place.

The response by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/734999566825472000):

>This actually gives me the chance to bring up an idea I’ve had for a while: I don’t think the Lunarians are a mix of gods and humans, nor do I think they’re trying to turn themselves into humans – humans, prone as they are to life and death, are inherently beings of kegare/impurity. > >I think they’re attempting to turn themselves from kami into proper capital-G Gods, and I think that the Moon Rabbits are there to maintain the system: they’re artificial worshippers who provide the faith required to sustain the Lunarians. > >Unfortunately for them, this is a ridiculous plan because it hinges upon the fact that they exist as things humans came up with in the first place. Their isolated system only works as long as someone who’s actually real and wasn’t imagined into being thinks they might exist – this would remain true even if they were able to turn themselves into humans, because they’d still have turned themselves into humans who don’t experience human things like... you know... getting sick and dying.

A reblog by “that-which-isnt”:

>I’m not really at all familiar with Chinese mythology, but my understanding from Wikipedia-level browsing was that Lunarians are essentially the same thing as Celestials like Tenshi, which is to say, humans reborn in a Pure Land because of good karma or favouritism from gods and made functionally immortal through the continual consumption of heavenly foods. The difference between Lunarians and regular Celestials is just that the Moon-dwellers made their own Pure Land rather than having one given to them by the gods. > >The Moon Rabbits are anyone’s guess and one of the biggest mysteries in Touhou in my opinion, but personally, I think the idea of them being engineered beings created to act as slaves and a faith farm is probably correct. My only question is if they were made from scratch, or if there used to be a lot more Lunarians and a lot fewer Moon Rabbits.

The response by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/735003769968918528):

>The thing about the Lunarians being Celestials is that it’s pretty explicit that the Lunarians are meant to be the Heavenly Kami, because every Lunarian we’ve been given the name of is a Heavenly Kami. The Celestials are all off in Heaven; the Lunar Capital is a counterfeit. Given that it was designed by Eirin, it was probably intended to piggyback off the idea of the Moon being inhabited by Celestials – after all, the Lunarians think of themselves as being equivalent, and do everything that they can to ensure that it is the case (which is, of course, not something an actual Celestial would ever need to do).

A reply by “paradizetobefound”:

>Can it be said that the Moon merely reflecting sunlight instead of being a legitimate source of sky illumination provides further symbolism to Lunarians being counterfeit Celestials in a forgery of Heaven?

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[25-11-2023]

A post by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/735001095414382592):

>Anyway... Yeah, the Lunarians are... like... basically just one version of the Heavenly Kami. They’re not even the genuine article, because there isn’t one for kami, that’s not how they “work”. and I know in my heart that this eats them up inside. Wretched little shadows of the Heavenly Kami, hiding on the Moon with all their fake worshippers. > >(I can feel myself slipping into Yukari Mode. I need to go eat something.)

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[25-11-2023]

An ask by “tennco” for “occasionaltouhou”:

>I saw that post about the Hourai Elixir and was wondering: what happens to belief or faith when no one’s around to... well... believe? Does it have to come in a constant supply? Does belief persist after the death of the one who originated it? Are the dead allowed to believe?

The answer by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/735000275731054593):

>We know that youkai can provide faith, so it follows that the spirits of the dead can do so too. My theory is that, provided that people believe in some kind of afterlife, those spirits can provide (a very small amount of) belief in stuff. But that only holds true so long as there are people who believe in a world beyond death. > >But yeah, it’d have to be a constant supply – that’s why they had to build the Hakurei Barrier when they did: because you can’t really get back what was already lost once nobody believes in it anymore, even if you re-develop that belief afterwards – or at least, it wouldn’t be the same as what was there beforehand. > >(So long as the idea of the youkai exists and they’re believed in, the individual variants can just appear in much smaller amounts, on account of the fact that they were already existing. I hope this helps.)

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I find this part interesting:

>[...] even if you re-develop that belief afterwards, [...] it wouldn’t be the same as what was there beforehand.

I’ve read a long fanfic a while ago (if I remember correctly, it was “Powerless Hakurei Tales” by “Carmichael_Micaalus”) that briefly addresses what would happen to youkai if they could peacefully coexist with humans in Gensoukyou, instead of needing to eat humans and depending on humans’ fear of youkai as well as their belief in them.

The answer the author came up with is that yes, it's possible for Gensoukyou’s humans to still believe in the existence and powers of youkai and interact with them without fearing them. In this scenario, youkai could still exist and even keep their forms and their powers, but at a more fundamental, existential level, they’d be something different; they’d not be exactly the same as the youkai they used to be.

However, I’d suggest that y’all take this (and any other thing relative to my personal interpretation of canon and my tastes in Touhou fanfiction) with a grain of salt: the way I tend to envision Gensoukyou and the interactions between all its inhabitants, while not necessarily being incongruent with Touhou canon, is probably much more optimistic and idealistic than what would be allowed by the current fandom consensus (as an example unrelated to the topic of this post: I have the opinion that, when the Spell Card Rules were introduced, life in Gensoukyou was no longer “business as usual” and Reimu coming up with that idea was a big change and marked a turning point in Gensoukyou’s history by proposing a way to solve issues that didn’t require humans and youkai to fear and hate and kill each other).

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[26-11-2023]

A post by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/735004757194932224):

>The Lunar Capital is a masterwork: home to incredible wonders, technology far in advance of that of the surface... But it is a forgery – a forgery among forgeries, certainly, but a forgery nonetheless, made by some rather small-minded beings trying desperately to ignore the truth of their own existence. As always: don’t get tricked, alright?

A reply by “itspurvis”:

>Forgeries own. > >Han van Meegeren is a better and more accomplished artist than Vermeer ever was.

The response by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/735030980178477056):

>Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing forgeries, nor the work put into them – creating an imitation Heaven is something only a genius like Eirin could pull off. > >My point was that it’s not Heaven, and the Lunarians are not Celestials, and when you really dig down, the Lunar Capital is simply an exercise in trying to ignore the stuff you don’t want to deal with (kegare, being reliant on human belief, the general concept of entropy) by plugging your ears and hoping that they eventually stop mattering.

A reply by “itspurvis”:

>If I may be slightly more serious for a moment: it seems that the crux of this is that Lunarians are “Fake” and Celestials are “Real”. Where is that coming from, exactly? > >I’ve always kind of assumed that the Lunar Capital and the Celestials’ realm are both sub-sections of the Gods’ Realm (one of the 6 Buddhist Realms, which is also where the Animal Realm comes from), two different flavours of the same thing, particularly since the Dragon Palace seems to exist in both.

The response by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/735088321947156480):

>The Lunar Capital being fake is not exactly a thing ZUN has said “outright” but there’s a bunch of stuff that can easily lead one to that impression. But the main thing is that... you know... it was made: it was designed, by Eirin, specifically to be a Pure Land. Meanwhile, as far as we know, the Celestials’ Heaven simply “exists” out there, as the other Buddhist Realms do – and it doesn’t have a firm location in the way the Lunar Capital does: it’s simply “above the clouds”. Arguably, the Dragon Palace existing in both cements the idea of the Lunar Capital being a fraud. > >The thing is that the Lunar Capital exists as a mirror to Gensoukyou: it is the totalitarian, walled-off form of Gensoukyou, the version that ignores the possibility of growth in favour of unchanging perpetuity. And for that to work, thematically speaking, it needs to be built off the same principles – it wouldn’t work if it wasn’t a false Heaven.

A reply by “sukimas”:

>I will note that Izumo, the other vibes-based inspiration for the Lunar Capital, is also explicitly a “constructed paradise”.

The response by “occasionaltouhou”:

>It’s artificial Heavens all the way down.

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[26-11-2023]

An ask by an anonymous user for “occasionaltouhou”:

>Since the topic of the day seems to be the Lunarians, do you have any recommendations for writing/playing one in a TTRPG?

The answer by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/735031704708890624):

>First, read all of Silent Sinner in Blue. Then, for good measure, look up a bunch of Eirin’s manga appearances and read those too. Now that you have a taste, we can dig into specifics. > >I’d say that, when playing a Lunarian, you need to keep these things in mind: >* They’re extremely confident, both in themselves and in the strength & stability of the Lunar Capital. >* They’re xenophobic, but not to an absurd degree (they’ll work with non-Lunarians if they need to). >* They’re kind of clueless. These are people who spend all their time in a bubble they made for themselves, where everything simply continues, no matter what – putting one into a situation where they’re at a disadvantage might make them start acting increasingly irrational. >* As far as they’re concerned, Earth is a prison that they made for humans and youkai (this is not true, but they believe it). >* Whichever Heavenly Kami you pick as their base, they can do what that kami would be able to do. A Lunarian is simply a single instance of a specific kami who decided to be an idiot on the Moon. >* They generally have great respect for the higher-ups of the Lunar Capital (Tsukuyomi, Eirin, other high-ranking Heavenly Kami) and little to no respect for the Moon Rabbits. >* The “lunatic” in “Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom” (the English title of Touhou 15) refers to them: only a lunatic would put their faith in the Lunar Capital. > >That’s all I got off the top of my head. There’s probably more, though.

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All of this is very helpful, even though the kind of game I’d make is either a MetroidVania like Luna Nights, or a classic linear 2D platformer, or maybe a clone of Mega Man Battle Network in a similar vein to ShangHai.EXE. Then, the plot of this game would have Lunarians involved. (TTRPGs never caught my interest, I’m sorry about that)

Just imagine... Koumajou Densetsu 3: Edgy 2000s Vampire Hunter Reimu Goes to the Moon (and pisses on it, like Dr Eggman in Snapcube’s real-time fan-dubs) in Revenge for the Lunarians’ BS.

I'll say, though, that making a game with a plot strongly connected to the Lunar Capital will be complicated: sure, Lunarian society is doomed to collapse in the far future, but at present, individual Lunarians like Yorihime are still OP, and the gameplay would be obligated to show that. Unless...

Unless, for some plot contrivance, this game's setting is the Outside World, so both the characters from Gensokyo and the Lunarians are brought down to the same power level due to entering a "belief-less" environment.

It’ll also take work to imagine why Lunarians would even bother to intervene directly in any Earth matters to begin with. However, after the events of Touhou 20 (Yuiman being freed, the Lunar Capital losing their “purification mountain” facilities where they used her as their AI), they might be getting desperate; that could work as the plot for another Touhou game where the Lunar Capital starts a new incident. Namely, the 3rd point in the list made by “occasionaltouhou” above...

>[...] putting a Lunarian into a situation where they’re at a disadvantage might make them start acting increasingly irrational.

... makes me think the Touhou 20 aftermath might be enough to make Lunarians lose their marbles.

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[31-01-2024]

An ask by “d6b-onion” for “occasionaltouhou”:

>What do you think about Misumaru? Personally... I don’t know, maybe it’s unfortunate, but she doesn’t look like a particularly interesting character. > >People joke and talk about how “she’s a MILF” or whatever, and... sure... But somehow, with her, it gives her a boring vibe. It feels... like... contrary to all other Touhou characters: she isn’t just vibing. > >I personally don’t really like her design: Tenshi did the rainbow thing better, and Misumaru’s pose is kinda silly. > >What drives me up the wall is that she’s a boring character... who crafted Reimu's Yin-Yang Orbs! When was the last time we got actual, bona fide Reimu lore before that?! There could be all sorts of connections to the Hakurei God... but she’s kind of a nothing-burger. It’s a shame, really. Maybe you disagree.

The answer by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/741021778815713280):

>Misumaru, huh... She’s definitely a character who hasn’t gotten her time to shine. Misumaru is actually kind of a “Big Deal” in a lot of ways. First and foremost, at least based on her name, she’s Tama-no-Oya-no-Mikoto, which means she’s a Heavenly Kami who’s closely tied both to the provenance of a clan that technically predates modern Japan itself, and also to the myth of Amaterasu in her cave – which, of course, also theoretically ties Misumaru directly to the Lunarians. And just to top it all off, Tama-no-Oya-no-Mikoto is also the creator of the Yasakani-no-Magatama, which is... you know... about as big of a deal as it gets in Japanese mythology. > >So, just from which kami she is, she’s already got a lot going on. And she is, of course, the creator of the Yin-Yang Orbs – why wouldn’t you hire a master craftsman to create the go-shintai for the kami used as a lynchpin of Gensoukyou? > >There are a few more interesting facets to her, one of which is the very fact that she hasn’t shown up before or since Touhou 18 – she’s specifically protecting her interests in Youkai Mountain. She’s firm and competent, she provides guidance and aid, and she’s about as selfish as we’ve seen of any kami. The only reason she showed up is because people were taking rocks she claimed as hers! > >So, she's a Heavenly Kami... but not a Lunarian. Also, it’s worth noting that there aren’t many shrines to Tama-no-Oya-no-Mikoto; really, she’s only a step or two above Hina in terms of being a so-called “feral kami”. She doesn’t really seem to have any allegiance to Gensoukyou, or to the Hakurei Shrine (or else... you know... she’d probably have shown up at any other time). She’s just kind of a weird artisan. And she makes magatama and balls. And she throws them at people for fun. What’s better than this?

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[02-11-2023]

An ask by an anonymous user for “occasional-touhou”:

>Could you please explain the “Iwanaga-hime is the Hakurei God” theory?

[For context: at 09-02-2023, “occasionaltouhou” had posted the designs of two Touhou OCs, one of them being a character inspired by Iwanaga-hime; the post in question included summaries where the author mentioned a theory that Iwanaga-hime is the true identity of the Hakurei God. The link to the original post by "occasionaltouhou" is https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/708805168606691328; I had shared this yesterday on r/GensokyoLife (https://www.reddit.com/r/GensokyoLife/comments/1tcntq1/two_ocs_based_on_rumia_and_iwanagahime_created_by/)]])

The answer by “occasionaltouhou” (https://occasionaltouhou.tumblr.com/post/732913388035915776):

>The quick + shrimple explanation is that Iwanaga-hime is the most relevant kami of Gensoukyou as a whole, so it’d make sense for the shrine most significant to Gensoukyou to also be related to her. To elaborate... > >First and foremost, Youkai Mountain is the real-life Yatsugatake mountain range, that is, Iwanaga-hime’s mountain (mythologically, the Yatsugatake mountains are the remains of Iwanaga-hime’s mountain, and Youkai Mountain could be interpreted as the original form of said mountain before it was destroyed). We know this from Mokou’s chapter of Cage-in Lunatic Runagate, one of the most critical Touhou lore objects. I feel like, right from the start, it needs to be emphasised how crucial it is that the main thing differentiating Gensoukyou from the Outside World –potentially and arguably being a lynchpin of its existence– belongs to a myth about Iwanaga-hime specifically (in case you’re curious, there’s no contradiction in both Iwanaga-hime and Yasakatome/Takeminakata/Kanako being the kami of Youkai Mountain, though I imagine Iwanaga-hime isn’t happy about it given who Kanako is as a person). > >The second reason is that the Hieda clan –and Akyuu in particular– also worship Iwanaga-hime. In fact, they’re specifically noted to do so in a way that you don’t really get for basically any other kami. Akyuu does so hoping for the gift of longevity (because... you know... Akyuu…), but that doesn’t really elaborate on why the rest of the family does beyond that it’s a thing that they do. > >Iwanaga-hime is extremely important to both the giant f***ing rock in the middle of Gensoukyou and also its main chronicler, someone who is arguably as critical as the Hakurei shrine maidens to maintaining the status quo of Gensoukyou. At the very least, Iwanaga-hime would absolutely have been a part of the negotiations for the development of Gensoukyou right from the start, if nothing else. She’s “kind of important”. > >So, you know, you have this kami whose whole thing is making sure things last, who’s crucial to Gensoukyou’s existence, and whose go-shintai is a huge f***ing rock. Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

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There are a few things introduced in Touhou 20 that might throw a wrench into things, but everything else described here still fits too well in the current Touhou canon, so I still adhere to this theory, which also gave me ideas for a few things I’d like to work on.

For now, here’s what I thought up when I looked for a way to reconcile the idea of Iwanaga-hime (or Ariya Iwanaga, in this case) being the Hakurei God with the more recently established Touhou canon.

The big question here is how Ariya could have participated in the creation of Gensoukyou if she was still sealed in the Pyramid. Maybe Yukari or any of the Sages invoked Iwanaga’s power or something like that, and they achieved this by using the Yatsugatake mountains as a substitute for Ariya herself (this mountain range is Ariya’s go-shintai after all, and it'd still be there, no matter if she was sealed under them); they managed to make it work, but Ariya couldn’t control it in the state she was in.

(Also, this reminded me that Ariya probably was able to at least vaguely/subconsciously sense, not only the Sages using her mountains to create Gensoukyou, but also the Hieda family praying to her for longevity while still being unable to answer those prayers. Now that Ariya has been freed, she can do something for Akyuu, but... Damn, remembering all those prayers that went unanswered, all the times Akyuu died young and had to reincarnate because Ariya couldn’t prevent it or even mitigate it in any way, and the feelings of guilt from that, must still be eating Ariya from the inside if this is all true.)

While Ariya’s power over permanence and the immutable would be useful to upkeep Gensoukyou, the incident in Touhou 20 proves this is a double-edged sword: she unleashed her power indiscriminately, which stopped the normal flow of time and was going to leave Gensoukyou devoid of kegare, and that threatened Gensoukyou’s whole existence (it’s pointed out at least twice in Touhou 20 alone that the complete absence of kegare, which happens in the Lunar Capital and would have happened in Gensoukyou if the incident hadn’t been solved, is comparable to being dead).

Now, when “occasionaltouhou” initially proposed this theory (that was at least two years before the release of Touhou 20 featuring Ariya Iwanaga, and if we count from when they posted their Iwanaga-inspired OC and mentioned this theory for the first time, it was even before the release of Touhou 19), they speculated that Iwanaga-hime would not like to share Youkai Mountain with someone like Kanako. Now that Ariya was introduced and she has a strong grudge with the Lunarians, she might find common ground with Kanako on sharing this grudge at least (and if the story also decides to delve into Yuiman’s past and Kanako’s old friendship with her, Ariya and Kanako could also find common ground in wishing the best for Yuiman, but this is just the shipping-obsessed part of my brain talking). More importantly to the roles of both Ariya’s power and Youkai Mountain in Gensoukyou, and something that addresses the issue I talked about in the previous paragraph: after the Touhou 20 incident, Ariya would understand that her power of immutability is necessary but must be used with moderation as well (both to keep Gensoukyou alive and to not follow on the Lunarians’ steps), and Kanako is pragmatic and willing to accept change (she even tries to present herself as a kami of innovation); with Ariya and Kanako sharing the role of “kami of Youkai Mountain”, they might be able to arrange a sort of "work relationship" where they balance each other.

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This is it for now. I just wanted to take all this interesting stuff proposed by other Touhou fans, put it all together and organised in one place, and share it here for anyone interested. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments (and also give credit and go follow/subscribe to all the people mentioned here, of course).