Touhou - UNCUT 4 Song Study: 'U.N. Owen Was Her?,' 'Hartmann's Youkai Girl,' 'Pure Furies' & 'Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke' + 'Bad Apple!!' (66 min)

99.99% of Touhou content is fan-made. The creator ZUN typically makes the base composition for the games, and the fanbase goes wild on creating different arrangements in every possible genre. There's something like 180,000 different fan made arrangements, in every genre from classical to jazz, metal to dubstep, and everything inbetween.

Watching you immediately clock one of Toby Fox's original main inspirations was so satisfying to see! Zun and Toby themselves have done covers and crossovers of several of their songs together as well, which I would love to see you react to as well. Back to the main topic at hand, Touhou really is special as a franchise for musical inspiration!! Zun is really a composer first and a game designer second, as you can feel the stories he wants to tell in each piece he makes for a game. Can't wait to see you react to more!

Well, the floodgates have been opened

Not to make anything and everything about him somehow, but truly, once you hear Touhou music SO much of Toby Fox's composing style makes sense

perfect timing, touhou is my favorite thing ever!! if you want to explore people who have done vocal melodies and arrangements of touhou music, i previously sent in a request about akatsuki records and their vocalist stack. very unique stuff if you feel like diving deeper into the creativity of fans surrounding it

This game series is so popular, especially in Japan and China, that there are terabytes worth of covers out there. The funny thing is, I'd argue that the majority of fans have never actually played any of the games, they just like the music scene and the fan-made lore. It's popular enough to warrant an annual fan-run convention known as Reitaisai every spring at Tokyo Big Sight (the same spot they hold Comike/Comic Market). It's been held since 2004, so 23 years in total.

"Has anyone done a vocal melody for this?" he asks. Tim, the vast majority, if not all Touhou songs have had a vocal melodies done for them through the thousands of arrangements and such which have been made over the years (and that is not hyperbolic). There are independent music groups and artists in Japan which have made and continue to make their careers almost if not entirely through Touhou arrangements. There exist Touhou arrangements in every genre of music, made by around a thousand artists/groups, all using the original compositions of a single man as their framework to create absolutely amazing songs. Touhou is incredibly special, there exists nothing else like it in the world and I mean that wholeheartedly.

Zun is a special independent creator... He has faced his own hardships in the maturing gaming industry in Japan in the 90's and harkened back to his roots of making games for himself as he did during his Uni years and went independent.. And he struck gold... and lent the keys to his kingdom to the fledgling internet. Where the world, the characters, and the music he created became kindling for many creatives who needed that lil something to latch onto.... Man is a legend and this is why we refer to him out of respect as Kannushi "master of the kami". The steward of the shrine that houses the Gensokyo.

You also should react to the fanmade bad apple song by the Touhou community since that was the song that broke out from the community/game and went viral on the internet with the MV. Like the Doujin Circle music created from the fanbase, is a complete another rabbit hole for which a bundle could be really cool for. The cover from Nerissa is actually more of a cover to the Doujin Circle song instead of the original bad apple in the Touhou OST, the MV to that is what got memed on, and recreated on all kinds of devices, platforms, games etc...