gud. Now someone explain Tohou to me lol.
Super short explanation of Touhou:
-There's this hidden land in the modern world called Gensokyo where mystic
monsters beings go to take refuge as the "outside" world stops believing in them and thus the magic in the world grows too weak to sustain said mystic beings.
-For unknown reasons most of these beings take the form of girls with frilly dresses and hats regardless of their original form, including awakened animals/items, demons, zombies, alien warriors. The most common are fairies, which are direct manifestations of nature's aspects. The mystic beings powers vary from "I can create darkness" to "I'm a living sun core", with plenty in between.
-Gensokyo is pretty small however, so as more mystic beings keep arriving there's often conflicts as inevitably they start getting into each other turfs or causing problems for their neighbours. Incidents include "Gensokyo is covered in a red mist that blots out the sun", "Winter isn't ending", "Somebody stole the moon and replaced it with a fake" and "demonic flowers are spawning everywhere".
-The "main" character is Reimu the human shrine maiden, who is supposed to keep everything in check and exterminate trouble doers. Alas she's a drunk and lazy woman, and the strongest mystic beings are virtually impossible to take down (many have/are actually sealed for centuries because nobody could figure a way to finish them for good), so Reimu more often than not just beats the crap out of them until they stop making trouble and then returns to her shrine. When she can be bothered to get out of bed. When she doesn't there's also Marisa, the second main character, a human
wicked witch lying thief ordinary magician that started as an antagonist in the 2nd game but after that turned into a trouble solver herself. While Reimu fights because it's her duty/it's personal (her shrine's been destroyed a few times already), Marisa fights to train/develop her magic and what may be interpreted as actual goodwill to protect the human villagers. Also they both love to loot their opposition, although Reimu is more interested in raw money value (she rarely gets donations and needs to get her booze and snacks from somewhere) while Marisa prefers magic bling that she can research. Mind you Marisa isn't actually stealing, she's just borrowing it until she dies, since her life span's pretty short compared to everybody else in Gensokyo. The only other "pure" human character is Sakuya, a maid who has the power to stop time and serves a vampire, next closest ones are Youmu the half-ghost sword gardener, and Sanae the demigod shrine maiden. Some Mystic beings were humans before, in particular several magicians, and still look like humans, but age a lot slower and have great arcane power.
-Usually at the start of each game the character has little idea of who's the true culprit and thus resorts to flying around and beating up everything and anything that moves until somebody coughs up some sort of clue.
-Last but not least the series is extremely ambiguous in the light/dark department. Sometimes it looks just like everybody's just playing around and having some fun, they often get together for parties. Other times there's a stack of human corpses found and Reimu goes "not my problem", one character is always trying to sneak in poisoned drinks in the parties, and Touhou reminds you now and then that half of the characters see human beings as tasty snacks. Reimu herself has come close to killing a whole planet. Twice. Marisa used to work for an evil spirit wanting revenge on the whole human race and may be a drug addict (she collects magic mushrooms and often acts as if she's high/insane). Sakuya is implied to have been a serial killer. One character killed another who had saved her skin the previous day in return for eternal life. Which she uses to fight to the death every day with another immortal in a neverending grudge. And then they all meet at Reimu's shrine for tea and cookies. Nobody seems to die, and then minor nameless characters are snuffed out in a whim by the big names. It helps the series appeal to a broader audience if you ask me.
