it would be an understatement to describe touhou music as incredible. this thread serves to show and talk about the vast arrangements and remixes of touhou songs by many various doujin circles, as well as talk about the circles that remix touhou songs.
for more context, touhou is a bullet hell video game series solely developed by zun, zun programs the games, creates the characters, and most notably composes the music. many other games are renowned for their soundtracks but what makes touhou different from other games is that the series is very fan-driven by nature of its origins as a "doujin game", and that zun encourages fans to create fanworks of his games, including fanart, games, and of course music. this has amounted to a continuous explosion of touhou fan remixes in the past 15-20 years from hundreds if not thousands of doujin circles. remixes in every genre you can think of, vocal arrangements, even vocals in different languages beyond japanese like french and german, there is an endless sea of touhou fan music. doujin circles often would often release their work during the biannual comiket convention, which is held once in august and another in december. touhou was so popular at comiket that a convention made just for touhou known as reitaisai was made, which usually happens around the spring time, although the recent pandemic as thrown a wrench in that.
most touhou arrangements you can find on youtube, however as of late, more and more artists and circles have been putting their works on streaming platforms such as spotify. some notable circles that have their works on spotify include xi-on, eastnewsound, alstroemeria records, cool&create, and theres also official touhou osts from team shanghai alice and twilight frontier. check out this link to see what doujin circles have their works on spotify: https://www.thspotify.moe/
zun under team shanghai alice has already put out his various music albums on spotify and is currently releasing the osts of the zun-developed games. the touhou fighting game songs made along with twilight frontier are already on spotify. more info (although in japanese) here:
as for my tastes, im a very simple person, i see a touhou song i will most probably like it, doesnt matter what genre, style, or if it has vocals, though i slightly prefer instrumental stuff. theres a lot of rock and metal remixes so doujin circles such as demetori, ui-70, and xi-on are up my alley, not to mention that these are probably among the most well known doujin circles. it seems as if only xi-on has their albums on spotify out of the circles i named, which is a tad unfortunate, perhaps the other circles will hop on soon. dbu is another one of my favorite circles, i especially like how close dbu's songs are to the original touhou songs. ill link a small sample of my favorites from these circles, please listen warmly:
xi-on - emotional skyscraper
ui-70 - septette for the dead princess
xi-on - fall of fall
demetori - pure furies
dbu - lunatic princess
ui-70 - desire drive
demetori - vessel of stars
dbu - border of life
there are a lot more circles i like but these are the first ones that come to my mind and frankly there are so many awesome circles. last thing i want to say though, is that the songs considered to be the big three of touhou songs (un owen was her, flowering night, and bad apple) are all remixes, with the last brutal scarlet sister s and night of nights remix made by cool&create, and the bad apple song by alstroemeria records, with the shadow art video accompanying it coming a bit later, which really cements the influence of fan culture surrounding the series on the internet.
for more context, touhou is a bullet hell video game series solely developed by zun, zun programs the games, creates the characters, and most notably composes the music. many other games are renowned for their soundtracks but what makes touhou different from other games is that the series is very fan-driven by nature of its origins as a "doujin game", and that zun encourages fans to create fanworks of his games, including fanart, games, and of course music. this has amounted to a continuous explosion of touhou fan remixes in the past 15-20 years from hundreds if not thousands of doujin circles. remixes in every genre you can think of, vocal arrangements, even vocals in different languages beyond japanese like french and german, there is an endless sea of touhou fan music. doujin circles often would often release their work during the biannual comiket convention, which is held once in august and another in december. touhou was so popular at comiket that a convention made just for touhou known as reitaisai was made, which usually happens around the spring time, although the recent pandemic as thrown a wrench in that.
most touhou arrangements you can find on youtube, however as of late, more and more artists and circles have been putting their works on streaming platforms such as spotify. some notable circles that have their works on spotify include xi-on, eastnewsound, alstroemeria records, cool&create, and theres also official touhou osts from team shanghai alice and twilight frontier. check out this link to see what doujin circles have their works on spotify: https://www.thspotify.moe/
zun under team shanghai alice has already put out his various music albums on spotify and is currently releasing the osts of the zun-developed games. the touhou fighting game songs made along with twilight frontier are already on spotify. more info (although in japanese) here:
xi-on - emotional skyscraper
ui-70 - septette for the dead princess
xi-on - fall of fall
demetori - pure furies
dbu - lunatic princess
ui-70 - desire drive
demetori - vessel of stars
dbu - border of life
there are a lot more circles i like but these are the first ones that come to my mind and frankly there are so many awesome circles. last thing i want to say though, is that the songs considered to be the big three of touhou songs (un owen was her, flowering night, and bad apple) are all remixes, with the last brutal scarlet sister s and night of nights remix made by cool&create, and the bad apple song by alstroemeria records, with the shadow art video accompanying it coming a bit later, which really cements the influence of fan culture surrounding the series on the internet.
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