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Touhou Project

doujin computer game series created by Team Shanghai Alice

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ907907 ↗
Source-derived summary

Touhou Project (Japanese: 東方Project, Hepburn: Tōhō Purojekuto), also known as Touhou (東方; lit. 'Eastern' or 'Oriental'), is a bullet hell video game series created by independent Japanese doujin soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. The team's sole member, Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, has independently developed programming, graphics, writing, and music for the series, publishing 20 mainline games and 13 spin-offs since 1997. He collaborated with doujin developer Twilight Frontier on seven of the official spin-offs, six of which are fighting games. ZUN has also produced related manga series, fanbooks, and music albums.

The first five games were developed for the Japanese PC-98 computer, with the first, Highly Responsive to Prayers, released in August 1997; the series' signature danmaku (弾幕; lit. 'bullet curtain') mechanics were introduced in the second game, Story of Eastern Wonderland (also released in 1997). The release of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil in August 2002 marked a shift to Microsoft Windows. Numerous sequels followed, including several spin-offs departing from the traditional shoot 'em up format.

Touhou Project is set in Gensokyo, a preternatural land sealed from the outside world and primarily inhabited by humans and yōkai, legendary creatures from Japanese folklore that are personified entirely as young girls and women in an anthropomorphic moe style. Reimu Hakurei, the miko of the Hakurei Shrine and the main character of the series, is often tasked with resolving supernatural "incidents" caused in and around Gensokyo; she is joined by Marisa Kirisame after the events of the second game.

Touhou Project has become notable as a prominent source of Japanese doujin content, with the series spawning a vast amount of fan-made works such as artwork, music, print works, video games, and Internet memes.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Touhou Project” as doujin computer game series created by Team Shanghai Alice. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1997, 2002—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Touhou, Project and doujin can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as doujin computer game series created by Team Shanghai Alice. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q907907. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1997 and 2002.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Touhou Project”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Touhou Project primary sources, Touhou Project archive and Touhou research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Touhou Project”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Touhou Project” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.