MUSIC REACTION: Touhou music is surprisingly emotional
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- A bullet hell game with feeling? The music sure paints an emotional picture!
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| Who am I? |
Hi, I'm Marco Meatball, a former pro opera singer, turned voice actor, turned UA-camr. I grew up loving video games and video game music after first discovering them when I was 7 years old. Since then, I have lived and breathed all things video games. This channel is all about video game music and the beauty of modern composition, how it allows us to connect more deeply with the games we love, and how we can better learn to understand ourselves through it and the experiences it provides.
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Games you will find in the channel:
Final Fantasy, The Last of Us, League of Legends, Genshin Impact, Devil May Cry (DMC), Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Ultrakill, Terraria, Undertale, World of Warcraft, Monster Hunter, Warhammer, Honkai Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Bloodborne, Ace Combat, Doom, Warframe, Arknights, Nier, Guilty Gear, Risk of Rain, Armored Core, Destiny and much, much more!
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About Mystic Square:
Mystic Square, the classic bullet-hell shooter game, mesmerizes players with its challenging gameplay, intricate level design, and captivating pixel art. Dive into a world of frenetic action as you navigate through intricate patterns of bullets, honing your skills to overcome relentless enemies and formidable bosses. With its nostalgic pixelated visuals and immersive gameplay mechanics, Mystic Square stands as a timeless gem in the realm of retro gaming. Its intense difficulty level and rewarding progression keep players engaged, making it a beloved title among enthusiasts of the shoot 'em up genre. Embark on an adrenaline-fueled journey through Mystic Square, a game that continues to captivate gamers with its timeless charm and challenging gameplay
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It's kind of funny that ZUN originally just wanted to compose music, but since he needed to figure out a way to release it, he started developing games.
it's like the joke people made about guilty gear strive being an album that came with a game but actually lol
Damn, it shows
@@BadyearOakarus Like no joke, i'm pretty sure the reason ZUN chose games specifically was that dumping an album wouldn't attract many people, he only started releasing albums after the PC-98 games and he'd already built up a fanbase
Touhou literally is an interactive album
well, the first guilty gear was made so that the music can sell@@BadyearOakarus
Based
I always really liked touhou’s music and that is what made me want to play the actual games
Touhou has been killing it for decades, ZUN is such a fun composer and his tracks are so instantly recognisable
yeah!
17 OSTs down, 15 more to go :)
ZUN is one of the best composers of this time.
Practically every single game made by ZUN has it’s own unique soundscape. People who have lots of experience with mainline Touhou can accurately guess which game a song comes from based on the style of composition and instruments used, if they haven’t memorized the melody of the given song. Ever since the beginning, ZUN has always had a distinct way of making sure each piece feels unique while still being recognizable as “his style” somehow. It is brilliant. I highly recommend the Highly Responsive to Prayers bonus track, “Theme of Eastern Story”. The main melody of that song is THE main leitmotif of the entire franchise. Without fail this leitmotif is used in every single unique title theme of all of the main line games, and the leitmotif is referenced in many other songs, either notably or subtly. Good examples include “Gensokyo Millenium ~ History of the Moon”, “Shoutoku Legend ~ True Administrator”, “Electric Heritage” and “Entrust the World to Idols ~ Idolatrize World”. Even outside of the mainline games, the “Theme of Eastern Story” leitmotif is beloved by the fandom, so you’ll find it in some fan music too.
finally, some great underrated music recommended (along with some cool fun facts), and not Flandre's theme or Bad Apple remixes of the remix!!
theme of eastern story isnt an extra track from HRtP, its from an album (I forgot its name)
@@jacoproita9010 While that’s technically sort of right, the album is the OST for that game that includes Theme of Eastern Story as a bonus track that isn’t in the original game. That’s what I meant by “extra track”. It’s not in the main game but it was added later on in the OST album *for* the game.
Bro where is the "Spirit Of Avarice"?? ( TD title theme )
@@momsaccount4033 From the remaster of the re-arrange of the soundtrack to The Highly Responsive to Prayers lol
I can't wait for Marco to get to the more heartfelt, dramatic tracks like Border of Life, Emotional Skyscraper and Kobito of the Shining Needle, among so many others. He just took a daring step into a *_gigantic_* rabbit hole of music.
Well, Touhou is a black hole of music really.
I dont think junko could have a theme or theme name any more fitting for her.
when the
Heartfelt Fancy
Last Remote
Unforgettable, the Nostalgic Greenery
Green-Eyed Jealousy
Lunatic Princess
Kagome-Kagome
The Lake Reflects the Cleansed Moonlight
The Sea Where One's Home Planet Reflects
tbh all of SA and LoLK
Foe the uninitiated: Touhou is probably one of the oldest things in the internet otaku zeitgeist along with Hatsune Miku/Vocaloid, being part of the Nico Nico Douga Big Three (Touhou, Vocaloid, THE iDOLM@STER). The series' claim to fame is twofold: 1) a series of bullet hell games created by one guy and 2) the amount of fan creations that have spawned (on music alone, the fan discography takes up more than a TB of storage).
Play Touhou!
also, the remixes really are endless, man, lmaoo :O
Was im@s really that popular? I always thought love live was more popular
@@Lumix_Corrupt this was before Love Live! even existed and on Nico Nico Douga, which is primarily a Japanese platform.
@@JAMllostthegame ahh true, I forgot it’s as old as it is
A lot of the fan made music are old enough now to be considered classics because it's old. Nothing offensive about it being old, it's just that it's hard to believe that the things I listened to that isn't mainsteam is getting there in age.
I'm happy that you react to Touhou music. ZUN is a really unique composer
The focus on melody is very common in Touhou music. It usually includes key change at some points. And sometimes, the music is synced with what's happening on the stage.
For example when there is a break in the song, there can be a small break in the action, or just before the boss appears
Just know that in MS stage 2, when you fight the midboss, you will find the theme "Dimension of Reveries" will synced *NICELY*
Regarding the song itself, it is the theme of a PC-98 character named Alice, who’s Windows era incarnation was redesigned and given the new name “Alice Margatroid”. Alice is one of the only two boss characters who was carried over from the PC-98 era into Windows era, the other being Yuuka. A lot of information regarding PC-98 characters are left vague, but given how much personality ZUN puts into the music, we can infer some things if we use the emotions captured by the music alongside what we know of PC-98 Alice.
Alice is a very young and innocent-looking girl, one of the youngest-looking characters we see in the Touhou franchise, so she gives off an immediate air of innocence and purity. But the two things that make her off-putting are her title, “Girl of Death”, self explanatory enough, as well as the place you first meet her. Makai, 魔界, “Demon Realm”. Although Makai gives off a hellish vibe, it is not to be confused with actual Hell (地獄 jigoku) as it is an entirely separate realm. Makai is a place where particularly strong youkai and demons live, and Alice is the very first person you meet when you enter Makai during the events of Mystic Square. Since Alice is the third stage boss, she’s not particularly difficult, so you can defeat her without much issue, but Alice actually returns as the Extra Stage Boss.
Practically all Touhou games (save for specific exceptions) consist of 6 main stages as well as an Extra Stage taking place after the events of the main story which require prerequisite unlock conditions. Individual stages are broken up into two distinct parts. The stage itself, and the boss fight at the end. “Alice in Wonderland” is the song you hear during the first part of the Extra Stage, right up until you meet Alice at the end. Turns out, Alice has been hiding her true power.
“Alice in Wonderland” is very peaceful, strangely so compared to every other Stage theme in Mystic Square. Considering the context being that you’re playing the Extra Stage, the dissonance between what you are hearing and the knowledge that after the mob enemies you are going to face one of the hardest bosses in this game is unsettling. It is a specifically articulated primer for the fight against Alice, which at this point the player only knows as that “somewhat difficult” boss they met earlier.
And then Alice’s second boss theme, “Grimoire of Alice” plays. Since you haven’t heard this song yet I’ll refrain from talking about it and end the comment here, but I implore you to make a video on this song as soon as you can. You’re in for a treat.
according to ZUN himself, everything from PC-98 era is considered canon until it contradicts anything from the windows era, so both Yuuka and Alice is the same one from PC-98
Forgot to add that in Perfect Cheery Blossom Alice makes a remark if you use either Reimu or Marisa saying something like "it's been a while" forgot the exact dialogue but it's something like that
@@blux_cross That’s the thing though. Do we consider Alice’s and Yuuka’s redesigns as a contradiction to PC-98 Alice and Yuuka, or did they just get off-camera character development? That is vague and left up to interpretation.
@@momsaccount4033 that's probably the case, same deal with both Reimu and Marisa they're still the same character as they were in PC-98
Yuuka actually is a playable character, in Touhou 5... so does that leave Alice the only non playable character?
or did you mean 2 characters that aren't the protagonists?
also you encounter other makai residents before Alice. more specifically the stage 2 boss(forgot her name, she wanted to go on a vacation) and... given the dialogue probably a lot of normal enemies???
The track in the video is: TH05 Touhou Kaikidan ~ Mystic Square - 16 - Fushigi no Kuni no Alice
Released in 1998, this is the extra stage theme. (=a stage that can be accessed after beating the main game)
The title translates to "Alice in Wonderland", and yes, there are card soldier enemies, and the boss at the end is named Alice. (who was allegedly inspired by Shin Megami Tensei's interpretation of Alice)
ZUN's music comments (translated to EN):
from the game:
Fairy tale-esque and cool is what I was going for this time.
Well, it's probably not fairy tale-esque, but it's pretty coooool.
You have to dodge lots of bullets in the game, so you probably can't listen to it too closely, though. (lol)
th5_16.txt from 東方幻想的音楽 (www16.big.or.jp/~zun/html/music_old.html)
Thank you for downloading this song.
This is "Alice in Wonderland" from Mystic Square.
This is just my style. A perfect song to listen to in Danmaku games (big lie). the original song is about 2.5 times longer with loop, but the arrangement made it a lot faster. But the tempo become a little slower.
Recently, I can't help but feel like the melody has fixed itself. It must be "Fantastica" that I'm feeling. This, is Touhou?
Well then, let us meet again in the next song, shall we? ZUN
th5_16pmd.txt from www16.big.or.jp/~zun/html/pmd.html
Thank you for downloading this song.
This is the original version of "Alice in Wonderland" from Mystic Square.
I tried to create a fairy tale techno-style with the image of a piano piece.
I'm not sure if I'm aiming for something that I don't understand(^^;;
The reason why I chose this kind of music for the stage is because I really wanted to make it (laugh)
Fairy tale techno.
Well then, let's meet again in the next song, shall we? ZUN
Fairly sure this is the version from Akyu's Untouched Score. Feel free to correct me tho.
extra stage is pain, but the music is good
THERES NO WAY. Thank you so much Marco, you literally just reacted to the song I've been obsessing for some months now.(more like a set of 3 songs, Alice in Wonderland, Plastic Mind, and The Grimore of Alice)
This actually makes me so happy, hopefully you'll react to some Touhou final bosses.
Ah, a fan of Alice in general, I see you are a man of culture as well
Alice has so many good themes, be it on PC-98 or Windows. Alice in Wonderland is my favorite PC-98 theme, closely followed by Civilization of Magic.
Alice is a very interesting character, especially looking at her in hindsight. Alice is a being that was created by Shinki, who created all of the beings that exists in Makai. Here in Touhou 5 we meet her as a normal magician, as a little kid. But later on in the series, we meet her outside of makai as a magician specializing in doll magic, with the goal of creating a fully living doll. And she's changed so much that she's kind of a different character entirely.
It's kind of ironic & poetic in a way because she is an artificial being who is now trying to create an artificial being herself. Besides that, when I listen to her themes in Touhou 5 with this context in mind, it always feels like I'm looking at a girl who is looking at the past version of herself; a version of herself whom, at this point in time, is a completely different person to her now.
There's also the meta interpretation of these songs; which is that Touhou 5 was supposed to be the last Touhou game in the series. ZUN actually quit making Touhou, and only came back to reboot it years later. But even that reboot was planned to only be a trilogy at best. Touhou 5, alongside the "classic era" of Touhou(Touhou 6 to 9) has a very strong emotional/nostalgic feeling to it, I think because of that reason.
This song is the extra stage theme song for Touhou 5. It was likely one of the last songs ZUN composed for Touhou 5. You can imagine how it must've felt, composing one of the last songs for the last games of your series. It would've been pretty emotional. I think there's a good possibility that that is where the "reflective sadness" comes from.
The thing is that Alice wasn't probably created by Shinki, but most likely adopted by her. It is indeed canon that she were a human before and that she later turn into Youkai. Shinki only made beings that were demons and Alice wasn't a demon. Other question is how she found herself in Makai. There is many theories, beginning from her being abandon after birth, her getting lost at young age or something that lead to her being orphan. Shinki later found her and rise as her own daughter. The proof of that might be the fact that Alice received from her powerful grimoire as a gift and how I assume it was gift from her? In Touhou 12 Byakuren Hijiri is locked in Makai for years and when finally get to fight her she has rainbow colored scroll and also uses one of Shinki's attacks on us, which mean that both meet and probably get along.
And about Alice and her goal to make independent doll.
Well like mother like daughter
@@Jasiuc330 Given ZUN has made some references to Megami Tensei and that Alice Margatroid is most likely partially based on SMT Alice, it does make sense, given that in her debut, she was basically a ghost of a dead girl brought back to the world of living by two demons, who she calls her uncles.
@@Jasiuc330 a Great Magician (remove food and remove worms) at that.
@@Dukstless didn't knew about that.
Nice to learn something more about one of my favorite characters
@Jasiuc330 Obviously I was talking about SMT Alice. ZUN clearly was a fan, so Touhou Alice being a (at the time) human adopted by Makai residents (you know, DEMON realm) is a valid theory.
For reference, in one of the omakes for a demo, while talking about how rare maids are nowadays, ZUN also mentions the butler from Persona 1 lol.
I'm surprised your 2nd venture into Touhou is with Alice in Wonderland from Touhou 5 (edit: still a surprise you chose this from all the Patreon requests you've received). I'd say it's one of the more underrated Touhou music afaik; I rarely hear covers of it outside of one by Yuuhei Satellite (NIhil Kagura) and somehow evokes a certain nostalgic feeling that I can't quite pinpoint. I'm sure it's a musical reference to another tune, as with quite a number of ZUN tracks, but till now I can't put a finger on it.
Edit #2: Forgot that Marco did Reverse Ideology 1st.
This would actually be the 2nd one that I know of! The first one he did was Reverse Ideology.
@@perfectchaos83 Oh yea, I forgot about that.
@@hermdude i think Tutti sound did an epic reimagining of it called "The Formation of Magic".
@@Ghorda9 Ah, I checked on that, and Tutti Sound did an arrangement on the Grimoire of Alice track, not the Alice in Wonderland one. But thanks for recommending Tutti Sound, their albums sound like my kind of vibe 😆
@@perfectchaos83 That is incorrect, the first one he did was Seija's stage theme "The Shining Needle Castle Sinking in the Air". A theme that I actually prefer, personally.
You analyzed one of my favorite songs from the PC-98 era! Insta-like! The whole franchise is a goldmine of good soundtracks.
This piece is absolutely legendary when it comes to Touhou music. Easily one of Zun's finest. But contrary to what you were guessing Touhou songs more often than not are about the enemy characters rather than about the main character or the player.
Touhou have so much potential for future reactions, as each piece also have literal hundreds to thousands of other remixes. Eg bad apple and the remixes of its most famous remix
Waiting for that BAD APPLE reaction! 😅
I'm so glad, you gave a Stage music a go, most people only focus on the Boss themes without appreciating how good the Stage soundtracks are (Bad Apple!! being the obvious exception here).
yeah - IN Stage 6 theme and MoF stage 4 theme :(
@@LavaCreeperPeople or the Stage 5 theme for Touhou 11, lullaby of deserted hell
Touhou stage music are an exquisite joy, as an spectator and player. Since unlike boss themes that are designed to loop indefinetly, stage themes are timed to whats happening on the screen in that moment.
beast metropolis is one of my favorites
Stage 6 TH 15 ^^ beautiful one before taking a beat from mommy Junko.
I'm surprised that you just started to talking about musics from Touhou. Touhou is one of the most iconic franchise when we talking about videogame music and it has inspired so many people to making remix of those pieces. I'm really impatient to see talking about more Touhou in the future now that you are in the rabbit hole
It is _fascinating_ that this is your introduction to Touhou music (at least for the channel), but it's a really good pick. Lots of people know Touhou for its more wild, aggressive battle themes, but the stage themes are often way more subtle and emotional and fantastic in their own right.
Other Touhou themes that I think would be good listens for you in particular are "Emotional Skyscraper ~ Cosmic Mind", "Kobito of the Shining Needle ~ Little Princess", "The Lost Emotion", and "The Gensokyo the Gods Loved". They're all songs with some powerful feelings backing them.
This is actually his second! He did a stage theme from DDC before this which was another unique choice
@@annaairahala9462 Huh, it's weird that I didn't remember that, considering I've been following for at least a year! I stand by my recommendations, though. At least I didn't suggest any overlap!
@@blivveries I would add to this "Last Remote", "Heartfelt Fancy" and "Last Judgement"
I see we’re at the edge of a new rabbit hole… but this one actually leads to a wonderland! Touhou is an underground classic among japanophiles for its music and colorful caste of characters. Each piece is often associated with either a character or a place where it is played. Both PC-98 and Windows era tunes are absolute bangers, especially when an independent music circle gets their hands on them and crafts arrangements of any and every genre imaginable.
It’s worth noting that ZUN documents some concise words of commentary for most of his tracks, because there is definitely an intention to them. The chiptune quality of the PC-98 games were as iconically composed as those that came later.
ZUN said this piece was supposed to feel fairytale-like while also coming off as cool. He didn’t really think it was quite so fairytale-like, but felt satisfied with its coolness.
Eh, wouldn't say Touhou is a Japanophile/weeb hit considering Zun is so extremely critical of Japanese politics and culture. He's constantly making fun of modern Japanese politicians and current issues. Occasionally he'll even make political jabs at people like Trump/American media.
Sadly Alice in Wonderland is really rarely remixed too :( It deserves so much more love.
@@mousysaint9143 Taking political jabs at Trump/America is just the right thing to do unless you love the evils of capitalism and neoliberal/fascist thought, and being critical of one’s low-key crumbling society is virtuous. A knowledgable weeb knows not everything in Japan is sunshine and rainbows; those who love something the most are the most critical of it, too. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that people deep into anime are often aware of Touhou to some degree or are only a two steps away to BECOMING aware because something involving Touhou almost always looms within anime content. You’d be surprised how many people demonstrate even a remote knowledge of it in their content through making references.
One of the amazing things about the touhou franchise is just how mich original music there is, and how much of it has something interesting to analyze.
ZUN is a master when it comes to game composition. Glad you liked it!
As for the games themselves, I recommend MegamanOmega's videos, because they're very good at showing how the series works.
Touhou is in short a bullethell/ shoot them up (SHMUP) type of game. There are currently 19 main touhou games and around thousands of fan games. If you can imagen it, there is probably a touhou version of it.
The really cool thing is that all the touhou games are a one man project. From the coding, to art, story and music, ZUN have made it all himself. I really hope you will listen to more touhou music.
The mainline numbered games at least. I remember long ago ZUN allowed fanmade games based on Touhou, but disallowed commercialization. But recently I've been seeing a lot of Touhou games selling on PS Store and on Steam, so he changed his mind?
To this day I still love how much of a joke the name Team Shangai Alice is. It isn't team, it isn't from Shangai, and ZUN's real name isn't Alice 😂
There's actually 32 official Touhou games; 19 mainline + 13 spinoffs that are usually denoted by decimals (e.g. 7.5, 12.3, 14.5, etc.). Unlike the mainline games, the spinoffs are often collaborations with other creators like the fan circle Tasofro, but the events and characters are considered canon to Touhou as a whole. This is in contrast to fangames which are completely non-canon.
@@zackang4731those are also doujin fangames made by doujin devs, but is distributed by usually a doujin game publisher (and also approved by Zun) and promotes small devs to share their game to the main market instead of some barren forum.
Plus most of the stuff you see on the stores are old stuff being ported and remastered.
New ones are being made fast tho.
Phoenix games is the one i can point up on the top of my head.
Well, the most recent games are more of 2-ish effort now, since I am pretty sure his wife did the Ability Card art.
oh boy, are we getting a touhou arc? a fun little thing to remember about the music of this series is just how massive the scene in Japan is for people making their own versions, especially in different genres.
I'm glad you're on Touhou music. Would love to see more coming soon
PC-98 era Touhou music yayy.
Edit: so about this track, this is for the Extra Stage/post-game stage for Mystic Square. The stages in Touhou is mostly just shooting against generic enemies with a mini-boss half way through. Sometimes it’s the actual stage boss, a boss from one of the previous stages, or a minor character. These stage themes can also be like a “build-up theme” for the stage boss I guess? Some stage themes are a lower energy arrangement of the actual boss theme even
The music in the Touhou games, and the terabytes of fan created renditions with the original creator's blessing, is a library of emotion. Of them all, probably my favorite is 'Emotional Skyscraper ~ Cosmic Mind' from stage 6 of UFO. With 4 key changes in a 3min loop, it's more an emotional rollercoaster than skyscraper.
New Ultrakill layer OST just dropped
The best part of Touhou music, and I think where it's soul lies, is it's melody. IF you look at just the composition, Touhou music looks very same-y. But if you listen to the melodies, you realize just how distinct each song is & how many different ideas & emotions Touhou music explores through that melody. It's something that a lot of people reacting to Touhou music seem to miss, even though to me it's so obvious. It might be because melody is this part of music that seems so often ignored or thought of as merely surface level, that it's just there to hook people or to be "catchy", when there so much more to it than that. Imo a melody can carry an entire song, and can invoke an entire emotion, or present an entire idea, all on it's own, and I think Touhou music is a great example of that done but in a beautifully oriental-ish way.
Touhou melodies are often described as "catchy" but I actually disgree. Catchy melodies are melodies that get stuck in your head. That's not the case for Touhou music; when you first listen to a Touhou song, the melody is so complex or so long that it can't really get stuck in your head unless you've listened to the entire song multiple times enough to remember the entire progression. And this is the case for all Touhou music I've listened to.
Touhou melodies aren't catchy, they're simply excellent. You could listen to *only* the melody, and you would understand the idea or feel it's trying to convey. And that's kinda the whole point with Touhou. Beucase it's a bullet hell game, you don't have much opportunity for dialogue or to spend time with characters or to just look around the place that you find yourself in. So the music is there to give you that; it characterizes the characters you meet, it makes you feel what the setting you're in is supposed to feel like, etc. That's the main way it does those things.
I'm really happy that someone in youtube that reacts to Touhou music is finally able to get the emotions & ideas being conveyed in each track. But it always seems like every music reactor gets bamboozled by all the instrument layers & aren't able to pick up on any of it.
Agreed i think that listening to any track is far more complex to understand when you are playing the game the first time and once you get out of the game and listen the entire ost by itself you slowly start to understand how each track plays well with each character or theme and only after that when you play the games again you really start appreciating the soundtrack more, as an example listening to tracks like "The Maid and the Pocket Watch of Blood" where really hard to listen at first or to understand the melody but all you need to do is to replay them wich will make it even more enjoyable to listen later.
I don't know who's giving you these recommendations but I hope they keep it up! Somehow you're getting some of the more underappreciated but amazing tracks like this one. This has always been one of my favorites from the series due to the deep emotion in it despite only being 16-bit music
man I hope he continues listening to more of ZUN's works
there's a lot of feel that connects a character to their song and it's great
Touhou is a series of bullet hell games that have really good music. Just don't ask the fandom about anime adaptations.
As a 2hu fan i liked memories of phantasm
@@shinjiikari1021 ok to be fair I didn't know it had official ones.
@@barrybend7189it doesn't.
But all the fan made anime series is actually very good (in terms of animation quality, comparable to some anime studios even.)
What you don’t want to do is ask Touhou fans “What anime is this from?” when first being introduced to Touhou. He has already dodged that bullet, no pun intended. Anime adaptations of Touhou themselves are not that controversial, and we can point to at least two dedicated fan projects for such.
“Memories of Phantasm” was mentioned, and I’ll add to that “A Summer Day’s Dream”.
The ones it has are pretty good, tho, especially for fan made adaptations.
'Alice in wonderland' is one of my favorite songs in the Touhou series it makes me sad its so unpopular compared to the rest of the OST. In fact Alice is one of the most important characters in Touhou and in youtube there is a video of someone doing a medley in piano with all the songs related to Alice, the video is named 'A medley about Alice Margatroid' I think
ua-cam.com/video/j3wf3t93hE0/v-deo.htmlsi=z5m-tE70buzAu35-
oshit Marco in a touhou arc?
oh it's a patreon request
Touhou music is a such a strange beast. Your assessment of it being a character theme seems both accurate and off the mark. It isn't, but it is. You can feel that ZUN injected his music with such a universal feeling of, pardon my pretension, "Weltschmerz", this universal feeling of our existence being beautiful yet deeply sad and tragic.
And then he wrote the dialogue of the games and they're such goofy nonsense and you're like, what the heck is this.
ZUN literally wrote "Deaf to All But the Song", one of the most hauntingly beautiful tunes I've ever heard, in what has to be considered a failed attempt to write a theme conveying a dumb airhead character, according to his commentary.
But then if you look deeper into the worldbuilding again, you can see glimpses of that same feeling again. The beautiful cruelty of our existence.
It's basically as if you're playing Donkey Kong Country: The Silly Monkey Game With Music That Has No Business Going That Hard, and then you dig deeper into the lore and notice how it's about the human condition.
This is my favourite stage theme of pc98 im so glad you reviewed it!!! Hope you do more Touhou music videos, the soundtrack of theses games is honestly my favourite videogame soundtrack and i've been listening to it every day since i learned about the series :p
The soundtrack really does great at exploring the character's emotions. Also: reach for the moon, immortal smoke and emotional skyscraper from touhou 8 and touhou 12 are very very good themes with a very emotional character backstory so maybe you can check them out :)
He did a vid of one of the track’s from TH18, so definitely not his first
@@GABiHatchiiwa Did he?? I only saw the th14 one
@@radzygx oh shit I confused with another ytuber lol but yea th14 was his first one
Touhou tracks are such a treat. Catchy melodies that you can bounce to while dodging rain, that also have so many other elements to them that make them memorable.
You're on the money when it comes to music in Touhou being representative of its character arcs/emotions. Like for example with how Keiko's theme ( Entrusting This World to Idols ~ Idolatrize World ) evokes a vibe unlike any other and perfectly reflects her "being". Or Shinmyoumaru's theme ( Kobito of the Shining Needle ~ Little Princess ) where it evokes a challenging theme, like we're challenging a giant. Sometimes it also can reflect the heroes on their journey, on this case, the beginning of it ( At the End of Spring ).
Either way, Touhou is so big, I hope you listen to more!
This song is blessed by the "extra" effort ZUN makes when composing its extra stage themes, since he feels late-game songs should be of high quality to reward the player for coming so far. Therefore, they can be the result of different inspirations and ideas coming together with the overall aim to create memorable pieces that stick to the player.
For "Alice in Wonderland", ZUN describes this theme as "fairy tale-esque and cool", claming his aim was to make a "fairy tale techno with piano style" song. (see: touhouwiki's music page for Mystic Square). it comes off to me as a Disney-like song that expresses the yearn for a better future, a "good ending", so to speak (especially in the first "cooldown"), wrapping up the story with a heroic climax. But of course ZUN might have different inspirations from which to relly on while thinking about a fairy tale song.
This theme is carried by strong emotions such as nostalgia and innocence. It opens up with feelings of dreamness, as if you had just woken up in a strange fantasy world that starts to unravel in front of you as the song carries forward. Its climax can feel either uplifting or melancholic, both a cellebration to the player for making it through and the realization that the game's end is approaching. So, although not as hectic as you would expect for a late-game shot em up song, it really gets the work done in all aspects.
Touhou's character theme make more sense the more you know about them, I hope that can motivate you to get deeper into the series
Alice in Wonderland from Touhou 5: Mystic Square is probably my favorite of all the PC-98 era of Touhou, right before Civilization of Magic. So much emotion, the beautiful melodies mixing together, and all that with the very peculiar chiptune music from this platform.
I believe the track Marco listened to in this video is a slightly remastered one, from the album Akyuu's Untouched Score, but it is also my prefered version.
You could do a similar series as you do with the league of legends champion themes with touhou, analyzing the final boss themes from the games and guessing what these characters represent, it would be really cool
Welcome to the Touhou rabbithole.
You'll NEVER get out of it.
Touhou is a glorious, all-encompassing black hole full of wonders, fascinating characters, endless stories and absolute GOD TIER music.
Zun composition are probably the only type of music i'm listening on daily basis, it also made me start piano and violin. I love how dreamy it is to listen to these musics, boss theme or stage theme, and the fun i have playing them on one or two instrument.
I 100% agree with you about melody! I've always shared that view as well
GOTTEM BOIS WE GOT HIM INTO TOUHOU
My personal favourite of this arrange are 夢の終わりまで (Until The End of the Dream) by Takamachi Walk and Dancing with Happiness and Sadness by Foreground Eclipse
Wow! How did you find out these amazing songs? They are not so well-known but very nice. Thanks for sharing them! And it's Takamachi Walk not Takamichi Walk
Touhou bosses, outside a select few very early in the series, are always characters in their own right. Their themes do represent the boss character, but I think it's better to think of them representing the encounter as a whole, setting the tone for the whole fight. My recommendations for touhou songs to check out would be "Emotional Skyscraper ~ Cosmic Mind" and "U.N. Owen Was Her?" as both do a really good job setting that tone. If you want to continue with the older, more chiptune themes, I recommend "Now, Until The Moment You Die" from the game Highly Responsive to Prayers, one of my favorites in the whole series.
I can't believe someone made a REACTION about this Touhou music
This music is just at a completely different level in PC-98
Into the rabbithole we go, once again.
ZUN is definitionally a music god that crossed over the barrier to gather faith with his amazing music.
I wasn't expecting that you would react to touhou music, much less the PC-98 of all things, this is probably my favorite song from touhou as a hole, I still remember the first time I've listened to this song, I've thought how can a simple melody can be so full of emotions, anyways, thanks for reacting to this song, I hope to see more touhou reaction here in the future
YOOoooo! Is this another reaction on Touhou? I hope there will be more) Touhou and your reactions are great!
touhou is my favorite anime
My favorite band of all time is a Touhou metal cover band named Demetori. I don’t even know Touhou lore, the music is just that good
If this can be considered one of Alice's themes (which it should), "desire to achieve" would describe her in this game very well.
After this, she somewhat changed to quite the opposite, whether you call that a "soft-reboot" consequence, or intentional character development.
If I remember correctly, to this day, the "Grimoire of Alice" has not been used again once.
It was used in Hisoutensoku, but it's remixed into a completely different genre, so you might not even realize it's the same track.
...Unless you mean the book.
@@Dukstless I did in fact mean the book heh
Touhou 17, entrusting this world with idols, please... it's a bangger
I can’t believe I missed this! Amazing analysis Marco. It is interesting to listening to these pieces blindly and that curiosity and wonder that you had is what made fall in love with Touhou in the first place. There’s many great tracks to check out within Touhou from the character themes to the melodic stage themes.
Long time Touhou fan. Whoever submitted End of Daylight, kudos to you. One of my favorites in the PC98 games. I'd love to see Marco's response to a lot more of Zun's incredible melody work.
This has been a long time coming as soon as you started listening to VGM and talking about it you were fated to be here one day, looking into the Touhou OST
It's interesting, because we don't really know much about Alice in Touhou. Not that we know much about Touhou characters in general, with a few exceptions. But I can see the feelings you described fitting with Alice.
Oooooh yeah touhou music is heavenly
If you're reacting to more songs of touhou's PC-98 era (the chiptune era basically) I'd love to see you listening to "Cute Devil ~ Innocence" or "Faint Dream ~ Inanimate Dream"!
Seconding Inanimate Dream, and even adding Alice Maestra and Sleeping Terror!
If you ask me the music itself is much richer and deep than the actual story of touhou is, the games will have a plot like go beat up a god because she may steal followers from your god and then drop a series of absolute bangers on the way like "The gensokyo the gods loved" and "The primal scene of japan the girl saw" for no reason, like, they aren't even boss themes, they are build ups to the actually crazy and high tempo songs of the bosses
imo the stage themes are often better than the boss themes even if the boss themes are what people are more familiar with. The music is also a part of the story
If you ever decide to listen to more Touhou music, you should definitely check out OST's from the newer games (WBaWC and upwards). They're insanely jazzy, and it will surprise you how much ZUN's style has changed, yet how unique it remains.
Well, between this theme and "Romantic Children", another Alice theme, could be considered the most emotional track in touhou series, and even in video game music overall.
Touhou Music is beautiful, so many songs, so many characters, i have been wanting to hear your analysis of them for a long time, i really hope this is the start of a long journey!
OMG!! It's so cool to see you reacting to Touhou! ZUN is one of my favorite composers ever. He's been making bangers for more than 20 years. Every Touhou game has a fantastic soundtrack, and yes, each boss battle track (and some stage tracks too) reflects the stories and emotions of the characters you are facing. I find it incredible how well ZUN can express the stories of so many different characters through his music, crafting a distinct theme for each character that makes them instantly memorable/recognizable by sound alone. My favorite soundtracks from the series are Touhou 8, 15, and 17. Hope you check out more Touhou in the future!
I'm SO glad you listened to the PC-98 soundtrack. Nobody properly appreciates it.
Oh my, thanks for reacting to my personal favorite from the Touhou Project's PC98 era's music! You were definitely cooking something with your ideas what this track could be about, though looking at ZUN's own comments about it, I guess he had a bit different feelings and he was just trying to vibe with some fairytale-like melodies. But many of my favorite vocal arrangements of this track are rather sad or just bittersweet, as the melody is quite melancholical in my opinion.
Glad you seemed to enjoy this wonderful track. There's so many more good Touhou tracks that you will definitely enjoy, and maybe get a bit more out of them. Usually stage themes are a bit harder to figure out what's going on, they often have this kind of feeling of hurrying or they kinda match with stage's the scenery? But boss themes definitely tell what kind of character you are against, their personality and so on. Looking forward to more Touhou reactions and of course some other games' OST reactions
❤
Finally, it here, marco and touhou music
Marco i think you should also do the leitmotif of the entire series so you will recognise it in future touhou music you react to, the piece is called theme of eastern story
Reminded me of times i wanted try touhou for myself. I thought "i'll just launch that old ass game play it a bit and unistall never to try again". But the moment i heard Sacred Lot… oh boy, i fell in love. Thats the moment my obsession for about 7 years now begins. And now every time i hear that pc98 touhou ost it bring me to tears for some reason every single time
the touhou rabbit hole is very very deep, so many tracks and sooooo fan covers and remixes, i think i have about 50gb of fan made albums when downloading them was really the only way of getting them in the 2000s, its all great
Always great to see the PC-98 era getting some love! Some of the best tracks in the series come from those games.
no way first he discovers Genshin music and now he has finally discovered Touhou music
peak
yes it is. why yes it is.
not only should you do more touhou music- but zun usually includes comments on each track in some of the games, and it'd be interesting if you read his notes to see how it colours your perspective on the song before and after knowing what he was going for.
One interesting thing is that in the actual games, ZUN includes a music room option where you can listen to the tracks in the parts of the game you've managed to beat. And with each track, he includes a brief personal comment about what his thoughts or intentions were while composing each track. In this track he mentions there's a subtle darkness to the song, as he intended this part of the game to be a major emotional turning point. He says he put extra "spirit" into this track for that reason.
But yes, ZUN's composing style is very interesting because he mostly uses the same foundations, same chord progressions, and of course, his iconic choice of instruments and synths like the ZUNpet, but he's able to make each song have it's own unique character and feeling, to the point where you can instantly recognize each melody. Which is important, because each game often introduces quite the handful of new characters. You barely have any dialogue in the game with each one, so he portrays the personality and intentions each character through their theme songs. And with something like 200+ characters, there's quite the selection.
Guess that ZUN used dist guitars mostly in PoDD ( maybe in other releases?? )
I first found Touhou when UA-cam first got bought by Google, I found these reuploads of fangames and the fan music from nico nico.... instantly fell in love despite having no clue what came about! It has been nearly 2 decades since then and I cannot imagine what my life would be without this series, I even did my recent Graphic Design final as a Touhou fan project! The series and its creator is so welcoming to newcomers! Stick with it and it'll treat you well.
Just wanna say; love the format of this video! :) little nitpick; wouldve been nice to grab some minor context with it at the end? Either way, super fun.
As much as I love this song to pieces, I don't think I've heard a single cover of it ever capture the raw emotion of the opening. Every one I've heard keeps the energy the exact same throughout when it's supposed to almost sound like a descent into the madness of the wonderland Alice has constructed. imo it's supposed to sound like a "Damn it, Alice... what have you done?"
this
Touhou PC-98?!! Epic, and this one is in my top 7. Very wonderful
I was wondering these past days if anyone had reacted to Touhou music, since I recently became addicted to it once again, glad to see you picked up on it, it'll be interesting to see you reacting to more themes
funny how this is one of my fav musics from the whole PC-98 era, with another one called "peaceful romancer".
Uff really the Touhou PC-98 tracks are great, especially tracks like "Lotus love" or "Scarlet symphony - Scarlet phoneme" are just beautiful.
I'm really grateful for your emotional analysis, which is aided by your editing and unfiltered facial expressions. I watch a fair bit of analyses that are more music theory-centric, which I do enjoy, but I hadn't really been appreciating the value of emotion in music. Thank you.
One note: As a viewer, it would help to have a warning when the song's about to kick back on. It was a bit jarring whenever it started back up
Oh, awesome! Love me some Touhou music! I will say that I personally listen to the fan covers a lot more than the actual soundtracks. I mean, they're really good (especially considering the software and soundfonts ZUN uses for his music) but I like Demetori's style of progressive metal and singers like Stack.
Touhou's early games are tragic blood wars, Reimu tearing through gods and devils to avenge her fallen mentor and ruined village--- But it's represented as breakout because lmao. Love these games to death, don't fall into the rabbit hole of the lore, the music's already masterpiece enough to keep you occupied for years.
lol
Oh my god yes my favourite pc-98 theme! Nice to hear your deconstruction of the theme Marco :)
This song is…very nostalgic for me for a weird reason. One of my FAVORITE remixes of this song is “Artificial Children” by IOSYS (a “doujin” indie circle that’s made so many fan remixes of Touhou music), which remixes all the melodies from this song and another of Alice’s themes (Romantic Children). It’s such a surprisingly somber song and it was the favorite song of the friend who introduced me to Touhou as a whole. I don’t talk to them anymore, but this song brings back so many memories. Thanks Marco :’)
The Melody is so beautiful and sad. I remember most cover and remix of this song.
It's genuinely surprising that ZUN is not a trained pianist. (he played trumpet) His compositions, especially once you get to the 00s and beyond, "sound" like they written on piano, if that makes sense
I appreciate that your thumbnail is clickbaity, but not obnoxiously so. I like that gentle fuscia glow you out behind yourself.
This dude just like grayfruit is an absolute chad starting in the pc98 erra. Though i can't wait until he gets to some of the later songs like Hartman's yokai girl or reverse ideology.
Since you decided to analyse this song, I recomend to complete the set of Touhou saddest songs:
Vanishing Dream ~ Lost Dream
Kana's theme from Touhou 3: Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, probably THE most sad touhou song made by ZUN in my opinion, but most people think the next one is the most sad of them
The Sea Where One's Home Planet Reflects
The final stage theme for Touhou 15: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, it's a stage theme but it's also a theme for the boss of this stage, Junko and sets the stage for her actual theme: Pure Furies ~ Whereabouts of the Heart
Green-Eyed Jealousy
Parsee's theme from Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism, not as sad as the other ones, but still a good theme that reflects her backstory pretty well
You don't know what you've started. The song you listened to here is one from the "PC-98 era" or the first 5 games in the series. In the subsequent Windows era going from game 6 onwards the soundfont is a lot more modern and boy are there a lot of amazing songs you need to be listening. For the record the latest game in the series was Touhou 19 and that's not even counting all the side games. Every single game has killer music.
Honestly I'm tripping over myself thinking of which to recommend first... Border of Life, Necrofantasia, Septette for the Dead Princess, Faith is for the Transient People, Native Faith, Emotional Skyscraper, Hartmann's Youkai Girl, Nuclear Fusion, Kobito of the Shining Needle, Pure Furies, Reincarnation, Hidden Star in All Seasons, Idolatrize World, Tonight Stars an Easygoing Egoist, Last Occultism... Hell, all the instances of the Theme of Eastern Story leitmotiff
With this one video you've opened yourself up to a soundscape I'm confident you've never heard the likes of.
Edit: Apparently you did Touhou before. Boy do I have egg on my face now
I really hope you keep uploading videos about Touhou music.
There is a lot to explore here and you have material for months. xD
I have been waiting for an analysis of Touhou music by Marco! I hope to see more in the future. :)
I live for music people to react to Touhou music. It's always a treat. I look forward to seeing you delve further down the rabbit hole.
I'm surprised it's taken this long for 2hu to show up, given how iconic so many of its BGMs are. 👍
The Touhou series of games as a whole has phenomenal musical pieces, I recommend you take a listen to the Touhou 6 Stage 5 theme and boss theme, these are both extremely complex melodies which are just amazing to listen to
And to think this complex weavings are in the earliest of the series, of which the soundtrack grows even more unique and fascinating