Y'know what I'm just gonna make this my RTC calling card now
Anyways. Reimu. Y'know, I think the first time I rated Reimu could be considered my first big writeup around here. In hindsight it was... Not the best. I was just a bit too overenthusiastic and I did a horrendous job at hiding my obvious bias. So let's try that again, shall we?
Shrine Maiden of Paradise ~ Reimu Hakurei
Reimu hails from the
Touhou Project, usually just shortened to
Touhou and officially titled
Project Shrine Maiden in the West (Though nobody actually calls it that). Touhou is classified as a "doujin soft" game, a Japanese term for video games made by hobbyists for fun rather than profit. The term is basically the Japanese equivalent of an indie, and has a fair amount of overlap; As such, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to call Touhou an indie as well.
Touhou started in 1996, with the release of
Highly Responsive to Prayers for the PC-98. There, Reimu was portrayed as an inexperienced shrine maiden who had to guide around a bouncing Yin-Yang Orb in what was essentially an
Arkanoid clone. The following games began to solidify the standard Touhou formula; A top-down shoot-em-up with intricate and difficult patterns, spread out across six increasingly difficult levels and an extra stage.
Starting with the sixth game,
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the series moved away from the PC-98 and moved to Windows instead. This also brought about a soft reboot for the series; Only Reimu and her friend Marisa carried over, with radically different designs, the setting was established and developed a much tighter continuity, and various gameplay elements were implemented that would become series mainstays. The following game,
Perfect Cherry Blossom, weeded out the more of the PC-98 era's elements and solidified the series in completely.
As of current, the Touhou Project has 17 mainline games, including the PC-98 releases. However, it has a sizable number of spin-off titles as well; These games are indicated by a decimal point in their numbering, based on the mainline titles they were released between-For example,
Immaterial and Missing Power is numbered 7.5, and
Fairy Wars is the 12.8th. These spin-offs include six fighting games, five unorthodox shooters, and an upcoming side-scrolling action game. In addition, Touhou has a sizeable amount of print works and music albums, expanding it's universe even further. These supplementary materials have good synergy with the games, with just about every game character getting a mention, and a couple characters from the books making appearances in the games.
Touhou takes place in a haunted region known as Gensokyo, sealed off from the Outside World, and housing humans and youkai alike. In Touhou, youkai are sustained by human fear. This becomes problematic when humans stop believing in superstitions and folklore. Gensokyo is a land where forgotten things go, like extinct animals or lost tools, making it a safe haven for weakened youkai. Gensokyo is separated from the Outside World by the Great Hakurei Barrier, which is maintained by the Hakurei Shrine, managed by Reimu herself. Since Gensokyo is depended on the existence of the barrier, Reimu has a very important job on her hands.
In order to perpetuate Genoskyo's existence, the spell card system was put in place. The spell card system acts as an equalizer, so that humans may defend themselves and youkai may sustain themselves, without bloodshed from either party. In gameplay, this serves to justify the existence of the danmaku patterns, right down to the names. The ease of battle, coupled with the lack of injury, has also led to the inhabitants of Gensokyo fighting at the drop of a hat for varying reasons, often times just because.
The main crux of the game's plots revolve around Incidents; Various abnormal events. These Incidents vary in severity, from something as life-threatening as an eternal winter to SUDDENLY,
FLYING BOAT. Reimu, Marisa, and whoever else they may have brought along then set out to resolve these Incidents by beating up everyone in their path until they get to the culprit. Due to the aforementioned spell card system, the culprit usually caused the Incident just because they were bored, and are let off the hook just as easily. There are some exceptions, but the amount of instigators who
weren't forgiven can be counted on one hand.
An interesting thing to note is Touhou's staggeringly-large cast of characters, with the majority having a minor role and a very vague personality. This leads to many different interpretations, as well as minor characters suddenly becoming extremely popular. It should also be noted that at least 95% of the entire cast is female, with the only recurring males being a non-combatant and a cloud person who needs a female character to act as his hitbox. ZUN has admitted that Touhou has a reputation of using girls in fancy outfits over spaceships and military vehicles like most bullet hells, so he can't add a male character even if he wanted to.
There are many, many characters; So many that I can't even make a list of them. I will, however, point out that Touhou powers are
jacked. Reimu's ability to float means that she can float away from
reality itself and become invincible, Yuyuko can induce death and kill you instantly, Yukari can manipulate borders, which pretty much means she can manipulate reality, Keine can
EAT HISTORY, so on and so forth. I still don't understand how some of these things work.
The
Touhou Project's real claim to fame is it's absolutely
massive fanbase. Despite it's status as a simple shoot-em-up, the colorful cast of characters, coupled with ZUN's incredibly lax and encouraging attitude towards fanworks, has lead to Touhou becoming a major pillar of the doujin scene, though in the Touhou fandom this term is usually used to refer to Touhou fanworks. The Touhou Project dominates fan conventions, enough that it got a yearly convention all to itself in the form of Reitaisai. While the fandom isn't at the same level as it's peak thanks to the advent of more recent doujin games, the Touhou fandom is still going strong to this day.
The sheer amount of Touhou fanworks is so large that some fans aren't even aware that the fanchise is based around the games. Many fan-made anime adaptdations exist of the series, though ZUN is adamantly against an official adaptation, and multiple fangames have been produced as well, from
Touhou versions of other games like
Castlevania and
Mega Man to original creations; Some are serious, while others are offbeat and based around fandom in-jokes and memes.
And, of course, the music. The soundtrack of Touhou games is held in very high regard, and the amount of remixes the fandom puts out is absolutely ludicrous. To put it into perspective, the average Touhou song has between 60 and
200 remixes, with some songs outright overshadowing the original and getting remixes of their own; For example,
Bad Apple!! feat. nomico, or
Night of Nights (Which is one of the songs listed in today's mood-setters).
Oh yeah, and
this... Whatever the %$#@ this is supposed to be.
I
would have listed even more, but SmashBoards won't let me enter more than 25 pieces of media. As such, I've decided to leave a link to this massive playlist right
here for further reading.
Personally, I'm pretty optimistic on Reimu's chances. Not in an exceedingly heretical mood today, so I'm gonna translate that into a
50%. Touhou is one of, if not
the biggest indie not yet represented in Smash, and arguably the biggest indie game
period. Nintendo has been very friendly with indies as of late, and Smash has gradually been adding indie content to Smash: A Commander Video trophy in Smash 4, a Shovel Knight AT in Ultimate, Miis for Sans and Cuphead, and Steve, a former indie, as a fighter. However, we haven't had a
full indie fighter yet; Even if Minecraft used to be an indie, it's Microsoft's IP now.
There are three things brought up against Reimu's chances: Lack of Nintendo connection, being Japan exclusive, and heavy usage of fangames. That being said, I feel that it's not
quite as one-sided as some may suggest.
First off, Nintendo connections. For one, there's a decent amount of Touhou fangames on the Switch already, so you can type Touhou into the eShop search bar and get some results back already. For another, Nintendo (And Sega too)
sold Touhou arrange CDs at Reitaisai, the dedicated Touhou convention. Lastly, ZUN has stated that he's considering porting the fighting game
Antimony of Common Flowers to the Switch. At the very least, both parties are seem to be aware that cooperation is a profitable avenue, and are considering the possibility. Perhaps Reimu in Smash could be the final push they need?
On a semi-related note, recently Touhou had
a crossover with Hello Kitty,
the second-biggest franchise PERIOD. That's
huge. In addition, Sanrio stated the reason for the crossover was Touhou's increasing popularity with younger children. If Nintendo needs someone who appeals more to younger audiences, Reimu could work fairly well (Granted, that's probably not a very picky demographic). Regardless, this proves that Touhou is at least big enough to catch the eye of larger companies. Besides, we've already gotten some more distant third-parties with Snake, Cloud, and Joker. Perhaps Reimu will be FP2's "distant" character.
Reimu also got a cameo in Taiko no Tatsujin RPG, which is on the 3DS and the Switch. This is notable because it also contains characters from Ace Attorney, Monster Hunter, Yo-kai Watch, and Nintendo's very own Kirby. Aside from the fact that Reimu is on the same screen as Kirby and Phoenix Wright,
it's Reimu, Kirby, and Phoenix Wright on the same screen WHAT ARE THE BAMCO GUYS SMOKING.
Second problem, perceived Japanese exclusivity. That's a bit of a misconception, actually. Aside from the numerous Touhou fangames already on the Switch, some of which are localized, there's also twelve Touhou games on Steam. Granted, only one of them is translated, but that's not out of lack of care; Rather, it's because the fanbase will just create their own translation in a couple days, defeating the need for ZUN to translate the text himself and allowing him to focus his effort elsewhere. I could honestly see Sakurai walking us through a setup of the Touhou Community Reliant Automatic Patcher (THCRAP) in Reimu's presentation. It may seem a bit odd, but hey, we would've said the same about Sakurai plugging the Xbox in a Nintendo livestream.
That being said, Touhou
is still very Japan-centric, and the more roundabout ways to get into it may pose a bit of an issue. If Reimu gets in, there would more than likely be a lot of "bruh literally who" moments from the Western fanbase, and she would most definitely be a Japan-appeal rep. If we get a Japan-centric character who isn't Reimu, my optimism would drop significantly.
Something to note is that the worries about region-centric characters comes from the Sakurai interview about Takamaru, and to a lesser extent Ayumi Tachibana being dropped from Melee. While that's true, Touhou is a
wee bit bigger than either of those games. Unless, of course, Mysterious Murasame Castle is actually a long-running series with 17 main installments and a convention all to itself. I think Touhou's overwhelming popularity in Japan is enough for it to break through, while Takamaru has just one game, a couple ports where it's just one of the many games included and a handful of references throughout various Nintendo games.
Also I sacrificed Takamaru's soul to ensure Reimu's inclusion so he is now super dead sorry guys
Lastly, the fangame issue. Honestly, I think this one's pretty overblown. Sure, Nintendo is super stingy with their IPs and despise fangames... But that's only because it's fangames of
their IPs. If it's for any other game, Nintendo won't give a %$#@. Sonic Mania? Minecraft mods? Nintendo doesn't care at all. IF it's not using their IP, they won't come after you. Touhou isn't their IP, so they wouldn't care. That's all that needs to be said, really.
Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that I'll be rating Reimu a full
100%. I found Touhou through this remixer named
RichaadEB, who did
an entire album of Touhou metal covers. I just went down the rabbit hole from there. I even made an admittedly exaggerated Touhou Challenger Pack concept, which you can see here:
https://fantendo.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Smash_Bros._Ultimate_X_Touhou_Project
I might want to go back and touch up some things here, namely Reimu's moveset, but I feel that it's overall a pretty good introduction to the franchise.
I also kinda sorta copied a large portion of the intro for this essay. It's not plagiarism if you own the thing though, right?
Eheheheh...
Abstaining on Quote, I don't have enough writer stamina left after the massive Reimupost
) can attest to (Even though Steve isn't exactly indie any more), which gets rid of yet another counter-argument against Reimu.
