The Supernature of Touhou's Spirit Ecology

First off, it should be clarified, that when I say that spirits ”inhabit” Touhou I do not mean that Touhou is necessarily like some kind of a house where something analogous to people ”live in”. Many spirits are more human-like than people tend to give them credit for (which explains why things like being polite and apologizing works), but the overall workings of the spirit world seem to be much different than in material world. The spirits seem to be present in Touhou in the form of representations that then allow a link to be established. Throughout history it's been thought that various symbolic and pictorial representations can be used to reach out to entities living in other realms or planes of reality. The process of how spirits use archetypes to make their presence more solid and defined is very much related to this.

A very particular tool that has been for establishing spirit contact is the mandala. It's impossible to ignore how mandala-like many danmaku patterns in the games are. It's generally thought that mandalas establish a kind of link between the inner world (microcosm) of the person using it and the outer world (macrocosm). The question then becomes, what kind of microcosmic-macrocosmic, internal-external links these danmaku mandalas are constructing? Are they a form of communication? Are they a way to build a more solid ground for the spirits to reach out? Some have suggested that all of life, all forms of existence are on a fundamental level patterns. Pattern recognition is one thing that Touhou games require and cultivate, and some interviews of ZUN paint a picture of him as a keen observer of various patterns. Could these patterns be spirits in itself..? Such speculations are beyond my capabilities at this point, but the possibility has to be laid out.

What are the spirits of Gensokyo?

Whatever is the ”true nature” of spirits, everything considered it would seem that Touhou has managed to draw in all kinds of spirits. These might in some way very much correlate with the various classes of entities depicted within the games. So in other words, you have an entire astral bestiary of kami, assorted youkai, tengu, kappa, ghosts... Such a wide range of different entities would have divergent interests. I believe this divergence of interests is quite well reflected in the various arguments the fans like to have online. What if the endless debates of kappa vs yamawaro vs tengu vs wolf tengu are more than just the usual fare of internet arguments? What if there are different classes of spirits jostling for attention?

Since spirits are a form of non-biological life, notions of individuality, agency, and species might however be very different from biological life. It might be more of a spectrum, something that manifests differently in different situations. It might be a strange tangle where things that should be apart by our standards get mixed together. The spirits of forests, mountains and winds might become entangled with spirits of human or purely astral origin. If I could offer an exact science of the spirit world, I would be making the single most important text that humanity has ever produced. I can only speculate or make educated guesses and hazy inferences based on what I have learned and experienced.

But could spirits really have reached out to ZUN, somehow? I very much think so, but the process has most likely been mostly unconscious. I think one of the best arguments for spirit influence behind Touhou actually comes from ZUN himself, who in the afterwords to Symposium of Post-Mysticism writes the following rather curious statement:

While ZUN has obvious interest in history, mythology, religion and all kinds of paranormal stuff, it might be that his interest isn't perhaps as deep as it is wide. Being surprised by the depth of the characters you (seemingly) created is rather unusual. ”It feels like the characters really jump out of the game” and ”there were even troublesome ones that seemed to move about on their own” are certainly fascinating statements to make. One does not need to know much of history if one is sensitive to spirits to conjure forth influence from them.

At the same time, this process of learning about the ”characters” making them kind of come to life or to blossom to a more fuller extent happened to me too. I started feeling like there was something more than the surface to these games after playing Perfect Cherry Blossom a handful of times, some strange inkling of spiritual, occult potential, but it was really when I started learning the history and mythology that they came to me. But we are getting a bit sidetracked here.

The evolution of Touhou's spiritual ecology

So let's speculate on the evolution of this spiritual ecology that makes up the Touhou. At first Touhou was largely an assorted mish-mash of ideas from other forms of media – and it still is to some extent. However, there is a radical difference between how much the Windows era draws from actual mythology, history and locations in Nagano. Something clearly changed between Mystic Square and Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Perhaps the story of the development of Touhou's spiritual ecology goes something like this:

ZUN is born with an eye for patterns and some kind of artistic talent and sensitivity to spirits that frequently comes with such. He develops an interest in mythology and fantasy. Later he developed a taste for some more libidinal and pop-cultural interests such as arcade games and PC-98 eroge. Music, frequently thought to be very pleasing to spirits, becomes his chosen medium. He desires to make video game music, but somehow doesn't end up doing it for others. He makes his own games and makes some very remarkable decisions that would define his career.

ZUN decides to draw inspiration from his surroundings, coming up with the Hakurei Shrine. He makes the groundbreaking decision to make the protagonist a shrine maiden, further rooting his creations in real life mythology and religion. He, for whatever reason, perhaps on some level feeling that he is communing with the kami, decides to call himself a kannushi. By now the ball has started rolling. Knowingly or unknowingly, he invokes the power of the watchers via Sariel, gaining some fragment of power. There are more and more people engaging in the ritual of playing Touhou games. The attention and interest builds into ever more stronger patterns over every repeated effort to clear the games. Touhou and by extension its creator begin to light up in the spirit world.

It's almost starting to become like a ritual, and rituals draw in all sorts of astral energies and entities.

ZUN takes a break from Touhou for some reason and focuses on other things. Then, he returns to it and makes what is sometimes seen as the ”last PC-98 Touhou game”, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. It's a hit and a classic, but it's also the last Touhou game which is heavily influenced by non-mythological media. Something has changed. Whether ZUN knows it or not, he has made spirit contact by now. It's entirely possible for a human to be an unknowing conduit to spirits, simply because most of us do not know the texture of our minds well enough to separate us from them. The deeply souled Perfect Cherry Blossom comes next, with its somber themes, numinous atmosphere, ghostly inhabitants, references to Pure Land and Gensokyo's very own dweller at the threshold, watcher at the boundaries, Yakumo Yukari.

Touhou escapes the confines of its native land. The ritual becomes international. The attention and energies being fed into it become ever greater.

And the new inhabitants keep on coming and coming.

First come the oni, as they often do when spiritual energies begin to coalesce together. She goes straight after one of ZUN's true loves, alcohol.

Then come the beings of the Moon from reflections on the water, drawn by the scent of the name of the Watcher who taught humans the cycles of the moon. They whisper secrets ZUN may not comprehend, but he knows they have something to do with the Apollo program.

Then comes the lazy reaper and the stern yama and the flood of souls and a most strange idea of a 60 year cycle derived from Taoist ideas.

Then come the native kami, the tengu and the kappa. The very land itself now senses strange new energies and attention feeding into it. Someone has conducted a ritual never done before and they are overjoyed to be part of it. When you make references to a land, you get the attention of the spirits of that land.

Then come the celestial forces, perhaps to give a prophecy, perhaps in an attempt to stop this bizarre magical operation from a new world they no longer comprehend.

Then come the chthonic forces, sensing that the land above them is feeding from a new kind of ritual. Most unusual youkai of the mind graze ZUN's consciousness.

By now ZUN is either aware of the ultraterrestrial hypothesis or has independently pieced together an artistic interpretation of it. Undefined Fantastical Object arrives, equal parts shrouded in Nue's mystery and illusions and burning with Byakuren's light. Whether ZUN believes or practices anything spiritual is beside the point as UFO presents a captivating mix of a bizarre subconscious outgassing and Buddhist fable.

Then the light of dharma attracts the shadow of Taoism, the root influence of Mahayana Buddhism. Perhaps the research process makes ZUN shaken, perhaps he has to come to terms with just how much Taoism has influenced Japanese culture despite being almost invisible in concrete manifestations. Perhaps it is just a commentary on the divide between court and common folk, a paranoid fantasy of wicked Taoist witches subverting the political class...or do ghosts of the past whisper something shocking to ZUN?

With the traditions of Shinto, Buddhism and Taoism now planted in Gensokyo, conflict, at least the conflict of ideas, is inevitable. Perhaps the entities truly do struggle over who gets the control panel, or perhaps it is more metaphorical. ZUN doesn't like any particular religion, yet he can't help but feel captivated by something in them.

There's the Shoot the Bullets, the Double Spoilers, the Fairy Wars too. The print works and the fan media, the ever blossoming modern mythology. The strange Hifuu Club metanarrative keeps on expanding. Touhou keeps on growing and growing and growing and growing. By now it has an enormous cultural footprint among those interested in what is called ”otaku culture”. As much as there are those who love the games and find beauty and a bit of magic in it, there are those who worship it in decidedly more twisted ways. The sin sacks spill their jing, and many are happy to receive this form of energy, too.

Then, the desire to overturn everything and decline. Mobile games become new attention thieves. ZUN must have started feeling simultaneously that his work is no longer getting the attention he is used to, and that it has spun out of control. Not all inhabitants of the spirit ecology are happy with their new representations or the attention they get. Once upon a time they were feared, and they wish to be feared again. The danmaku amanojaku slithers into ZUN's heart and manages to wring out a spin-off game entirely for herself. Outside world is seeping in, the inside world is seeping out, and urban legends are in limbo.

For inspiration, ZUN returns to the Moon. The arc must be closed. But the Moon does nor divulge its secrets easily. The Return to the Lunatic Kingdom is witheringly difficult. By now Touhou is so international that the most popular neopagan deity, Hecate, gets drawn in. Where there is an obsession with magic and boundaries, there will be beings of magic and boundaries. Perhaps there is something that taxes ZUN's mental health in the creative process. An eater of dreams and a nymph of insanity make their appearance.

Doremy Sweet, a Baku, is one of the later arrivals to Gensokyo.
Legends tell that the Baku could summoned to eat nightmares...
but if no nightmares were present, it would eat hopes and dreams instead.

A most remarkable Touhou game for those with the eyes to see comes out next. The Hidden Star in Four Seasons makes her appearance. The seasons are once again out of order, reflecting the ever worsening climate chaos. The narrative and gameplay seem to mirror Perfect Cherry Blossom where it all truly, truly began. The second dweller at the threshold, born of both the beginning and end of all things makes herself known.

By now ZUN's concerns as an aging family man in an increasingly tumultuous world are seeping in more and more, and no doubt the spirits are getting more and more stirred in the confusing tangle of ever changing world and the astral cyclone that Touhou has become. In many magical traditions it's said that before you can go up, you have to go down, but it takes until the 17th game for our protagonists to truly go down, to Hell, in their most unheroic adventure. Possessed by the worst characteristics of humanity, they face a sculptor goddess prayed into new existence by the tormented. She can do nothing but give her worshippers exactly what they want, and what they want has become completely removed from humanity.

The Pandemic happens. For a moment it seems that much of what we think of as normal life might pass into fantasy. This includes physical marketplaces, and perhaps more to the point, Comiket. Online trading becomes frenzied, and where there is trading there is scamming. A new kami is born, clad in a rainbow patchwork, the all-colours patchwork of the marketplace deities new and old which come together in her.

Dealing with darker themes for two whole games draws in more and more darker energies. There is once again a threat of everything being overturned. What was once set in deed is returned to nothing and all is up for grabs. A demon sets its ambitions on Gensokyo, and once more the beastly fiends that stand for everything wrong with humanity are set loose. But in the end, Gensokyo endures. No gacha has killed it, no prediction of doom killed it, and with the re-enchantment of the world, finally eyes that can see it for what it is have been brought to witness it. And with that, things that have passed into fantasy might just start passing out of it.

Will 20 be 10 times 2, or something entirely new? Will an old loop be closed or a new one opened?