So I'm just about ready to start walking the danmaku path. But before I start...

In most doujins the exposition and characterization is obviously minimal since it's assumed we're already familiar with the setting. Thing is after looking around (not for long I admit) it seems that there's not that much to know about the characters or the world. However I still feel lost in a unknown universe whenever I read a touhou Dj... Should I just suck it up? Could you tell me more? (I guess I should just read the transcripts before asking but meh...)

I know about Nakatani Nio, Pigeonblood, Cloud Palette and Vivit Gray. Could you recommend some more good authors?

Sorry if such a topic already exists I couldn't find it, and thanks!

last edited at Jan 27, 2017 8:20AM

A good place to start is Silent Sinner In Blue, since it showcases a number of the core characters and is written by the games' creator. Art by Aki Eda is a very nice bonus too. You'll probably get more from that and the other works by ZUN than from the game transcripts, to be honest. From there it's really just a leap of faith, diving into the doujin deep end and absorbing the world that way.

Yes, yeeeees～ come over to the dark side～♥

For a good place to start, I would highly recommend the official Touhou manga. While they aren't yuri, they offer a lot of information about the world, and introduces you to the characters in a nice way. I'd suggest Wild and Horned Hermit, Forbidden Scrollery, and the Sangetsusei mangas, starting with Eastern and Little Nature Deity.

The mangas above helps you get to know the characters and their abilities, and also explains concepts about the Touhou world and Japanese folklore, which plays a large part in Touhou's setting.

In addition to the authors you mentioned, I'd recommend Yonurime (my personal favourite, and also not very heavy on having to know the lore), Aki Eda (has also done official works), Millet Soup (a bunch of cutesy stories), Neko no Sakegoto (pretty art and ecchi - note that some stories are sequels to others), and Chihagura (Kaguya x Mokou overload).

Additionally, a very useful resource is the Touhou Wiki, which has official profiles, biographies, and everything you could ask.

Hope this helps! And welcome to the world of Touhou!
Yukkuri shite itte ne!

I am interested in this thread, because I have been trying to get into Touhou since I started reading this stuff back in October, and I have yet to really get a good grasp on it. I can never keep the characters straight and have no idea why I should care. And it seems like every time I read a new TP doujin, they introduce some new character or pairing I've never heard of.

I guess...Reimu x Yukari is one of the main ships? And Keine x Mokou? And the vampire chick and her maid? (Remila x Alice, I think?) After that it gets REALLY fuzzy for me.

I did like that "End of the Universe" comic, but that wasn't really romantic as much as it was someone showing off their astrophysics classes in comic form.

Many thanks to you both, it helps a lot. Too bad there's no yuri tag on the offiicial works but I suppose some restraint will only make quenching my thirst more satisfying when the time comes

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu Ganbarimasu!

I guess...Reimu x Yukari is one of the main ships? And Keine x Mokou? And the vampire chick and her maid? (Remila x Alice, I think?) After that it gets REALLY fuzzy for me.

Basically, it helps to think of Touhou in terms of groups.

There's Reimu first of course, she's really one of the most central characters in the whole thing. Yukari is connected with her due to maintaining Gensokyo itself.

Then there's the Forest of Magic, which is mostly Marisa and Alice, as well as the Three Fairies.

Next would be the Scarlet Devil Mansion. That's the sisters, Remilia and Flandre, plus Patchouli, Koakuma, Sakuya, and the BEST CHARACTER IN GENSOKYO, Meiling. Also fairies like Cirno live nearby.

Eientei, which is the moon group, is Kaguya, Eirin, Reisen, Tewi, about a hundred unnammed rabbits, and the one who hates them, Mokou. This brings Keine into it, although she sort of crosses over with the human village.

Most of the human village stuff concerns Keine or Aki, although some stories have wild and unaffiliated youkai like Mystia or the Prismriver sisters making appearances. Aya, the tengu, also crosses over between the human village and Youkai Mountain.

Youkai Mountain is Sanae's temple with its two resident gods, Kanako and Suwako, as well as all the tengu and kappa.

There are other groups as well. The Underground/Old Hell, the Afterlife, Miko's own temple, the youkai temple, Makai (where Alice is from, sort of), etc. You get an idea of which characters fall into which groups as you go along, and if you're on the lookout for that as you read it makes it a lot easier to keep track in my opinion.

From my experience, starting to get into Touhou is pretty intimidating because of all the characters you have to learn. Though this makes it hard to get into, I think that ends up being its greatest benefit as well. Once you learn the characters and setting, stories can pretty much circumvent world building. You can have complex character dynamics and settings without having to set that up in the doujin — which would have been hard to do if you're trying to keep page count relatively low — and a side benefit of (for the most part) avoiding having the same schoolgirl setting.

My suggestion is to learn the two main characters, Reimu and Marisa, then briefly introduce yourself to a few of the more popular couples. Find a couple or two that you like, then start reading. Eventually, you'll pretty much be forced to learn about other characters, and your roster of known characters will slowly increase. Something helpful can be looking up characters on the Touhou wiki when you see them the first few times: http://en.touhouwiki.net

I will break from those before me and say you might want to consider not starting with the official works. If you're in it for the yuri, then you'll be reading a lot of material without much immediate payoff — they're good reads, but you run the risk of it turning into a chore. From my personal experience, I started with the yuri, and as I became attached to certain couples, my interest in those characters grew alongside it, and I began branching out into more pairings, then non-yuri, and then official works — eventually started playing the games. You can certainly start with the official stuff, but if it starts feeling like a slog, I'd suggest learning Touhou from the fanon side rather than canon side.

So this is a thing:

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Relationshipping

Kinda useful. Sorta.

I pretty much learned Touhou by reading random doujin (started with Marisa/Alice) and whenever i came across a character i didnt know, i would look it up on the touhou wiki to learn their backstory. Other than that, you start to learn their personalities just by reading more doujins because there's sort of an agreed upon general canon for the most popular characters.

Looking back at it, I got into Touhou at first from the really weird memey IOSYS music videos. Around the same time was when I got into yuri too, and the combination of the two somehow led me to this site and I found a bunch of doujins. Er, not that that has much to do with the OP.

If I have any advice, I'd suggest trying to read doujins or just generally learn about a set amount of characters at one time. It helps to memorize them by their groupings of who they are close to or interact with, like what Nezchan suggests above. I know seeing all of the pairings on the Touhou page is pretty intimidating, but don't worry about it too much.

What's really important is that Meiling is best girl. All the rest is frills.

I know about Nakatani Nio, Pigeonblood, Cloud Palette and Vivit Gray. Could you recommend some more good authors?

Rosebud, Benishake, Yuuki Sakuraba, Yonu, Atoki.

@Nezchan I'm going to keep your post as quick reference. And I gotta say I only came accross her a few times but Meiling definitly caught my eye. Seems like Meiling x Sakuya is a popular pairing, I'm getting fired up now

@Shynaku Yeah it is pretty overwhelming. I see what you mean about circumventing world building, it makes it harder to access but it is definitely a good thing. Guess I was completely wrong saying "there's not that much to know", it's more like there's a boatload of tiny things that slowly build the world and our dreams once you start being able to piece them together. And it can only grow from there.I'll still start with the official works to get more familiar with it all but I'll keep your advice in mind. It's not like I was on my wedding night anyway I'm not gonna force myself to go all the way.

@Norainhere Wow those IOSYS videos. I want to say "and now for something completely different". I just might enjoy that kind of thing. If anything the sheer number of pairing makes me even more eager. More yuri is always good.

@Vankomycin I'm glad I'm not alone. issho ni ganbatte ne

The touhou wiki looks like a great ressource but if at all possible I'm going to avoid it. It's a bit like reading a book with a dictionary on the side, kinda breaks the fun for me

Thanks for all the imput everyone

If you are a fan of Foe Yay like me, this artist has a good Kaguya x Mokou: Satou Memeko
Oh and try this one, the art need some time to get used to but it is good: Yohane
And Millet Soup is the best

@Nez
No, no, you're thinking of Yukari.

Yukari guards the gate at the Scarlet Devil Mansion? First I'd heard of it.

@Cyfer, Reizetsu and Ropponmatsu (obviously) Yay more authors Arigatou gozaimasu

Foe Yay is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I like it on principle but it's like a tsundere x tsundere pairing, When the tsun side gets too much in the way of the dere side I quickly lose interest, it's a difficult balance to achieve. When it's well executed however there's nothing like it ;) I'll be sure to give Satou Memeko a try

@Nez
You're just a little confused. You will eventually understand the charm of an older woman.

@Nez
You're just a little confused. You will eventually understand the charm of an older woman.

Say!

The information in this thread should be conserved for posterity.

(Apart from everything else in this thread, which has been pretty great).
For newcomers reading doujins, I think I'd recommend going by artist and then pairing. You mentioned you've read or are aware of some artists, so focus on your favourite pairings of the artists you like best. Then once you finish, you can browse by the pairing tag. When I was first getting into it, I read loads of Alice x Marisa, and as I grew to know them intimately I also found myself learning bits about the world and other characters (and then moved onto a pairing that involved another character I liked, and so on). I found it to be a pretty easy and accessible way of getting into doujins and eventually Touhouverse on a larger scale.

Also just wanted to mention that given that Touhou doujins are somewhat like mad libs, you will probably find that different artists have significantly different interpretations of the characters and the world.

Yuuki Sakuraba

Seconded x100000000000

Have fun my dude