Animal Realm

First example I'd like to discuss is Yu Yu Hakusho. Since we know Shiki Eiki is the Yama assigned to Gensokyo, that means that the Yama in Yu Yu Hakusho could just be the one assigned to Earth. I also went to the wiki briefly to see what some of the other worlds in that show are that I haven't gotten to because I haven't finished the show yet and there's also a version of Makai in that show, and since it's so vast I think it would be fun if Touhou's Makai and Yu Yu Hakusho's Makai were both connected. Maybe Shinki's city in Makai wasn't the only existing city there since it's such a large location. In fact, I would like to dump any show that takes place in normal modern day Earth that have Makai as a potential world to go into, mainly for the sake of building together a large realm to work with.

The next example is Dandadan, and mainly because the idea of Okarun, Momo and their gaggle of idiots meeting Sumireko and going to Gensokyo sounds like an amazing crossover idea and Momo and Okarun would both love Gensokyo. Okarun would ask Nue so many questions and Momo would wanna be friends with Reimu so bad. Meanwhile, Seiko and Yukari are having the battle of the century and Turbo Granny and Mamizou are watching it together and catching up on stuff since I imagine they would be close friends lol. Also, the Lunarians would absolutely be considered aliens to Okarun and he'd be desperate to learn more about them.

Speaking of the Moon, I think it would be interesting if we added Sailor Moon to this hypothetical. I know a bit more on the world for that, and with the description of how the future Earth works you could probably work in some of the Hifuu Club stuff into some of the precursors to that. Also, I like the idea of the Lunar Capital staying on the hidden side of the moon while the moon civilization in Sailor Moon potentially lives on the more visible end of it, and the reason the Lunarians didn't get screwed over by Queen Beryl is because they stayed hidden pretty well. This one is kinda loosey goosey and I know there's a lot more space worldbuilding in this series but again, the idea sounded fun and I think you could definitely work this in if you felt like it.

Now that I think about it, could you hypothetically work in the Fate series/nasuverse into this as well? I know with one of the visual novels in that series there's a supercomputer on the moon and maybe that can coexist with the Lunarians??? IDK someone please tell me if you could work this in.

I think K-Pop Demon Hunters and Jentry Chau VS the Underworld could work here too. I like the idea of bringing some of Korean and Chinese folklore into this too since Touhou kinda brings it in already with some character based on Chinese folklore. Once again these two are kinda stretches, but with how Gensokyo works, I feel like some of the realms in that show too could be parts of Makai/the underworld that are kinda like the Animal Realm where they're close by it, or there is just one big underworld with all the different variants of Hell located to each culture's mythology. IDK how well that would work and if someone reading this is more familiar with either of those two please let me know. Once again both of those options are based on a "wouldn't it be funny if these characters went to Gensokyo?" type of deal. These two are kinda really stretching it though. Under this logic, I am also adding the Percy Jackson book series/universe and even the Welcome to Night Vale series. I loved the Percy Jackson books growing up and I have read one of the Welcome to Night Vale novels (the faceless old woman who secretly lives inside your home) and am working through another one right now (Welcome to Night Vale). I know that the latter doesn't have exact parallels to some of Touhou's worldbuilding rules/philosophies I think there is still something spritually there you could work with IDK. This one is mainly just vibes. Oh, also Gravity Falls, I absolutely think Gensokyo would be canon to that universe as well, and because I saw some really good art of Dipper asking Yukari where Mabel is and I love that concept so why not. As for more details on the Percy Jackson idea, even though it has some issues with how it portrays the gods and Greek mythology, I also think that's what makes it easy enough to include. These are incomplete interpretations of these gods by the people of that world, so it kinda fits with how Gensokyo works as well.

And now onto the things I don't think people would immediately think of as being shared universe material with Touhou. The common thread on these next few are "universes where human belief ends up impacting reality". First up is Mandel Catalogue, probably one of the more direct comparisons if you're into analog horror, but a funny possibility. This goes for stuff like Greylock as well even though I haven't watched it, I know the gist of it and that it also does the "people's belief in something impacts reality" thing too.

Here is where we begin leading into connecting Touhou to internet creepypastas, because I think the universe of Abandoned by Disney would also be one where Gensokyo would be canon. The idea of Reimu encountering the photnegative Mickey thing in the OG creepypasta and going "ah, so this is what America's Yokai are like" and not even batting an eye would be extremely funny (same idea with Mandela Catalogue, her not even being scared of the alternates because she's "dealt with worse" would be funny too). Like, no shit this is happening in countries other than Japan too, why wouldn't it? Also, bringing in some of the other stories I mentioned earlier, I think Okarun and Momo encountering this same thing would be really funny/interesting. Okarun would wanna collect the weird goop that comes out of the suit to see what it's composed of and Momo would probably be underwhelmed since it isn't trying to eat/kill either of them. Edit: Aira would have an appropriate reaction and would immediately try and crucify it magical girl style, and Jiji would agree with Momo that the decapitation trick is lame and yell at it to "DO A FLIP" to which Momo and Turbo Granny would join and then Okarun and Aira join (Okarun for scientific purposes, and Aira would tell it to do a flip off of a building), and soon enough this poor demon beyond all comprehension is getting yelled at to do a flip by four teenagers and their weird ass cat.

Please add more to this in the comments/reblogs if you guys have any other ideas. I love thinking about crossovers so please build onto this if you're insane like me as well. I know a lot of these are superficial but honestly this is all in good fun and I had this really dumb idea I wanted to share.

Comparing how I drew a Gensokyo spell card vs how I drew an overseas spell card.

Touhou and Gensokyo are inherently eastern, so the designs of the spellcards in the land of fantasy would inherently have a distinctly Japanese feel to them. For this I went for a Yokogumo styled frame for the Gensokyo spell card that appears in a Cirno Day piece I did years ago.

When taking a commission to draw a friend’s Hawaiian Touhou OC, I had to approach how the cards of a spell card duelist from outside Gensokyo would look. I went for a wave type border for that one.

Another addition is that due to this being a later piece, I added more TCG-style elements onto the cards, such as the attribute type on the upper right corner of each card and some sort of point value on the lower frame. Don’t ask me what the point value is for.

Also the cards in the commission are holographic. I don’t know, I thought it looked cool. Would spell cards even be holographic? Maybe Chimata had an influence on future spell card designs…

This also got me thinking, what about realms beyond Gensokyo? how would their spell cards look? would the Animal Realm have different looking spell cards? If the Lunar Capital embraces spell card duels, how would those spell card designs look?

What if a Gensokyo-like fantasy existed in the mainland US? what would their spell cards look like? would such a realm just be something like Oz?

[Click for better quality]

Ok so as a sort of followup to that Yachie drawing, I did one of Yachie as well. I already had a pretty solid idea in mind (though tbh drawing her wasn't as fun as drawing Saki) but I'm overall pretty happy with this drawing.

Artist's Notes;

Animal Realm - Wily Beast and Weakest Creature stage 6.

what measure is a bad person, in this context? is reimu evil for enforcing an inherently unnatural status quo that she knows, for a fact, sometimes kills people? you could easily make the argument that she is. but we accept that gensokyo exists as part of the default, and therefore we find ourselves framing things against it.

is seiga a Bad Person? is there no possible reframing of the situation in which she could be a protagonist? is the rebellious seija evil, for defying a world she sees as incorrect? are the lunarians evil? are the residents of the animal realm evil? are the residents of hell evil? is there truly a character you can so callously condemn with the title of "Bad Person"?

Sure! So, Keiki is a goddess in Touhou- a goddess as in a Japanese god, not as in a monotheistic or even a Greek god. She's got a very specific domain (sculpting) but can do a lot with it.

In the game she shows up in, Wily Beast and Weakest Creature, a bunch of human spirits in one of the Buddhist punishment afterlives (the Animal Realm) prayed to her to protect them from the other animal spirits there. Because humans aren't physically strong and you can't exactly build culture and civilization in a Buddhist punishment afterlife (which is how humans generally are stronger than animals in the normal world) the humans there ended up being enslaved by the (sentient) animal spirits.

So, Keiki showed up to help them (because gods in Touhou need faith to live). Because humans aren't very physically strong and can't defend themselves, she used her idol sculptures to fight off the beasts and protect humans instead. However, she also uses her idols to prevent humans from doing anything, because they are so weak that they might hurt themselves if they do. It isn't even on her radar that humans would dislike this- her idols don't mind being ordered around, why would human beings? (Also, yes, she's aiding the humans in essentially Hell- she's a Shinto goddess, she doesn't care about Buddhist morality.)

The protagonists of Touhou end up getting tricked by the animal spirits into defeating her (the reason the animal spirits couldn't beat the idols was because neither they nor the human spirits had physical bodies, but Reimu and co. do) but she doesn't really mind and the human spirits don't pray for them to come back (as their freedom was nearly as restricted under Shinto god cyberpunk as under the animals) so she goes off to try and gain faith in Gensokyo (the main setting of Touhou, a pocket realm of nonhumans who are fighting against the tide of humans no longer needing and believing in them) instead.

She's not anywhere near my favorite Touhou character, but she's a good example of a viewpoint that's just orthogonal to humanity. There are lots of others in Touhou like that, though, she's just the first that came to mind.

*creatures you*

The big 3 part 20+ page colored comic that’s killin me (Alice, Medicine, Eirin, Daiyousei)

Welcome to Gensokyo zine piece (Orin, Utsuho, Satori)

Bugs (Wriggle, Yamame, Eternity, Momoyo)

Animals + Satoris (Satori, Koishi, Utsuho, Mamizou, Tewi, Reisen)

Misc youkai (Nitori, Nazrin, Shou)

Tengu (Aya, Hatate, Momiji, Megumu)

Humans: lineart comic (Reimu, Marisa, Sanae, Sumireko, Nue if you have a magnifying glass), misc stuff (Reimu, Marisa, Sanae)

Tsukumogami (Raiko, Kogasa, Benben, Yatsuhashi, Kokoro, Medicine)

Animal Realm Matriarchs (Yachie, Saki, Yuuma)

Touhou 19 (Enoko, Hisami, Chiyari)

——

Aunn Komano

Yukari Yakumo

Tsukasa Kudamaki

Suwako Moriya (+ Sanae)

Patchouli Knowledge (+ Sakuya, Remilia, Mamizou, Alice)

Cirno, 9 day

Keine Kamishiwasawa

Yuyuko Saiyouji lineart comic (+Reimu)

——

Reimari, more Reimari, th08 reimari fight

Image by GiantCaveMushroom

Touhou 17: Wily Beast and Weakest Creature came out in 2019.

The storyline begins with a trio of animal goasts (sic) come to Gensokyo and tell Reimu, Marisa, and Youmu that an army of beast spirits are planning to invade Gensokyo! In order to combat this incoming invasion, the protagonist has to let one of the beast spirits possess them and take them to Hell, where a war has been brewing for the past year or so.

The three beast spirits each slowly influence the protagonist as they progress, altering their personality a bit.

• The wolf spirit makes you more violent and aggressive

• The eagle spirit makes you narcissistic and haughty

• The otter spirit makes you cowardly and somewhat of a suckup.

What appears to be a trip to new Hell quickly takes a turn to the Animal Realm.

The Animal Realm is one of the six realms of rebirth in Buddhist cosmology. It's second-place in pain and suffering to Hell. More about it later.

Overall, Wily Beast and Weakest Creature is one of the darkest, most serious games in the series, and one which kickstarted another trilogy. The Animal Realm will continue to attempt to conquer Gensokyo in Touhou 17.5: Sunken Fossil World, and Touhou 19: Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghosts. In general, the series starts gaining a larger number of pure evil characters from hereon out.

Though, it's not TOO dark. Keep in mind everyone's still using spellcard rules, so nobody's dying.

Oh, and the Animal Realm in Touhou has a rather interesting inspiration. This fanmade documentary/review explains it better than I can. It has to do with the second season of hit anime Kemono Friends. You don't need to watch the whole thing, just like, the first 11 minutes, and then 1h52m30s in.

https://youtu.be/OJ6nP9ExLeY

Basically, the bizarre juxtaposition of cute animal girls with the harsh reality of the  modern corporate machine was ZUN's main artistic inspiration for this game.

A little bit more on the beast spirits:

ZUN thought about giving them each individual names, but ultimately decided against it. Despite this, they actually have more lines of dialogue than many named characters!

Overall, despite the cruelty of their masters, none of them appear to be especially bad people, and genuinely thank the protagonist for helping them.

They're actually not just dead: they're extinct! Each of them is an animal that has gone extinct or endangered due to human interference: a Honshu Wolf, a Japanese River Otter, and a Japanese Golden Eagle.

the minor fall, the major lift

Title: 龍王殺しのプリンセス (The Princess Who Slays Dragon Kings)

Arrangement: 紅維流星

Album: 東方フィルハーモニー交響楽団16 虹

Circle: 交響アクティブNEETs