Touhou Project

Touhou Project
Touhou Project
Genres	Bullet hell, Shoot 'em up, Fighting, Block breaker
Developers	Team Shanghai Alice; Twilight Frontier;
Publisher	Team Shanghai Alice
Creator	Jun'ya Ōta ("ZUN")
Platforms	PC-98; Microsoft Windows; PlayStation 4 (Urban Legend in Limbo, Antinomy of Common Flowers); Nintendo Switch (Antinomy of Common Flowers, Sunken Fossil World);
First release	Highly Responsive to Prayers; August 15, 1997 (C52)
Latest release	New Classic: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil; September 9, 2026

Touhou Project (Japanese: 東方Project, Hepburn: Tōhō Purojekuto), also known as Touhou (東方; lit. 'Eastern' or 'Oriental'), is a bullet hell video game series created by independent Japanese doujin soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. The team's sole member, Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, has independently developed programming, graphics, writing, and music for the series, publishing 20 mainline games and 13 spin-offs since 1997. He collaborated with doujin developer Twilight Frontier on seven of the official spin-offs, six of which are fighting games. ZUN has also produced related manga series, fanbooks, and music albums.

The first five games were developed for the Japanese PC-98 computer, with the first, Highly Responsive to Prayers, released in August 1997; the series' signature danmaku (弾幕; lit. 'bullet curtain') mechanics were introduced in the second game, Story of Eastern Wonderland (also released in 1997). The release of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil in August 2002 marked a shift to Microsoft Windows. Numerous sequels followed, including several spin-offs departing from the traditional shoot 'em up format.

Touhou Project is set in Gensokyo, a preternatural land sealed from the outside world and primarily inhabited by humans and yōkai, legendary creatures from Japanese folklore that are personified entirely as young girls and women in an anthropomorphic moe style. Reimu Hakurei, the miko of the Hakurei Shrine and the main character of the series, is often tasked with resolving supernatural "incidents" caused in and around Gensokyo; she is joined by Marisa Kirisame after the events of the second game.

Touhou Project has become notable as a prominent source of Japanese doujin content, with the series spawning a vast amount of fan-made works such as artwork, music, print works, video games, and Internet memes. Because of this, it has gained a large cult following outside of Japan. The popularity of the series and its derivative works has been attributed in part to the few restrictions placed by ZUN on the use of his content. Unofficial works are frequently sold at fan conventions, including Comiket, where the franchise has often held the record for circle participation, and the official convention Reitaisai, where trial versions of the official games are distributed prior to release.