Last updated November 5, 2016

Touhou is a video game series where poorly drawn magical girls shoot bullets at one another.

Touhou is a series of music albums that happens to come with a game.

Touhou is an ever-growing universe filled with untapped story potential.

Touhou is all of those things. But what defines Touhou the most is its insane fandom. In any discussion about fandom, Touhou’s is the gold standard.

I got into Touhou around high school, and never got out of it. I haven’t played the games in a while, but I stay for the music. Somehow, the original MIDI songs inspired tons of doujin music circles to pick up guitars, lay down techno tracks, and in one instance, hire a choral symphony. To cover a song from a video game. It’s ridiculous and I love it.

For every genre of music I listen to, I was introduced to that genre through Touhou. That’s not a joke. It’s a fact.

To keep this recs list short(er), every circle gets at most one song. Some circles are one hit wonders, and others produce masterpiece after masterpiece (looking at you, Demetori), but in this they all get equal representation.


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