I've gotten a surprisingly high amount of comments related to me using Christianity as the example for casting magic. Even more surprising still, despite me saying that Christians are responsible for most of Western magic and therefore have a LOT of magic available to them, my example was somehow interpreted by a few as the opposite. Even going as far as saying I used them as an example at their expense. So I'm going to clarify here in case that part was confusing for people: -You can't just 'be religious' and suddenly have laser beams for powers. There needs to be a historical source within your religious practices that mention it. This was the point of the example, and as Christianity is a popular religion that we don't see really in Gensokyo, it's a perfect example to explain this. -With that example in mind, you CAN use anything that Christianity has defined. As a few people have pointed out, this can include protection prayers, rituals, and exorcisms among other things. There are MANY magic texts that stem from it and other Abrahamic religions. I made this VERY clear in the video.

My friend got jumped in Gensokyo City for trying to invoke the power of Christ against a Yokai. He fucking died.

Its so fascinating how ZUN made a magic system when he was talking to this frog girl at a bar.

More than Religious people, it's contemporary magicians who would have it easy "Wow, you can make cards disappear? Did you read my mind, by god you can do anything!" One of two would probably happen: 1 Fool enough villagers and yokai and suddenly you can actually do it 2 You keep stumbling into silly situations where you somehow can keep bullshitting people, never breaking their belief you can do actual magic, but never able to actually do real magic because you know for a fact you can't, yet situations keep happening where you somehow manage to pull through

Fantasy authors hates how ZUN can easily expand Touhou infinitely and has a simple boundary to explain on how a character got in there.

It ain't magic if it ain't flashy

You forgot one essential aspect of Touhou's hard magic, and that is Master Spark solves everything

i love how one of sumireko's spellcards is a fucking gun

NEW GENSOUCHRONICLE VIDEO DROPPED WE ARE SO BACK

Aunn was "born" recently but has been watching things for a long time as a statue. In addition to her probably knowing how spell cards work, I imagine this is why in HSiFS she talks to Reimu and Marisa like she knows them and they should know her

17:52 On my way to Gensokyo to use Sex Magic

One thing that I remember for being such an odd detail is that an early draft of the spell card duels handwaved the men disliking them for being unmanly. This is to my knowledge the only canon explanation for why Unzan's the only active male youkai in the games

I guess if the collective humanity's belief was the core of all magic in Gensokyo, it would mean that the human village is in more way than one the power source for everything in the setting. That would explain why every youkai and even the shrines tried so hard to spread their influence into the village

"Honey, let's go out together-" "NO. GensouChronicle just posted a video"

11:40 "Weaknesses, limits, and costs are more interesting than powers" I believe the meaning behind the spells is indeed the limitation behind this seemingly limitless power. Spells need a meaning to be a spell, and that's what so enthralling about them. Koishi's spells, for instance, include hearts and roses and the way they are shot at us, either getting repulsed from her into us or coming toward her, actually says a lot about herself, her feelings, and what she truly is. ZUN really knows not only how to write characters' personalities on their spells, but also in their themes. Energetic or Melancholic, each character's theme is pure art.

19:45 I don't even want to ask about the thought process that went into this one tier list.

11:20 she was so excited to take part after watching everybody else do it that she made the spell cards within minutes

Dude you are such a good fucking writer. The way you script stuff always keeps me engaged.

What i take away from this is that i gotta start practicing sex magic in case i get sent to gensokyo

soft magic is octopus soft: tender, yielding easily when direct pressure( logical analysis) is applied, but when those myriad mounds of muscle contract, the grip is nearly impossible to escape. Hard magic is carbide hard: unyielding when viewed in limited use, or independent of its intended purpose, but when it is used beyond its limits (i.e., when you try to scale the magic up beyond what it was intended to explain), it shatters from its own brittleness.

One thing that somewhat bothers me is that many character abilities are ridiculously op, which basically means any serious plot can’t happen without some way to restrict those abilities, or have those characters be absent for seemingly no reason. For example, in Foul detective Satori, Satori herself doesn’t show up much because she would find the culprit to easily from mind reading. Then again, not ever plot needs to be serious or high-stakes.

They tapped the power of the Warp to fuel their magics.

I think a scientist that wants to eradicate belief in the supernatural and try to explain the supernatural with science could be a very interesting villain for touhou. Perhaps they could even use spell cards based off of scientific principles and theories I think that could be really interesting.

if there's something interesting im a little surprised you didnt cover, it's rinnosuke's ability to create magic items. He seems to be able to take the 'idea' of what something can do and applies it to item creation, making some really wild stuff, and it looks like its something only he can manage through a combination of his ability plus gensokyo logic. As seen in CoLA and the mini-hakkero, and the minus-ion air purification bit he somehow managed to add to it. I always laugh at his explanation of computers in chapter 1 of CoLA, but in gensokyo, they may as well run like that and given his ability and what he's accomplished with it, he might as well get a computer running on moonlight if he used the right underlying mystical systems to pull from to slap on it.

bro done making Buffet about living in Gensokyo. Now he making all-you-can-eat lunch break.

8:00 So basically Gensokyo and San Andreas have alot in common.

I'd make the assumption that Christian magic would be very similar to the abilities of Sanae: Miracles. She even has a spellcard named based on a specific Biblical event.

An interesting consequence of the properties of the barrier is that bionicles could probably be found in Gensokyo

"What magic spells do Christians use?" Uhh... Bread?

Watching this video made me realize just how many similarities there are between Gensokyo and my own fantasy setting, especially in terms of how Zun goes about writing. For one: Giving characters very abstract, vaguely defined abilities is a really fun way to write powers, so long as you keep things consistent. Makes sense why I got into touhou lol

A little aside about the idea of "meaningful attacks" in the Spell Card Rules: To me the language used here is similar to the idea of the "false attack" in Judo. A false attack in Judo isn't just feinting attacks for misdirection (which is allowed). A false attack is when you feign being active in the fight, to avoid penalty or whatever. In other words, it's essentially a rule against pretending to fight. This might seem counterintuitive since there are fights (even mentioned in the video) where stronger characters seem to throw. However, there is a difference between earnestly fighting without your full strength, and going through the motions of fighting, so to speak. Anyway there's another thing we can gleam from this parallel is the relationship that danmaku and the SCRs have compared to the relation between the wider discipline of grappling as a whole and Judo. That is to say, in Judo we often see people from other grappling sports participate in competition without actually knowing all the nuances and such about the rules. It's likely this is the same in Touhou: People outside of Gensokyo (for reasons outside of this mini-essay) know about danmaku, and thus are able to participate in the SCRs without formally knowing them. Just some food for thought :)

RE Spell Cards there's an SCoOW interview with ZUN with more explanations on them "Touhou Spell Cards FAQ". Something interesting he mentioned that I never noticed before reading it was he used to actually incorporate the cards, like the literal physical cards in games but stopped. You used to be able to see them next to the bosses (you can see them in fighting games too--they pull them out). Other than that, I think for the games in general it's probable he thinks it would be bothersome to always show the protagonists explaining spell cards to newcomers. There are often a bunch in game and it would get silly to always show the protagonists explaining things. I'm not sure whether he's ever admitted that, but it would make sense given the one time we see spell cards being explained to newcomers was in SSiB, which felt like an attempt at writing an "Incident" in manga form.

Great video, especially your conclusion. The importance of "fuzzy" worldbuilding to promote fan creation cannot be understated. It is interesting that now thinking about it I see what you outlined in your video is that Gensokyo is a great blueprint to what makes a great setting for TTRPGs: a setting that invites people to collaboratively create stories in it. TTRPG settings requires strong "hard magic" rules for games to work, but the real good ones will also feature many "soft magic" stuff for DMs to work on and add their own spice and retain a sense of wonder even to veteran players.

"VEGETA WHAT WAS HIS MANA STATUS!" "ITS OVER 9000!"

7:52 you've grown so much as an artist 😭😭😭 how do you do it???

official touhou logo jumpscare

Youkai and Gods really got "snap back to reality"'d by science and common-sense in the most literal basic sense. That's literally the Hakurei barrier. That's so damn funny.

Im so obsessed with touhou that i knew everything up until the traditional magic part lol because having multiple magic systems is actually amazing and I somehow only knew about the alchemical magic and Reimu's magic.

Not now, dear, new GensouChronicle video dropped

Always looking for anything to do with Kagerou in this channel’s vids now. Silly Gyate Kagerou did not disappoint.

I have to say that even at its hardest Touhou's magic system is incredibly soft. The hardest part that you mentioned, and I agree that it is the hardest, is the belief determining what is real, but even then there is very little concrete rules for it. How many people need to believe for something to be real, for instance. Or when there are supernatural beings that exist despite being largely forgotten or unknown about. And then there are beings who derive their existence from other sources like belief like Junko (and I think Raiko as well, though I may be misremembering the specifics of her case). It just goes to show that even at its hardest Touhou's magic system is *really* soft. The barrier though gotta be one of my favorite aspects of Touhou's magic system and the world at large. Just how wonky it is with how it works, it connecting Gensokyo and the Lunar capital and its history are all really fascinating. But I still definitely wouldn't call it hard. What we know about it is very limited and even those "rules" are broken very often, like getting through the barrier. That and we don't know exactly how those rules are "governed" so to say and what are the "rules for the rule breaking". And like you said, the barrier and its rules is used as plot points more than world building which is exactly what I think makes it soft. He has the tendency to add and break the rules as his stories go. I dare say in my opinion the spellcards are a harder system than the barrier. We know the exact rules they are created around and even the reasons why those rules exist. Though, like you said their forms of usage is quite loose and soft. And what you said about the abilities and the general magic I do agree. They are for the most part between quite soft with some rules, to wholly soft.

Dude, I can't thank you enough for discussing this topic! I've been waiting for someone to explain the magic system of the Touhou Project. I really enjoyed the video-it's a great comeback after your hiatus. Welcome back to Gensokyo! LOL If you ask me, I don't usually have a favourite part, since every part of a work contributes to one another, but I believe the part I was interested in was the Spell Card System, since the "A Sign: B (Attack)" gives a hint of a deeper magic system beneath, it peaked my curiosity every time I seen it onscreen.

Not bad, I personally have subscribed to the collective belief theory in Touhou ever since I got into 40k... I mean, it just fits. Just bit of a theory of mine, but I personally believe that what empowers Yukari's abilities regarding boundary manipulation is the very concept of boundaries we impose upon ourselves as a society across the planet. Because without them we would be feral creatures. I originally read this in a fanfic, but basically Yukari's powers fell as soon as major war started in the outside world; because we as humans had crossed a boundary we really shouldn't have. I think it's an interesting explanation to the hag's powers, but obviously, a fan one. Just like you said yourself, it invites creativity. Good video though, happy to see someone educating common folk about this stuff. Keep it up!

My mind has been blown! I never really knew how magic worked in Gensokyo, but I'm glad I found this to expand my knowledge of Touhou. I have been somewhat new to the community, not really interacting with it as much, but I will still be partaking in it from the sidelines.

That's a killer finishing line "It's touhou's magic, that builds its community" You've got a magical way with words, great job!

Heres what I know before even watching the video, your strength unless you're Reimu or Marisa, your strength is based on who is causing the incident. Which is why yuyuko can be the strongest boss in the game or level 1 boss in another game

Thoughtful and well put together video. The real magic was the creativity being made. Pretty cool when put into perspective.

Are you telling me that the majority of Christians can get together to agree on what kind of magic and abilities they will have to go to Gensokyo? I know what I'm going to do now lol. Great vid Gensou. Idk if you have improved your editing, but everything looks so clear!

The GOAT is back, time to get another nugget of wisdom for a totally possible trip to Gensokyo

I find that you just release absolute winners every time you make a video! I love how in-depth you go and how thoroughly you explain the points you make. This was a fantastic video, I knew a lot of this already, but you raised some very thought-provoking ideas / points. Great work!

This channel is slowly becoming the Touhou encyclopedia and I'm all here for it

This is absolutely beautiful work

As a person who loves magic systems and world building in general, thank you. Really good video

This was a really interesting video, because one thing that has to be taken in consideration is that Touhou has more to do with old folklore than modern fantasy, so a lot of conventions and tropes change. Reading on academic mythology and folklore (no Joseph Campbell, that crank) made me appreciate Touhou so much more, because you can understand the context that ZUN is trying to emulate - nothing in Gensokyo must be taken at face value and this paradox creates a world that is so sincere. The world back then used to be so "small" (quotation marks needed), and we live in an age that everything is so "big" and Gensokyo is still from that time everything was much smaller than today - this is why fans imagine so many stories of people being spirited-away to there, but the opposite is much rarer. I think that powerscaling doesn't really work because it's such a "modern" thing, of assigning numbers to everything. Reimu has the power of "flying" simply because she's the protagonist and the owner of the story can say "she wins", like playing make-believe (I can imagine an interpretation that the events of Touhou are two girls playing with their dolls). ZUN's approach has its limitations (we will never see the characters growing up), but there's so much to explore that it doesn't really matter.

Somehow I didn’t get recommended this earlier but LETS GOO another gensou chronicle video. Really thought provoking video this one was and it made me appreciate the world building in Gensokyo a lot more

Another banger! Thanks for bringing a spotlight to Touhou as always!

I really love your videos, the lore and world of gensokyo are something I’m incredibly interested in and your videos greatly scratch that itch

The editing in this is great

FINNALY i've been waiting for wtf the magic system is forever thank you so much

Subscribed! Touhou analytical vids lasting at least 20 or more minutes are friggin deep.

I love this video, it makes everything so clear nad really lies everything out on the table that was hidden. I feel like I had a rather solid understanding of touhous magic system before watching this video, but afterwards not only do I feel omnipotent - but it's going to massively help with developing my own magic system for my own little hobby works. Thank you so much!!

Thanks for the Explanation, i really wanted know how Gensokyo works, it's really easy to understand.

Wonderful explanation.

I love your vids man true high grade analysis while also not assuming or inserting (too much?) of your own thoughts and interpretations. At least you lead me to believe it is so, so good on ya

I love this channel so much T.T I have learned soooo much about the Touhou Project through it and it just continues to grow my love for the series more and more as if being my favorite series wasn't enough already. THANK YOU FOR ANOTHER ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE VIDEO GENSOUCHRONICLE AND I'LL CYA IN THE NEXT VID!

Usually I find discussions of magic systems quickly dissolve into masturbatory theorycrafting based on endless what-ifs and more silly rules than my whole D&D collection, so I don't expect to enjoy them very much. Egg on my face I guess! This was a fascinating look at how the magic ties innately into the setting and why it works the way it does. Excellent work.

Can you make one about Touhou's afterlife next? There's so much stuff. There's hell, netherworld, heaven, the six realms of reincarnation (including all of the above and the animal realm featured in th17?), then we have hermits, celestials, sanzu river, judgements... So much stuff, would love to see you cover it all

Also, if you want to make a debate on Christianity and magic in Gensokyo, it depends on the denomination. Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Pentecostal have a lot of emphasis on ritual (plus, before the Reformation, "magic" was actually kinda common in Christian contexts), so there's a higher chance of being adapted into Gensokyo's rules. Other denominations, like other Protestants would have a harder time, but if we're talking about Reformed/Puritan Christians, I think they would probably cause cancer on youkai after long exposure (granted New Englad Puritans were a superstitious bunch, so this applies only to modern Reformed).

I have a playlist of my favorite KZfaq videos ever (only very few are in it) and this video is going straight to it because WOW the way you explained everything was great, plus the fact that your observation on what makes touhou fanwork thrive so much is also a conclusion that I came to upon questioning the vagueness of character abilities descriptions (which I realized was a deliberate choice by zun) so your whole video resonates with me a lot!

At last another video from you, but we'll have to wait another month for the next one...

Another great video man, i really like your content, when i discovered your channel i watched all of your videos, keep up the great work!

6:10 I always thought Kasen saying that was so weird to be honest, like isn't she a sage? Would be interesting to know what her role was in the creation of the barrier

this video is way too beautiful ❤

Oh man, I wish you did this stuff several years ago, but like the info have now can only be done because its the present. WHAT A GODDAMN GOOD EXPLANATION! This is outright my favorite lore video.

The ending made me tear up a little... The more I learn about Touhou the more I love it. Thank you for another amazing video, great job as always!!

all your videos are 10/10 bangers

Amazing Video!!

Hell yeah. I always loved basing Marisa's magic on folklore of witches. Their magic is already alchemy adjacent (c'mon a cauldron is clearly some alchemy stuff).

A Book is one of man’s greatest weapons and never judge it by it’s cover, if you do that in patchouli’s library you’ll soon realise that they’re all sentient and know more about magic bullets than those who built upon the germ theory

17:54 freaky magic

Thank you this is a wonderfully good video.

Wow, I clicked on this video on my recommended page by chance, and after watching it to the end, I am very impressed with the interpretation of the content that I've seen here. I've never played a mainline/official Touhou game, dabbling entirely in fan games, as well as some officially written media(Forbidden Scrollery, Wild and Horned Hermit, and The Grimoire of Marisa), however to see a video explain and engage with a system that's so fun to explore, even in theory, I feel a lot more educated and involved in the world of a series that I find so fun to engage with. Subscribed after watching, excited to make it through a backlog of your videos!

Omg new uplod from gensouchronicle- its a good day

Oh cool it's the video i was told about in that one reply like a year ago, cool to see it's been made.

9:38 it's wild how the Spellcard Draft from Perfect Memento in Strict Sense is usually used as the Source for Spellcard rules, but meanwhile in the very same book, the current rules of them are clearly noted down, and they are a bit different from the draft. Where one might ask? It's under Reimu's section. The real Spellcard rules currently established in Gensokyo are noted down in Reimu's section.

It's a good day when GC uploads

Thank you for this video! Me and some of my friends do these things called "can you beats" which is we put the others in a game/anime and see how they fair. None of us fully know how the power system works, and I'm the only real fan of TouHou so I've been the 'dm'. This was so helpful. So once again, thank you.

What a banger. The soft magic explanation adds on the fundamental law of collective belief that brings a reality where we as readers/gamers of these games come to interpret and develop opinions on how things work, making them real in this fantasy scenario. Kinda similar to ''Lo real Maravlloso", a literary category/device that accept that in reality exist many wonderfull things, seemingly inexplicable that can be answered through cultural context without real explanation for which a certain level of faith is required.

Patchouli magic being related to Feng Shui is very interesting because her projectiles in her fight in Touhou 6 are also similar to how the energy of the elements projects in the original belief, I think is a subtle reference too or Zun trying to make a possibility but not confirming

Another banger of a video as always, though, a video about specific peoples ideas of magics or the lens of magic through each of the games would be interesting, such as Why Junkos Spellcards are the way they are

I've seen this thumbnail now several times and I always miss see it as Byakuren coming in to clobber Marisa with a steel chair.

im curious about this sex magic at 17:51 nice video as always.

banger video as always

A couple of things. First, I would like to add to the barrier in that there is stated a second barrier separate from the Hakurai barrier called “the boundary of fantasy and reality” (or so goes the translation on the wiki) which is described to essentially invite Yokai to Gensokyo world wide which would explain why there’d be certain non-Japanese Yokai. It also designates Gensokyo as a world of fantasy and the outside as a world of reality. I confirmed this because I screen shot the text and can’t remember if I got it from Symposium of Post Mysticism or Strange Creators of Outer world. Second, Aunn states she had been watching Reimu and seems to have done so from just about all and any Komainu statue so she probably came up with a few because she observed them and may have even thought of them on the spot having gained to learn about them by watching Reimu. Some other characters are also interesting to consider how they know or why they’d even care in regards to spell card rules.

Nice video! This turned out well. I got quite a lot to say. I find it hilarious how often the spell card rules are broken. If a character is in the fighting games they have broken the rules because you need to list how many spells you will use, possibly even twice if the character doesn't hold up a physical card when you declare a spell. The protagonists of imperishable night (likely the scarlet team iirc) broke the rule about not killing humans by killing mokou several times. Some of the rules do get kinda vague though such as the one about "beauty." With the different forms of magic, i find it interesting that some of the magic magician youkai use (the remove worms spell in particular) is actually based on Taoist rituals. This means Byakuren, the Buddhist nun, used youkai magic based in Taoist rituals. Makes a bit more sense why they sealed her away now. Wtf is sex magic? Does Marisa know that one? The ad she posted in AFiEU did promise bloodline prosperity...

the goat is back

Fifty seconds ago, uploaded. Luuuuucky! A fascinating video, very useful for my creative endeavours related to touhou.

This is a wonderful intersection of Stuff I'm Interested In. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Personal highlight: power scaling is always dumb :^)

Good video

Ayyy, more 2hu talk!