How did you learn about Touhou?

[yankop]

Basically what the title says. I personally (among MANY others) learnt about it through Bad Apple. Specifically, I was scrolling through the playlists of a YouTuber called GD Colon and found one called "haha weeb". I got interested (as at the time I started watching a lot of anime) and checked it out. It was full of Japanese songs, one of which was Bad Apple. If I remember correctly, I learnt that Touhou was actually a video game series through either the comments on the Bad Apple video or from Megapig9001's video explaining it. I got this video recommended after watching the original Bad Apple and then another video titled "Bad Apple but the lyrics are describing what happens in the video". Luckily, I keep a lot of stuff (more like I am data-hoarding) so I got all the dates of the events so if anyone is wondering:

2021/11/13 - First time listened to Bad Apple
2021/11/19 - Watched "Bad Apple but the lyrics are describing what happens in the video"
2022/01/06~17 - Went through a Bad Apple phase where I watched a lot of these videos with bad apple played on literally anything
2022/01/23 - Downloaded Touhou 6

[CountVonNumenor]

For me, it's been quite a long story. And literally one that would be way too long to write again in here. Therefore, why I have put it as a thread in my early days at the Shrine, and will just link below. To cut the story short, it was in the second half of 2020, and involved a chain reaction caused by me discovering Rhythm Heaven first, then from there evolving into Touhou. However, the thread has the full story of what actually happened...

 

[Gri]

For me, it's a weird story.

I have been aware of the "Ran Ran Ruu" video since ~2008.

Then, playing Ys and Etrian Odyssey, some people mentions that Touhou too had a good soundtrack. All I knew at that point was that it was a bullet-hell game.

Then, more recently (late-2021), I no longer got hyped on the newer Ys games (and Trails), Etrian Odyssey died with the 3DS, Atlus didn't released anything interesting except cheap Persona5 related stuff and an underwhelming SMT5. My backlog was getting pretty empty, and by coincidence, there was a sale on Steam for XSeed, the localizer of the older Ys games. In that list of games, there was a Touhou fan-game, Scarlet Curiosity, which was a clone of the older Ys game that I liked a lot. It seemed a bit "less-refined", but I decided to give it a go, knowing it was a fan-game (I was planning on trying the real Touhou game after that game).

While clearing that game, I got into the Extra dungeon, and in there, the Extra boss was waiting.  Her theme's remix was a heavily different from her original theme, so it took a good 1m30s before I finally recognize the music: the same music as the Ran Ran Ruu. I was mind blown, and I knew exactly what happened: I somehow managed to avoid ANY reference to the original theme during all those years, which means I could have known about Touhou MUCH earlier. I have never been much of a "meme-guy", but the "Ran Ran Ruu" meme always stuck with me for some reason. Also, I knew about IOSYS because they did an Etrian Odyssey song about "FOE" (yet again, somehow completely avoided their other songs that are Touhou-related).

It was fate at this point, I HAD to play the Touhou games. I searched "Touhou game" online, and quickly found this site (which I learned was a piracy-site later, but since most Touhou games can't be bought anyway, it didn't matter. Today, I bought almost all the main game of Steam), then downloaded Touhou 6. I got beaten pretty badly on Normal, and thought the Extra Stage was just something I would never tackle

Fast-Forward to today, I cleared all games on Normal and Hard with all shot-types (including PC-98 and some spin-off). Currently, I am doing Lunatic, and cleared 1,4,6-10 and their Extra stages (all shot types for the main games, just one for the Extra). Currently at 11, where I only cleared the main game with ReimuA and cleared Extra with ReimuB.

It was quite the trip.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Gri

[Juuni]

For me, lost word was definitely my tipping point into the series. I had kinda heard of touhou from tumblr posts I read about, so I tried to check it out but had no luck because I had no computer to run it on. Well, around October 2021 I decided to look on the App Store and ended up with lost word. Now, the point I define as me getting into the series was March 15 of last year, as that’s when I first played EoSD and ended up loving it. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Juunimeta

[nitorii]

I got told about touhou from a friend when we played osu together, and that's why I never even knew what touhou was, even though I had listened to covers and songs from the games themselves.

I later had my first "touhou game" be Touhou Luna Nights, and back then I didn't even know the names of the most important characters in the franchise (namely Marisa and Flandre, etc) but had interest in the story the game offered + the personality of the characters.

A while later I finally got th06 (EoSD) and played it for a while. I just got destroyed, as I should be, and abandoned the game shortly after.

I did not, however, lose interest in Touhou as a whole. I kept playing touhou related games, kept listening to songs, kept watching touhou content, etc. to this day. Been about 3 or 4 years since I first found out about it, and it made quite a big impact on my life.

 

Way too lengthy of a response but honestly I don't really care

[Isaac]

I first discovered touhou through Bad Apple and Marisa stole the precious thing! It wasn't until I finished Luna Nights years later, that I wanted to get involved with the community and try out the official games. Then I played SA for the first time and I fell in love with the characters and music even more. I haven't stopped enjoying the series since then!

[NetsumuNico7]

The way i discovered 2hu was wierd, very wierd that i have 2 versions on how i got into it:

1. This one is short, but i saw a mario romhack video at my 6 years, that hack was an automatic one with lots of songs from diferent games, including touhou, i think the first one i heard was Alice Boss or Stage, idk which one but is PCB Alice for sure(and no, it isn't was a Marisa stole my precious thing mix) Maybe i have the video but, it was like so many years ago...

2. Ok this one is a bit larger and i actually knew the series for real. 

One day i entered on a Bomberman server in discord, and i got a friend who everytime posted memes of the fumos, then i discovered the games first, i decided to play my first 2hu (LLS to be specific) when another friend of mine had already played HoEW, LLS and EoSD

I got into EoSD, then PCB... PoFV (i even played with the same friend a vs).

I started to stop playing Danmakus after i played IN, due at the moment i was playing i was starting to get bored of Shumps. But, I want to get back now trying some fangames though!