Touhou References Thread

[Anonymous No.]

A thread about obscure folkloric and cultural references in the Touhou series.

Previous threads:
>>29998619
>>31563642
>>33166957

[Anonymous No.]

To start this one off:

I recently discovered some wordplay in the name 幻想郷 (gensoukyou). It's the word 理想郷 (risoukyou), which means utopia, but with the character 理 replaced with a near antonym.

理: Reason, logic, principles, understanding, discernment.
思: Thought, feeling, belief, perception.
郷: Country (in the "rural area" sense, not as in the "nation-state" sense).
理想: Ideals; abstract perfection that may never be obtained, but may still be strived for.
理想郷: "Ideal country", i.e. a utopia.

幻: Apparition; phantasm; vision (as in the phrase "seeing visions"). That which does not actually exist, but which is perceived as if it did.
幻想: Fantasy (in the "daydream" sense, not in the genre fiction sense) or illusion (either in the "hallucination" sense or in the "false belief" sense, not so much in the "fooled senses" sense as in the phrase "optical illusion").

幻想郷: An idyllic paradise for the fantastical. A haven for all those things that the reason-addled modern world can no longer comprehend.

[Anonymous No.]

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou_Wiki Here you go op. Polite sage since this thread is no longer needed.

[Anonymous No.]

>>33874315
"Sage because this thread is pointless" is not a polite sage.

[Anonymous No.]

>>33874270
So, a Pseudo Paradise?

[Anonymous No.]

>>33876291
As an aside, it still gets me to this day how well DiPP displayed the nature of Gensokyo. Most works following it seem much more focused on the tribulations of individual characters within Gensokyo, rather than a holistic view of Gensokyo. The outsider perspective of the "honest men" really grants a uniquely relatable view into the world itself.
https://files.catbox.moe/x9psgr.flac

[Anonymous No.]

>>33874219
Why'd you make a new thread when the old thread isn't even at limit?

[Anonymous No.]

>>33874315
There's like a fuck ton of references posted here, that doesn't even have footnotes on Touhou Wiki, anon. No need to be rude!

[Anonymous No.]

>>33874270
Hasn't East Asian culture often had a fixation on "logical" utopias?
I'm aware that Taoism has presented other alternatives, but concepts like Penglai/Hourai (蓬萊) seem extremely very separated from the Chinese/Korean/Japanese ecclesiastical Buddhist/Confucianist tradition.
Perhaps the continuation of the shinto tradition in Japan allowed for a greater creative space in "illogical" utopias, such as Gensokyo?

Keep in mind English is not my first (or second) language, so I may be a bit hard to understand here.

[Anonymous No.]

Why would DiPP be so non-canon in the first place?

[Anonymous No.]

>>33876574
It was two posts away from limit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>33878473
By "logical utopia" do you mean a hypothetical society based on some ideology ("if only we could [insert manifesto here], we would have a perfect society")? That does sound pretty Confucian in flavor. Hourai and Tougenkyou on the other hand are definitely far more fantastical paradise than they are ideological utopia. I don't know which if either of these is closer to the precise nuance of 理想郷, or if the word is able to encompass both.

[Anonymous No.]

>>33879786
Who says it's non-canon?

[Anonymous No.]

>>33881105
retard

[Anonymous No.]

>>33883398
Hey, I misremembered the bump limit on /jp/, okay? No need to be so rude.

[Anonymous No.]

>>33883284
It seems like ZUN has mostly left it out to be discarded, like most of the PC-98 canon.
I could be wrong, though