This week(!), the Outside World Occultists take a look at youkai who haven't appeared in Gensokyo. From invisible walls to giant combining skeletons, we talk about some examples we'd like to see as well as some gameplay concepts that might work with them. We might do another episode like this in the future, so if you have anyone you'd like to see, …

This time on the Unsealing Club, the Outside World Occultists do a read-through and analysis of the first Sealing Club CD, Ghostly Field Club, in which Merry and Renko hang out at a graveyard without stealing any bones. This is a non-commercial, non-profit fan-made podcast. Touhou Project is the property of ZUN and Team Shanghai Alice. Thanks to ba…

This week, the Outside World Occultists try their hand at cartography, producing our best-guess estimation of what a map of Gensokyo could, given what we know, look like. We begin with core landmarks such as the Hakurei Shrine and the Human Village and continue all the way to the unexpectedly large number of nameless hills. The map itself and the r…

This (week? month? epoch?), the Outside World Occultists take a look at a longer-term solution to our scheduling problems and delve into Touhou's various methods of immortality. From eluding the Death IRS to taking three sips of moon juice, we walk through the options before revealing which ones we, personally, would choose. This is a non-commercia…

This week, the Outside World Occultists look back on the latest in a long line of THWiki popularity polls. Congratulations to this year's first-place dark horse, Konpaku Youmu! Other topics include a comparison to last year's results, the relative importance of first-place votes, major poll voting blocs, and questions you should never ask a mathema…

The Outside World Occultists rise from their hibernation to delve deep into the youkai mind. Following up a prior listener question about youkai neurodivergence, we analyse what we know or can infer of youkai psychology and how it differs from humans. This is a non-commercial, non-profit fan-made podcast. Touhou Project is the property of ZUN and T…

This week in the vicinity of Outside World Occultism, we take a step into the abstract to talk about the concept of "deconstruction", and what it's come to mean in media and in fandom. We start by determining our definition of the term, followed by an analysis of how it's used in Touhou fan work for good and for ill. And occasionally we remember we…

This week a couple months ago, the Outside World Occultists delve back into the mailbag to answer more listener questions. From favourite fighting-game characterisation and fanworks to our thoughts on the 25th anniversary (informed somewhat notably by it being February when this was recorded), we answer everything you've asked us that we'll answer!…

This week, the Ochre Mansion Obsessed set aside contentious issues to return to their roots, with an introduction of the major characters of the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil franchise. From the belovedly absent Satsuki Rin to the almighty Kurenai Misuzu, we review the cast of EOSD1, the game that started it all. This is a non-commercial, non-profit …

This [period of time], the Outside World Occultists seek to harness the mystical form of power known as "mom energy", and examine its history in Gensokyo and elsewhere. In short: Here is an episode where we talk about what Touhou characters we would like to be our moms, and a second copy of that episode in case you throw it in the garbage. This is …

In our slightly belated Valentine's Day episode, the Outside World Occultists look to each other and listeners for advice on unusual Touhou ships. A few occasionally contradictory definitions of "unusual" later, our audience's cosmic crania bring us a variety of Touhou ships with a varying degree of supporting materials. Also shout out to a few oth…

This week, the Outside World Occultists turn back the clock on the Unsealing Club to take a look at its founder and senior light-novel protagonist, Usami Sumireko. Starting with a broad look at her character, we move into comparing her with her [precise relation redacted], Renko, and consider how her role in expanding the setting relates to ZUN's o…

This week, the Outside World Occultists grow out their best pointed goatees as they look at the nature of villainy and villains in Touhou, and how they've changed over the years. In no particular chronological order. From the sages to the Seishins, we try and resolve the question of whether or not a given Touhou antagonist is a villain, and possibl…

In this week's episode, the Outside World Occultists take one of the most venerable Touhou memes at face value, discuss the nature of text and subtext, and examine the past and present of the yuri genre. Apologies for the late release, but at least we're not a whole week behind again... This is a non-commercial, non-profit fan-made podcast. Touhou …

By outsideworldoccultism

This week, the Outside World Occultists take a long, hard look at the mass of papers in their "in" box, and dedicate a whole episode to answering questions from you, the listeners. Here's to 2020! From the mailbag: Why don't we have an intro? What's our favourite obscure reference? Where would we divide Touhou into "classic" and "modern" eras? Is t…

In a very merry episode of the Unsealing Club, we follow up our look at Renko with a turn for the Sealing Club's purpler half, the ever-untranslatable マエリベリー Hearn... but like, ideally, actually about her this time, not her thematic implications. (A promise we only half keep.) Starting with her presumed background and theories on how she met Renko,…

In this week's episode, the Outside World Occultists look at the other new manga, Touhou Suichouka, which we mostly call Lotus Eaters. Starting with the manga's sinister atmosphere, we move through the first chapter with only a few brief digressions into Greek-English linguistic drift and completely forgetting about what we were talking about (appr…

Today, the Outside World Occultists take their (collective) first look at the first of the new official manga, Cheating Detective Satori. While Rin and Satori start their investigation into who didn't quite kill Patchouli, we marvel at TH6 characters having speaking lines. From the mailbag: What are our favourite flowery Touhou titles (off the top …

In a schedule-adjusted backup episode, a quorum of the Outside World Occultists prepare to discuss Cheating Detective Satori with a look back at the story and cast of Subterranean Animism stage-by-stage, from spider construction workers to the suspicious and highly unorthodox lack of an extra stage boss. Regular-timed episode releases should resume…

In this month's (December? November? who knows at this point) Unsealing Club, the Outside World Occultists take off their Merry-tinted glasses to talk about the other half of the Sealing Club. We start with a discussion of Renko's role in the story and outlook, have a sophomoric discussion of timelines, and eventually abandon any pretense of restra…

This week, the Outside World Occultists celebrate their quarter-year anniversary and unluckiest episode number yet. After a brief digression into being very very wrong about the then-mysterious Chireikiden, we venture carefully through the thorny brambles of the gender vine to talk about the role it plays (or doesn't) in Touhou and in Gensokyo as a…

This week, the Outside World Occultists strap on their wellingtons and dungarees and wade out into the vast, muddy farmland of mobile gaming to talk about Touhou Cannonball, the first official unofficial Touhou gacha game, now available on all your favourite Android emulators. With a nervous eye on all the other mobage we are all individually trapp…

Just shy of two weeks ago, the Outside World Occultists were meant to have tackled Touhou's longest prose work, Curiosities of Lotus Asia. Now, at long last, we find the time to face off against a deadly four-pronged attack from rambunctious teens, dadbod twinks, a brief digression with an unfamiliar voice, and sensible but wildly inaccurate assump…

In this week's episode, the Outside World Occultists attend another meeting of the Unsealing Club to talk about the remaining albums that we just glossed over in the last one because of that ever-persistent illusion we call time. We dive deep into ZUN's vision of a dystopic future, and take on such persistent questions as the meaning of science met…

This week, the Outside World Occultists doff their genteel lore hats and don the tie-dyed judicial wigs of game design to take a look at Touhou's approach to danmaku. After a brisk introduction to how it fits in the setting, and a cordial roast of certain misconceptions about it, we break down our favourite, least favourite, and most love-to-hate s…

This time around, the Occultists explore the world of rabbits, clowns, moms and moons that is Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom! As we discuss the story and characters, we talk about Touhou powers, the Shinto concept of kegare, America, trauma and recovery, and agree that JunHeca is a very good ship.By outsideworldoccultism

Welcome to the Unsealing Club, a monthly mini-series about the Hifuu Club and everything related to it! In this episode, the Occultists walk through the Hifuu CDs, ponder the future of their home, discuss dreams, reality, and Japanese art history, and talk quite a bit about Renko's personality, as well as RenMerry. From the mailbag: Yukari's origin…

This week, an increasingly small quorum of the Outside World Occultists discuss the first music CD story, Dolls in Pseudo Paradise. (As with all things DiPP, content warning for a variety of forms of murder and suicide.) Deerstalkers and corncob pipes in hand, we get to the bottom of several parallel mysteries: Who killed who? Whose humanity was le…

This week, the Outside World Occultists (minus one; someone needed to chase that chimera out of the audio editing workshop) discuss Wild and Horned Hermit: what went right, what went wrong, and what terrible things can be said that we all wish weren't? We're shocked to discover Kasen's true identity, discuss Yukari and Suwako's striking shared feat…

Spoiler warning for Wily Beast and Weakest Creature. This week, the Outside World Occultists sample a new vintage of bastard, contemplate the pending robot revolution, say Oh! like twenty times, and take our horses to the old town road. From the mailbag: Which god characters are our favourites, and which ones do we think have had the most impact on…

This episode, the Outside World Occultists spend a lot of time talking about the origins of Touhou's protagonists, remember that WBaWC has characters who aren't a certain seraphic chicken, and all love Mima unironically. (And that's an unironic "unironically", a phrase we hate that we have to type.) From the mailbag: What would a PC-98 game look li…

In this episode, the Outside World Occultists grapple with the existence of video games besides Touhou, discuss the pending release of Touhou 17, and contemplate the true nature of humanity. From the mailbag: the moon's age of enlistment, and the Moriya family dynamic. For the pictures of the Onegadori/Yokohama chicken, see this link. The doujin me…

In this, the first episode of what is to our knowledge the Internet's finest (and only) Touhou fan podcast, the Outside World Occultists discuss their favourite Touhou characters and secret origins, then turn to settle one of the fandom's oldest and most divisive issues once and for all: Who's the better protagonist, Reimu or Marisa? This is a non-…