Life in the Eastern Fantastic Land

It's been about 2 years since It happened. While I don't remember the exact date in which It happened, I roughly recall that It happened sometime before the release of TH12 and TH12.3, yet that sometime is also unknown. Somewhere in between being awed by Anipix's PV Kaze of COOL&CREATE'S The Fastest Highest Shutter Girl(最速最高シャターガール ) and a friend sending me a bunch of game files, with the wise words "try them"... It happened. To paraphase an overly kitsch line from The Matrix Reloaded: What happened happened and could not have happened any other way.

The funny thing is, for something which is so much of my life now, I can't really remember how I started. It was a mixture coming across a COOL&CREATE batch torrent, getting interesting in nico nico douga, seeing lots of interesting things on various blogs talking about this phenomenon. At the same time I was fairly interested in nico nico douga's Utattemita singers like gazelle,  nayuta, usa and choucho.

The same people ahead of their time like Vocahou and some other people ahead of the trend made me realise the link between memes like Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga and  Touhou Koumakyou~ The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil(The English subtitle still sounds somewhat strange to me). It's funny how the Internet connects one thing like wanting to download lossless music on LONE leads to finding out information about Utattemita artistes and that linking to Nanairo no Nico Nico Douga which in turn had arrangements of themes from the games.

It was in one such interconnected environment where, in a short span of about a year, I learnt and experienced so much on Nico, Pixiv, the various blogs and even Youtube. It was then that I started to pick up Touhou Project. Of course, there was also the all-encompassing Touhou Wiki.

The reflectiveness of retrospect makes me wonder what would have happened if on that fateful day I had decided not to take those files from that friend. I probably would have discovered Touhou one way or another. But the start of the love affair was a gradual thing, neither decisive nor radical.

It happened remarkably slowly, with infrequent listening to Silver Forest arrangements on Nico Nnico Douga, searching for downloads on Vocahou, taking stabs at EoSD and Touhou Hisouten~ Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. These slowly added up to no-continue-clears of the games and my first Touhou CD purchase.  This gradually build-up was crystalised when I attended Reitaisai 7.

Throughout the way, I became a figurine, fine art, and CD collector. All these would surely have not happened if I didn't discover Touhou. I would elaborate more on my purchases, but each of these topics deserves their own series of posts to explain and list their merits.

Who knows what the future holds for this one fan? Only the community knows. I expect great things.