Editing Touhou (section)

==Setting==
Despite being largely an excuse to compose music and draw frilly dresses, Touhou has developed a surprisingly deep setting over time through ZUN's developer notes and eventually a long series of officially-licensed [[Manga|mangos]].

Long ago, youkai and other mythical creatures ruled the land. As science advanced, [[Mage: The Ascension|people eventually stopped believing in them, and a youkai nobody believes in quickly disappears]]. The most powerful of the remaining youkai got together and formed a pact with some humans to seal themselves away in a pocket universe where they could escape from consensus reality and survive as they always had. This is Gensokyo, the Land of Illusion where the Touhou games take place.

We actually have a rough idea of where Gensokyo "is" in relation to the real world: [[Wikipedia:Lake Suwa|Lake Suwa]] and [[Wikipedia:Yatsugatake Mountains|Mount Yatsugatake]] (from before it was torn apart by a pissed-off goddess) are both confirmed to be inside the barrier. Occasionally things and people will fall through the barrier and appear in Gensokyo temporarily, and anything that's been abandoned or forgotten by the outside world tends to wind up there sooner or later.

And so it goes. The series follows the trials of incredibly lazy yet broken shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei and her definitely not ordinary best friend, the thieving magician Marisa Kirisame as they solve "incidents" via superior magical firepower in order to protect their carefree life in Gensokyo. 

Notable places outside of Gensokyo are the Netherworld (where ghosts waiting for reincarnation reside), Heaven (which has closed its doors to outsiders supposedly due to being at capacity, but really its because Celestials are selfish fucks), Hell (which doesn't really torture sinners due to lack of budget and now mainly sells souvenirs) , Former Hell (Now inhabited by Youkai too nasty for Gensokyo after all the sinners and Department of Right and Wrong employees moved out), the Moon (inhabited by racist cunts nobody likes but are too overpowered for anybody to do anything about), and the Animal Realm (which is divided between Yakuza gang wars with animal spirits and a cyberpunk dystopia where human spirits are controlled by Haniwa robots).

=== Why Gensokyo is a terrible place ===
Youkai aren't allowed to kill humans living in Gensokyo, under penalty of [[blam]], but their nature as youkai means they ''have'' to threaten humans or risk fading away and there aren't very many humans to go around. But if the humans ever managed to purge the youkai menace the Gensokyo barrier would disappear and they would be trapped in the modern world, since the barrier was created with youkai energy. Enter the Spell Card system, the in-universe explanation for why conflicts are resolved through [[Laser Cleric|ridiculous bullet spam]] rather than actual fights where the many retired gods and archdemons would just /win. Duels of beauty in battle, of styles over substance. Youkai and humans (who can pack quite a spiritual punch here) can duel on more or less equal terms, and the loser follows the winner.

"But wait!" I hear you say, "aren't there tons of cryptids that eat people?" You would be right, and the answer to that is [[Grimdark|they eat people from the outside world.]] The Powers that Be in Gensokyo create small tears in the barrier and pull people through (generally the suicidal and [[Fags of 4chan|other people who won't be missed]], giving the "brb gensokyo" meme a new and terrifying meaning) to be hunted down and killed by whatever youkai stumble across them. If this happens to you your ''only'' chance is to make the hellrun to the human village, where you will be given two choices: go back to the normal world where all of this will feel like a bad dream, or stay in Gensokyo with your PvP flag disabled as a villager. This gets downplayed a lot in spin-off material, but it's always there in the background.