What is Touhou? Yes what is Touhou, the burning question. For centuries scientists and philosophers alike have struggled in vain to find an answer to this quandary, what is Touhou? It's like asking, what are birds? We just don't know. For those that don't know: Touhou is a bullet hell shoot 'em up video game series created by one-man independent Japanese doujin soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. Since 1995, the team's member, Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, has independently developed programming, graphics, writing, and music for the series, self-publishing 18 mainline games and five spin-offs as of May 2021.