Touhou Chireikiden

Cheating Detective Satori: edited by ADT555, translated by Levander (DB Scans). Satori and other SCoOW comics are published on the last Monday of the month and translated thereafter. This blog run by Lev.

[chireikiden]

Translated Series (as of Apr. 2026)

Monthly SCoOW series (released on the last Monday of every month, a.k.a. Mizuchi Monday, translated as fast as life allows)

Cheating Detective Satori by ZUN & Ginmokusei/Akimaki Yuu (official) Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

Ladies of the Scarlet Devil Mansion by risui Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

Irregular other series (translated whenever a new chapter happens to come out)

Until the Water Became Wholly Red by Ashiyama Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

Finished series (oldest first)

The Shinigami's Rowing Her Boat as Usual by Azuma Aya Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

Starving Marisa's Blessed Meal by Torigoe Shijimi Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

The Gensokyo of Humans by Ashiyama Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

Sanae-san Is on the Run! by Azuma Aya Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

The Tiles That I Cannot Cut Are Next to None! by Uki Hayahiro Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

Go For It Gensokyo -Four Seasons- by Arata Toshihira Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

The Magician Who Loved a Fake by Ashiyama Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

SPELL by Azuma Aya Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

Love-Colored Boundary by Mizuyama Mero Dynasty Scans | MangaDex

Gensou Narratograph (unofficial TTRPG with involvement by ZUN)

See this page for all the books and other materials.

[chireikiden]

Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic - the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on Steam

Dodge the barrage, defeat enemies, and brave the Scarlet Mist incident.The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil returns with fresh music and graphics

An official remaster of the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was announced today, releasing this September. The first time a Touhou game has gotten this treatment, and notably the first time EoSD is available digitally at all (I think). Featuring art and music redone by ZUN, updated gameplay, and notably, inbuilt translations for 10 languages!

Happy to admit that I'm part of the English translation team. Notably the process is still ongoing and the trailer and Steam page use different versions of some text. There's not much else I can say about it at this point, but look forward to it!

[chireikiden]

I knew to expect a big reaction, but thanks for all the personal congratulations too!

I figure I should circle back around to clarify some of the things that people online seem most curious about. This is all from public sources, not any kind of insider info.

The circle "Shanghai Alice Reprise" formed for this project consists of ZUN and some of his usual collaborators like his wife Kii-san, Jyunya and Curee from AQUASTYLE, and Unabara Iruka from Twilight Frontier, plus some other staff. There is some vague hope of continuing with the remasters in the future. New Touhou games are still going to be done by Team Shanghai Alice i.e. ZUN with some help, just like before. Nothing has changed in terms of the fanwork guidelines either, he wanted to clarify, I guess because there's a new circle involved and all.

Contrary to what I kinda vaguely said, the art is done by other people like Curee (close redraws of ZUN's old art), Unabara (enemy sprites) and Kii-san (player sprites). The coding is being handled by other people like Jyunya recreating ZUN's old game in a newer engine.

The music is all redone by ZUN himself. It has wider instrumentation and better audio quality, obviously, but I'd say it's still pretty close to the original rather than e.g. some attempt to make "2026-style versions" that'd sound like they came out of FW. I'm not a music person, though.

While the others talked ZUN into this project, it isn't just something he gave his blessing, he is closely personally involved with it. In his own words, until now he's been very busy just making all the music, but now comes the part where he needs to check other people's work and nitpick everything he wants changed (mostly joking). They've had a very tight schedule coming up on this announcement, and still a lot to do in the three months before release.

The release includes both the new version and a close recreation of the 2002 original, down to lacking quality of life features that the new version adds in. (screenshot source)

[chireikiden]

I had a typo here (fixed now) saying that the enemy sprites were done by Jyunya. I meant to say they're by Unabara Iruka, who of course is like a designated pixel art guy. Jyunya's handling some of the other graphics for the interface and whatnot (in addition to coding).

[chireikiden]

Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic - the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on Steam

Dodge the barrage, defeat enemies, and brave the Scarlet Mist incident.The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil returns with fresh music and graphics

An official remaster of the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was announced today, releasing this September. The first time a Touhou game has gotten this treatment, and notably the first time EoSD is available digitally at all (I think). Featuring art and music redone by ZUN, updated gameplay, and notably, inbuilt translations for 10 languages!

Happy to admit that I'm part of the English translation team. Notably the process is still ongoing and the trailer and Steam page use different versions of some text. There's not much else I can say about it at this point, but look forward to it!

[chireikiden]

I knew to expect a big reaction, but thanks for all the personal congratulations too!

I figure I should circle back around to clarify some of the things that people online seem most curious about. This is all from public sources, not any kind of insider info.

The circle "Shanghai Alice Reprise" formed for this project consists of ZUN and some of his usual collaborators like his wife Kii-san, Jyunya and Curee from AQUASTYLE, and Unabara Iruka from Twilight Frontier, plus some other staff. There is some vague hope of continuing with the remasters in the future. New Touhou games are still going to be done by Team Shanghai Alice i.e. ZUN with some help, just like before. Nothing has changed in terms of the fanwork guidelines either, he wanted to clarify, I guess because there's a new circle involved and all.

Contrary to what I kinda vaguely said, the art is done by other people like Curee (close redraws of ZUN's old art), Unabara (enemy sprites) and Kii-san (player sprites). The coding is being handled by other people like Jyunya recreating ZUN's old game in a newer engine.

The music is all redone by ZUN himself. It has wider instrumentation and better audio quality, obviously, but I'd say it's still pretty close to the original rather than e.g. some attempt to make "2026-style versions" that'd sound like they came out of FW. I'm not a music person, though.

While the others talked ZUN into this project, it isn't just something he gave his blessing, he is closely personally involved with it. In his own words, until now he's been very busy just making all the music, but now comes the part where he needs to check other people's work and nitpick everything he wants changed (mostly joking). They've had a very tight schedule coming up on this announcement, and still a lot to do in the three months before release.

The release includes both the new version and a close recreation of the 2002 original, down to lacking quality of life features that the new version adds in. (screenshot source)

[chireikiden]

Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic - the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on Steam

Dodge the barrage, defeat enemies, and brave the Scarlet Mist incident.The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil returns with fresh music and graphics

An official remaster of the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was announced today, releasing this September. The first time a Touhou game has gotten this treatment, and notably the first time EoSD is available digitally at all (I think). Featuring art and music redone by ZUN, updated gameplay, and notably, inbuilt translations for 10 languages!

Happy to admit that I'm part of the English translation team. Notably the process is still ongoing and the trailer and Steam page use different versions of some text. There's not much else I can say about it at this point, but look forward to it!

[chireikiden]

Fossilized Wonders Interview with ZUN

Somebody got around to transcribing it, so I got around to translating it!

I feel like it's still kind of rough, but some of ZUN's rambling is eccentric enough that I think I can't really improve it simply by staring at it right now, without editorializing too much and forcing it to make sense with wild guesses about what he's actually trying to say.

[chireikiden]

Back when Tiles That I Cannot Cut ended, I felt like it was intentionally left somewhat ambiguous who won the final match and the mahjong tournament. Yesterday, some brave soul went and simply asked the author, and received a straight answer.

Spoilers for that series, obviously.

Youmu won. Obviously the fact that Yuyuko calls her "-sama" on the last page was always supposed to be a hint in that direction, but with Yuyuko being Yuyuko and the rest of the chapter obviously toying with the reader, I also thought there was room for interpretation. However, the author almost makes it sound like it's supposed to be kind of obvious, haha. What tile she actually cut against Remilia is "a secret".

I think the author's made some other Twitter comments leaning in this direction, but haven't seen such a direct answer before. I think it's undeniable that the ending was just a tad too abrupt, and maybe left things more ambiguous than actually intended.

[chireikiden]

Ask with further spoilers, though I don't know if it's possible for me to try and keep spoilers about this under wraps anyway. I mostly did so for the original post because I was just straight-up stating the ending of the manga.

The 6-pin that Youmu cuts is actually in the later Cirno Cup game against Rumia, and Rumia is the one who calls ron. Remilia and Rumia look similar enough to make the smash cut (heh) possible.

Meanwhile, Remilia and Patchouli's conversation is definitely written to be misleading on purpose, keeping the reader a bit unsure until the final page. That said, I can't fully deny the possibility that I fumbled a line that should've said "would've gotten" instead. "Once you did" and "if you did" are often homophonous in Japanese, as was the case here. I can't remember the exact thought process behind the translation, but even with it being confusing on purpose, this adds to it/looks wrong, and should've been more obviously ambiguous, even if it required the whole sentence to be reworded to work that way in English.

[chireikiden]

Back when Tiles That I Cannot Cut ended, I felt like it was intentionally left somewhat ambiguous who won the final match and the mahjong tournament. Yesterday, some brave soul went and simply asked the author, and received a straight answer.

Spoilers for that series, obviously.

Youmu won. Obviously the fact that Yuyuko calls her "-sama" on the last page was always supposed to be a hint in that direction, but with Yuyuko being Yuyuko and the rest of the chapter obviously toying with the reader, I also thought there was room for interpretation. However, the author almost makes it sound like it's supposed to be kind of obvious, haha. What tile she actually cut against Remilia is "a secret".

I think the author's made some other Twitter comments leaning in this direction, but haven't seen such a direct answer before. I think it's undeniable that the ending was just a tad too abrupt, and maybe left things more ambiguous than actually intended.

[chireikiden]

[chireikiden]

First month in a long time that there's no SCoOW updates.

Since we're down to two series again (CDS and LoSDM, which continues its vague health break hiatus), I wonder if we'll be getting any new ones soon.

[chireikiden]

It used to be that Ran Yakumo (the shikigami) was entirely separate from Ran Yakumo (the fox), with the fox part essentially being a PC case to the actual PC part shikigami. However, with Touhou 19, it seems that's not entirely the case anymore, with them kind of being the same (?). Was that more of a retcon on ZUN's part or a misunderstanding on what Ran's whole case was

I won't pretend to know what's going on with Ran. It does become a matter of trying to reconcile seemingly contradictory information, which you certainly can do and explain why it actually isn't contradictory at all, but it's honestly a sort of canon scholasticism and there isn't a specific version that I'd give as "my" or "the" explanation.

To be fair, the theory vs. presentation of how shikigami work in Touhou has been at least somewhat shaky since the start, which is probably part of the reason that very few fan writers in these decades have actually followed the supposed canon to the letter to begin with (besides Ran and Chen also just having a lot of time to go through general fandom mutation, of course).

[chireikiden]

Online manga reader for scanlations released by Dynasty Scans and other Yuri groups.

The bonus chapter from the collected volume, and with that, the last little bit of this series.

Also on MangaDex.

[dragonkid11]

Gensou Narratograph, by Adventure Planning Service, is an unofficial touhou ttrpg where you can roleplay as various characters from Touhou Project series solving or causing problems within Gensokyo!

[chireikiden]

You can download the unofficial translation of the core rulebook, expansion, and all other gameplay materials here!

[chireikiden]

Online manga reader for scanlations released by Dynasty Scans and other Yuri groups.

The bonus chapter from the collected volume, and with that, the last little bit of this series.

Also on MangaDex.

[chireikiden]

Is it known if any of the Bonus Comics in Forbidden Scrollery and that one food chapter bonus in CDS written by ZUN?

I don't know. But the very first place I happened to look for clues, Forbidden Scrollery vol. 2, had this to say in the afterword:

Considering the different styles of bonus comics, I'd hazard a guess that at least the 4koma type things are probably not written by ZUN. The longer bonus chapter of FS vol. 1, meanwhile, is in the gray area where I would imagine it was written by him, especially as Harukawa was still very new to Touhou as a whole at that point.

If anyone has more concrete knowledge one way or another, I'm curious to hear.

[chireikiden]

Online manga reader for scanlations released by Dynasty Scans and other Yuri groups.

Years later, the final chapter is here at last. Bonus chapter from the tankoubon still incoming!

Also on MangaDex!

[chireikiden]

Online manga reader for scanlations released by Dynasty Scans and other Yuri groups.

Years later, the final chapter is here at last. Bonus chapter from the tankoubon still incoming!

Also on MangaDex!

[chireikiden]

The actual reason Mizuchi left Mokou passed out in the middle of the street, which a.) is a weird place, b.) humans aren't supposed to pass out when she leaves them, is that she had the persistent thought "I bet this body can do a sick backflip."