Touhou Project , also known simply as 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 19 mainline games and 13 spin-offs as of October 2023. ZUN has also produced related print works and music albums, and collaborated with developer Twilight Frontier on seven additional official Touhou spin-offs, most being fighting games.
Cover art for the PC-98 Touhou games
Image: Cosplayer of Reimu Hakurei, Touhou Project at CWT41 20151212
Image: FF25 DSC2416 07
Image: Anime Expo 2012 (13981390416)
Shoot 'em ups are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character movement, while others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives.
Japanese players at a shoot 'em up arcade in Akihabara, Tokyo (2017)