Touhou 15: LOLK - The Sea Where One's Home Planet Reflects | Reacting To Video Game Music!

[@T_Man]

Fun fact, "The Sea that Reflects One's Home Planet " could also be translated to something along the lines of "The Sea of Home where the planet reflects" this would apply to Reisen, who is from the moon. (This song plays on the moon by the way) Also, Sea is the final stage theme, and Pure Furries is the final boss theme at the end of that stage. They play one after another in direct sequence in game. Context time! Theme of a very angry Mother cursed to forever grieve the death of her murdered son. If Pure Furries is a reflection of Junko's endless rage at her son's death. The Sea Where Ones Home Planet Reflects is her endless sorrow. Junko's son was killed, and Junko kills the person who was responsible in retaliation. However, she held her anger within her so hard that it became super naturally self sustaining. She became a being a pure fury (ha!) forever trying to get back at those connected to her son's death. In Touhou 15 she is trying to kill the wife of the guy who killed her son. The wife had nothing to do with that, Junko is just that angry. However, killing the wife, Chang'e, is a hopeless task. She is imprisioned on the Moon, which is home to a bunch celestial beings obsessed with purity and also they are very OP. Junko manages to get them to temporarily leave the moon for an opportunity to kill Chang'e, but even that is hopeless. Chang'e was imprisoned from drinking the elixer of immortality, she literally cannot die. Any damage she takes is instantly revered, nothing can kill her, death is a concept that has been removed from her being. So, Junko is essentially in an endless crusade to kill someone who cannot be killed in an effort to get back at the people who killed her son, but she's already killed everybody responsible, so now she's grasping at straws in an effort to assuage her endless grief and rage. By the time you fight her in Touhou 15, the lunarians have essentially blackmailed the player into making Junko leave the moon so they can go back, and she responds by just trying to kill you as best she can; normally battles in Touhou are a mixture of beauty and fighting, the bullet patterns should be both deadly and beautiful. Junko has no concern for that, she is just doing everything she can to make you dead.

[@Angel_Flash]

I'd say the calmest touhou song, and probably my #2 favorite touhou song in general, is Lullaby Of Deserted Hell.

[@JessesAuditorium]

Have a pretty damn good "calm" song coming this week. Currently available early but I think it's my new fav haha

[@needlewind9053]

Fire of Hokkai is another theme that's much slower than most Touhou themes. It's an incredible piece that evoke tension as you near the final boss of the game.

[@爛帽子]

9:49 You've gotta hear "Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17", it has the fast version and the slow version, but the slow version is from ZUN's album so it has original parts. In fact, the slow version is the original, the fast version from the game is the arrangement, and both are so good.

[@YoannBB]

finally someone who knows that the original one is the DiPP one! Where's the source though? I've forgotten it with time and would love to find it back :/

[@爛帽子]

@@YoannBB Gensou Bulletin Board. You can see it on Touhou Wiki's "ZUN's reply to messages on the former Gensou Bulletin Board 1"

[@YoannBB]

@@爛帽子 thank you so much!

[@crazy4pokemon665]

On the topic of slower pieces, you did hear a calm track towards the beginnings of your Touhou reactions, with Night Sakura of Dead Spirits, although that was a very long time ago! One of my favorite things about the Dr. Latency mix is how it delays the entrance of the percussion and emphasizes the serenity a lot more. I think that the nature of the game it's from warranted a more up-tempo feel for the in-game version, but IMO the more ambient feel is the "proper" interpretation of the setting lol

[@therealshrinemaiden6898]

theres a lot more "calmer" Touhou songs, they're just usually not as popular as the faster boss themes

[@drealtm]

Generally, in touhou there are stages and each stage has a boss, each one has its own theme, and Zun tends to compose those to bundle pretty well, sometimes he compose the stages themes to introduce scenarios, and sometimes he uses it to describe situations related to the boss of that specific stage or to the lore, so yeah, if you want to hear like the complete musical idea of the stages, you should hear stage -> boss theme bundle together (like the video you did a few weeks of Pristine Beat (boss theme) and Thunderclouds of Magical Power (its correspondant stage theme)) Sorry for the english and great video!! ^^;

[@爛帽子]

Wow, so many Touhou videos recently, and there are two more coming soon! I know this is pretty impossible, but I hope you can hear the original tracks from ZUN's albums, maybe on live streams? All of them are really cool to hear.

[@cchieffkiefbeff]

Yeah, the new one is really good, we should get him to react to that, though along with some arrangements, like MA's version of necrofantasia. also you should upload your favorite ten seconds of the cd songs too

[@爛帽子]

@@cchieffkiefbeff Thank you for watching my videos, I'll make them after I finish my Seihou videos

[@moonmqn]

Yeah this song is definitely the calm before the storm (music and gameplay-wise).

[@ortrus5911]

When it comes to this song some context might help: As many have mentioned before, the stage 5 boss Clownpiece is easily one of the hardest bosses a player will encounter, specially in the Easy and Normal difficulties, depending on the game mode they were playing at they might have been stuck at her for over one hour (if not way more) while hearing "Pierrot of the Star-Spangled Banner" the whole time. This is where "The Sea Where One's Home Planet Reflects". The player has overcome a big obstacle and you finally get some respite from that, with relatively easy enemies to take on while preparing to face the final boss of the game which would be Junko with "Pure Furies" as her theme. In many ways the fact this sounds like a slowed down version of Pure Furies helps you get ready for what is to come and, for many including myself, they feel like a set, with things kind of incomplete if one listens to only one of the two songs.

[@therealshrinemaiden6898]

YESSS im so glad you checked out this song too

[@brickstonesonn9276]

A lot of Touhou songs are really fast *because* its a bullet hell game. If you want to hear what ZUN is capable of when he doesn't *need* to make it fast, check out some of the originals from his albums that arent game osts. Best examples are "Blue Sea of 53 Minutes" from the album "Retrospective 53 Minutes" and "Legend of Hourai" from the album "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise".

[@Carlioo41]

ZUN uses a lot of leitmotifs and similar melodies in his touhou music; there are a few compilation videos on KZbin that show where they pop up. The most famous one comes originally from Theme of Eastern Story, which was a song that ZUN made for the first Touhou game, but ended up being unused (otherwise I would recommend that to you lol). The reuse of melodies definitely helps with the feeling of comfort that you've pointed out in other Touhou reaction vids. Especially when you can listen to some songs from even the recent games and go "hey I recognize that melody, that's so cool!" The only other composer I can think of that uses leitmotifs as much as ZUN is probably Nobou Uematsu and Masayoshi Soken.

[@masterofpuppets259]

Touhou ost reactions are always welcome, thanks for this. I'm still crossing my fingers to see some Demetori action in the future :)

[@GodOfWheatRiceBall]

Lol, I just bought the album "taboo japan disentanplement", now the "Tinker-bell's Inequality" music keep stucking in my head.

[@GFreeGamer]

Feels like the best name for a series where you re-listen to pieces has to be 'Jesse's Echo Chamber'. I'm sure nothing could go wrong with that name.

[@sunwarrior25]

Some of the stage themes can be calm like this, in most cases this is tailored to the area you're in and the situation that's happening. In this case, you're on the moon, crossing a vast sea to approach this game's final boss. Pure Furies ~ Whereabouts of the Heart plays immediately after this. This was nice. I'd love to hear more stage themes, if only because the bosses hog all the attention.

[@beckanhaf]

I find it a bit strange that both the game ver. and CD ver. of these were suggested when they're very similar to each other. Meanwhile, only the CD ver. of UFO Romance was suggested, even though the game ver. clearly gives off a different vibe. Reacting to those side-by-side would've been more interesting IMO.

[@NEICHEL-Sound-Room]

I think it's specifically because he changed his format to two related songs per video, he listened to UFO Romance way before that change.

[@burnttrash9712]

There's a really cool Synthwave remix of Sea where one's home planet reflects. I don't know the source but it's uploaded on the channel Maki ligon, I think it's worth checking out. Touhou Synthwave remixes in general tend to be very good

[@SuperChrim]

Yay! More stage themes! He’s finally getting that variety he’s been craving

[@AREAlhero]

You can think of each Touhou stage as having two parts at least but often three. 1) The Stage: The approach to the main boss. These have a difficulty curve like the rest of the game (i.e. earlier stages are easier) but ultimately these are way breezier than the proper bosses. Often in a stage you will encounter at least one... 2) Mini Boss: Typically, though not always, a different character than the stage boss, these will throw a couple more difficult danmaku (the Japanese word meaning 'bullet hell', it gets used though as a word meaning a particular pattern of difficult bullets, like in the ZUN quote you found) than the stages to get you ready for the boss. After defeating mini bosses, you go back to the stage, usually to recoup some of your lost resources (lives, power, and bombs) to get you ready for... 3) Stage Boss: The grand finale of the stage, these often have several phases of bullet patterns that are high intensity and really test your mettle. These put the hell in bullet hell. Touhou games usually have half a dozen or so stages until the game is completed and the credits roll. In Touhou 15, Junko is the boss you encounter at the end of the game; the Final Boss. Often though, there is an Extra Stage to reward experienced players, providing an extra challenge with the hardest encounter ZUN designed for the game, and very often that's a new character (though they are typically related in some ways to the game's narrative, at least in the subtext).

[@Animarux_]

the music box version of this song really change the tone from calm to sadness

[@zephrina1188]

This is probably moot, since i believe this is all of the official songs associated with Junko, but in Japanese, "u"s have more of a "ooo" sound, so her name is pronounced closer to "Joonkoh" kinda like the month, June, rather then "Juhn koh" like say, Funko pop. Either way, if you're hitting Lolk songs, then I gotta throw a recommendation towards "Faraway Voyage of 380,000 Kilometers." It's the stage theme for Clownpiece, who you reacted to along with Junko. It's actually one of my favorite songs of the francise.

[@BlazeEmerald]

As far as LoLK goes, personally I really like The Space Shrine Maiden Appears and The Space Shrine Maiden Returns Home, the Title theme and Ending theme respectively. As for the game itself, there is a bit of a metajoke with the title. Before this game the community was complaining about things getting too easy. As a result we have 2hu community: C'mon ZUN, make the games harder ZUN: Lol, K 2hu community: *P A I N* probably not intentional but still funny to think it was

[@SuppahTenko]

The last stage takes place on the sea of tranquility on the moon, which in touhou is an actual sea as a nod to early astronomers mistaking the dark plains on the moon for seas. There are also rabbits on the moon cause the japanese think the surface of the moon look like a rabbit pounding mochi.

[@annaairahala9462]

You should really check out more stage themes! I think they often get underlooked compared to boss themes but they're a lot more varied than the boss themes and a lot of them are calm like this one too!

[@KonK4tsu]

This and her actual theme are mostly related to her and stories/characters that she is attached to. This song is (iirc) a stage theme so its made very open and calm in comparison to the actual boss fights. Not a lot of stage themes are THIS calm, but a lot are much more relaxed or happy/upbeat.

[@KeelHeel]

The melody is strictly hers, but Zun likes to bounce around the tonic and dominant a lot. The higher bit of the melody is semicoincidentally similar to "theme of eastern story," which does get used as a leitmotif on every game.

[@KeelHeel]

Note: I'm referring to the counter point in the back. The main melody comprised mostly of whole notes is unique for touhou

[@Iamnotahumanish]

the story of her is basically Chang'e cheats with her husband and kills her son, she was so fury and want to revenge so much that she pass beyong her humanity and become some sort of god (more like chaos itself) and the whole game is just she made a plan to make other lives on the moon leaves, so that she can just go to kill Chang'e and protagonist have to deal with this whole stuff because the people lived on the moon is killing their place

[@propaani5415]

Junko's emotional landscape is where both tracks draw from. Sea comes before pure furies and is setting The contrast between The two tracks, first emphazising junko's sadness before she Broke her mind. Pure furies is supposed to follow without pause, smacking The listen listener nyt The fact tuhat it aint what once was. Along with hundreds of bullets. As a case study, spend ten minutes by watching "touhou 15 stage 6 lunatic" search result. It'll tell you More than KZbin comment section. Always think of these characters as muses.

[@DylanYoshi]

To answer the question about Junko's name pronunciation: Not every Touhou character's name is Japanese so the pronunciation can sometimes be different in this franchise, but Junko's name IS Japanese, and the "U" sound in it is pronounced as it would be in "June". Generally the U sound will be pronounced like that in Japanese if it comes after a consonant. The only exceptions I know of is if it comes after a vowel (like how the "Ou" sound is pronounced like the O in "Ocean" but with a slightly longer pronunciation). But generally, if you see a "U", it will be pronounced in the way I described before.

[@Labenardo]

YESSS MORE TOUHOU

[@weirdlypicturedbeing2122]

This track has some hopeful parts, but it sounds lonely, incredibly sad and pure. Maybe knowing the context influences my opinion a lot but the emotion in the music or felt by Junko herself must be intense. I can't help but feel sad as well.

[@munch8127]

o shit someone listened to my request (or we have the same tastes), bless you patreon mates

[@cchieffkiefbeff]

(Somebody else already explained it but still here) Well, the reason "The Sea Where One's Home Planet Reflects" sounds so calm, somber, and with a depressive twinge is well basically a combination of Junko's (JUN-ko/JOON-ko) backstory and powers. Here's ZUN's comments on this song: "The sixth stage theme. It's the seaaa. It's summeeerr. This song is a subset of the final boss' theme. I want to go to the seaaa. I want to drink beer in a beach huuut." Her backstory is modeled after a real person Xuán Qī/Chún Hú, who was supposedly an ancient Chinese empress who's husband was Hòu Kuí and they had a son named Bó Fēng. Then, a usurper named Hòu Yì came, had her husband exiled, killed her son, then forced her to marry him, but she later conspired with his minister Hán Zhuó and they killed him and later she would marry him. Then, there's Hòu Yì, the mythological one that is known for shooting down nine of the ten suns in the sky, they all grouped together instead of rising by routine so everything was cooking. He was then punished for this action that the Jade Emperor had explicitly told him to do, and he and his wife Chang'e lost their divine immortality and were banished to earth; they later down the line would find an elixir of immortality and in most versions Chang'e takes it and ascends to the moon for any number of reasons. Well, Junko's backstory is a combination of the two, with both Hòu Yì's combined into one and her as Xuán Qī/Chún Hú, except there's a few changes; Junko's son Bó Fēng was actually Hòu Yì's son, not Hòu Kuí's as ZUN seemingly just wrote him out of the lore, Hán Zhuó was also removed from the touhou version. Now he still usurped the kingdom, and he still murders his son, but he likely also shot down the nine suns and that got him exiled and was probably why he was there on earth doing that, then he later or whenever it's not said, marries Chang'e and they go running off doing whatever, but, Junko has powers. Specifically, "Junko's power to purify anything, not to be confused with the Lunarian and Shinto concept of purity, refers to the refining of substances to remove impurities, such as in the refinement of metals. She used this power on her own grudge, strengthening it such that she became the embodiment of her resentment as a divine spirit, without even a need for an identity anymore-" So, even after she by the way, murders Hòu Yì in revenge, he status as a divine spirit and embodiment of her own grudge stays and she still remains wanting revenge, so she targets Chang'e, simply because she was Hòu Yì's wife so she automatically hates her too, and has just lasted from there to here and ever onwards. She also hates Lunarians, the moon people, because Chang'e went to the moon and they are hiding here because she is a prisoner there, don't ask why that's a whole different long topic. So with that in mind, the song sounds so sad and calm and very focused on being depressing is because it's essentially a sort of musical representation of Junko's sadness over her son's death, but amplified by her ability to be purely, simply, depressing all the way through and the reason there is storm waves is because in game you fight her, she's the final boss, on the moon over the Sea of Tranquility, the moon in touhou has seas with actual water in them.

[@LastRemote94]

Slowest touhou music? Interesting, never thought of that, usually the ending credit musics are slow. Yeah this one is pretty rare, one of my favorite 🎶

[@SM853]

Quick, someone pay him to listen to Tiny Shangri-La and Kingdom of Nothingness!

[@T_Man]

Both are on the list. . . one will happen way sooner than the other though probably.