Touhou Project
The Touhou Project, also known simply as Touhou, is a bullet hell shoot 'em up video game series created by independent Japanese doujin soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. The team's sole member, Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, has independently developed programming, graphics, writing, and music for the series, publishing 20 mainline games and 13 spin-offs since 1997. ZUN has also produced related print works and music albums, and collaborated with doujin developer Twilight Frontier on seven of the official spin-offs, six of which are fighting games.
The first five games were developed for the Japanese PC-98 computer, with the first, Highly Responsive to Prayers, released in August 1997; the series' signature mechanics were introduced in the second game, Story of Eastern Wonderland. The release of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil in August 2002 marked a shift to Microsoft Windows. Numerous sequels followed, including several spin-offs departing from the traditional shoot 'em up format.
The Touhou Project is set in a preternatural land sealed from the outside world and primarily inhabited by humans and yōkai, legendary creatures from Japanese folklore that are personified entirely as young girls and women in an anthropomorphic moe style. Reimu Hakurei, the miko of the Hakurei Shrine and the main character of the series, is often tasked with resolving supernatural "incidents" caused in and around Gensokyo; she is joined by Marisa Kirisame after the events of the second game.
The Touhou Project has become more particularly notable as a prominent source of Japanese doujin content, with the series spawning a vast amount of fan-made works such as artwork, music, print works, video games, and Internet memes. Because of this, it has gained a large cult following outside of Japan. The popularity of the series and its derivative works has been attributed in part to the few restrictions placed by ZUN on the use of his content. Unofficial works are frequently sold at fan conventions, including Comiket, where the franchise has frequently held the record for circle participation, and the official convention Reitaisai, where trial versions of the official games are typically distributed prior to release.
Games
PC-98 games
, who was then a mathematics student at Tokyo Denki University working under the name "ZUN Soft", developed the first five Touhou Project games for the PC-98 computer, utilizing the platform's 16-bit color graphics and 6-channel FM synthesis audio. The games were published by Amusement Makers, a student game development club that Ōta was a member of.;Highly Responsive to Prayers
;Story of Eastern Wonderland
;Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream
;Lotus Land Story
;''Mystic Square''
Windows games
After the release of Mystic Square, ZUN graduated from university and the series became inactive for four years. During this time, he worked at Taito as a game developer and also composed music for various games created by members of Amusement Makers. He left the group in 2001 to focus on game development for Microsoft Windows, forming the one-man dōjin circle Team Shanghai Alice and self-publishing all subsequent games. According to ZUN, the Windows games represent a "clean slate" for the series canon, albeit with many carry-overs and references from the PC-98 era. Games numbered with decimals are spin-offs from the main series that vary in genre.;Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
;Perfect Cherry Blossom
;Immaterial and Missing Power
;Imperishable Night
;Phantasmagoria of Flower View
;Shoot the Bullet
;Mountain of Faith
;Scarlet Weather Rhapsody
;Subterranean Animism
;Undefined Fantastic Object
;Touhou Hisoutensoku
;Double Spoiler
;Fairy Wars
;Ten Desires
;Hopeless Masquerade
;Double Dealing Character
;Impossible Spell Card
;Urban Legend in Limbo
;Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom
;Antinomy of Common Flowers
;Hidden Star in Four Seasons
;Violet Detector
;Wily Beast and Weakest Creature
;Sunken Fossil World
;Unconnected Marketeers
;100th Black Market
;Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost
;''Fossilized Wonders''
Gameplay
In the games, the player's bullet power increases on a linear scale as the player collects power-ups dropped by enemies, and eventually maxes out. The player can also collect "point" icons to earn extra lives; the amount needed grows exponentially as the player's score rises. The player can enter "focus mode" by holding the shift key by default, which slows down the player's movement, makes their hitbox visible, and generally focuses the player's attack to make it more powerful. The graze counter tracks how many bullets entered the character sprite but avoided the hitbox, rewarding the player with a score bonus for taking risks.The player can use a "bomb" or "spell card", similar to the "bomb" in many other shooting games. Although the player has a limited number at any given time, losing a life replenishes the current number of bombs up to a certain amount. With some exceptions, use of a bomb will make the user temporarily invulnerable, clear many of the bullets, and cause heavy damage to any enemies on screen. The overall effect the bomb has varies by character and by game. The player can use one during a short period after being hit by a bullet to avoid loss of a life. The amount of time the player has available to deathbomb is usually around 0.3 seconds. Bosses have attack phases, which are also referred to as spell cards, but with bosses the term applies to a prolonged pattern of movements and shots that last until the player depletes the boss' health by a certain amount or the time runs out.
Each individual game of the main series from Perfect Cherry Blossom to Wily Beast and Weakest Creature has additional items that affect some aspect of gameplay, such as scoring or gaining extra lives/bombs. For example, Perfect Cherry Blossom has "cherry points", which are used mostly in scoring, but can grant temporary invulnerability ; Imperishable Night has "time points", which are essential for advancing to later stages, and also determine if the player gets to challenge a boss's 'final spell' on normal or higher difficulties; Mountain of Faith has "faith" points, which boost the score the player receives upon gathering point items and bonuses for clearing spell cards without dying or using a spell card.
Each main Touhou Project game has four difficulty levels with each one being harder than the previous. Regardless of the difficulty choice, there are six stages in each game that become progressively harder. The only exceptions to this are Story of Eastern Wonderland, which has only five stages, and Lotus Land Story and Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, both of which lock the player out of the sixth stage on easy difficulty.
In addition to the four main difficulties, there is an extra stage, unlocked after completing the game without using any continues. The extra stage is more difficult than "normal" and less difficult than "hard", and contains an especially long boss fight. Bosses in extra stages are usually immune to bombs. Some games in the series require a one-credit clear on Normal or above to unlock the extra stage, while on others, it can be done on any difficulty.
Plot
Background
The plots of the Touhou Project revolve around the strange phenomena that occur in the fictional realm of Gensokyo, which ZUN designed as a human village in some remote mountain recesses in Japan. Originally, it was simply called "a remote separated land of a human village in an eastern country." Long before the Touhou Projects story begins, many non-humans like yōkai lived with some humans in the area. After a few humans disappeared into Gensokyo, many humans became afraid of approaching this area, while others settled there to exterminate yōkai. However, as time went on, humans developed civilization and multiplied in number, and thus yōkai worried about how the balance between humans and yōkai would be affected. 500 years before Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the yōkai sage Yukari Yakumo developed the "boundary of phantasm and substance," which was favored by the yōkai and protected the balance. This was called the "Yōkai Expansion Project" and made Gensokyo a phantasmal world that automatically called out to the weakened yōkai of the outside world. Other things that disappear from the outside world, like extinct animals, lost tools, and architecture, appear in Gensokyo. Since Gensokyo was a plot of land in Japan that is separated by a barrier, it is Japan that is immediately outside of this barrier.As a result of the seal, Gensokyo became inaccessible from the outside world, and similarly, those in Gensokyo were unable to leave. Gensokyo's existence could not be confirmed from the outside world, nor could the outside world be confirmed within Gensokyo. As a result, the isolated community developed its own civilization, independent from the outside world. Although separated by a barrier, it is a bordering world to its outside, as opposed to being in a parallel universe. There also exists on the Moon a place called the Lunar Kingdom, which exists in the same way as Gensokyo in that it is separated from the rest of the Moon by its own barrier, although accessible from Gensokyo. There are no seas in Gensokyo, since it is landlocked. In Gensokyo, there are few humans, and various kinds of yōkai. Some species include magicians, beasts, therianthropes, vampires, bōrei, tengu, mermaids, kappa, and yōkai. There are other species that may be yōkai depending on definition, like fairies, spirits, yūrei, onryō, poltergeists, hermits, oni, and deities which are all portrayed in human female form. Otherworldly places such as Heaven and Hell are also accessible from Gensokyo.
In present Gensokyo, presented in all Touhou Project games since Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, magical and spiritual qualities prevail compared to the outside world where unscientific phenomena were dismissed as "superstition" around the time of the Meiji era. The only known gateway from the outside world into Gensokyo is the Hakurei Shrine on the border of Gensokyo. The spell card rules were also established to keep up the relationship between humans and yōkai in a mock style, which was necessary for the preservation of the balance of Gensokyo. The "Great Hakurei Barrier," managed by past Hakurei miko, was constructed several decades before EoSD, which is described as a "barrier of common sense," and is thus a strong logical barrier that not even yōkai can pass through. The yōkai opposed its construction at first before understanding its usefulness.
In-game events
In Gensokyo, events called "incidents" occur once in a while. An incident is an event that affects all of Gensokyo and is of unknown cause at the time it occurs. The Touhou Project video games mainly focus on incidents that affect the entirety of Gensokyo, but there are also works like Mountain of Faith and many of the print media that are centered on lesser-scale events.Frequently, incidents are due to a yōkai whim or curiosity, and usually Reimu Hakurei or Marisa Kirisame would go to investigate it and find, defeat, chastise the perpetrators. While Reimu and Marisa are usually the ones to resolve incidents, there are cases where other characters would resolve them. When a major incident occurs, the spirits and fairies are affected by the incident and experience a temporary increase in power.
Characters
The Touhou Project is known for its unconventional, almost entirely female roster, which features a cast of over 180 characters.Though each entry in the series features a collection of different characters, the series's main protagonist is Reimu Hakurei, joined by Marisa Kirisame after the second game. Reimu Hakurei, the miko of the Hakurei Shrine, and Marisa Kirisame, a magician, are usually tasked with resolving supernatural "incidents" caused in and around Gensokyo.
Exceptions to this include Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler, Fairy Wars, Impossible Spell Card and Gold Rush, Violet Detector and 100th Black Market. Other recurring protagonists and incident resolvers in the video games include Sakuya Izayoi, a maid with the ability to stop time, Youmu Konpaku, a half-yūrei gardener and swordswoman, and Sanae Kochiya, a miko and arahitogami. Characters that frequently appear in the print works include Yukari Yakumo, a youkai involved with the founding of Gensokyo, Eirin Yagokoro, a Lunarian pharmacist, and Aya Shameimaru, a tengu journalist with the ability to manipulate wind.
ZUN has acknowledged that while the Touhou Project characters have elaborate stories, little detail is given to them in-game, saying that "danmaku is how the story and characters are communicated." Additionally, he has claimed danmaku is meant to be beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, which is also the main reason why the majority of Touhou Project characters are female. ZUN believes there is a feminine charm to bullet hell, which would be lost with male characters, and that the presence of female characters should not be interpreted as fan service.
Other media
Music CDs
Twelve music CDs were released as part of "ZUN's Music Collection". They are numbered from Volume 1 to 10 by release date, with Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey and Rainbow-Colored Septentrion being numbered as 5.5 and 9.5 respectively due to their short playing time. Each album contains arrangements of music from the games as well as new compositions:- Dolls in Pseudo Paradise
- Ghostly Field Club
- Changeability of Strange Dream
- Retrospective 53 minutes
- Magical Astronomy
- Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey
- Trojan Green Asteroid
- Neo-traditionalism of Japan
- Dr. Latency's Freak Report
- Dateless Bar "Old Adam"
- Rainbow-Colored Septentrion
- Taboo Japan Disentanglement
In 2006 and 2007, ZUN released Akyu's Untouched Score, a five-volume collection of PC-98 soundtracks that includes several unused themes. The albums respectively cover Lotus Land Story, Mystic Square, Story of Eastern Wonderland, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, and Highly Responsive to Prayers. Each track in the collection was enhanced with the addition of a sixth FM synthesis channel, which was originally reserved for sound effects in the games:
- Akyu's Untouched Score vol.1
- Akyu's Untouched Score vol.2
- Akyu's Untouched Score vol.3
- Akyu's Untouched Score vol.4
- Akyu's Untouched Score vol.5
- Immaterial and Missing Power OST
- Scarlet Weather Rhapsody OST
- Touhou Hisoutensoku OST
- Hopeless Masquerade OST
- Urban Legend in Limbo OST
- Urban Legend in Limbo OST 2
- Antinomy of Common Flowers OST
- Sunken Fossil World OST
Print media
;Curiosities of Lotus Asia;Touhou Sangetsusei
;Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red
;Seasonal Dream Vision
;Perfect Memento in Strict Sense
;Touhou Bougetsushou
;The Grimoire of Marisa
;Wild and Horned Hermit
;Symposium of Post-mysticism
;Forbidden Scrollery
;Strange Creators of Outer World
;Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia
;The Grimoire of Usami
;Foul Detective Satori
;The Lotus Eaters, Drunk and Sober
;''Whispered Oracle of Hakurei Shrine''
Development
The Touhou Project is a one-man project by Jun'ya Ōta, who does all the graphics, music, and programming alone for the bullet hell games, with the exceptions of the portrait art in Fairy Wars, which was done by Makoto Hirasaka. The fighting games, Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Touhou Hisōtensoku, Hopeless Masquerade, Urban Legend in Limbo, and Antinomy of Common Flowers, were dual efforts with Twilight Frontier, in which ZUN wrote the music and story, and Twilight Frontier created the art and gameplay.ZUN's first interest in developing video games came during his high school years. While most shoot 'em up games utilise a military or science fiction theme, ZUN wanted a game with a miko main character, and a Shinto aesthetic. ZUN was part of his school's orchestra club, and originally wanted to create music for video games. He went to college, hoping to compose music for fighting games, since they were popular at the time due to Street Fighter II. As he did not know anybody else who was making games that he could put his music in, he made his own games for this purpose, which led to the first Touhou Project game, Highly Responsive to Prayers, being released in 1996. The first game was originally intended as a practice in programming. The Touhou Project only became a shooting game series from the second game onwards, because the popularity of shooting games had revived due to RayForce and ZUN had long been a fan of such games. ZUN remarked how the general theme and direction of Touhou only started coming together in the sixth game, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
ZUN develops his games with Visual Studio, Adobe Photoshop, and Cubase, according to his interview in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red. For the development of Fossilized Wonders, ZUN incorporated images generated by artificial intelligence into the game, a decision Touhou fans have criticized. However, he stated that his reason of using AI generated images had to do with the game's plot, and affirmed a negative stance against generative AI in art.
Reception and legacy
Many derivative works based on the Touhou Project have been created since the release of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, including dōjinshi, dōjin music, dōjin anime, and dōjin games. The vast scope of Touhou Project derivatives prompted commentary, noting that the Touhou Project became an unmissable aspect of Japanese consumer generated media. Nowadays, the Touhou Project is regarded as a typical example of database consumption. These dōjin activities are mostly responsible for adding original attributes to characters that ZUN may not have intended. ZUN, for the most part, had acknowledged, appreciated, and even encouraged these derivative works by imposing very few restrictions on the use of his works. The major restrictions are on unauthorized commercial distribution as opposed to dōjin, and the spoiling of endings; proper attribution to Team Shanghai Alice is a requirement; creators of derivative works are asked to refrain from crowdfunding their projects. ZUN stated himself that he did not want the Touhou Project series to be officially commercialized.The first publication of Touhou ''Project derivative doujinshi occurred during December 2003, following the release of Perfect Cherry Blossom; seven circles sold Touhou Project derivative works at Comiket 65 in December 2003. At Comiket 74 in August 2008, a total of 885 circles had Touhou Project derivative works on display or for sale, out of a total of 35,000 circles participating at Comiket. At Comiket 77, 2,372 circles were dedicated to the Touhou Project, breaking the previous record held by The Prince of Tennis at Comiket 66, which had 2,130 circles. At Comiket 85, Touhou Project was still in the lead, with 2,272 participating circles selling Touhou Project derivatives, compared to Kuroko's Basketball, the second most popular franchise at that year's Comiket, which had 1,462 circles. Throughout the mid-2010s, the Touhou Project popularity at Comiket began to wane. From 2015 to 2017, Kantai Collection was consistently the most popular series at Comiket. By 2019, the Touhou Project was the fourth most popular series at Comiket, with less than half the circles at Comiket than the Fate series.
The dōjin games based on the Touhou Project include adaptations of other game series' mechanics with Touhou Project characters, such as Kōmajō Densetsu: Scarlet Symphony, Age of Ethanols, and Touhou Puppet Dance Performance.
At Tokyo Game Show 2014, ZUN announced a collaborative project with PlayStation bringing unofficial, fan-made Touhou Project dōjin games to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita platforms. Yuyuko Saigyouji and Reimu Hakurei also made cameo character appearances in Square Enix's game Lord of Vermilion Re:2.
Several fanmade anime have been created for the Touhou Project. Albeit created by amateur studios, the projects have sometimes included appearance by professional voice actors, such as Rie Tanaka. Dōjin anime of note include Fantasy Kaleidoscope ~ The Memories of Phantasm by the circle Manpuku Jinja in 2011, A Summer Day's Dream by the dōjin circle Maikaze, and Hifuu Club Activity Record ~ The Sealed Esoteric History by the Chinese dōjin circle Kyoto Fantasy Troupe. A derivative anime from a commercial anime studio came in the form of Anime Tenchou x Touhou Project by Ufotable to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Japanese goods chain Animate as a promotional video for the store combining the Touhou Project with Animate's mascot, Meito Anizawa.
The Touhou Project was nominated for the 11th annual Media Arts Awards held by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, under the Entertainment category, where the Touhou Project eventually lost to Nintendo's Wii Sports for the Grand Prize award. The series was inducted into the Guinness World Records in October 2010 as the "most prolific fan-made shooter series". A survey conducted by the Comic Market Committee in 2009 lists the average age of Touhou Project fans among Comiket attendees as 24.8 years of age. According to the results of the Touhou Project Popularity Poll 2023, almost 40% of respondents to the poll were aged 15 to 19 years old, while people over 25 years old made up only about 20%. A later survey conducted by Nikkei Entertainment from December 16, 2023, with a sample size of 50,000 participants across various different fandoms, showed that respondents who considered themselves devoted fans of Touhou Project within Japan had an average age of 23 years, and a male-to-female ratio that skews 85:15.
In 2018, a Beijing Forestry University variant of the flower Lagerstroemia indica'' was named "Reimu" for its similarities to Reimu Hakurei's outfit.
In popular culture
Music
The music of the Touhou Project has been a particular source of interest, and many arrangement CDs are sold at Comiket and other Japanese conventions. Among the most popular derivatives are the series of Flash music videos created by the dōjin music circle IOSYS, which are often shared on otaku internet forums and Niconico. One such song, "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing", has been heavily referenced and parodied in derivative anime music videos and Internet memes. "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing", alongside "Cirno's Perfect Math Class", "Night of Nights", and "Bad Apple!!" were included in the video game Touhou Spell Bubble. Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale, cited the Touhou Project as one of his musical influences."Bad Apple!!", one of the most famous pieces of Touhou music, was originally composed by ZUN as the Stage 3 theme for the fourth game, Touhou Gensokyo ~ Lotus Land Story., released on August 14, 1998. According to ZUN, he aimed for a song that sounded "as old-fashioned as possible". It was later included in the soundtrack collection Akyu's Untouched Score vol.1, released at the 3rd Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai in 2006.
The song saw a massive surge in popularity following a 2007 arrangement by the doujin circle Alstroemeria Records titled "Bad Apple!! feat. nomico". Arranged by Masayoshi Minoshima with vocals by the singer nomico, this version was released on the album Lovelight on May 20, 2007, at the 4th Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai. The lyrics, written by Haruka, utilize the English idiom "bad apple" to depict a protagonist struggling with apathy, introspection, and a desire to completely "change to white" or "turn to black." The single reportedly reached #1 on the Japanese iTunes Store dance charts. Between May 2017 and August 2018, Alstroemeria Records released three commemorative albums—10th Anniversary Bad Apple!!, PHASE 2, and PHASE 3—featuring various remixes and covers of the track.
The visual component that cemented the song's internet fame began on June 8, 2008, when a user named Μμ uploaded a crude storyboard video to Niconico based on a shortened version of the song, asking for someone to animate it. On October 27, 2009, a Niconico user named Anira published a completed black-and-white shadow play animation based on the storyboard. The video, which features characters such as Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame transitioning fluidly while dancing, quickly gained popularity, reaching #1 on the Niconico daily rankings on November 15, 2009. Alstroemeria Records themselves praised the video, describing the motion as beautiful. By March 2023, Anira's shadow art video had achieved over 30 million views on Niconico alone, making it the most-viewed Touhou-related video on the site. In January 2025, a YouTube upload of the shadow art video surpassed 100 million views; however, as the video was an unauthorized reprint, the community encouraged viewers to support the official version uploaded by Alstroemeria Records to assert ownership. The video's global impact has been significant enough to warrant coverage by major international media such as CNN.
Following the success of the shadow art video, "Bad Apple!! feat. nomico" was integrated into various official rhythm games and karaoke services. A limited version of Taiko no Tatsujin featuring the song was exhibited at Niconico Chokaigi 2 in 2013. In 2019, DAM began distributing the song for karaoke, followed by JOYSOUND in 2020, which included the music video. In 2020, the mobile game BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! added a cover version by the in-game band Roselia. The song was also added to Muse Dash in September 2021 as part of a collaboration pack. In 2022, the rhythm game Touhou Danmaku Kagura included both the standard arrangement and a "Tetsuya Komuro Remix". In May 2024, the game Project Sekai: Colorful Stage! feat. Hatsune Miku released a cover by the unit "25-ji, Nightcord de." accompanied by a 2D music video paying homage to the original shadow art.
The song and its shadow art video also became a staple in the demoscene and retrocomputing communities, often used to demonstrate the capabilities of hardware presumed incapable of playing back full-motion video. Peter Dell, a programmer who contributed to a port, described the video as having become a graphical equivalent to "Hello, World!" programs for retro platforms. Notable recreations include:
- IBM 5160 :' In April 2014, the video was played on an IBM 5160 equipped with an Intel 8088 CPU at a resolution of 640×200 and a frame rate of 30 fps.
- Commodore 64:' A port running at 12 fps on the Commodore 64 appeared in June 2014.
- Consoles: By 2015, ports had been created for the Vectrex, Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and Sega Genesis, as well as the TI-84 Plus series of graphing calculators.
- Microcontrollers: In 2019, an Arduino Mega played the video at 128×176 resolution and 60 fps. The physics club at Rokko Junior/Senior High School also displayed the video on an oscilloscope using a Raspberry Pi.
- Apple IIe: A version played on an Apple IIe without any hardware modifications was released in 2021.
- Software and Physics: In 2021, the YouTube channel "Plugla" recreated the video using cell painting in Excel. In 2023, a user named zboy recreated the video using graphing functions in Desmos, successfully filling in the colors with mathematical formulas rather than just outlining them. A 2024 implementation by engineer Waldemar Erk embedded the animation frames directly into a font file using WebAssembly inside the HarfBuzz text shaping engine. Other mediums have included stop motion using actual apples, Rubik's Cubes, Minecraft "Steve" heads, Tesla coils, lasers, and a performance by the traditional Japanese instrument group "Kineie Nami Shachu" featuring Shamisen, Koto, Shakuhachi, and Taiko.
Internet memes
A major Internet meme based on the Touhou ''Project is "Yukkuri shite itte ne!!!", which centers around the disembodied, deformed heads of Touhou Project characters, often referred to as "yukkuris". This meme originated from a crude attempt to draw the main characters Reimu and Marisa with Shift JIS art in late 2007. Yukkuris became so popular that the phrase "Yukkuri shite itte ne!!!" won bronze for 2008's "Net Slang of the Year" in Japan. Yukkuris also appear in Internet advertisements, the anime Natsu no Arashi! and Pani Poni, and most notably, the front page of 2channel, one of the most visited Japanese websites. The yukkuris are often given voices by the text-to-speech synthesizer SofTalk, and it has become popular in Japan to use yukkuris to stand-in and narrate online videos to the point that they became known as a genre called Yukkuri videos.Another meme popular on the internet is "Fumofumo", referring to a line of plush dolls of characters from the Touhou Project'', which are designed by the Japanese illustrator Neji and manufactured by the Japanese merchandise company Gift. The plush series features emotionless face, scornful eyes and is about two heads tall. After becoming popular, the dolls always cause panic buying.