Probably my first Touhou encounter was a breathtaking Mokou theme track - “Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke” by ZUN. I searched online who’s ZUN and then what’s Touhou, listened for a couple more tracks, liked them, but didn’t really got into Touhou.

After years I saw KKHTA part 6 intro animated by PEAR, then decided to watch KKHTA (content warning) itself. I liked a lot complex non-linear narrative, lack of plot armor (these two also reminded me Homestuck, which I absolutely enjoyed) and an abrupt ending. It wasn’t enough, so I finally started exploring Touhou and fan works. (still didn’t complete any classic Touhou game as of today)

The music on a webradio early 2008 when I was sick in Germany for a business trip.

I was spending days in my tiny hotel room with nothing to do but a slow internet connection and on a webradio, I heard “marisa stole the precious things”.

Shortly after, this webradio shut down, and I switched to (now-deceased) animenfo where people complained about too much touhou music. That incited me into discovering me about this “touhou” stuff and it never left.

The YouTube algorithm recommending me metal arrangements of Touhou songs.

I found it because another fandom I was in used its characters to do an animation of Kero ⑨ Destiny, and so of course the original Kero ⑨ Destiny animation was recommended. I found a lot of other Touhou animations through that, got curious what all these characters were from, and found it. Took me awhile to actually play the games instead of just being in the fandom and knowing the fandom personalities and the like.