The Hifuu club turns 21 today!!
This big, timely, Touhou-related infodump was originally posted on the now-closed website cohost exactly one year ago, on December 30th, 2023 - to celebrate two characters' 20 years of existence. I am reposting it here mostly untouched, except for explicitly indicated edit mentions here or there (as one year has passed since then), and occasional corrections of phrasing.
Merry reading, and happy end of 2024.
Renmerry
They're gay
They've been gay for 20 years
(edit: now 21.)
(you know nothing about Touhou?
This cohost post by LilyV is a good starting point; this video by AspreyFM (8min) is another; and this tumblr post by rabbiteclair covers the gist of Touhou's lore.)
(edit: since then, I also wrote my own "What is Touhou" blog posts over here. Here is a short version, and here is a longer one.)
(you know at least a tiny bit about Touhou and want more explanations and recs? Read on!)
A bit of context
On December 30th, 2003, Touhou creator ZUN released Ghostly Field Club, his second music CD from the "ZUN's Music Collection series", featuring just like the first one a little story in its joint booklet. Contrary to the first one however - Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, whose cryptic standalone And Then There Were None-like story turned 20 last year (edit: now two years ago) on the same date - Ghostly Field Club started a series of short stories featuring always the same two named characters: Renko Usami and Maribel "Merry" Hearn1.
Indeed, ZUN went on and released seven (edit: now eight!) more music CDs after that, all featuring Maribel and Renko's adventures in their booklets. The lore establishes them from the get-go as two humans from our world who are part of an occult club of their college, the Hifuu Club or Secret Sealing Club... of which they are the only two members so that they can be gay together be left alone and investigate boundaries between their world and others without attracting attention. Indeed, Maribel has a fascinating power: she can sense boundaries with other worlds, and as her powers grow with the stories, she notably starts visiting one in her dreams that is very clearly Gensokyo, the fantasy world where most of Touhou happens. Together with Renko, they go into all sorts of troubles, including a trip to a satellite lost in space, and they even write a fanzine about their own adventures.
You want to read the Hifuu stories?
Oh, yeah, you may want the link to start reading their stories from the top. Here it is. I heavily recommend listening to the associated music track each time2 - you should find the music CDs rather easily on the Internet. Also, there are two additional music CDs released under the same collection that don't contain a story, only three tracks and a CD cover picture featuring our two characters: Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey and Rainbow-Colored Septentrion.
To be honest, the last time we got an actual story was in 2016 :( But as the cover for Rainbow-Colored Septentrion which is two years old (already?!) (edit: three, now) still features Renko and Maribel, it's clear ZUN hasn't forgotten about them. Yet.
(edit: Good news on that front!! We got a new CD and story in May of this year 2024, titled Taboo Japan Disentanglement, which was an incredibly welcome surprise. I first expected it to be a big yuri tragedy considering its cover, and it took me some time to accept it as it was when it didn't deliver on that; but since then I have come to like it a lot, and its music tracks too. I may talk about that recent release more in a later post.)
Why I care, and why maybe you could too
There are at least half a dozen reasons why Renko and Maribel's stories are Very Important: [feel free to skip that part to jump to the recommendations of fan content below!]
- they're interesting in their own right. In them, Renko and Maribel devise on the nature of dreams and reality, how it would feel to be immortal, the importance of writing and sharing what they believe in... They're just really great, if a tiny bit hard to follow sometimes.
- the two Hifuus are almost unanimously considered A Thing by the fandom - or at least, they're the pairing that is the less disputed and one of the most beloved of all Touhou, probably in part because they're in their very own extremely niche stories where there's no one else ship-wise. Also probably because they're super cute together, act as very good foils to each other, and just have eight (edit: now nine) adventures' worth of lesbian paranormal investigation. For the record, there are Touhou pairings that can be arguably considered "more canon" than this one, like Tenshi × Shion (see Wild and Horned Hermit ch. 45), Futo × Ichirin (see Touhou 15.5) or Hisami's pining on Zanmu (see Touhou 19). Still, Renmerry really feels like it's supported by basically everyone (or well, everyone who knows about them).
- they give a very different perspective on Gensokyo, as outsiders looking from the outside in, and for whom youkai are actually very dangerous (Merry is chased by Mokou in Changeability of Strange Dream, for instance). They really offer a fresh viewpoint on Gensokyo and the Touhou canon as a whole.
- they're actually from the future! Several elements make it clear that they live in a slightly futuristic, depressed, joy-drained capitalist world, see for instance Retrospective in 53 Minutes or Neo-Traditionalism of Japan. This gives tidbits of social commentary to the stories, and it's great.
- this causes... timey-wimey stuff very early on. Indeed, Maribel visits Gensokyo at several points in time in her dreams, since in Changeability of Strange Dream it's implied that she both sees the Scarlet Devil Mansion (modern day Gensokyo) AND gets lost in the Bamboo Forest and leaves a note that is several hundred years old by current-Gensokyo's standards!
- this implies a handful of interesting stuff, notably that Sumireko Usami, a fascinating outsider character that begins in Touhou 14.5, and who founded the Hifuu club, is definitely Renko's ancestor.
- and-- ok, the one point I could ramble about the most is that it's implied that there's a link between Maribel and lore-central omnipotent expert manipulator Yukari Yakumo. They look alike, have boundaries-related powers (Maribel's keep growing, Yukari's have been honed for centuries), and share part of their names with Lafcadio Hearn/Yakumo Koizumi, a real-life Greek-Irish writer who heavily contributed to spreading the knowledge of Japanese mythology to English-speaking countries (see most notably the Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things) and became a Japanese citizen near the end of his life. There are theories among fans about the nature of this link, colloquially known as Yukaribel (NOT a ship name). The most prevalent two are:
- that Yukari and Maribel are the same person but seen from both sides of Gensokyo's barrier, Maribel being Yukari in dreams, and Yukari being Maribel in dreams - and maybe that's why Yukari sleeps so much. This does make sense thematically - this thing about what is real and what isn't, just as in Zhuangzi Dreaming of a Butterfly which is explicitly referenced in the booklets, is an entire part of the Hifuu stories.
- that Maribel is, at some point, sent back in time due to her powers, and adopts the name Yukari, and ends up creating the Gensokyo she once saw in dreams. That, of course, has some heavily tragic potential about her relationship with Renko. Yet we've never reached an explanation, and knowing ZUN and his constant vagueness about it, I think this freedom of interpretation is kinda the point - honestly, it may be my favorite thing about Touhou, period.
Fan content galore
Anyway. Hopefully at that point you're interested in Renmerry fan content - or, you know, at least your curiosity has been awakened. Here's a good chunk of works that are dear to me! I'm putting things in bold here so that you can navigate a bit better and pick what you want!
- several "Touhou lyrics" covers of the music CDs' songs by the two-people team Lyrica Live, who has been one of my big gateways into Touhou. They're all really great, but I have a soft spot for the first ones that really got me into Renmerry shipping, like Girls' Sealing Club and Greenwich in the Sky. Oh, and Merry the Magician if you're looking for heavy Yukaribel content. They also made a hilarious manzai skit one April first, I can't recommend it enough. Anyway just listen to them, they're great and cover a lot of the booklets' stories in song form!
- these two PVs about Renko and Merry's separation that break my heart each and every time. (I had to dig into my own list of videos to find the first one, it's been unlisted - but I feel like this PV deserves synced English subtitles, and it's the only video around that still does that!) There's also an awesome remix of the first song of the two above that makes me feel so many things (but mostly: aaaah) each and every time. This just-- this just embodies Yukaribel, honestly.
- there are a few fan Touhou animes going around. One of them is Renko- and Maribel-centered, and called The Sealed Esoteric History, which IIRC is rather good. Subbed versions are sometimes clunkily translated, so I recommend watching them on your favorite streaming website instead, but here are a few YT links: ep 1; ep 2 (heavily Sanae-centered, though it's all headcanons); ep 3 (edit: which I watched since this was first posted, and it's got some rather gay scenes and vampire hunter Sakuya, which is nice).
- also about animated stuff: this one animated short is one of my all-time favorites. There's so much glee AND tragedy in it packed in like 2 min. Please, please watch it. I think it's supposed to be some promotional stuff for other things but it's such a good standalone trailer for fanon Hifuu goodness.
- going into the realm of 3D animation, wandering through cohost I found this channel that does a lot of very short 3D Renmerry stuff which is at times intense, and sometimes more or less silly. Or just plain cute.
- I could say a lot in terms of pure music covers, too. This post is already starting to be very long, but let me add a few suggestions: there are great arranges of G Free, very notably one that is used as the final boss of the very intense fangame Concealed the Conclusion, that I heavily recommend if you're looking for a Touhou game with a tragic twist (and that uses several of the original tracks of the music CDs). Some tracks are very unjustly mostly unknown, but here, let me throw an arrange of Izanagi Object and a cool version of Trojan Asteroid Jungle into the mix. Ok you know what? I lied. Here's more. More and more and more and more and more. Here's a few by the doujin circle Akatsuki Records for good measure. I'll end this with this very ominous version of Merry, the Magician, because it's one of the best things I've heard.
- if you're looking for fanarts, I have a soft spot for old ones made by Hmrnuk (see their Twitter and their Tumblr). Also they have several side tumblr blogs that are just so good.
- overall, don't hesitate to look for the nearest fanart provider of renmerry content next to you - there's a lot of good stuff out there! Here's a link to the corresponding Dynasty Scans tag (watch out, contains NSFW elements) if it helps as a starter.
- for closure, here are a few fan mangas I've got stored (edit: I have read much more since then and may write an article about a few more suggestions someday!).
- oh, and two of my favorite Renmerry fanfics: this one (900 words) and this one (4k words, 3 chapters). I just really like how they're written. There are a lot out there that I liked or that I'm very interested in and never got around to reading, so you may find a lot of others that speak to you more!
A bit of a digression
(edit: this may be getting repetitive with this blog format, because I originally wrote the following before my Februaryuri review of the same topic two months later. Here, they ended up reposted next to each other... but what do you know, I have a single braincell.)
It bears mentioning that Renko and Maribel's adventures inspired an ongoing yuri light novel series that is a favorite of mine, Otherside Picnic, which is about two ambiguously (or after some point, really not ambiguously) gay college students, a blonde and a brunette, repeatedly visiting a scary world of mythological creatures and supernatural phenoma, featuring the menacing shadow of a third woman that looks a lot like one of the other two. Yeah, that's really reminiscent of the Hifuu.
That being said, Otherside Picnic only shares its basic blueprint with the Hifuu stories. It's much more intense - it has trauma, it has gun use, it has a hefty dose of CW - and it actually feels like what you'd get if you put the Hifuu, the SCP Foundation, the Backrooms and a passion for Japanese ghost stories and camping + survival skills in a blender. I think it's awesome, and I couldn't not promote here too. It's currently clocking up 8 volumes divided into 26 "Files", big chapters that relate some paranormal expedition/encounter of the two leads, and in my opinion it really starts to find its groove at the end of File 8/volume 2/omnibus 1, and then it's just an extraordinary ride, notably about recovering from trauma and confronting the ghosts of your past (this spoilery AnimeFeminist article articulates it so well). Also this book series just gives me my only fix of traumatized with some OSDD autistic-coded lesbian-in-denial-going-through-some-messy-slowburn protagonist ever. I don't know. I just relate a whole lot to Sorawo, and the way her comfort zone slowly grows and her interest in people too, and how she slowly gets familiar with her own emotions, and-- well, I have yet to read vol. 8, and I can't wait to see the culmination of that. (edit: well, I have read it since then, and I can't shut up about it now.)
Alternatively, there's a manga adaptation, which is also really good, with some clever use of the format at times, and which currently covers the first three (edit: now almost four) volumes of the light novels.
Oh, and there's an anime, BUT it jumbled and abridged some parts, created one big plot hole, allotted its two-parters to the least interesting Files, has some clunky animation at times, AND never adapted File 8 (what a shame, really). It's how I got into this whole rabbit hole, still! But in retrospect, it's really disappointing when compared to the source material.
Self-promotion
This is the smol part where I add that I wrote a few Renmerry and Otherside Picnic fics, if you're ever interested. I plan on writing more, I plan on writing BIG, but I'm still waiting for getting the time, the energy and the motivation.
I also did an AMV for Otherside Picnic if that's your thing!
Is all this my number one specific interest?
Maybe.
... Yes.
Closing thoughts
What else is there to add? Renmerry is love. Renmerry is life. Thank you for reading this far, or for pick-and-choosing what you needed in this.
There's been debates and wordplay about how to actually transcribe Maribel's name, with the thing closest to the original being something like "Maeriberi" and other attempts having been Maeriberry or the very pretty Maereverie. I suspect Maribel stuck in part because Maribel is not from Japan and that one writing felt the closest to actual European names like Mirabel. Her nickname, Merry, is also transcribed as Mary by some, though Merry allows for good wordplay too. Fun additional fact: Maribel herself is worried about people forgetting her usual name completely (see Changeability of Strange Dream, the third CD), which fits with the absence of an accurate transcription of it. More on Maribel's name when we get to her last name (a section you may or may not have read already depending on when you read these footnotes).↩
A lot of the CDs' songs are exclusive to them and not present in canon games, and there are such bangers in these. Some of my favorites include G Free, Trojan Asteroid Jungle, Izanagi Object, Adventurer's Tavern of the Old World and Hangover of Bedfellows Dreaming Differently, but honestly I could name tons of them, and they're all stellar - and ZUN tries stuff in them that are not necessarily a fit for Touhou games but are awesome in their own right (give me more Trojan Asteroid Jungle or Adventurer's Tavern, aaaah).↩