Touhou Abilities and Power Levels Explained | Touhou Lore

So many roadblocks just to get a 3 minute video out. I'm just surprised I managed it somehow.
In any case, I'd like to thank @NaokiP72 and @richard_effendi for their research into the topic. I wouldn't have known about the Pixiv Dictionary link otherwise. And with that... I'm getting on my plane finally.

The "self interpretations" thing is definitely the most probable reason why all the abilities seem so open-ended/vaguely stated.
I believe that part of Touhou's popularity comes from the fact that ZUN actively wants the community to make their own interpretations. If he were to specifically and clearly describe each character's abilities, it would make more logical sense in-world, but it can end up causing a lot of fanworks to be super obviously fan-worked.
aka, instead of "this character's ability in X game is very different from the canon ability," it's instead "this character's ability in X game is a plausible interpretation of the character's canon powers."
Leaving the abilities as more guidelines than hard-set rules allows for more creative freedom both for ZUN and Touhou fans.

The capability of 1CCing Lunatic to some degree...

So i can't accurately know if i would he able to low diff or high difd touhou, sadge 0/10.

could it be that he is messing with us

Tewi solos

Nah vergil still solos

Power levels in Touhou are basically impossible to imagine, mostly because of spellcard rules and the fact that some bosses do not scale with power

Also, ZUN is really really good at making vague lore. He said once in an email that Hecatia was the strongest canon character, even though Junko’s stage was arguably more difficult. And if we fixed the spellcard rules situation, some character would end up winning because of what is literally stated in the wiki (Ex: Sakuya would do the old abdomen stabbing, Flandre would just explode everyone)

I mean, knife maid is literally DIO down to the vampire house. I think you hit the nail on the head at the end.

did you know
that cirno has the most powerful ability in touhou?

No reason to rank and tier Touhou characters Power Levels, because they're all strong. Good point

So that means I can scale touhou to boundless?

To me they seem more like some of HXH's powers, the one about cirno which is to absorb heat and turn it cold.

in my opinion, the ability to control time and space, and manipulate the borders are overpowered to the point to be stupid XD

What I gather from this is that Cirno could, in fact, be the strongest.

zun just wanted to make something that we can measure, it is all on tje mind of the player/lore rat, if you explore mythology it will be clear

I think you're right about the JoJo similarity. It's not out of character for him and there are a lot of parallels. Thanks for the concisely made video!

Do you have any social media to talk?
I too see touhou project as a underestimated masterpiece.

I think the "To some degree" part is so that characters don't spam that ability/keep doing it unlimited times

My interpretation of Touhou power levels is whatever will piss off dumb powerscalers the most at any given moment.

Since we know these abilities are self-stated, my favorite interpretation is these are just what each character would answer to the question "Hey, what's your special ability?"

Reimu: "Uhhh, I can fly I guess."

Marisa: "I can use magic! I've been working hard my entire life for it."

Aya: "Like all other Crow Tengu, I can control wind."

Hatate: "I can do spirit photography! It sets me apart from other Tengu."

Kogasa: "I can surprise people!....never mind that I haven't surprised anyone yet"

Ichirin: "Uhhh shitshitshitdoievenhaveany OH YEAH I'M THE ONLY ONE UNZAN TALKS TO"

Remilia: "I CAN MANIPULATE FATE LMAO"

Flandre: "I can destroy anything. Btw my sister is fucking lying"

Eika: "I can stack stones really high! No kids can beat my record!"

Saki: "Look at these LEGS!!"

Eirin: "I can make any medicine. And magic spells. And nuclear weapons. And quantumrelativethingamajig. And anything really. But mostly medicines."

And so on. These may or may not be the characters' actual special abilities, but what they are most proud about.

As someone who is kinda trying to get into the series-

Perhaps he means that these abilities are meant to make sure that whenever you see them in the story, their power will range from “oh yeah, I can do this skill”, to “I am perfect in this skill”.

It leaves room for improvement.

Say you have someone who’s ability is to “Have the ability to control Jump height” or something like that.

When we first meet them, they could be using their power in obvious ways- essentially flight with small hops in between/kick attacks. But when you meet them later, their ability has been fleshed out, and they have learned that as long as a being “jumps” they can control that beings height.

Basically letting gravity kill any being that can’t survive re-entry, or just let them fly into space.

Both of these abilities fall under the description given, so the vague wording allows for advancement of a person’s skills throughout their existence.

If I was warped to gensokyo and could give myself my own ability. I would choose "To be able to manifest and manipulate metals to some degree"

200834 what's your favorite code?

cant we just ask ZUN

Stuff like this is why I feel like ZUN both puts relatively little effort into his plots, but also plans them out with a tonne of thought and creativity. Kinda feels like Reimu's Fantasy Nature, I guess. Takes the writing with a chill mindset, but doesn't skimp out on the results. Maybe if he stressed out over writing more, he'd get weaker results.

Flandre's ability to be adorable should not be mentioned

whats the ending song?

Yukari exists. Entity stronger than Yukari exists. Manipulates the border between their gap in power and becomes more powerful than said entity anyways. - Touhou

i think these powers are vague on purpose because gensokyo is all about fantasy mystery etc. (like some myths are told differently and noone knows which version is right)

This topic needs to be expanded more. Especially when Ms. "Ability to manipulate flower" ability is shooting giant laser, Ms. "Having three bodies" canonically being the strongest, Ms. "Ability to heal sore throat" is something and so much more

Being vague is how Touhou works.

the mima bait what a classic
cheers

It's almost certainly a mFing Jojo reference. You know ZUN.

As someone who's spent a little too long analyzing the character's abilities, powersets and scaling and such, I feel like his wording was to allow for a degree of interpretation for how abilities can be used. Something like Seija's ability could have a bunch of potential uses, and since we only ever see it used a few ways in canon, someone creating a fanwork could make up a lot more applications for the ability due to the ambiguity presented in the description.

In something like a Versus Debate, we'd only be able to take the ability's description at face value, and what feats the characters have actually performed with said abilities (Yukari has an extensive list of usages of her Boundary Manipulation that back up the explanations behind it, for instance) because of the specific limitations/expectations of Versus Debating as a whole. But when it comes to just, simple interpretation, I think ZUN's wordage allows for people to take things in their own ways while still having the characters similar to their original intent.

Mima!!

Don't matter when sunny milk negs

Maybe he just never wanted to give it too much thought, because if you do then there is ton of follow-up questions to resolve, and the more you build your fantasy universe the harder it gets. No time for that, no desire, "I just want a colorful game with cute girls and cool music". When Touhou blew up it got even worse to try and resolve all that. It's easier to "she kinda maybe can to some degree" and move on, leave it fo fans. Fans gain more freedom, you have less work to do, profit, beer time (it's always beer time). Not sure how much of % "it's too bothersome" and "I want to give my fans freedom and encourage creativity", but I'm pretty sure both reasons are there. It worked before and still works, so why not.

Tbf this discussion is more on hax not powerscaling. But it would be quite interesting to analyze all the direct feats in the verse cuz Touhou has a lot of infinite statements and feats like with the infinite corridor for example. And I think most people know them translated like that and not in the original Japanese, so it would be fun to see if these feats are actually meant to be literally infinite or just hyperbolic and we're misinterpreting them

"even the humans"
Rika and Yumemi: Guess I'll die.
(Unless you count the engineering/scientific genius as a power. and yes I know it's PC-98 early shenanigans, but you still have PC-98 Reimu and Marisa.)

Yeah I think ZUN was just inspired by Araki's thing of describing a power very broadly and then blowing your mind with all the creative ways it could be interpreted. In JoJo's there is no E-to-S linear power level per se, there's just the different ways powers can interact with each other and the creativity with which characters deploy theirs. It's an ingenious way of dodging the power creep problem that long-running series' face and why comparative small fry like the Yorigamis, Megumu, and Kokoro can be credible lead antagonists even after literal world destroyers like Okuu and Junko

I came for the powercaling, but it seems I've come up with nothing. I'm still trying to find an accurate, non-biased power meta for touhou. But I'm always hearing people's opinions, and it's hard to know how much is facts and how much is opinion.

I think Zun meant with Degree of Ability, how does Abilities are effective for this Character.
Some Characters Like Reimu are both Gifted to be naturally Strong in Terms of her ability to perform barriers but also have the experience and knowledge to perform this Ability Very effective, which is why Reimu is the best at Youkai Extermination.
Some Characters Like Marisa and Sanae don't really have a naturally Strong Abbilites, which is why they depend more on their experience and knowledge, which is why Marisa only uses Stars as her danmaku while the Master Spark is more of a copied Ability, Sanae at this Point only can use Danmaku, since Miracle is either Just her Gift to Land either lucky Hits or Its Just plain uselsss.
Some Like Cirno and Youmu are naturally Strong, but their Lack in experience might Limit the degree of this Ability.

Thanks a lot ! I finally understand why Remilia lost
More seriously, the lines that graduates the differents powers, even if there are really vague sometimes are the key to understand and those lines are too often neglected on the western community which is kinda sad.
So thank you for bringing that up ! Keep it up !

one thing i've found confusing here with good ol teido no nouryoku is that it doesn't imply that the ability is unique nor that it is all that they can do. i usually see it translated as "capable of", which can even just be something like a learned skill. marisa, for instance, is "capable of using magic", which is not just not special amidst youkai, it's not even special for a human. youmu's, and even renko's, could be interpreted as just something they learned or have a great aptitude for and not part of the series of anomalous special abilities like kosuzu's or yukari's

It's just vague and roundabout, "illogically" so if you will. And you know what else is not defined by the boundaries of logic? GENSOKYO!

maybe "flight is to some extent is what Reimu is capable of"

the abilities have a theme but the extent they can go to is unbound as long as it stays in that range

The new strongest Touhou character will have the ability to exist