Best Touhou Game Art

[moons1de_]

I find that ZUN's style of art through every Touhou game seems to have its own character to it, like EoSD has a very different style and feel compared to MoF. So I've been wondering what game people think has the best art in and why it's good! Personally, I think PoFV has the best art mainly because it feels more complete to me than other games. A lot of ZUN's art in previous games felt less polished, and in much of the later games, the art lacked a lot of the soul the 1st Windows Era's art had... But I think in PoFV it has a good combination of both to give it a distinctive look than any other Touhou game because it has just enough shading, lighting, and detail to give off a "1st Windows Era" feeling, but not too messy.

[CyberAngel]

Shoutout to PCB purely on the grounds of having more than one pose per character.

[jankop]

A lot of ZUN's art in previous games felt less polished, and in much of the later games, the art lacked a lot of the soul the 1st Windows Era's art had... But I think in PoFV it has a good combination of both to give it a distinctive look than any other Touhou game because it has just enough shading, lighting, and detail to give off a "1st Windows Era" feeling, but not too messy.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, the art of the new games feels kinda souless and mundane compared to the old art. My favourite official touhou art is from PCB, PoFV and MoF.
Also, the CD cover of PoFV is my favourite out of the whole series. It is very vibrant with an excelent color scheme and the silhouette of Shikieki is blending really nicely with the rest.

[Felis-Licht]

I personally liked TD's art, felt the most polished and detailed to me, especially the hair. I think the art nowadays though is kinda bland. Like the poses are good, but the colors and shading kinda don't work because they seem like they're done without much care and look flat.
Example of this can be seen on Orin's art in UDoALG, one of her braids looks very disconnected from her hair like it's just pasted on. The shading of recent art overall feels like ZUN just used the Burn tool with a hard brush several times without refining it.

[degradingwindow]

Touhou art is very interesting to look at from both as a Touhou fan and as an outsider.

I've seen people get turned off from Touhou merely because of the art. Some say it's childish, others say it's crudely done, Ive even seen Touhou art is very interesting to look at from both as a Touhou fan and as an outsider.

I've seen people get turned off from Touhou merely because of the art. Some say it's childish, others say it's crudely done. Ive even seen one guy compare it to abstract art which just confused the hell out of me.

What made Touhou art so interesting to me is it's evolution, with each game you see ZUN develop his art and it really makes it feel like he's making an effort on improving it for each game. The new art isn't "souless" to me, it's as effective as the old one in conveying a character, it's just that ZUN has found an artstyle that he likes to draw and has stuck with it, and it lead people to believe that ZUN isn't making an effort because he's just using the same artstyle for each game.

No Touhou artstyle is the best, each one has it's certain flaws like eye placement in PoFV which is what made it unique because you got to see canon interpretations of some characters in different styles

For me, MoF has the best art but PoFV has the best consistency with quality.

Even so, with all the changes in artstyle, ZUN has kept a consistent quality with character art in terms of clothes and palette overall, it's his quality in drawing human anatomy and features where he needs to improve.


Also........I get nightmares about Sanae's hair in UFO every night.

[williewillus]

In the modern era (ufo/td onwards, I think ZUN generally gets better and better every game in terms of posing, anatomy, and coloring).

Not sure if I could really choose a favorite game though since they're all charmingly jank in their own ways.

[degradingwindow]

One thing I forgot to mention about the art from PoFV that I really love is that in the entire game. All the characters are posed facing the side or at least their eyes are looking at their opponent that is on their right (if you're playing 1p). But with Shiki, her sprite states directly at you as if she's judging you, the player. It's really eerie and it feels like an artistic choice considering she's the only character with a foward facing sprite.