I’m posting this story after my colleague commented on how insane and unbelievable it is. I then realized it is probably very bizarre. This is obviously not suitable for the University of Waterloo article about me.
The Beginning
When I was in elementary school, I stumbled across Niconico.jp, a Japanese video sharing site, and I came across a peculiar form of art called Audio MAD (音マッド). One of the popular techniques of making an audio MAD is Manual Vocaloid (人力 Vocaloid). The process takes footage from video sources and remixes them into songs. Around 2010, three prominent sources of footage emerged. On Niconico these three works are collectively known as the Inner Gosanke (裏御三家) (nicopedia), where Gosanke means the three most prominent representatives of a certain field.
The ones that caught my particular attention are Airmoto (エア本), and Gachimuchi (ガチムチ, slightly NSFW). Airmoto’s footage are taken from the propaganda videos of Soka Gakkai (創価学会, lit. Value-Creation Society), a Japanese Nichiren Buddhist religious group. SGI (short for Soka Gakkai International) is sometimes considered to be a cult due to its track record of harassment and meddling with politics via Komeito. When Airmoto is remixed with Touhou (one of the “Outer Gosanke”) music, it is often called Touhou Zuhashichibun (東方頭破七分).
Zuhashichibun (頭破七分) is a Buddhism term to reflect the Buddhist origins of Soka Gakkai, its also a play on the misheard Airmoto quote “I break my head tonight” (“今夜は砕頭”).
The Fantastical
After watching countless Touhou Airmoto (and other) remixes and trying to make my own with Sony Vegas, I gradually became interested in making an algorithm which automatically generates singing voices using existing digital signal processing tools, but unbeknownst to me, the problem is an exceedingly difficult one that only became somewhat viable after the advent of Convolutional Neural Networks and Transformers. The failed experience in writing this impossible algorithm lead me into the field of computer science. This is also how I got into theoretical mathematics.
I would not have encountered Computer Science without Shinano-machi (信濃町) and Gensokyo (幻想郷).
Some examples of Touhou Zuhashichibun:
| Remix | Original | Wordplay |
|---|---|---|
| Big Apple!! feat. izumi (Taken down as of 2024/09); Karaoke Version; Mirror | [TH04] Bad Apple!! | Misheard speech of Ikeda Daisaku (池田大作) |
| 砕頭 “Broken Head” | [TH07.5] 砕月 “Broken Moon” | Airmoto’s misheard quote “I break my head tonight” (“今夜は砕頭”) |
| 懐かしき教會の血 “Nostalgic Blood of the Church” | [TH08] 懐かしき東方の血 ～ Old World “Nostalgic Blood of the East” | Alludes to the religious aspect of SGI |
| 不可視久本~Airmoto Frenzy “Invisible Hisamoto” | [TH08] 狂気の瞳 ～ Invisible Full Moon “Lunatic Eyes” | Airmoto’s face is often overlaid on the moon for … reasons |
| 金のがっかい信濃山 “A Golden Society on Mt. Shinano” | [TH11] 華のさかづき大江山 “A Flower-Studded Sake Dish on Mt. Ooe” | SGI’s headquarter is located in Shinano-machi |
| Touhou Airmoto Collab 2018 | Various |
The titles of Airmoto videos are often wordplays in Japanese. For example, the counterpart to TH11 Touhou Chireiden (東方地霊殿) is Touhou Kurachireiden (東 方倉地霊殿), where Kurachi (倉地) is the last name of one of the characters in Soka Gakkai who was “successfully proselytized” by Ishikawa from Men’s division.
This form of stimulating and fast paced MADs were a very appealing form of entertainment to the little Leni.
Another even more obscure series is Touhou Kyouroshia (東方恐露西亜, lit. Terror of Russia)
| Remix | Original | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 冷地の核侵攻 ～ Shall we go to Siberia?. “Nuclear Attack on a Cold Land” | [TH11] 霊知の太陽信仰 ～ Nuclear Fusion “Solar Sect of Mystic Wisdom” | “冷地” and “霊知” are homophones, so are “侵攻” and “信仰” |
| 同志が見た東の終焉景 “The Downfall Scene of the Eastern Bloc the Comrade Saw” | [TH10] 少女が見た日本の原風景 “The Primal Scene of Japan the Girl Saw” | About the fall of the Soviet Union and rise of Putin |
| ロシアのパーフェクト政治教室 “Russia’s Perfect Politics Class” | [TH06 Remix] チルノのパーフェクトさんすう教室 “Cirno’s Perfect Math Class” | About the struggle of Putin vs. the Russian oligarchs |
| 首相プーチン ～ 3rd war “Prime Minister Putin” | [TH11] 少女さとり ～ 3rd eye “Maiden Satori” | ??? |
The End
In 2014, Niconico was sued by a member of Soka Gakkai and had to take down many Airmoto videos. Since Airmoto is difficult to be appreciated by non-Japanese speakers, it didn’t see much attention outside of Japan.
Outside of Japanese and some special online circles, few people have even heard of this form of art. I mourn the lost era of Niconico when the videos of Airmoto and Gachimuchi flowed like fine wine. I still get nostalgic when I watch Airmoto videos. Without Touhou Project, Inner Gosanke, and Audio MADs, my life would’ve been drastically different and I would not be doing cutting edge theorem proving research today.
Fun fact: The headquarters of Soka Gakkai International in Canada is in Vancouver near Marine Drive Station.
今夜は砕頭☆!