This article intends to provide a 'very compact' description of the Cookie☆ phenomenon in a readable format, without the excessive footnotes and timestamps for specific events, which allows this article to read more like an essay instead of a hodgepodge of barely relevant items.

If you want a 'simple' definition of Cookie, the best that I've come up with:

“Touhou-themed bait-and-switch for Japanese gay porn, with an internet harassment reputation.”

If you 'still have questions', well, that's what the damn article is for.

Marisa and Alice's Cookie Kiss was an infamously bad¹⁾ collaborative Touhou Project fan video uploaded to Niconico Douga on February 14, 2010. As the Touhou Project community reacted with scalding criticism, it landed in the hands of Inmu fans, the subculture that makes fun of bad amateur Japanese gay porn which they discovered through a college baseball pitcher's scandal, but we're getting a bit off-topic here.

The project was directed by Hazuna Rio, an author of subpar yuri slideshow videos, who didn't like the Inmu fans flocking to it. Inmu fans tried to respect this, creating a separate 'Cookie☆' tag, then Hazuna Rio filed takedown requests which pissed them off. Nine months after the upload, the project's voice actresses began to voice their complaints about Hazuna Rio, some claiming sexual harassment.

With a pissed-off Inmu community, the internet was eager to dot-connect and found out that Hazuna Rio was apparently a man in his 30s. This revelation made the project's cast of mostly high school girls²⁾ and all his expenses (e.g. airplane trip, dinner, high-class studio) look 'suspicious' in retrospect, which was enough to run Hazuna Rio off on November 10, 2010, though he, most likely, simply abandoned the name.

After the project's first anniversary, the Cookie☆ community realized that they would die off, unless they find new material to latch onto, experimenting with SanaTore, Cookie☆☆ S1, Kuso Inu☆, etc. They eventually latched onto Taisa's works, namely Cookie☆☆ S2, which kicked off the shameless trend of faux 'voice drama'³⁾ projects that wanted to seize the spotlight but failing to capture the essence.

Following Taisa's retirement, the Kusso☆ series, by Atouda Ako, stood out for being genuine Touhou Project shitpost parodies until he took a crack at the format with Kusso☆ S3, a monumental work which introduced many iconic 'characters'⁴⁾ that still permeate Cookie☆ MAD culture to this day. To close the decade, they had the community-organized HonSure☆, the foreign-made Easter☆, and Gorgonzola☆ by Shiriri.

However, the community has largely regressed by the tenth anniversary, with the Jiko Mujun☆ masterpiece showing how the scene devolved into petty ego drama. It also doesn't help when the community would be responsible for the Ichigo Knight case, where an underage illustrator was tricked into doxing herself during a harassment campaign and ended up committing suicide on June 13, 2020.

“Your popularity might increase, but it'll be at the cost of your address being leaked, Inmu-chu gathering at your house to hang Yajuu Senpai posters, and death threats, so write all that down too! 😡”
– Yamin⁵⁾

“I also had to deal with my personal information being doxed, break-in attempts, death threats, run-ins with the police, and all sorts of trouble. All of that is important to mention, so write that down.”
– Kanna⁶⁾

The community tends to dox nearly everyone (e.g. directors, voice actors, content creators, illustrators) that gets roped in, which has led to death threats, regular harassment, sexual harassment, and so forth. This became so bad that even some Inmu fans distance themselves from Cookie☆, despite inheriting their stalker tendencies, as persecuting voice actors is not comparable to documenting amateur porn actors.

As for Touhou Project, the Cookie☆ community would get their laughs by trolling Touhou Project fans, usually by intentionally misnaming Touhou Project characters with their equivalent voice actress or pretending that Touhou Project is merely a lesser derivative work of Cookie☆. This does not work in the west, however, as the reverse occurs due to Cookie☆ being niche and obscure.

• 2channel - Sometimes on /streaming/, /gline/, /touhou/, and /mog2/.
• CTV☆ - The CyTube page, which surprisingly has its own wiki and Discord server.
• Niconico - Includes Niconico Douga, Niconico Seiga, and Niconico Live.
• Bilibili - Chinese-speaking community in general, unusually larger than you think.
• Iwara - The demand for adult-oriented Cookie☆ videos is… Well, it exists.

ZUN is aware that Cookie☆ exists, especially after BeatMARIO has constantly badgered him about it, but he has presumably been advised to feign ignorance, though he does get visibly annoyed later on.