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Youkai Lunisolar Calendar

The Youkai Lunisolar Calendar (妖怪(ようかい)太陰暦(たいいんれき), Yōkai Taiinreki)1) refers to a lunisolar calendar in Touhou Project that some of the youkai maintain, given the full moon's historic properties. However, its use is limited to areas like Youkai Mountain, as the solar calendar has become the standard.

It was first hinted at during the events of Touhou Kaeizuka, which includes the Touhou Shikoubana prequel, then Chapter 24 of Touhou Kourindou revisits it. Most of what we know comes from Yukari in Touhou Shikoubana, and Rinnosuke in Touhou Kourindou.

Explanation

“This year is the year of the Sun, Spring, and Earth. It only comes every sixty years.”
– Yukari Yakumo

The calendar follows a sexagenary cycle to describe Gensōkyō's natural phenomena, and every year has three attributes which represent a component of nature: 'three fairies' (三精, sansei),2) 'four seasons' (四季, shiki),3) and 'five elements' (五行, gogyo). For example, the incident in Touhou Kaeizuka is explained by the year having the attributes of sun, spring, and earth, which Yukari describes as a 'rebirth' year.

Three fairies

  • Sun (お日様, ohisama)
    Charming with arrogance, as it outshines the others.
  • Moon (お月様, otsukisama)
    Cooperative yet indecisive, as it waxes and wanes.
  • Stars (お星様, ohoshisama)
    Diverse and uncooperative, as it changes and moves.

Four seasons

  • Spring (春, haru)
    Birth or creation.
  • Summer (夏, natsu)
    Growth or development.
  • Autumn (秋, aki)
    Outcome4) and decay.
  • Winter (冬, fuyu)
    Death.

Five elements

  • Fire (火, hi)
    Formless passion.
  • Water (水, sui)
    Returns all to nothing.
  • Wood (木, moku)
    Strong, yet tender.
  • Metal (金, kin)
    Cold and silent.
  • Earth (土, do)
    Where everything must return to be reborn or regenerate.

Thirteen months

According to the Youkai Mountain's newspapers, the calendar uses the traditional month names. We'd also learn that a month is 29–30 days long, and a 13th 'intercalary month' (閏月) would be added every three years whenever the months 'felt' out of sync. However, the intercalary month takes the previous month's name, so an added month after March would be 'Intercalary March' (閏三月) for example.5)

Toggle list of months.

Newspaper timeline

Since the Youkai Mountain still uses the Youkai Lunisolar Calendar, the print works show us that newspapers like Bunbunmaru Shinbun (BBS) and Kakashi Nenpo (KKN) still timestamp their newspapers as such. This section merely aims to order the newspaper articles in chronological order, not order the world's history. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be possible to extrapolate said 'intercalary month' from the articles we have.

Toggle list of newspaper articles.

Year conversion chart

“In other words, the attribute of each year changes from 'sun, moon, stars, sun, moon…', 'spring, summer, fall, winter…', and 'fire, water, wood…' in that order.”
– Yukari Yakumo

Based on the explanations given, we can find the corresponding calendar year and its attributes, since we are given the attribute pattern and the belief that the 'Year of the Sun, Spring, and Earth' is 2005. The following chart only covers 1825 to 2184, because Yukari had to throw around “180 years ago” (百八十年前), and I don't believe that anybody reading this would be alive after 2184.

Toggle conversion chart.

Notes

  • For those curious, ZUN would turn 78 in 2055 and 88 in 2065, assuming he even lives that long.
  • I'd honestly propose renaming this calendar's years along the lines of 'Youkai 140' (2025), but I feel like that would be too radical of an idea.
1)
Technically speaking, 'taiin' (太陰) is 'lunar' and 'taiin taiyou' (太陰太陽) is 'lunisolar', but you also have the added context that the terms were used interchangeably for the Chinese calendar and its derivatives.
2)
The kanji, 'sei' (精), means 'fairy', 'spirit', or 'energy' in this context. Furthermore, this exact kanji is literally in the name of the Touhou Sangetsusei series, so I don't know how the translators came up with 'light'.
3)
The kanji, 'ki' (季), means 'season'. However, it's also the archaic word for 'year' if you look into words like 'ikki' (一季) or 'hanki' (半季), before 'year' eventually became 'nen' (年). The translators kinda screwed it up by not considering how 'old' everything is, so now the 'season' (year) has a 'season' (attribute).
4)
The exact term is 'seika' (成果), which means 'achievements', 'accomplishments', 'results', or 'outcome'. The translation uses 'maturity', which is a fair analogy as autumn is technically considered harvest season.
5)
Technically speaking, an 'Intercalary March' (閏三月) would be 'Intercalary Yayoi' (閏弥生), but you have to consider the context that Rinnosuke was explaining this entirely new concept to Reimu and Marisa.
youkai_lunisolar_calendar.txt · Last modified: by namelessrumia