Touhou Project's Hakurei Reimu is #autistic. The best depiction I've seen.

I've been saying this for years, and I think it's about time I put my findings on Social Media.

Twitter's bad for this kind of thing, so bear with me.

[Thread] #touhouproject #touhou

Reimu is the main character of Touhou, so we have enough canon examples to diagnose her using the DSM. The DSM isn't perfect, but it helps illustrate my point. I'll mainly be drawing from my own lived experience as an autistic person to fill in the gaps.

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

A1) Reimu's Abnormal Social Approach is something even other characters notice, especially Marisa, who knows her better than anyone, and she sometimes thinks people are using words that would make no sense, in some cases answering a yes-no question as a request for alternatives.

Autistic folx tends to be overly logical and literal, and might ask questions or share opinions & information without regard to how listeners feel because, to us, that's a different puzzle. This can give the impression that we're clueless or insensitive.

Reimu gets that a lot.

Autistic folx have difficulty imagining how others expect us to think or act, so we can be way too honest about how we feel. We also tend to be bad liars, because if you can't perceive your own tells, you can't conceal them.

Reimu famously can't lie to save her life.

A2) Reimu does show emotion, and this is normal for Autistics, but it's common for her to have no expression at all, even when what's happening calls for one.

Her expression and body language is flat and stiff through the ENTIRETY of Memorizable Gensokyo until the very end.

At other times, her expressions and body language are so needlessly exaggerated she seems like a cartoon character—and since she IS one to us, it's easy to miss!—but the other characters helpfully react to her melodramatic delivery to show us even THEY think she's overacting.

There have also been times where her expression and body language lead others to believe she is feeling the opposite emotion of what she's actually feeling, yet another example of what A2 defines.

The categories are intentionally broad because Autism can look like many things.

A3) Her trouble with relationships is stated in in-universe texts she approved of, but A3 is most commonly expressed as a tendency to think everyone thinks just like you, can read your mind, or that they need everything stated as plainly as you do.

Reimu does this ALL THE TIME.

She does this so often that I'm running out of room to put all the examples!

She thinks of Shrine Maidens as all being broke scam artists like her, and she thinks of Marisa as being just like her as a Youkai Exterminator: a fearless, invincible combatant who can't lose.

B1) Repetitive motions!

"Now hold on," I hear some of you say, "does she really have repetitive motions?"

Oh yeah. If you're even kinda familiar with Touhou, you've already seen this one a million times, you probably just didn't realize what it was.

This seem familiar?

More than any other character, she stretches by raising her arms over her head and baring her armpits. It's her iconic thing that she does.

"Wait, that's an autistic thing!?"

Yup. Her repetitive motion. It couldn't be clearer.

B2) Her inflexibility and repetitive behavior is a core aspect of her character.

She has a designated "cleaning time" that she refuses to budge on even when it would make logical sense.

In GoU she prepares a script for rain, and when none came, she got too nervous to change it.

She's so predictable that nearly every character who knows her can accurately predict how she'll act with perfect accuracy. One time, Marisa predicts a Reimu scam, and on the next few pages, Reimu is doing that exact thing, demonstrating another example of A3 in the process.

In MANY other instances, characters can use this information to set traps for her that she falls for every single time. Even the Fairies successfully prank her this way.

Reimu's routine is so rigid that whenever she deviates from it, Marisa starts to worry that something's wrong and that she might be in grave peril. While this is played for laughs at times, she's sometimes right to worry.

Reimu also doesn't seem to notice Marisa's reaction here.

She definitely does suffer extreme distress over small changes. At one point, she makes Oden expecting to sell it as a hot meal at a festival the next day (see above), and when this plan becomes sub-optimal, she cries, even though this turn of events is a net positive...

...and even though all she had to do to adapt her plan to the situation was chill the Oden.

Did you notice that her font is different and gives the impression she's yelling? That's an example of Poor Volume Control, a very common Autistic trait, and an example of both A1 and A2.

She is also very protective of her shrine—we Autistics can be protective of our home area—at one point, when Sumireko calls a UFO to it, she becomes screaming mad and violently angry. This is an example of an Autistic Meltdown. We'll be seeing another one of these in a bit!

B3) Reimu has stunning levels of apathy for anything that's not one of her special interests, but when something IS her special interest, she annihilates it with laser-focus and phenomenal intensity, to the point of losing sleep for days to pursue it.

Reimu L O V E S reading.

In particular, she has a taste for mystery novels and detective books. Makes sense, that's her job. Because this is her line of work, she sometimes imitates the novels when making her investigations. She even has a Sherlock hat and a magnifying glass that she takes out and uses!

Intense over-interest leads to Info Dumping, where an autistic person takes a Special Interest—such as Youkai—and delivers an unabridged lecture on the topic.

Marisa's seen Reimu do this so many times she immediately laughs. This one needs a time skip. More poor volume control!

B4) Reimu's shoulders and armpits seem utterly impervious to cold at times. She also certainly prefers to take the sleeves totally off whenever she has the chance, so I believe she might actually NEED a uniform with loose-fitting detachable sleeves to suit her special needs.

The sudden shock of getting wet in this scene causes a Shutdown, followed by a Nonverbal Episode, becoming temporarily unable to speak.

And how could we forget Reimu's obsession with colorful patterns? She enshrined Danmaku into Gensokyo's law! Colorful battles for everyone!

She didn't even need a perfect score, but she got one! Let's wrap this up.

C) Has she always been like this?

Yes! Two words:

SoEW
Meira

"I'm a woman!"
"Yeah, that's fine, why wouldn't it be?"

Reimu doesn't seem to get that not every woman is gay. First speaking game. A3.

Category C ADDITIONALLY adds an important caveat to all of the above: these symptoms may not necessarily be present at ALL times, but that doesn't mean they aren't actually there, because not only can we learn and adapt, but not every situation taxes us to the breaking point.

D) Is her impairment clinically significant?

Her being in perpetual poverty is the only joke anyone ever tells about her.

She once ate expired food bc she didn't want to go shopping in the rain, DIES, and gets revived by Marisa.

I think that's clinically significant.

E) Given that Reimu has a relatively normal capacity for intellectual thought and is downright brilliant when she applies herself, we can safely rule the other two possibilities out. Okuu might get a comorbid diagnosis with Intellectual Disability, but not Reimu.

I could stop here, but what makes Reimu's depiction so brilliant is that it portrays many small and almost insignificant traits that just happen to be common in autistic people.

She has an Auditory Processing Disorder. She mis-hears dialog a LOT.

APDs are common in Autistics because for the same reasons our other traits exist: We sense EVERYTHING at once with no filter but can't sort it, so it blends together confusingly. An APD is like living in a movie where the music is too loud and the dialog is too quiet.

She's also pigeon-toed - irregular gaits are common in Autistics. That could be a coincidence and isn't necessary for diagnosis, but alongside all this other stuff? Icing on the cake.

I could keep going, but I've been writing this thread for long enough. I've made my point. Even though Touhou's canon is only really as canon as you want, for this to be such a slam dunk is pretty rad.

Feel free to add more examples if you want. I eagerly await them.

Bonus Round!

Reimu is asked what the moon was like. This was her answer.

Autistics love details, because to us, every single detail looks important. The upside is you notice things others miss, but the downside is you can forget the important things by trying to carry them all!

Now with a side of ADHD!

ADHD and Autism mix in fun ways (for viewers). Because you notice every detail and you're easily distracted, you can easily get sidetracked by a completely irrelevant thought.

Reimu and Marisa both do this, but Marisa's thoughts tend to be more fun.

By the way, I'm just gonna keep tacking stuff on here now because I'm done and now I just get to share for fun. I'm gonna be hiding and blocking any jerkass comments so don't try me.

If anyone's looking for fan content that explores this side of Reimu, I highly recommend Yonurime's doujins. They depict Reimu blatantly autistic, and they do a lot to emphasize her silliness, making her sympathetic even if her misunderstandings sometimes cause the main conflict.

Someone asked for an example of Reimu becoming demand-averse, so here's one of those. Sanae says she doesn't want to drink at Reimu's party and since Reimu believes one HAS to drink at a party, she gets so offended she reveals another special interest:

Alcohol.

Of course.

Reimu gets some character development later in the chapter where she starts to do it again and then stops herself because she got in an argument with Sanae and realizes maybe she was the wrong one.

Plus she's gay and Sanae's cute. That definitely helped.

Reddit accused me of "Cherry Picking," so let me remind y'all I cited the ENTIRETY of Memorizable Gensokyo and I don't think that sank in. Let's take a closer look at that because it's LOADED with examples.

Off to a good start on the title page.

I'll skip what I already cited.

Reimu gets upset that Marisa finished the leaf cleaning by surprise. Inflexibility/distress at small changes (B2).

Marisa mentions studying, Reimu mishears, Marisa says "let's just go have fun!" and Reimu retorts, "didn't you say we were going to study?" Literal thinking (A1).

Marisa says they're here for a sneak peak & Reimu ALMOST emotes as she asks why they can't wait for the release date. Rule-oriented thinking (B2).

Marisa asks why Reimu's here and after a long pause, Reimu reuses Marisa's wordplay from earlier to deliver her answer (A1/B1).

Reimu interrupts Akyuu (A1) because she wants to see the Chronicle, as it's about Youkai, a special interest (B3) and Akyuu's statement gives Reimu the impression her status gives her "permission" to make this request (B2)

She's still not emoting, just weakly slouching (A2)

Reimu isn't making eye contact and has been awfully quiet while Marisa does all the talking the whole time, a familiar sight to anyone who's met an autistic person irl (A2) until at last, she finishes, smiles at last, and leaves.

This is the last we see of her.

And then it ends.

I had fun! Maybe I'll do this again some other time with more manga chapters, cuz trust me, there's a lot to cover.