U.N Owen Was Her? (U.N.オーエンは彼女なのか？)

About Touhou

Touhou Project is a series of vertical-scrolling 2D shooting games developed by Shanghai Alice, first for the now-obsolete Japanese PC-98 platform, later for Windows. The games are of the danmaku genre, or “bullet hell”, where the player must weave through ridiculous amounts of bullets while shooting the enemy. Due to it’s fantasy atmosphere, Large (all-female)cast, and surprisingly good music, Touhou has become immensely popular in Japan, and is a powerful meme-generator in its own right.

The song

The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is the 6th game in the series but the first to be released for the Windows operating system in 2002.
U.N Owen was her? (U.N.オーエンは彼女なのか？) is the theme of the Extra Stage Boss, Flandre Scarlet. As a result, the song’s name can also be referred to as “Flandre’s theme”.

Remixes

As said in the Touhou article:

The music in Touhou is immensely popular has been rearraged and remixed numerous amount of times and included in music videos. Many arrangement CDs can be found for sale at Comiket. There are even music circles (groups) dedicated to remixing Touhhou music.

Touhou soundtracks have a propensity to be remixed by fans. U.N Owen Was Her? was no exception. With it’s catchy melody, and ominous mood, it became one of the most remixed Touhou songs ever.

One of its most famous remixes 最終鬼畜妹フランドール･S (saisyu kichiku imouto flandre. S, Last Brutal Sister Flandre S) which will further be used in many MAD movies was released at Comiket in December 2004. (track n°11) It is believed to be one of the first U.N Owen Was Her? remix ever created as well.

Other remixes include a metal cover, techno remixes like this one, piano/dance mixes or even a symphonic rock version, a vocal rendition and many more.

Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz

On March 13, 2010 the following video was uploaded on Youtube:

Because the song has a resemblance to U.N Owen was her? many people were confused what to believe. Touhou fans strongly believed that the song was just another remix. Others doubted this, since the song isn’t completely similar to the original.

A reason for doubt was that the video said the song was by John Stump. John Stump was known because his music sheets usually seemed impossible to perform. He wrote music that could not be played, but seen. The video, mainly near the end, also contained a lot of impossible parts. This made people believe it was actually a song from John Stump, which just happened to sound similar to U.N Owen was her? The actual Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz by John Stump is actually a lot different.

In the end Touhou fans were proven right. The song was actually a remix of a remix, from COOL&CREATE’s version to be precise. The song was from a collection of other piano midis that were edited together that were based on COOL&CREATE’s version and the original.^[1]

MADs

Nico Nico Douga users were among the first to reuse the popular song in MADs videos, starting in the early 2007 with [MAD][色々]第二回紅白夢寐合戦東方夢神楽.
Many MADs will then be made within the Nico Nico Douga website.

Westerners had to wait that the song would be mixed with another strong Japanese meme, Ran Ran Ru, which involve Japanese Ronald McDonald commercials, to get a glimpse at its popularity. This peculiar MAD will be known to us as “Ronald McDonald Insanity” or “Mcroll’d”, appearing in the beginning of 2008:

Inevitably someone had to redraw Flandre Scarlet on top of Ronald Mcdonald:

Coupled with the Nico Nico Douga creations, Youtubers will also participate in the meme by making a countless amount of MADs and YTPMVs as well.

The following videos are a slight and non-exhaustive account of this huge phenomenon.

Search Interest

External Links

^[1] Yahoo Answers – Death Waltz or remade U.N. Owen was her?