U.N. Owen Was Her? — Flandre Scarlet floating before a stained glass window with crystal wings

U.N. Owen Was Her?

2002viral videoclassic

Published October 4, 2026

U.N. Owen Was Her? is a doujin game track composed by ZUN for the 2002 shooter The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, where it plays during the Extra Stage boss fight against vampire Flandre Scarlet. The frantic chiptune became one of the most remixed songs on Nico Nico Douga and later fueled the 'Ronald McDonald Insanity' YouTube MAD trend of 2008.

video game music memes nico nico douga memes youtube poop memes otaku culture memes song remix memes

Overview

U.N. Owen Was Her? (U.N.オーエンは彼女なのか？) is the Extra Stage boss theme from The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the sixth Touhou game and the first entry released for Windows1. Composed by series creator ZUN, the track scores the fight against Flandre Scarlet, which is why fans still call it 'Flandre's theme'2. Its driving tempo and jittery melody made it the single most sampled piece in Touhou's enormous remix catalog3.

The meme is really the song itself, chopped, pitched, and dropped under unrelated footage. Doujin producers built dance remixes and hardcore edits, YouTubers paired it with cursed video clips to make YouTube Poop Music Videos, and vocal fans wrote their own Japanese and English lyrics because ZUN never gave the piece any3. Dedicated listeners also kept hunting down loose covers, including a 2010 video that fans briefly mistook for sheet music by composer John Stump3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Touhou doujin game (source) / Nico Nico Douga and YouTube (viral spread)
Creator
ZUN; meme spread driven by COOL&CREATE and anonymous Nico Nico MAD creators
Date
2002

ZUN released The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil in 2002 as Touhou's first PC-98-free Windows installment, and U.N. Owen Was Her? plays only once in the game, as the backing track for secret boss Flandre Scarlet1. The composition and arrangement are credited solely to ZUN under his Shanghai Alice label2.

The title is a wink at Agatha Christie's 1939 novel And Then There Were None, where party hosts Ulick Norman Owen and Una Nancy Owen share initials that read as a homophone for 'unknown'3. ZUN leaned on that pun to match Flandre's reclusive, barely-canonized character.

How It Spread

The first notable remix was Last Brutal Sister Flandre S (最終鬼畜妹フランドール･S) by doujin circle COOL&CREATE, released as track 11 on the group's Touhou arrange CD at Comiket in December 20044. The hardcore edit is widely cited by fans as the remix that pushed U.N. Owen Was Her? into general doujin rotation, and COOL&CREATE kept re-releasing variants on later discs5.

MAD culture on Nico Nico Douga picked the song up in early 2007, with uploads such as 第二回紅白夢寐合戦東方夢神楽 pairing it with other Touhou themes in medley videos3. The track crossed over to YouTube later that year when a MAD paired COOL&CREATE's remix with a Japanese McDonald's commercial featuring Ronald yelling 'Ran Ran Ru,' producing the McRoll / Ronald McDonald Insanity edits that went viral through 20086. YouTube Poop creators then folded the song into their own absurdist edits7, and in March 2010 fans briefly argued over whether a flashy piano cover was a Touhou remix or a performance of John Stump's 'Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz' before confirming it was yet another take on COOL&CREATE's arrangement3.

Timeline

2002-08

ZUN releases The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil at Comiket 62, debuting U.N. Owen Was Her? as Flandre Scarlet's Extra Stage theme.

2004-12

COOL&CREATE drops Last Brutal Sister Flandre S at Comiket, the hardcore remix that pushes the song into wider doujin rotation.

2007

Early Nico Nico Douga MADs such as 第二回紅白夢寐合戦東方夢神楽 begin sampling the track in Touhou medley videos.

2008

The Ronald McDonald Insanity / McRoll MAD, pairing the COOL&CREATE remix with a Japanese McDonald's ad, spreads across YouTube.

2010-03-13

A piano cover sparks a fan debate over whether it is U.N. Owen Was Her? or John Stump's Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz.

Frequently Asked Questions