Wait...Touhou had a convention outside Japan?

[CountVonNumenor]

Randomly, I have heard about this convention that took place in the US in 2014 and 2015. Apparently it proved to be a bit of a fail, and was never held afterwards. Since I did not know too much about it beforehand, I will just leave a link to a video about it.
 

And just to leave here one more bit of thing, not so related to the Touhoucon, but more about the community as expressed by people who watched this video:
 

Huh, for the longest time I struggled to see Touhou in any bad light (hence I gave it the title of the most "purest"  Fandom (at least compared to MHA and more mainstream stuff)) but this one could be the first stain I see in this community. Granted it is not THAT big of a stain, but a stain non of the less. Thanks for sharing this news. I still hold the opinion that Touhou still has THE most purest  Fandom compared to other franchises but no one is immune to mistakes. Here's for the hope that the next Touhou con is a good one!

EDIT - ok so a lot are saying things back at my statement so let me expand. When I say pure I dont mean free from R34 or hentai and stuff. that is 100% normal in any Japanese media. What I meant pure is in modern western anime terms. Like the MHA or Danganronpa fandom, I can never skip a day where I don't see someone in the fandom getting cancelled or trying to push a political thing or having backlash from creator to fan and etc. If anything I say the Kinda low profile of the Touhou community is a good thing as at least we mostly behave online. I rarely seen Touhou fans fuck up on that department. I use pure as I don't know any other word or phrase so if you all got better ideas, let me know.

And in reply to that first comment:

The Touhou community hides the smartest people. The percentage mathematicians / physicists, philosopher and musicians I found in the TH groups I join far exceeds any other community I have seen. I wouldn't call any community pure, because it's made up of human and as a creature, we are doomed to be flawed. I haven't played Lost Words, but I have played Danmaku Kagura (I was hyped about it cuz I haven't played a rhythm game like this for over 7 years). I played for 5 days and I quit, not because the game or the community is bad, but it just doesn't feel Touhou-like. Seeing all the fast-paced gaming experience just like other gacha / rhythm games I was... I can't say disappointed, but I doubt this is the core idea of Touhou. ZUN's personal / original goal of making Touhou is to use it as a medium for music, which is also the original reason I joined this fandom. However as I dug deeper I found things that sparked my interests: programming, philosophy and even mathematics. The beauty of all this is not their individual complexity, but rather how they come in at the right place and play their parts. As for conventions, I don't really give many shit now because the Japanese government is oppressing the holding of conventions for their potency in spreading Covid. This is still fine, but the way that they banish published materials for illegitimated reasons is what drive me and part of the fanbase off. That's why we have conventions held on the dark web (Onionket, search it up if you are interested), because the fanbase isn't the whole of the issue, but also the bullshit politics. On this point, with the amount of R-18 and even R-18G tags I have seen on pixiv and booru is enough to put TH community high on the guillotine list of "feminism" and "child pornography". There's much more that I can go into with the horrible abduction of "freedom" and "justice" with an innocent community, but I think you get the picture. In the end, I do indeed hope that Touhou remains a huge yet behind-the-curtain community. Because the little amount of lore present in the original game, the space for creativity has definitely made it one of the most fascinating community ever. I don't wish things from this community make world headlines or become blockbusters, but when people comes around the corner and picked a piece of story up down at the space, I hope it could change their day a little. I have drifted too far away from the original topic, so sorry for wasting your 6 min of reading time, have a good day :D.

[Gou the frog]

I've heard of the news about the convention yet it ended poorly. Only the shell not the nut. What I mean by that is:

Back in 2015, people truly were gathering in Touhoucon since it is very rare for one to happen outside of Japan. Naturally, people there were having a great time with little to no drama. Those times were chill and if there is a convention, there's is bound to be guests: Musicians, Bands, Animators of all kind. Must've been a real treat to go there. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to pay a visit since I'm still in school.

Here is a reddit post about reviewing the 2015 Touhoucon.

Quote

 

 

[CountVonNumenor]

51 minutes ago, Gou the frog said:

I've heard of the news about the convention yet it ended poorly. Only the shell not the nut. What I mean by that is:

This is an interesting bit of Touhou community history, which somehow is quite unknown to me. It comes just 3-4 years after the end of the "golden age", and 5 years before I joined the fandom. Overall, my knowledge of what was going on around that time (this is when LoLK and HSiFS were released, correct?) is quite blurry in regards to what fans were up to in both the Japanese and rest of the world groups.

 

53 minutes ago, Gou the frog said:

Back in 2015, people truly were gathering in Touhoucon since it is very rare for one to happen outside of Japan. Naturally, people there were having a great time with little to no drama. Those times were chill and if there is a convention, there's is bound to be guests: Musicians, Bands, Animators of all kind. Must've been a real treat to go there.

You mean that things to have actually looked good? From the few photos I have seen, it somehow gave me a bit of a... cringe (?) vibe. But could be just me, someone who is not used to conventions and cosplaying (in general, I think genuinely looking cosplay is hard to do, and sometimes things simply do not translate very well when brought into the real life). But if people had fun, I think that is what matters the most. Heard they are looking to revive the idea of a Touhou convention in the western world next year, so I wonder how will that end up. Maybe, if things are well organized, it could be a success. But I also wonder what kind of people it will attract, knowing the general evolution of what people Touhou is slowly dragging in nowadays, at least as seen in the past 12 months. 

 

57 minutes ago, Gou the frog said:

Here is a reddit post about reviewing the 2015 Touhoucon.

I think this very Reddit post has also been used in that video at some point as source of information. But it's always good to have a link with info from that very period. It somehow remains like a bit of a time capsule, something which is become more easily to do nowadays with the advent of the internet and digital databases. 

[buskerdog]

I remember reading about this somewhere, indeed very rare to see a Touhou convention outside of Japan. Of course, it would appear that any Touhou convention that does exist outside of Japan exists in America (although idk, I could see it being a thing in China or Korea too. But outside of Asia, yes of course it's only going to be found in America.)

I believe that soon, there's going to be a new Touhou convention in America called "Touhoufest". Organized by different people of course, can't be letting the same failure happen again. I don't know much about it other than that, I guess it's going to be the same sort of thing but "better".

[CountVonNumenor]

1 hour ago, buskerdog said:

I believe that soon, there's going to be a new Touhou convention in America called "Touhoufest".

Yes, that is the one I was referring to. Gonna be next year

[nightsedge561]

bro i cant wait for touhoufest ill finallly meet other touhou fans irl

[TheM3ds]

Yep, I just learned about it this week and HO BOY was it an interesting find.

Needless to say the staff wasn't the best and the bought behind the whole thing wasn't exactly high, not to mention they couldn't afford beds for the special guests and even worse is that they got charged about $1200 for the hotel stay if I'm not mistaken, I also heard they got Michiru Yamane (Composer for Castlevania series) as a guest too but I don't know if that's true or not.

On 5/5/2022 at 8:35 AM, Gou the frog said:

I've heard of the news about the convention yet it ended poorly. Only the shell not the nut. What I mean by that is:

Back in 2015, people truly were gathering in Touhoucon since it is very rare for one to happen outside of Japan. Naturally, people there were having a great time with little to no drama. Those times were chill and if there is a convention, there's is bound to be guests: Musicians, Bands, Animators of all kind. Must've been a real treat to go there. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to pay a visit since I'm still in school.

Here is a reddit post about reviewing the 2015 Touhoucon.

 

This post pretty much explains the fiasco Though I don't know about the scoring

I can only pray TouhouFest 2023 doesn't end up becoming a disaster but I'm sure it'll be fine.

Edited May 6, 2022 by TheM3ds
Forgot about TouhouFest 2023

[vlad07]

I was kinda excited about touhoufest 2023 but then i found out i would have to travel like 6000 km and pay 1000$ for the plane so yea 

 

[CountVonNumenor]

22 hours ago, vlad07 said:

I was kinda excited about touhoufest 2023 but then i found out i would have to travel like 6000 km and pay 1000$ for the plane so yea 

 

I've really been curious for a while now. Your name, as well as the stated distance from the US... are you also Romanian? Sorry if this question might be a little pushy. 

[SasaMisa]

A very interesting read, CountVonNumenor, so thanks for that. Personally, I've only ever been to one anime convention in my entire life: MinamiCon 3 held in Southampton in 96. My brother drove me and a mate all the way down there and it was okay, but not something I'd ever care to repeat if I'm honest. Might be different with the real deal in Japan of course, not that I'm likely to be doing that anytime soon in my condition. (^_~)

Hmm, and I seem to recall Chisa Yokoyama herself came to the one they ran the following year (Pretty Samy's voice actress essentially; a loli character I was seriously into as if my username wasn't a big enough clue), although she didn't receive half the reception she did in Japan simply because the likes of Pretty Mutation & Puniket could never exist in the West. (^w^)

ETA: My brother told me yesterday that MinamiCon is actually still going to this day. That came as a bit of surprise to me as the original guy - Simon I think his name was - quit due to the workload and lack of interest after the fourth one. I guess things changed/improved over the years.

Edited May 8, 2022 by SasaMisa
Adding some text.

[vlad07]

On 5/7/2022 at 10:00 PM, CountVonNumenor said:

I've really been curious for a while now. Your name, as well as the stated distance from the US... are you also Romanian? Sorry if this question might be a little pushy. 

I'm polish and bad at choosing names lmao

[Macbeth]

THEYRE GONNA MAKE A TOUHOUCON 2023?

hey bros, I hope to see you then

[Agus Mandala]

it was, lets hope TouhouFest 2023 didn't ended up like that event