[Inaccurate] The problems of modern Touhou and how to solve them (+ some info about doujin scene)

[vanyk]

I already began to think they would never find my post.

aggresive2hu and Nmlgc have found this thread. So I will discuss this topic again and I will reveal what I am doing now.
First of all, that post will be fully reworked. Why? Firstly, there are many mistakes and I conveyed some information badly. Secondly, this post is mostly just the combination of facts, what happened, but it doesn't show why and how it happened in most cases.
Before making that post, I mostly researched Western Touhou fandom and mostly how it looked like in mid 2010s-now. But sometimes I dived into earlier periods and into Chinese and Japanese fandoms. Back then I began to notice something. But after some time while I was searching using Nitter I found posts from your circle. And I began to understand what I noticed. I made a small dive into this and that is how that post appeared (the part about franchise was heavily based on tweets from your circle, other parts are mostly my thoughts). After that I continued to read your posts, but after some time I stopped, because there was no new info for me in your tweets (hearing every time that water is wet and doom-posting became boring for me + I didn't have a lot of free time). When free time appeared I started to research Chinese and Japanese fandoms more. But later one research (I will reveal all my sources in the remade post) inspired me to dig into this topic again, and much more deeper than you did (some your replies showed me that you don't know about a lot of things). I have read a lot of discussions (by Japanese and Chinese fans) and researches (with data and statistics) about doujin and Touhou (Touhou has been researched since its Golden Age). And a lot of progress on these directions has been made by doujin circles themselves.
Now I know much more about this. I know much more questionable things related to ZUN and Touhou (for example many kinds of commercialization appeared before and during the first half of the Golden Age, but what is more interesting, why it happened) (+ since 2000s, ZUN and Touhou has been very different from the rest of doujin sphere). But I will not just criticize him (or hate him, because it will not change anything), but will also analyze why and how that happened, which will be much more useful.
I can thank you all because your tweets led to all of these, although now I do not agree with more your points than before and with the way how you convey information. You sometimes act like other Western Twitter guys. But okay, most Western Touhou activities don't happen on Twitter, and I am not fully from Western World...

So, my current plan about this topic is to gather more information, make a post about some changes in doujin scene, make another post (I will not spoiler it) and with fully prepared setup I will remake this post.

The replies by Nmlgc are interesting, so I will answer to them.

Spoiler

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He seems to yearn for some golden age of Touhou in 2007-2012, but he couldn't be around to realize that the community was just as fragmented and gatekeeping back then as it is now. I wouldn't want to go back

Yes, now I know more about that now.
But the current strategy of gatekeeping on Western social medias is quite strange for me (especially if a newcomer want to play old games). Would not it be better to change it?

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Touhou is simply too many things at the same time, not to mention all the things it's collectively misunderstood for being, due to language/culture barriers and terrible communication/management.
Worse, it's almost like everything in and around Touhou was and continues to be precision-engineered to polarize as strongly as possible.

Agree, but why not to make knowing about different parts of the fandom much easier?

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Being open about piracy vs. hushing it up is the biggest wedge issue that probably single-handedly doubled the number of potential sub-communities. Then you've got every part of the core series being an acquired taste, the resulting primary/secondary divide.

About piracy agree. 
And this is the reason why I don't like these terms. If you aren't interested in lore, you are a secondary for lore fans. Don't have 1cc lunatic clears, you are a secondary for some lunatic players. That is why I don't really like not strictly defined terms (+ terms that define anything and terms that define nothing (but those are semantic problems))

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Then again, this whole rhetoric about uniting and improving the community sure reminds me of myself in 2011 and 2012. It's the same mindset that ultimately gave birth to thpatch, as my attempt to unite at least hackers, translators, modders, and non-English-language communities.
So maybe OP is onto something as well. After 18 years of the fandom not overcoming Touhou's inherent polarization, the odds are strongly against him, but who knows. I'm rooting for him, it's about time Touhou sees someone young doing another revolution just as I once did.

Thank you for your support. My current main goal is gathering info and links from different parts of Western Touhou fandom (+ a lot of useful things from Japanese and Chinese fandoms) in one place. This topic was just a compilation of my (and some of yours) thoughts I had (or found) during the research.

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The worst part, though, is how much he yaps about the good old doujin spirit as if Touhou's origin in a regionally isolated scene hasn't always been yet another major point of division. Define it how you want, but the gatekeeping is right there in the name!

I didn't really get what you meant. If I correctly understood the part you talk about it was based on tweets of your circle and the threads of Touhou haters one of you shared.
Now I know more about the changes in doujin scene in 2010s. And I didn't really get the point about "regionally isolated scene". Because Touhou is not the only thing not from Western World and not for Western World which became later popular there (and it works in the opposite direction).

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Not only do you have to basically be Japanese to participate, but this archaic way of releasing fan works is *the whole reason* why copyright is a perennial issue in Touhou. We were never intended to consume it, so why should they bother just one bit about what we think?

Because Touhou has already stopped being the only Japanese thing. Chinese fandom is a big part too.

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There's no way that Westerners with zero ties to Japan and no fluency in Japanese would even be talking about the doujin scene if Touhou didn't happen to originate in it. Us doing that only proves that Touhou has evolved way beyond; why *wouldn't* you commercialize at that point?

Agree with the first part.
About the last part, somewhat agree, but that isn't the reason of commercialization, because it began in 2007.

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It seems like Vanyk wants Touhou to return to this fad-like doujin state when it was still growing and right before it exploded, and wants that state to last forever. But well, that's the opposite of lasting mass appeal and having Mystia's Izakaya sell close to 1 million copies.

No, that is not what I want. I want Touhou to develop not to stagnate. (and aggressive commercialization is not the only way for development)

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So if non-Japanese people lament "the death of the doujin scene", all I hear is "I want more quirky obscure media to pirate and leech off creators while they're still small enough to not care". Especially if these points are argued on a piracy site. Not the best optics there.
I've never heard these words from people who actually contribute. Those either integrate into what's left of the scene, learning the language and all, or just go with the times and release their work in modern ways and without language or import barriers.

Back then most of my complains were about non-direct commercialization of not only Touhou, but the whole doujin scene (well, now I know that consultants who know about doujin exist). (the piracy is not the problem here, lol)
People who actually contribute mostly just analyze the changes without judging. But there are some researches by them which actually mention problems. (for example, there is a book (by a doujin circle) which goal is to teach doujin circles how to manage money and avoid problems many newcomers have (+ mentions a lot of other problems), or there is a recent research about the evolution of Touhou doujin scene where a quarter of the research is just about problems)
And Chinese fans don't need to fully integrate, they have a lot of their events.

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Ultimately though, none of this matters. Capitalism has evolved Touhou into its current form, and if it works well for ZUN, you can't argue against it.

Somewhat agree.

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"Persuading ZUN"… yeah, 2010 called and wants its memes back.

Back then I was just naive (and put that as more *preferable* but less realistic proposal)
Now, well, Yomiuriland x Touhou (I know the opinion of your circle about it) couldn't exist if Japanese fans didn't manage to change ZUN's opinion about one thing 6 years ago because they wanted to have a small (but similar from the side of guidelines and *unspoken rules*) thing. During those 6 years those things were just becoming bigger. (I will cover that later in more details).
Fans were doing that thing for 6 years, it was just a question of time when somebody more serious would try to do it (and as always ZUN would allow that).
+ I think you noticed that in most cases ZUN won't know about your existence until you (or somebody else) tells him about you. Many Japanese fans know about that and they know how to use this information.

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Besides, he's 47, so his life priorities have long shifted. Certainly explains the real-life allegories in the lore that you hate so much – it's what you start worrying about when you have kids.
And 27 years is already on the upper end as far as software development careers go.

Where did I say I hate real-life allegories? I don't like some really illogical things in print works.
About 27 is questionable, it depends on sphere.

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So the current trajectory of Touhou is either
1) ZUN retiring within the next 10-15 years with the fat stack of cash he's accumulated from selling out Touhou right now, or
2) ZUN enjoying being a living meme so much that he'll continue until he dies.

We will see, now it is hard to say how he will act.

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And maybe, just maybe, annual Touhou releases are the whole reason why all of us are still here. (Because game quality never mattered and these releases are just about keeping fan interest up, thus pulling us back in rather than letting us move on.)

Doesn't that how many series work?
Anyway agree.

PS: I read that "review" by OppositeWinner. Had some fan reading it (especially the cringe and biased way of explanation), and some points made me laugh. I know about most of those things, and in some points he is wrong. But what made me glad is the fact that he try to ask questions (rarely, but still).

That is all for now. Some facts I mentioned here are intentionally phrased in a way it would be hard to find info about them if you don't know about them. I am curious how many of these facts the circle know about. Most these facts mean nearly nothing if they are viewed separately. Anyway, in the remade post I will put them together and cover them in more details (+ give sources to them).

[Witch Hunter Siegfried]

Back when I used Reddit I remember getting in trouble for saying I "downloaded" EOSD (From here though didn't say anything related to that, just said I downloaded it) on a post I made about the game having technical issues lmao, They really expected me to import a 20 year old game that's long out of print lol

Edited October 6, 2024 by Witch Hunter Siegfried

[Witch Hunter Siegfried]

I've heard the Crowdfunding rules mainly exist due to the Japanese not liking crowdfunding hence it not being being allowed, as they view it almost as investment and making money before the work is made, combine that with the fact issues can arise from it, the one that comes to find is FNF which is in development hell, and I can honestly see why it's not allowed, though mostly neutral on that issue, though it might be nice to get more out there. For the mobile games should one want to make one you could just make it free with ads and pay to remove them, which is what a fair few games on mobile do anyway.

Edited October 6, 2024 by Witch Hunter Siegfried

[vanyk]

8 hours ago, Witch Hunter Siegfried said:

Back when I used Reddit I remember getting in trouble for saying I "downloaded" EOSD (From here though didn't say anything related to that, just said I downloaded it) on a post I made about the game having technical issues lmao, They really expected me to import a 20 year old game that's long out of print lol

That mostly happens on Touhou Reddit and Touhou Wiki because of DMCA drama when ZUN's legal team began to DMCA pirated official Touhou content. When it was revealed that it was by ZUN's legal team, Touhou Reddit and Touhou Wiki began to support this decision. It is hard to say who is responsible for DMCA: ZUN or Ruw (but knowing how ZUN acts with legal stuff and how Copyright Crusaders work, I think it was Ruw).

Also Touhou Reddit is against pirating PC-98 Touhou games (that is funny, because even Japanese fans use emulators to play PC-98 games)

8 hours ago, Witch Hunter Siegfried said:

I've heard the Crowdfunding rules mainly exist due to the Japanese not liking crowdfunding hence it not being being allowed, as they view it almost as investment and making money before the work is made, combine that with the fact issues can arise from it, the one that comes to find is FNF which is in development hell, and I can honestly see why it's not allowed, though mostly neutral on that issue, though it might be nice to get more out there.

It is slowly changing now, because doujin creators realized that they need to somehow survive during COVID. So this unspoken rule is changing slowly (I wrote about unspoken rules here). Now crowdfunding is not that big no-no. It was big no-no before because for many Japanese people such fan activities were just a hobby. And when you bought doujin/fan-made works it was viewed not as payment but as donation and showing your support. The primary goal of these activities was mostly getting fun, money is the secondary goal. So trying to actually get money from such activities was viewed as something weird and was not really supported. It began to slowly change since mid 2010s and COVID had some impact too, so crowdfunding is not a big no-no now.

8 hours ago, Witch Hunter Siegfried said:

For the mobile games should one want to make one you could just make it free with ads and pay to remove them, which is what a fair few games on mobile do anyway.

Somewhat yes, that is what some fangames do. But if you want to actually earn money or you have a very big fangame that may be not enough.
Funny thing there was a Touhou mobile before Cannonball fangame by fans which had gacha elements.

Edited October 6, 2024 by vanyk

[Witch Hunter Siegfried]

That PC 98 bit is especially silly, out of curiosity I checked Ebay to see if I could find the games to see how bad the prices were, they weren't even on there at all lol. But the changes to crowdfunding is a good idea, and it makes sense Zun is somewhat changing his mind on it, it's especially important for physical stuff like books and boardgames and the like 

Edited October 7, 2024 by Witch Hunter Siegfried

[Nmlgc]

Might as well respond directly here, that indirect Twitter format is too constricting anyway.

First of all, as you're probably going to see from my arguments, you can't really lump me in with the rest of "the Touhou hater circle". I do share some of their opinions and support them because these viewpoints deserve more representation; the whole Touhou spectacle is in dire need of well-informed criticism and they typically have stronger arguments than regular fans. So I help them out every once in a while if they happen to misrepresent any of the few things I was involved with, or that I know more about than they do. Since they're closer to my own viewpoints, they're very appreciative of that, and they get to keep their argumentative high ground.
Still, I have more differences with them than they have between each other. I do call out particularly bad and petty arguments on their side, and straight up don't care about a lot of aspects they criticize (lore, real-world politics, character designs, commercial advertising stunts, alcoholism, …). For the most part though, I prefer to keep my mouth shut about things I'm not at least somewhat sure about or invested in. Doesn't mean I agree with it.

Also, I've completely stopped looking at the fanwork scene in 2011. And while I do occasionally observe from a distance what's happening in the core series, I haven't actively interacted with any of it since 2018 either.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

But I will not just criticize him (or hate him, because it will not change anything), but will also analyze why and how that happened, which will be much more useful.

Kind of like you in a way. So you definitely know more about this than I do, not denying that. These days, I have better things to do than community research; ReC98 is the only reason I'm in this anymore, and once that business stops making money, I'm out.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

But the current strategy of gatekeeping on Western social medias is quite strange for me (especially if a newcomer want to play old games). Would not it be better to change it?

Completely with you on this one. ReC98 has long solved this argument for me via good old capitalism: I offer my time and skills to do Touhou-related coding and research work in exchange for money, and I'm eternally grateful for everyone who engages in this transaction because they believe it's a worthwhile investment. It's always interesting to know how my customers engage with the franchise beyond this transaction so I can somewhat tailor my product to their interests and make it even more worthwhile for them personally, but why would I judge them for it? That would be utterly self-destructive.
And I don't even have to care about getting more people to play the games because my business is growing just fine. These days, the ReC98 blog drives way more engagement than the actual code because people just like reading about anything and everything hidden within these culturally significant games at the core of the spectacle. Sure, the backer list includes a fair share of gameplay people, but it's far from being the majority. If ReC98 was funded entirely by gameplay fans, it would be in a significantly different place today.

You're talking to the one person who managed to monetize in-depth and highly technical game research toward an audience who doesn't play the games; of course I would agree that gatekeeping is silly. I'd even go further and say that we don't even have to care about what gatekeepers think. Because:

1. They're driving themselves out of the market with that stance.
2. I've been consistently selling out all my capacity anyway, whatever they're saying sure isn't hurting my bottom line, nor anyone else's.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

Agree, but why not to make knowing about different parts of the fandom much easier?

Again, I agree as well, because everybody benefits from that. I was simply theorizing why it hasn't happened so far, based on my own impressions.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

If you aren't interested in lore, you are a secondary for lore fans. Don't have 1cc lunatic clears, you are a secondary for some lunatic players.

People are seriously using these terms in this way now? Got any quotes?
But yes, the whole notion has always been there, it's invoked every time someone says "well actually, Touhou is [insert personal conviction about ZUN's main motivation]". I've long moved on to instead just saying the tongue-in-cheek "Touhou is anime" unironically; it captures the overall spectacle better than any individual element by instead referring to the biggest culture it unquestionably overlaps with. All my Touhou-related GitHub repos have the anime tag for precisely this reason.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

That is why I don't really like not strictly defined terms (+ terms that define anything and terms that define nothing (but those are semantic problems))

You know which other term is so overloaded as to be basically meaningless these days? "Doujin". Whenever I use the word, I'm referring to

• the exclusively Japanese scene of
• producing creative works that
• historically grew around
• physical, in-person conventions,
• hosted at fixed times during the year (thus implying production deadlines),
• where these goods are sold, from creators to fans (← real, human interaction!)
• thus invariably spawing a piracy scene if some of the resulting goods suddenly end up enjoying a surprising global popularity,
• as well as the physical stores that sell these goods after the fact.
• Which also happened to be the only sanctioned way of selling Touhou fanworks in the Golden Age (that thankfully neither of the two of us wants to return to).

Hence, the regionally isolated, low-key, person-to-person nature is the entire point. You might copy that concept, relocate it to China, and change the operating language of your piracy scene, fair enough. (Though I'd just refer to the resulting scene as tóngrén then, just like we have a dedicated word for Korean manga.) But as soon as you add global digital distribution, or have any aspirations to grow, develop, and professionalize beyond the above constraints, you've moved past "the doujin spirit", as simple as that. The English Wikipedia page does not mention those things either. So we all might as well stop using the term entirely at that point, and instead specify more clearly which aspect of doujin-ness we're talking about in any specific instance.
As far as I'm concerned, the only distinction that actually matters is whether you act as a hobbyist or a business. Every other term (including indie) is at best tribalism or PR/sympathy-fishing, and at worst upholding the silly, silly East vs. West dichotomy we're (hopefully) trying to move past here.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

About the last part, somewhat agree, but that isn't the reason of commercialization, because it began in 2007.

Looking forward to your citation for precisely that date.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

No, that is not what I want. I want Touhou to develop not to stagnate. (and aggressive commercialization is not the only way for development)

How should it develop then? Are we talking core series or fanworks here? The core series is beyond our control and can only barely be influenced by ZUN's close friends, so that train of thought is not even worth following as far as I'm concerned. "Becoming friends with ZUN and drinking a few beers together" is how the 2010 meme about persuasion continues.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

Yomiuriland x Touhou (I know the opinion of your circle about it) couldn't exist if Japanese fans didn't manage to change ZUN's opinion about one thing 6 years ago

I'm attributing this and other advertising stunts more to ZUN's gradually changing life situation, but who knows. Maybe there is definite proof from a ZUN interview. But until then, it's a pointless discussion about correlation and causation.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

Where did I say I hate real-life allegories? I don't like some really illogical things in print works.

aggressive2hu does, this was directed at her.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

We will see, now it is hard to say how he will act.

Indeed, and it's tiresome to engage in this perpetual guessing game.

On 10/5/2024 at 9:53 PM, vanyk said:

Doesn't that how many series work?

This was also directed at aggressive2hu and "the circle"'s wishes for more quality in the core series.

[vanyk]

Thank you for your reply.
I am sorry for lumping you in the rest of "the Touhou hater circle". I respect everything you made for Western Touhou fandom. I wish good luck with your ReC98 project.
I agree with some of their points, too. But only some of their points are strong, but some of their points (as you showed later) are quite strange. I don't really like the way how they convey information (but this may be only my problem). Many regular fans don't notice problems or they think that they are insignificant, that is why their points are weak. The points of "the Touhou hater circle" are stronger because they know that there are problems, but the problem is what to do next with this information. That is another reason why I don't fully agree with them, because I prefer to find a way how to use information. If you can improve their culture of discussion then I am with you.
For me Touhou is not only about official works but main part of Touhou are also derivative works. Each new official work just fuels Touhou fan scene give more material for it, brings interest back. One of the reasons why lore and story is very far from perfect and really vague is to give more material for different interpretations which leads to more ideas for fanworks. Touhou could not exist as we know if there were not a lot of fanworks. I know that for Western fans guidelines may be not that good (I read spaztron64's post), but for Japanese fans they are still good.
I research Touhou and doujin because I want to understand the background behind all of these to see what lessons we can learn from all of these. + I get fun from this, really. That is what I do in my free time (if I have some). I still like Touhou, I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it.

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

ReC98 is the only reason I'm in this anymore, and once that business stops making money, I'm out.

I understand 

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

You're talking to the one person who managed to monetize in-depth and highly technical game research toward an audience who doesn't play the games; of course I would agree that gatekeeping is silly. I'd

I see. For me Touhou is still more about hobby and I don't think about getting money for my activities. We see this problem from different points.

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

People are seriously using these terms in this way now?

About lunatic players for example this... wait they deleted it.
About lore fans there is a lore den in local community in my country which acts like this.
If we will take what Westerners call anime then yes, "Touhou is anime".

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

You know which other term is so overloaded as to be basically meaningless these days? "Doujin".

About doujin somewhat agree. Because even for the ones who participate in this activities it is hard to give strict definition for it (but I have seen doujin books, which tried to give a definition)
About points in definition you gave:
1. No (especially nowadays), because there were doujin(-like) events in Korea, China and Taiwan even in 2000s.
2-6. Agree.
7. Somewhat agree, but doesn't it happen with any other subculture (even with Western game and movie industries)? And yes, piracy greatly helped Touhou to get popularity outside Japan. And why are you so obsessed with piracy? Only because we are on a piracy site?
8. Physical stores are a way for circles to actually earn money if they want. They existed at least since 1990s.
9. It is a strange point because there have been paid Touhou items on digital stores at least since the beginning of 2010 (there may be earlier items, I didn't do a deep dive).

About person-to-person nature agree. About "doujin spirit" (which is much more vague than doujin), from your side a big part of doujin scene (I am not talking about Touhou) don't have "doujin spirit" because a lot of doujin circles sell their items on physical or digital stores.
We might stop use the term doujin and say that doujin and indie are the same thing, but there are still a lot of differences. Cultural differences are obvious, what is not obvious: doujin circles and indie studios are different entities from economical side and legal side (still there is no strict legal definition for doujin) (from legal side parody doujin works don't violate copyrights while parody indie works do (actually it is more complicated), that is why Japanese people say that Nintendo is kind to doujin (again actually it is more complicated), to indie... I think you know yourself). It would be great to reduce differences between doujin and indie, but it is hard to do it.

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

the only distinction that actually matters is whether you act as a hobbyist or a business.

Somewhat agree, but the border between them is vague.

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

Looking forward to your citation for precisely that date.

For now I will just say that a *thing* that is unacceptable for most of doujin scene (remember drama around Comiket at the beginning of September this year) and the *thing* Cannonball is criticized for (I am not about gacha here) actually happened in 2007 on Reitaisai (and happened many times later). Before that there were some contracts which led to this *thing*. And ZUN allowed that to happen.
Anyway, I will cover this in more details later.

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

How should it develop then? Are we talking core series or fanworks here?

About core series, it is hard to change it directly (even though you even said one of ways how to do it because even people not from Japan (not only Toby Fox) do it to influence ZUN's opinion. Why not to use this information?). + many (not all) recent commercial things are organised and made by semi-officials and some doujin event organisers, they got licenses which allow them to do it and ZUN just allows this to happen.
About fanworks it is complicated. From one side I like old formula "any Touhou work can be sold", but at the same time I don't really like aggressive commercialization like gacha fangames.

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

Maybe there is definite proof from a ZUN interview.

No he didn't say anything about it on interviews (but there were some ZUN's tweets about this topic), but we can see actual consequences of this. He was against the *thing* during an incident which happened in 2018 (a hint: THBWiki has info about the beginning of this incident), but ZUN allowed that *thing* to happen with limitations. But after 3 years (2021) fans organised another similar *thing* without those limitations and ZUN had no problems with that (+ he had no problems when semi-officials did something similar in 2020).
+ It is interesting who actually organised that collab (they are somewhat related to the story I mentioned above).

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

aggressive2hu does, this was directed at her.

On 10/7/2024 at 8:21 PM, Nmlgc said:

This was also directed at aggressive2hu and "the circle"'s wishes for more quality in the core series.

I see.

This discussion was really interesting, thank you for your replies.

Edited October 9, 2024 by vanyk
Fixed typos and made some points more clear

[Bhrjr]

Regarding the decline of Touhou, why not just focus on making Touhou more popular (in the west especially)? Then there'll be more western creative making Touhou fan contents, more Touhou conventions in the US so people don't have to fly 2000 miles just to attend Touhoufest, and more Touhou fanclubs in university just like how it is in Japan. The risk of bringing in so-called "bad apples" would be far trivial to worry for.

• Making things like fan archives or the "English THB wiki" won't attract more fans. (It won't appeal to people outside of the fandom, and probably not to the casuals)
• Even being a Touhou-tuber has its limits. (Most Touhou youtubers barely get 1000 views on their video, again due to Touhou's niche presence on the west)
• And let's not get started on being a "translation circle". (For example, IceFairy: Sure, they do have 6k followers on Twitter, but outside of Xitter no one knows/cares about them) I used to do scanlations too, until I realized you can only get so much attention with it.

For my solution? Learn how to draw/write stories/compose music/design game and make a Touhou fanwork that becomes as prominent as Mystia's Izakaya/Luna Nights. Which is what I'm doing right now; learning how to draw. (Hoping to one day make a highly commercialized (lol) fanime with a plot compelling enough to draw in the mainstream crowd. I'll probably talk more about it in your next post) And it certainly doesn't take a whole team to pull off, as KKHTA/Osana Reimu showed.

Heck, if you want to go big, it shouldn't even be that hard to ask Zun for permission in crowdfunding. He's recently approved Dankagu and Hifuu Club anime for crowdfunding, and it only seems to be a matter of responsibility/competency when he refuses permission (in one of the streams he said to be worried about somone "geting more money than they're able to actually handle".

 

 

On 10/8/2024 at 6:42 PM, vanyk said:

I see. For me Touhou is still more about hobby and I don't think about getting money for my activities. We see this problem from different points.

Well, for me I would want to make money from being a Touhou fan, that way I would spend less time working at a job that, isn't related to Touhou. I see it in a way that if you're truly serious about wanting to change Touhou, you would want to make it your career as well.

On 10/8/2024 at 6:42 PM, vanyk said:

About fanworks it is complicated. From one side I like old formula "any Touhou work can be sold", but at the same time I don't really like aggressive commercialization like gacha fangames.

How come? Because they're gacha games? Or would be upset if Touhou became popular like Pokemon and its merch are found all across the globe?

On 10/6/2024 at 4:53 AM, vanyk said:

Because Touhou has already stopped being the only Japanese thing. Chinese fandom is a big part too.

This reminds me the time when I looked at Korean Touhou forums. They've basically just become defeatists and sees China as the "big brother" that'll do all the heavy lifting.

 

Edited October 21, 2024 by Bhrjr

[vanyk]

Hello. Thank you for your reply.

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

why not just focus on making Touhou more popular (in the west especially)?

That may be a good idea (but I have heard that so many times, so the question is how to do it).

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

Making things like fan archives or the "English THB wiki" won't attract more fans. (It won't appeal to people outside of the fandom, and probably not to the casuals)

Those archives are useful for fans who want to get more content (TLMC is so useful) and it would be much better if different parts of fandom would know more about each other. They don't attract many fans themselves, but they help the ones who want to get into Touhou. (from what I read on Chinese pages THBWiki helped some people to get into Touhou and get a lot of info about it).

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

Even being a Touhou-tuber has its limits. (Most Touhou youtubers barely get 1000 views on their video, again due to Touhou's niche presence on the west)

Agree (and it is sad to see new "Touhou Introduction" videos at least once a few months). Youtube may help a few videos to get >100000 views, but yes, most of them don't get a lot of views.

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

And let's not get started on being a "translation circle". (For example, IceFairy: Sure, they do have 6k followers on Twitter, but outside of Xitter no one knows/cares about them) I used to do scanlations too, until I realized you can only get so much attention with it.

Agree (not a fan of Western Touhou Twitter). But it would be great to see more translations for fangames (it is great to see that some people translate ASL now) and books.

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

For my solution? Learn how to draw/write stories/compose music/design game and make a Touhou fanwork that becomes as prominent as Mystia's Izakaya/Luna Nights.

It is a good idea (I have an idea about one fangame). Such media can bring a lot of attention, but the question is what newcomers will do next? It is obvious that there are people who play those games and like them but at the same time not wanting to make a further step into Touhou. But what about people who want to do the next step? Everything you said before may be somewhat useful for them. But there are things that may push them off (things like original Touhou games being shmups, strange gatekeeping strategies on Western sites, etc.). It may be a good idea to make those things more appealing.
I wish you luck with your projects.
(I think Mystia's Izakaya's strategy about anime is a good one)

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

it shouldn't even be that hard to ask Zun for permission in crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a complicated thing, because still it is not very welcome, so asking for allowance may be not easy.

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

Well, for me I would want to make money from being a Touhou fan, that way I would spend less time working at a job that, isn't related to Touhou. I see it in a way that if you're truly serious about wanting to change Touhou, you would want to make it your career as well.

Still Touhou for me is a hobby, irl stuff is more important. I understand that I cannot spend all my time on Touhou, so it may be not very effective. (but the problem is: why people who may have much more time than me don't do it)
(something related to the stuff I do now: one of the major Touhou researchers circles (which has a lot of good material) is somewhat known in Japanese Touhou fandom (+ there are some people not from Touhou community who know about them) is nearly unknown outside of Japan: there is a few people from China and Korea who know about them and nearly noone in the West, which is sad).

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

Because they're gacha games? Or would be upset if Touhou became popular like Pokemon and its merch are found all across the globe?

Yes, I don't like gachas, game services, loot boxes and other such things; modern games shouldn't have them. And you don't need a company to do merch, fans can do it themselves (and sell it).

 

On 10/21/2024 at 8:03 AM, Bhrjr said:

This reminds me the time when I looked at Korean Touhou forums. They've basically just become defeatists and sees China as the "big brother" that'll do all the heavy lifting.

Understandable. But from what I see their situation is somewhat better than in the rest of Western fandom. But yes, Chisese fandom is a big one.

[Andrew Whiteingale 1998]

On 4/21/2024 at 9:57 PM, vanyk said:

On 4/21/2024 at 9:33 PM, kymoh said:

Combining outcomes of problems 1 & 2 -> harder for newcomers to get in -> less fans -> entire fanbase begins to degrade (fanworks and events)

 

its just about mobile games. its now the biggest gaming market

no one cares pc stuff is far less popular from now on. tbh, its true consoles and arcade have this feeling that can never be replaced by pc. though pc is good for some things it (internet) is overly open and abusive, for example I need to stop wasting time looking at girls with boobs in sexy outfits for so many hours.

[vanyk]

56 minutes ago, Andrew Whiteingale 1998 said:

its just about mobile games. its now the biggest gaming market

no one cares pc stuff is far less popular from now on. tbh, its true consoles and arcade have this feeling that can never be replaced by pc.

Yes and no. Because it is much more complicated.
The statement about nobody caring about PC stuff is quite weird. Who and where? For example, how many good and complicated strategies for consoles and mobile phones can you call? And why ExaGear, Winlator, Mobox, Termux-box and other x86/x86-64 Windows emulators exist then? In some cases people care about consoles only because of "timed exclusives", but consoles nearly never gave any instruments for modding. Why you need to buy multiple consoles when you can buy one PC and be sure you can play all games you want. + many people I know irl prefer to use PC for games. But I'm getting off topic.

Nearly all doujin (and Touhou) games are made for PC. The market of doujin games is not reducing and there many good releases. But the number of new Touhou doujin games releases is not as big as it used to be. The reduction of Touhou Doujin is much more complicated process. There are a lot of ways to get Touhou content using mobile phone (this is one of the reasons why the number of younger fans increased) and there are a lot of mobile Touhou fangames (and not only gacha ones). So the problem here is not in PC stuff.

[urpani]

Thanks for such big contribution to Touhou!
Yeah, the thing is entry threshold i higher and "motivation" (very rough word, but i guess you get the sense) of getting into series as one complete thing(discovering treasures of game itself, it's entire world of music and tons of doujinshi and (not so tons) official literature). Backbone not so big now and newcomers stagnation is a large problem and touhou can't get someone intrested beacuse touhou does not reflect that shine to newcomers that would make them go to  discover it as phenomenon instead of seeing it as funny plush toys/sum drawn anime girls gacha. Big big thanks for all your posts that relate to this actual biggest problem of such awesome franchise, really encouraging to attend to touhou again and do something as part of it.

 

[vanyk]

On 1/8/2025 at 8:55 PM, urpani said:

Thanks for such big contribution to Touhou!
Yeah, the thing is entry threshold i higher and "motivation" (very rough word, but i guess you get the sense) of getting into series as one complete thing(discovering treasures of game itself, it's entire world of music and tons of doujinshi and (not so tons) official literature). Backbone not so big now and newcomers stagnation is a large problem and touhou can't get someone intrested beacuse touhou does not reflect that shine to newcomers that would make them go to  discover it as phenomenon instead of seeing it as funny plush toys/sum drawn anime girls gacha. Big big thanks for all your posts that relate to this actual biggest problem of such awesome franchise, really encouraging to attend to touhou again and do something as part of it.

Hello. Thank you for your post. I am sorry for late reply.
Sadly, I cannot say that my contribution is very big. My posts are not very popular, because I post them on Touhou forums (and they are not very popular nowadays). In addition the latest topic I covered is niche (but it is important if you want to understand the roots and how it works from inside).

Touhou has a lot of different interesting things and sadly a lot of them aren't well known. For example critical doujinshi, how much have you heard about them? But there are at least 4 Japanese critical Touhou events (+ 1 Korean and several Chinese), one of them is Touhou critical-only doujinshi sales event + some Touhou reading clubs have critical doujinshi and critical presentations. On the West such things are not very popular.
The problem is that for newcomers it is difficult to get into Touhou nowadays, and, as you said, aren't very motivated to get into it. There are a lot of interesting things for different people, but it is hard to make these things more noticable. (From this side I really like Japanese and Chinese Touhou communities. Japanese fans make books about such things while Chinese fans have sites about that (and there are some links to these sites from THBWiki or Touhou.Pub)). Many Touhou fans know (hear) that there are a lot of things, but rarely interact with them.

About the first post in this topic I made, I cannot say it is that good (I have made some post above there I explained why). I can recommend you to read this article I published, which is about Touhou Doujin in Japan and how it changed. It is based on data and it is better.
I don't have a lot of free time this month, but my current plans is moving to the topic of commercialization. + There will be some post before that are somewhat related to that topic.

[urpani]

6 hours ago, vanyk said:

Sadly, I cannot say that my contribution is very big. My posts are not very popular, because I post them on Touhou forums (and they are not very popular nowadays).

I guess it's more about awareness since your works fully covering mentioned topics in them.

6 hours ago, vanyk said:

Many Touhou fans know (hear) that there are a lot of things, but rarely interact with them.

6 hours ago, vanyk said:

I don't have a lot of free time this month, but my current plans is moving to the topic of commercialization. + There will be some post before that are somewhat related to that topic.

Touhou has no starter point to get dragged in (You can obviously start from touhou 2/6, but it doesn't really matter if you start getting intrested in touhou from written work or any kind of music since it leads to one thing - getting into series), and it really never needed it because it's like putting together a puzzle to get one image in result. It was always this way and even now, but touhou got distorted and ZUN really needs to do retrospection on his series to realise the things that made touhou as touhou and reappraise what he really wants for touhou. In realistic scenario he is only one able to carry this out, he needs to work only with people who actually care about touhou itself as series(opinion of a dilettante(who asked>?)).  If there's manual work that can be putted on someone else i would be glad to help with this.

 

 

[vanyk]

On 1/12/2025 at 8:40 PM, urpani said:

I guess it's more about awareness since your works fully covering mentioned topics in them.

About awareness agree. But sometimes I see that some my posts doesn't fully cover mentioned topics (that mostly happens after months the post was published, because during such period of time you can find and learn a lot of things you didn't know before).

On 1/12/2025 at 8:40 PM, urpani said:

Touhou has no starter point to get dragged in (You can obviously start from touhou 2/6, but it doesn't really matter if you start getting intrested in touhou from written work or any kind of music since it leads to one thing - getting into series), and it really never needed it because it's like putting together a puzzle to get one image in result.

Agree that there is no starting point. The only problem is that a lot of fans are interested only in some aspects of the series, and the things which are not on the surface are very likely to be missed.

On 1/12/2025 at 8:40 PM, urpani said:

It was always this way and even now, but touhou got distorted and ZUN really needs to do retrospection on his series to realise the things that made touhou as touhou and reappraise what he really wants for touhou.

From lore side ZUN tried to do retrospection of old characters in FDS. About the whole series, well, he just does what he wants to do. Things just work, so he doesn't change them. What actually are "the things that made touhou as touhou"? For different people they are different. From gameplay side it can be from patterns themselves to scoring, for these things you can play fangames as ZUN doesn't improve these aspects. From music side, well, ZUN still does good music (but not everyone agrees with this) (+ Touhou style music exists nowadays). About lore and story it always was vague and "not perfect" and it was good for fanwork creators. From the side of doujin circles, "any Touhou work can be sold" was very important.

It is hard to say what ZUN actually wants to do with the series. Maybe the printing work ZUN is doing now will show us that?

On 1/12/2025 at 8:40 PM, urpani said:

In realistic scenario he is only one able to carry this out, he needs to work only with people who actually care about touhou itself as series(opinion of a dilettante(who asked>?)).

Somewhat yes, but he works with some people (and asked some help with UDoALG and the patch for it). + Recently, he drank beer with some doujin circles, they could offer some help and ideas (if I remember correctly many of them + BeatMARIO asked to make games harder). Also, ZUN works with Ruw (does he care about the series and fans? The answer is obvious. But it is important to note that he didn't appear out of nothere), and already have a lot of contracts with semi-official (do all of them actually care abiut the series?). ZUN can become less lazy and begin to work more with people, but there are some things that would be hard to change for him.

On 1/12/2025 at 8:40 PM, urpani said:

If there's manual work that can be putted on someone else i would be glad to help with this.

For now I don't have such work to do. If you are not afraid of statistics and monotonous work, then you can try to make lists of all unique Touhou circles for each year (some ideas how it can be used were offered here). About less boring work, if you have access to QQ, I can offer you to count the scale of Chinese Touhou Doujin (make a table of all Chinese Touhou-only events (THBWiki's one is not full)). Or you can read some research papers and come up with your own idea for your research.

Edited January 15 by vanyk