Most controversial bits and takes of the Touhou fanon?

[CountVonNumenor]

[SIZE=12pt]In the past almost 20 years, there has been an incredibly vast amount of Touhou fan content, ranging in quality from very good to very bad.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]However, I do think there might have been moments of fan-made content that did not really bring a good image upon our community. Has there actually been anything to ruin the reputation of this series in the past due to what its fans have created so that people would end up looking weirdly at you when saying that "oh, you are a Touhou fan"? What would be some of most hated, most controversial or just insulting depictions of Touhou characters and/setting in fanon content? Anything counts whether it be animations, PVs, doujins, memes and fanon portrayals, art you name it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]In a way, I am quite curious about this because in my one year of being in the community I've seen and heard and seen a lot of things good and bad, and have heard of some more controversial depictions I have not checked out.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]If you are to ask me, there are a few things I would point out, at least based on this one and a half years of being part of the community:[/SIZE]

• [SIZE=12pt]I still cannot get myself to watch stuff like KKHTA - I honestly believe that series is series dark and edgy for the sake of; I did try give it a try, but simply from reading its synopsis and seeing a few clips, I thought it is too much for me[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]On a similar note – the (in)famous doujins of Zounouse; I guess the saying “dark humor is like food: not everybody gets it” is true[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]Anything NSFW – this is very much a grey area for me. I would most likely be a hypocrite saying I absolutely despise it (I mean, after all we have nude paintings in museums for some reasons, and as long as your doujin drawing is done in the idea of being something artistic and not just lewd for the sake of lewd, it is OK). However, the thing very weird and wrong to me is when drawing lewds of child-looking characters. That is just one of those weird things about Japan I can still not understand[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]Innocent Key music and videos – in my early days, I did see a few of their PVs, as I was getting recommended a lot of old Touhou materials. For a while, I did like Touhou Celebrity: Abunai Sisters, until I learnt that the song, together with Touhou Sweets and other materials of the kind were among the creators of the Sakuya abuse/molesting by the Scarlet sisters thing (how in the hell did that even come to be?)[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]Subterranean Rose – as far as I know, extremely controversial and probably the biggest sin of Innocent Key if asking in the community. Again, another video I have seen in the early days, without knowing what I was watching until it got to the…how to put it, funny parts. I have seen some calling it "the worst Touhou PV", but for different reasons. Some say it was over the top with the love tringle, others say it was lame because even the uncensored version of it was not "saucy" enough. For me, for almost a year after watching that I only remembered it as "that Touhou PV with the love triangle yuri and Koishi as main villain"[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]The Become Fumo drama last summer, followed by the two AmiAmi Fumo sale fiasco. From all I know, Fumo sales were supposed to last 3 weeks, but all the plush toys were sold in 3 minutes[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]Whatever is going on Twitter - see Linmie and why people jumped to either attack of defend her in Twitter style for her brown/tanned Reimu art. But I think this is happening not only to Linmie, but many other authors? I do not know exactly about how Twitter/Tumblr artists work like and the whole idea of “correcting the character”, so please help me understand this a little better[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt](Touhou) Cookies – this thing is apparently still going? At least according to Danbooru and a large number of Cookie posts recently, it seems like this thing is still alive. [/SIZE]
  

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Then, if I turn towards more or less controversial takes, there’s… this https://youtu.be/k-FDvWHsUp4[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]This is actually very new – posted just a month ago. One hour of content I have not watched, not knowing if there’s any actual valid made, or I am just about to waste an hour. I was ready to completely dismiss it, but then I went a bit through the comments, seeing there also are relevant people discussing like MTB.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]From reading the comments, I did manage to get a few ideas of what was going on in the video:[/SIZE]

• [SIZE=12pt]ZUN is relying too much on the idea of fans filling the lore gaps with their own interpretations, therefore making the story weak and without substance[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]Every game from LoLK onwards has gone down in quality, each game becoming worse than the previous[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]Modern ZUN drawing style is bad, and Misumaru is the peak of bad design[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]Simply, ZUN no longer really cares about Touhou, and just wants to finish the series already (to be fair, it is not like he initially planned for only 8 games, but fan popularity brought him back to continue the series)[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=12pt]Touhou Lost Word (and gacha) is the worst thing to have ever happened to Touhou, and why did ZUN even allow something like this to ever happen (“this is so fucked up that you can marry the lolis” (in the game, through the Ring of Fate mechanic, even if said Ring is not necessarily that)[/SIZE]
  

[SIZE=12pt]Ironically, I have not seen any mentions of the fandom and all the fuck-ups we have done as a fandom, especially in the past 6 months. But I guess that fits with the theme, since it mostly focuses on the things related to ZUN, not the fans. Also, had this been uploaded 1 month later, the DMCA would have more than likely been added on the black list. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]I am sorry for another negative thread. However, I really would like to know your thoughts on the problems I have mentioned, for constructive purposes. Also, what would you add to the list of controversial, or at least questionable things done by the fandom and fanon? Be it actions of the fans, weird depictions of the characters and other things like this.[/SIZE]

 

[buskerdog]

I mean there's a lot to digest here, but what I was actually drawn to in your post was the video you linked, which you say you have not watched yet.

I decided to watch it (although I did skip some parts regarding print works I haven't yet read) and it is a very well made video which I think makes a fair analysis and criticism of the franchise. Although I have not been a fan for as long as he has, since we made a similar journey of playing the games through in order, I found myself relating a lot to his opinions on the earlier games. Regarding the rest of the video, I don't agree with all of his points, but I don't think any of his takes are invalid either, and I think that my eyes have been opened to some perspectives I had not previously considered.

I don't think I'm able to make a concise "response" to his video as a whole, but I would like to cherry pick some points that were made and give my own viewpoints on (I'm probably mostly going to pick points that I disagree with, for the sake of providing my own opinion. But I do think there were several valid observations and critiques made as well).

Spoiler

Points are in no particular order because I can't remember what order they appeared in the video.

• "ZUN's new artsyle is worse than the old one"
  Disagree. I too see the charm in the older artwork myself, but I don't think it could have stayed like that forever. I do take one issue with the newer artstyle, which is that a lot of characters suffer from "same face" syndrome, but other than that I think the new art looks very clean and I like it.
  
• "The new music is worse"
  Hard disagree. Two particular instruments he actually picked on for not liking, I'm a big fan of. Music will always be a very subjective thing, and clearly stylistic changes have occurred which can make you prefer one era of music to another, but I think it is straight up wrong to say that the new music is "worse" than the originals. We're just very nostalgic about the classics. My rule of thumb is that if the title screen music still slaps, then ZUN hasn't lost it. And the title screen music still slaps.
  
• "Touhou 16, 17 and 18 are bad because of the story"
  I understand parts of this but am not completely in agreement. I think this is more a case of "unlived potential" than straight up being bad. The thing is, Touhou 16, 17, and 18 have all brought in completely new casts of characters, and then done very little with them after that (with the exception of Okina). These games all have very self-contained stories that don't spill out into other games, unlike the classic era which had a lot of crossover, or the first modern era where each game's events directly triggered the next.
  Here's the thing... Touhou 14 is also just like this. And he said he liked that one. So I don't really see how this argument holds water. He did mention that this also had something to do with how the stories intertwine with the print works, which I can't comment on since I have only read some of them. But from the perspective of the games, this really doesn't feel like anything new. In fact, a lot of the fleshing out of the previous cast is done through Tasofro's fighting games, and they've only made one game since Touhou 16 - which is actually something I want to create a thread about soon (and this video has spurred me on in wanting to make that thread). So in my opinion while the past few games have felt less connected to each other than previous instalments, I don't think they were bad on their own. And on the topic of Touhou 18 having plot holes, ZUN did say that it was meant to be a "lighter" experience with less seriousness.
  
• "Saki and Misumaru are fanservice characters to make up for the degrading story"
  This is something I hadn't considered until it was brought up this video, and it does make me reconsider. But the way I see it, these characters (mainly Misumaru) are here to serve up lore tidbits for long-time fans to add some more connection to previous entries, while still being able to keep the game as a whole its own unique entity, that newcomers can still understand without needing all the background knowledge. Maybe you can argue that what I'm describing is fanservice. But I like Misumaru, and we still haven't seen what's to come of Touhou's story post-Unconnected Marketeers. I hope she is developed more in future as we could see some very interesting progression of the plot. That being said, if she's just a one-off character who never gets brought up again... yeah, that would be disappointing. But seeing as she is a huge deal, I don't think that will happen, after all Okina got further development after her initial appearance. As for Saki?... to be honest, I don't really see how she counts as a "fanservice" character. Yeah, she's Miko's horse. So what? That's not a mind blowing revelation.
  

But I think that speculating about the future of the series is difficult territory to be stepping on. I'd rather just take it as it comes. My parting message on this post is that times change, and not all eras of Touhou will be same. My favourite era is the classic era (6-9). The existence of newer games doesn't make me enjoy that era any less, and even if things feel different in newer eras, I am still able to enjoy them for their strengths.

Now with all that being said... I have a topic on Goyouku Ibun to make...

 

[SoundOfRayne]

I took the time to watch that entire video, and boy howdy did it sure give me some thoughts.

Firstly @CountVonNumenor don't be sorry about being critical. If there's one takeaway I agreed with wholeheartedly from TheOVJM's video, it's that the Touhou fandom treats ZUN like a god among men who can do no wrong, and that's a big, BIG problem. Wanting to see something you love do better doesn't mean you hate it. As far as I'm concerned, being willing to look at something critically is the highest form of affection you can give something, because you genuinely want to see it in its best form.

That being said, I'm a new-ish fan too, so my scope isn't anywhere near as large as older fans of the series. But I do have my own thoughts on issues that I've seen, both fanon and canon.

• Unlike TheOVJM, I'm not really that interested in the lore behind Touhou. I like the characters and the music and (occasionally) the feel of the games. Even so, he brings up a good point about how ZUN's approach to worldbuilding has changed over time, and it connects to a longstanding opinion I've had about the series. "Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle," he puts it. ZUN seems very interested in constantly adding more "new" to every entry he makes into the series, instead of elaborating on things that were already there. For TheOVJM, this was a problem with Touhou's storytelling. The events of previous games were interconnected with the games that succeeded them, (almost like it was a series or something. Wow!) whereas newer games are mostly self-contained, with only minor teases to a deeper lore to tide fans over. For me and my interests, this is a problem with characters. In the discussion over character designs, I was pretty hard on WBaWC and especially UM for having some bad characters. UM was rife with double-dipping into previous character designs, and I can't think of a strong reason to do that over replacing them with older characters other than "we need more N E W." How interesting would it have been to see already established characters responding to new incidents. Yeah, the result is the same- we still have to duke it out with them- but at least then we'd get a little more insight on some fan favorite characters instead of a new one that'll inevitably be overshadowed by those fan favorites.
  
• This might run counterintuitive to what I just wrote, but I also have an issue with the protagonists of the series, just in the opposite direction. I understand Reimu and Marisa being present in pretty much every game, but can we please see some diversity with the other playable characters? I'm tired of seeing Youmu and Sakuya and Sanae. I love them dearly (and accept Sanae's existence), I do, but can't we get someone to take their place when it could impact the story? TheOVJM brought up a good point: wouldn't Kasen have some concerns when the events of WBaWC took place, given her connection to animals? Forget just letting her be a part of the story; she ought be a playable character for it.
  
• I'll just say it: I know ZUN's artwork in the past had some kind of charm to it. I wasn't good, but I could understand the appeal people saw in it. But Great Fairy Wars exists, and there's no good reason for ZUN to continue doing his own art for the games. If there's one thing the fandom has done consistently well, it's character art, and with the way art is used in the games, I can't imagine it being a hefty investment to outsource the portraits to another artist. It's not like good artists are in short supply, or wouldn't be happy to do it.
  
• I have a LOT of problems with Lost Word, and the gacha system in general. The "marriage" system in the global release only applied to the main characters (who I would like to remind everyone, are not legal) and several of the more adult-appearing yokai by the time I dropped the game, so I was willing to begrudgingly swallow it. The gameplay was shallow and grindy and heavily emphasized the autoplay feature, but I didn't play it for very often per day, so I let it slide. Power creep was everywhere, and I constantly felt tempted to sink into those draws to get the new powerful friends, but I was steadfast in not spending money on it, so I didn't think it was that big a deal. Then we got more and more alternate versions of preexisting characters, like Marisa with a gun, Youmu but black, Sakuya but... different, I guess. She doesn't really look any different, but she's got some new moves. I knew this would mean it'd take longer to get releases of new characters, and damnit, I really wanted a Shinmyoumaru for my team, but it's never gonna happen. AND THEN, OH BOY. We got Loli Junko, and this game was dead to me. All those problems I had overlooked before came crashing down in one fell swoop, and I'll never see Lost Word in a positive light again.
  
• I hate to do this, because I know how important they were to Touhou's popularity. They were the reason I knew about Touhou in the first place. But damnit, time has not been kind to IOSYS. All the issues of flanderization and bad takes on characters and ancient memes people won't shut up about all have their fingers in IOSYS's cookie jar. I've only found these less funny as time has gone on. And my opinion hasn't changed; Ribbon and Catnip and Me is the single worst thing I've ever seen come out of this fandom. At this point, I might actually look forward to seeing KKHTA just to see if I can find something to hate more.
  

Honestly, I've been collecting my thoughts on this way too long at this point, and these are the points I feel most strongly about. It might be fun to come back to it as more things come to me, but my brain feels thoroughly fried.

 

[Tenkko]

i think most people just don't like older depictions of characters, specially when it comes to the more crude ones (off the top of my head: sakuya, keine, eiki, reisen, ran, yukari, reimu). but there's always some pushback towards any popular fanon in general, such as kkhta and everything it spawned.

nsfw comes down to just. dont draw children, really. im not opening that can of worms but it has been a point of contention as to what characters belong to that group. some people are very puritan about the whole thing regardless, but of course the other end of the spectrum is more common.

those are the only two things i see more often, everything else is just kinda here and there. i'll get back to you on the video once i make the time for it, looks interesting.

 

[Macbeth]

I dont really hate anything with the fanon to be honest. I think anyone can really make anything up to be honest. I think it should just be up to the author to the choose route he desires and it can be up to the viewer to decide if whether he would like to watch it or not. For example, I can understand why authors prefer to make Shiki seem more serious and a mary sue whereas in PoFV she was actually quite nice and caring. PoFV shiki actually seemed to care about your well behing as fanon shiki is a pain in the butt. But you know, I can understand why authors do it especially for comedic purposes. Reimu's distillery wouldnt have been the same if Shiki was just some kind nice lady and not a stern yama with an iron fist.

 

[CountVonNumenor]

I mean there's a lot to digest here, but what I was actually drawn to in your post was the video you linked, which you say you have not watched yet.

I decided to watch it (although I did skip some parts regarding print works I haven't yet read) and it is a very well made video which I think makes a fair analysis and criticism of the franchise. Although I have not been a fan for as long as he has, since we made a similar journey of playing the games through in order, I found myself relating a lot to his opinions on the earlier games. Regarding the rest of the video, I don't agree with all of his points, but I don't think any of his takes are invalid either, and I think that my eyes have been opened to some perspectives I had not previously considered.

I don't think I'm able to make a concise "response" to his video as a whole, but I would like to cherry pick some points that were made and give my own viewpoints on (I'm probably mostly going to pick points that I disagree with, for the sake of providing my own opinion. But I do think there were several valid observations and critiques made as well).

Spoiler

Points are in no particular order because I can't remember what order they appeared in the video.

• "ZUN's new artsyle is worse than the old one"
  Disagree. I too see the charm in the older artwork myself, but I don't think it could have stayed like that forever. I do take one issue with the newer artstyle, which is that a lot of characters suffer from "same face" syndrome, but other than that I think the new art looks very clean and I like it.
  
• "The new music is worse"
  Hard disagree. Two particular instruments he actually picked on for not liking, I'm a big fan of. Music will always be a very subjective thing, and clearly stylistic changes have occurred which can make you prefer one era of music to another, but I think it is straight up wrong to say that the new music is "worse" than the originals. We're just very nostalgic about the classics. My rule of thumb is that if the title screen music still slaps, then ZUN hasn't lost it. And the title screen music still slaps.
  
• "Touhou 16, 17 and 18 are bad because of the story"
  I understand parts of this but am not completely in agreement. I think this is more a case of "unlived potential" than straight up being bad. The thing is, Touhou 16, 17, and 18 have all brought in completely new casts of characters, and then done very little with them after that (with the exception of Okina). These games all have very self-contained stories that don't spill out into other games, unlike the classic era which had a lot of crossover, or the first modern era where each game's events directly triggered the next.
  Here's the thing... Touhou 14 is also just like this. And he said he liked that one. So I don't really see how this argument holds water. He did mention that this also had something to do with how the stories intertwine with the print works, which I can't comment on since I have only read some of them. But from the perspective of the games, this really doesn't feel like anything new. In fact, a lot of the fleshing out of the previous cast is done through Tasofro's fighting games, and they've only made one game since Touhou 16 - which is actually something I want to create a thread about soon (and this video has spurred me on in wanting to make that thread). So in my opinion while the past few games have felt less connected to each other than previous instalments, I don't think they were bad on their own. And on the topic of Touhou 18 having plot holes, ZUN did say that it was meant to be a "lighter" experience with less seriousness.
  
• "Saki and Misumaru are fanservice characters to make up for the degrading story"
  This is something I hadn't considered until it was brought up this video, and it does make me reconsider. But the way I see it, these characters (mainly Misumaru) are here to serve up lore tidbits for long-time fans to add some more connection to previous entries, while still being able to keep the game as a whole its own unique entity, that newcomers can still understand without needing all the background knowledge. Maybe you can argue that what I'm describing is fanservice. But I like Misumaru, and we still haven't seen what's to come of Touhou's story post-Unconnected Marketeers. I hope she is developed more in future as we could see some very interesting progression of the plot. That being said, if she's just a one-off character who never gets brought up again... yeah, that would be disappointing. But seeing as she is a huge deal, I don't think that will happen, after all Okina got further development after her initial appearance. As for Saki?... to be honest, I don't really see how she counts as a "fanservice" character. Yeah, she's Miko's horse. So what? That's not a mind blowing revelation.
  

But I think that speculating about the future of the series is difficult territory to be stepping on. I'd rather just take it as it comes. My parting message on this post is that times change, and not all eras of Touhou will be same. My favourite era is the classic era (6-9). The existence of newer games doesn't make me enjoy that era any less, and even if things feel different in newer eras, I am still able to enjoy them for their strengths.

Now with all that being said... I have a topic on Goyouku Ibun to make...

Interesting points made. Initially, I thought this is just another negative/"doomer" view on the going of the franchise, but now you actually made me curious to watch. Also I cannot wait to see your Touhou 17.5 thread.  

I took the time to watch that entire video, and boy howdy did it sure give me some thoughts.

Firstly @CountVonNumenor don't be sorry about being critical. If there's one takeaway I agreed with wholeheartedly from TheOVJM's video, it's that the Touhou fandom treats ZUN like a god among men who can do no wrong, and that's a big, BIG problem. Wanting to see something you love do better doesn't mean you hate it. As far as I'm concerned, being willing to look at something critically is the highest form of affection you can give something, because you genuinely want to see it in its best form.

That being said, I'm a new-ish fan too, so my scope isn't anywhere near as large as older fans of the series. But I do have my own thoughts on issues that I've seen, both fanon and canon.

• Unlike TheOVJM, I'm not really that interested in the lore behind Touhou. I like the characters and the music and (occasionally) the feel of the games. Even so, he brings up a good point about how ZUN's approach to worldbuilding has changed over time, and it connects to a longstanding opinion I've had about the series. "Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle," he puts it. ZUN seems very interested in constantly adding more "new" to every entry he makes into the series, instead of elaborating on things that were already there. For TheOVJM, this was a problem with Touhou's storytelling. The events of previous games were interconnected with the games that succeeded them, (almost like it was a series or something. Wow!) whereas newer games are mostly self-contained, with only minor teases to a deeper lore to tide fans over. For me and my interests, this is a problem with characters. In the discussion over character designs, I was pretty hard on WBaWC and especially UM for having some bad characters. UM was rife with double-dipping into previous character designs, and I can't think of a strong reason to do that over replacing them with older characters other than "we need more N E W." How interesting would it have been to see already established characters responding to new incidents. Yeah, the result is the same- we still have to duke it out with them- but at least then we'd get a little more insight on some fan favorite characters instead of a new one that'll inevitably be overshadowed by those fan favorites.
  
• This might run counterintuitive to what I just wrote, but I also have an issue with the protagonists of the series, just in the opposite direction. I understand Reimu and Marisa being present in pretty much every game, but can we please see some diversity with the other playable characters? I'm tired of seeing Youmu and Sakuya and Sanae. I love them dearly (and accept Sanae's existence), I do, but can't we get someone to take their place when it could impact the story? TheOVJM brought up a good point: wouldn't Kasen have some concerns when the events of WBaWC took place, given her connection to animals? Forget just letting her be a part of the story; she ought be a playable character for it.
  
• I'll just say it: I know ZUN's artwork in the past had some kind of charm to it. I wasn't good, but I could understand the appeal people saw in it. But Great Fairy Wars exists, and there's no good reason for ZUN to continue doing his own art for the games. If there's one thing the fandom has done consistently well, it's character art, and with the way art is used in the games, I can't imagine it being a hefty investment to outsource the portraits to another artist. It's not like good artists are in short supply, or wouldn't be happy to do it.
  
• I have a LOT of problems with Lost Word, and the gacha system in general. The "marriage" system in the global release only applied to the main characters (who I would like to remind everyone, are not legal) and several of the more adult-appearing yokai by the time I dropped the game, so I was willing to begrudgingly swallow it. The gameplay was shallow and grindy and heavily emphasized the autoplay feature, but I didn't play it for very often per day, so I let it slide. Power creep was everywhere, and I constantly felt tempted to sink into those draws to get the new powerful friends, but I was steadfast in not spending money on it, so I didn't think it was that big a deal. Then we got more and more alternate versions of preexisting characters, like Marisa with a gun, Youmu but black, Sakuya but... different, I guess. She doesn't really look any different, but she's got some new moves. I knew this would mean it'd take longer to get releases of new characters, and damnit, I really wanted a Shinmyoumaru for my team, but it's never gonna happen. AND THEN, OH BOY. We got Loli Junko, and this game was dead to me. All those problems I had overlooked before came crashing down in one fell swoop, and I'll never see Lost Word in a positive light again.
  
• I hate to do this, because I know how important they were to Touhou's popularity. They were the reason I knew about Touhou in the first place. But damnit, time has not been kind to IOSYS. All the issues of flanderization and bad takes on characters and ancient memes people won't shut up about all have their fingers in IOSYS's cookie jar. I've only found these less funny as time has gone on. And my opinion hasn't changed; Ribbon and Catnip and Me is the single worst thing I've ever seen come out of this fandom. At this point, I might actually look forward to seeing KKHTA just to see if I can find something to hate more.
  

Honestly, I've been collecting my thoughts on this way too long at this point, and these are the points I feel most strongly about. It might be fun to come back to it as more things come to me, but my brain feels thoroughly fried.

It seems like the linked video stole the show. I feel like it has taken the spot, and I am not so sure if it is a good thing or not since it overshadows the first half of the thread. Because of that, I will place here the common points and my opinion from the perspective of someone who is still relatively new into this series, and a very brief dip into official material (tried out Touhou 7, and read a bit from the Gensokyo Chronicles and a handful of chapters from the various manga).

• ZUN's character design (in)volution - I personally really love the newer approach. I know the old art had its charm, but oh god, do we need to remember the EoSD Sakuya? Another funny one that I saw is related to hair lighting. Due to that, even now fan artists are completely confused whether Lyrica has brown, grey or silver color hair. I just feel there has been an improvement in recent years, with TH18 overall being a result in terms of overall how much like a human the character looks like. Also, it would sure be an interesting thing to see someone else doing the art for the main games for once. Fairy Wars is a very interesting example, and I agree with it. Besides, I do not think mods that replace ZUN's portraits with those made by Dairi for example exist, since there is just TOO MUCH good fanart. 
  
• I am not very sure what to say about the music in the past few games. Even if TH16 is partially forgettable for me, I still cannot forget the Mai and Satono fight theme, or the opening screen score. From TH17, I really like Beast Metropolis, Joutojin of Ceramics and Idolatrize World. And from UM, even if it is still under the effect of "new game bias", I have remained with Fortune Kitten, Smoking Dragon, Starry Mountain of Tenma, Where is That Bustling Marketplace Now (wow, a bit of a mouthful to be fair) and The Princess Who Slays Dragon Kings. Also a bit of potential bias since Akatsuki Records turned all the songs I have mentioned into some awesome arrangements (I really feel like the album Coooonsultant! made justice to the TH18 soundtrack)
  
• I can see why Misumaru would be seen as fanservice, but to be honest, I never really cared too much about her. As for Saki, she is probably one of the Extra Stage bosses  care the least, so I am not too bothered about anything at all.
  
• I did notice there was some connection in the previous games indeed. From what I know, 6-7-8 were connected as the first two were to establish the characters, then Imperishable Night was supposed to be the grand finale to through them together in order to solve the big incident. Then 10-11-12-13 were somehow connected, as the appearance of the Moriya Shrine was the catalyst that put things in motion for the next few games. Afterwards, I guess the games start to connect more with the other materials instead of the other games that came before? There's still like a huge gap in my knowledge, so I cannot really think any further. 
  
• About Lost Word, I have an entire thread dedicated to it and the way I have felt about the game in the past months. I can mostly agree with all you have said, even if I may add some more. There are a few things I have mentioned in the thread to be not bad, but one thing I forgot is that the game was useful for various doujins to promote their own music. Also the story cards have fan art made by various artists, who this was just get more to be seen. As for auto-replay, I just like put a specific number of battles, park my phone in another corner of the room, and just focus on whatever else more important I have to do at the moment. Finally, even if I broke my promise and go the newest SFES Toyohime, my idea is to just wait for when characters from my Top 10 favorites are coming into global. That way, I am just hoarding resources, and get exactly what I am looking for. As for now, I am still waiting for Eiki, Raiko, Mayumi and Tenkyuu (UM cast into LW when?). I am not sure what else to add in this paragraph, since I have everything there, Feel free to comment in that thread too if you find anything interesting though.
  
•  In my early days of exploring YouTube once it started recommending me Touhou videos, I have watched a lot of stuff aimlessly. It was either due to titles being in Japanese and me having no idea what that actually is until clicking, or was one of these old videos ported from NicoNico Douga by people like reddevils500. If we are in the IOSYS area, do we also need to remember Border of Ecstasy exists? I think it is just as bad. Enough said.
  

EDIT: looks like while I was replying to the first two comments, it seems like two more comments came. I will look to reply to those too, especially if there is anything interesting

 

[CountVonNumenor]

i think most people just don't like older depictions of characters, specially when it comes to the more crude ones (off the top of my head: sakuya, keine, eiki, reisen, ran, yukari, reimu). but there's always some pushback towards any popular fanon in general, such as kkhta and everything it spawned.

nsfw comes down to just. dont draw children, really. im not opening that can of worms but it has been a point of contention as to what characters belong to that group. some people are very puritan about the whole thing regardless, but of course the other end of the spectrum is more common.

those are the only two things i see more often, everything else is just kinda here and there. i'll get back to you on the video once i make the time for it, looks interesting.

I dont really hate anything with the fanon to be honest. I think anyone can really make anything up to be honest. I think it should just be up to the author to the choose route he desires and it can be up to the viewer to decide if whether he would like to watch it or not. For example, I can understand why authors prefer to make Shiki seem more serious and a mary sue whereas in PoFV she was actually quite nice and caring. PoFV shiki actually seemed to care about your well behing as fanon shiki is a pain in the butt. But you know, I can understand why authors do it especially for comedic purposes. Reimu's distillery wouldnt have been the same if Shiki was just some kind nice lady and not a stern yama with an iron fist.

As promised, I will reply to these ones too since I find the points interesting, or just fresh from the main body of what I was writing before. Anyway...

• Personally, the only problem I have with fanon version of Eiki is when she is depicted as an angry bitch who would send you to hell just because your boobs are bigger than hers. I think that Convictor Yamaxanadu from IOSYS (as much as I think the song itself slaps) convey very well the average version of the fanon Yama. Which is a bit sad, since I personally like her a lot (she does not rank #2 for nothing in my top for favorite 2hus, just below Akyuu), especially after reading more about her in the canon materials that explain characters.
  
• From my experience with Touhou and memes, it seems to be similar to what we do in the Warhammer 40K fandom as well. Yeah, we are that kind of guys who would not stop making unfunny, half-assed memes from 20 years ago since we apparently can no longer invent new ones.  
  

Very much sums things up

Spoiler

The point on NSFW really can open a true can of worms. And just like you said, it can be easily summed in "don't draw children". However, it seems like Japanese artists (at least I saw that a lot in art coming from Japan) don't really bother with that, and will draw too young stuff no matter what. And I have seen that both in Touhou fan artists, as well, as in fan art for any other series. But I guess, like in that saying, "the interned is for porn", and nobody can stop that. Also, that whole "age of consent 13 in Japan/North-East Asia" thing, could it also be to be blamed for such inappropriate art? It feels as if they do not even bother to draw them as adults, or at least mature enough if they really want to depict them in lewd behavior, which in a way is a little bit scary for me, and probably another reason why people from outside the Touhou community refer to us as "those pedos" or "loli lovers". By now, some of the characters like Sanae and Reisen I feel to have become nothing more but source for lewd art, as well as anyone shown with bigger boobs (but at least in that case, they are trying to draw them more as "mommies", so more adult-like?)

So yeah, this has been my Round 2 of replies. See you all a bit later

 

[Tenkko]

hoo boy i watched the video. wow. ok, i had to take notes. it actually talks something i've been feeling for a while too, which i always dismissed as just "i've been here too long, of course it doesn't shimmer as much for me anymore". and there's some truth to that but i've seen a lot of newer fans that also gravitate more towards the older games, so i knew there was something.

Spoiler

• the change of gears since MoF is very real and, i've always been conflicted over that. on one hand i love that it allowed the world of Gensokyo to grow so much, and we started getting a lot of interconnected plots and/or references to previous events. on the other hand... yeah, man i just really miss that feel of "mystery" that touhou had, being given not-so-clear details and having to fill in the blanks on your own. but i feel that was bound to disappear anyways as more games shows up, and more is introduced.
  
• i'm also a big fan of ZUN's more traditional art, particularly from PCB, and there's also some independent pieces he's made which i also think are very nice. that said... yeah that wasn't gonna last. i do like the new cleaner art, specially since WBaWC where it seems that he fully got it down, but it does look a bit... idk, plastic? also the same face issue buskerdog mentioned which does bother me from time to time. but yknow overall, not a big deal.
  
• music is a loaded question. honestly the main thing i didn't like about the newer music is the WBaWC drums, you know the ones, but ZUN seems to be moving away from that. UM's overall soundtrack didn't vibe with me too much, but in a way i enjoyed the more experimental sound too.
  

onto the relevant stuff

• HSiFS. i do agree that's where the split happened. that was the first game i wasn't super into on release, even if it grew on me a bit later on. the reason why i think it kinda failed is because it tried to do two things: introduce new characters to previously established dynamics, and introduce okina as the third sage. the first one was doomed from the start because i feel there's not enough room to properly do that in games like these, plus messing with very well established groups is... delicate. not to mention it favored that over establishing new groups like the other games do, so now you have 3 characters who are supposed to be somewhere but instead just, exist to most people. second is okina, which was handled kinda sloppily, but she was given more room to develop later on and now she's basically the only relevant takeaway from the game. truly the hidden star in four seasons.
  
• WBaWC is. weird. i don't feel either way towards that game, other than it's a good starting point gameplay wise. i think it does some cool things story-wise, even if it wasn't what was expected.
  
• tasofro interlude. what's said about AoCF is true, but tasofro has a bit of history with development issues. soku is mentioned in the video, i think it might've happened with SWR too? idk don't quote me on that. there were definitely issues with HM. the development hell and release of Gouyoku Ibun was... something else though, even if im all for delaying games if it means getting a better product in the end.
  
• Unconnected Marketeers. i remember thinking "this is the most fun i've had with a touhou game for a while", and i still hold that. i don't have any major problems with that game really, other than aside from gameplay it's kinda... eh. misumaru struck me as odd since day 1, the "here's an important piece of lore on this stage 4 boss that's irrelevant to the rest of the game". even if it's addressed and she's given more time in the future, that introduction was kinda. not good.
  
• LostWord. i got nothing else to add, dude nails it. i've heard that the writing is sometimes good and that's it. also i can see how the branding can be a bit misleading, making people believe it's canon.
  

whew, think that's all. i still get excited for new stuff and will continue to do so, even if i tend to hang around fanworks more nowadays. i didn't mention the print works because i can't say much about that, but i do agree with the bit about CDS.

also yeah the "ZUN can do nothing wrong" is a terrible mentality.

 

[sodaodaoda]

[SIZE=12pt]Then, if I turn towards more or less controversial takes, there’s… this https://youtu.be/k-FDvWHsUp4[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]This is actually very new – posted just a month ago. One hour of content I have not watched, not knowing if there’s any actual valid made, or I am just about to waste an hour. I was ready to completely dismiss it, but then I went a bit through the comments, seeing there also are relevant people discussing like MTB.[/SIZE]

I watched that video yesterday, and I agree with many points there.

I know this is straying away from the main topic of this thread, but I just want to talk about those things from the video (I will add some fanon stuff as well).
I really miss the old atmosphere of the games. The reason why I fell in love with Touhou in the first place is because of its atmosphere. My first ever Touhou game was PCB, and when I played that game, I felt weirdly nostalgic, and I loved that feeling. It felt like playing a game that I would've played as a small kid.
Everything from the music, to the art and even the backgrounds just had some sense of mystery to them, and I love that.
Same goes for EoSD and IN, when I played those 2 games as well I felt the same as with PCB. I love everything about them, even now, the classic Win era of Touhou games is my favorite, with PC-98 being the second era.
Nowadays, I don't have any of those feelings when playing the newer games (I'm mainly talking about from TD onwards, but sometimes, MoF - UFO count too). Like, I like the new games, I find them fun, but it's just not the same as before.
I think that the art contributes to that, while it did get much better (Props to ZUN!), it really lost the handdrawn charm that it had. The older games had a much softer feel to them because of the art, and a cozier/warmer feel too. I often look at Seihou - Touhou 9 styled art to satisfy my "hunger" for that old style.
The music, however, stayed the same to me. No matter what, I still love the music. I find that it gives me the same cozy nostalgic feeling that the older games did (Although, I'd still say that the older games did it better). From 13 - 18 era I'd say that Eternal Transient Reign is the best in that regard.

Alrighty! Enough about me venting on how I miss the old Touhou, time for fanon stuff.

Touhou LostWord. Oh boy. I have many mixed feelings about this game.
But, to be honest, I don't really hate it... I think it's meh, probably because I play kinda casually, but I still hate the shit out of the gacha elements.
I feel like TLW can sometimes be rewarding with the fact that you can get up to like 15 seal cubes a day, I myself like to get only the characters I want, so I don't spend as much resources.
However, I do not like the power creep, at all. While I do have some retro units (EoSD Reimu and Marisa, IN Reisen, I use Rei and Mari more tho) and some other SFES units, I think it's a pretty damn shitty thing to do. As far as I know, Meiling is the ONLY unit to get a buff in global, and she's an S tier now. Other characters? Nope! Byakuren is literally an E tier, and isn't she one of the more stronger characters? She's a stage 6 boss after all.
Also, the game itself can be a bit grindy sometimes, and a bit boring, but I honestly think that the combat isn't really that godawful, I like it a bit. It's just that sometimes it feels so damn boring to do stages, but thankfully there's an autoplay mode.
And the Rings of Fate... I was honestly surprised when I first saw them. I didn't play TLW for several months and coming back to see that you can marry the characters is just, eugh.
So yeah... I find TLW pretty meh.
+ Good art, okay music, I don't like how it's mixed a lot, but there are some classic tunes there.
+ Honestly the story itself is okay imo, it's pretty interesting.
+ I'd say that TLW can get generous with its resources sometimes.
- The gameplay can get really boring after some time.
- The pull rates for units are attrocious.
- The events aren't anything special.
- Power creep, like I said, I love the retro line, but they should've been costumes.
- Rings of Fate.......

And as for fandom stuff in general, I kinda have mixed feelings about IOSYS lmao, I love IOSYS, they're the circle that brought me into Touhou (Marisa Stole The Precious Thing) and they have some damn good songs, but sometimes the shit they make is just weird man.
For example, the first Touhou song that made me feel weird was Border of Extacy. Everything from the unofficial PV (the official PV is okay and doesn't have any explicit content) and the full song is just weird man. I usually listen to the shorter, PV version of the song because I do not want to hear Yuyuko making those damn sounds.
Also that fucking Chen and Ran song from them... It's so damn catchy but so damn weird and it makes me uncomfy. DAMN YOU IOSYS! also what's the deal with panty shots in the pvs man, the first that comes to mind is Overdrive

Also, I do not like how the fandom treats the characters. Alice became a yandere, Ran is a pervert, Flan is a psycho, etc...
It's honestly quite sad, the characters have so much more to them. :TenshiCry:
 

But yeah, this is how I feel about some Touhou stuff, I apologize for writing so much xd
 

 

[buskerdog]

the change of gears since MoF is very real and, i've always been conflicted over that. on one hand i love that it allowed the world of Gensokyo to grow so much, and we started getting a lot of interconnected plots and/or references to previous events. on the other hand... yeah, man i just really miss that feel of "mystery" that touhou had, being given not-so-clear details and having to fill in the blanks on your own. but i feel that was bound to disappear anyways as more games shows up, and more is introduced.

Actually this reminds me of something else I wanted to say. Regarding the switch from 'soft world-building' to 'hard world-building', I actually prefer the hard world-building; learning about definitive facts and what's-what of Gensokyo. Just my opinion, though.

 

[CountVonNumenor]

I watched that video yesterday, and I agree with many points there.

I know this is straying away from the main topic of this thread, but I just want to talk about those things from the video (I will add some fanon stuff as well).
I really miss the old atmosphere of the games. The reason why I fell in love with Touhou in the first place is because of its atmosphere. My first ever Touhou game was PCB, and when I played that game, I felt weirdly nostalgic, and I loved that feeling. It felt like playing a game that I would've played as a small kid.
Everything from the music, to the art and even the backgrounds just had some sense of mystery to them, and I love that.
Same goes for EoSD and IN, when I played those 2 games as well I felt the same as with PCB. I love everything about them, even now, the classic Win era of Touhou games is my favorite, with PC-98 being the second era.
Nowadays, I don't have any of those feelings when playing the newer games (I'm mainly talking about from TD onwards, but sometimes, MoF - UFO count too). Like, I like the new games, I find them fun, but it's just not the same as before.
I think that the art contributes to that, while it did get much better (Props to ZUN!), it really lost the handdrawn charm that it had. The older games had a much softer feel to them because of the art, and a cozier/warmer feel too. I often look at Seihou - Touhou 9 styled art to satisfy my "hunger" for that old style.
The music, however, stayed the same to me. No matter what, I still love the music. I find that it gives me the same cozy nostalgic feeling that the older games did (Although, I'd still say that the older games did it better). From 13 - 18 era I'd say that Eternal Transient Reign is the best in that regard.

Alrighty! Enough about me venting on how I miss the old Touhou, time for fanon stuff.

Touhou LostWord. Oh boy. I have many mixed feelings about this game.
But, to be honest, I don't really hate it... I think it's meh, probably because I play kinda casually, but I still hate the shit out of the gacha elements.
I feel like TLW can sometimes be rewarding with the fact that you can get up to like 15 seal cubes a day, I myself like to get only the characters I want, so I don't spend as much resources.
However, I do not like the power creep, at all. While I do have some retro units (EoSD Reimu and Marisa, IN Reisen, I use Rei and Mari more tho) and some other SFES units, I think it's a pretty damn shitty thing to do. As far as I know, Meiling is the ONLY unit to get a buff in global, and she's an S tier now. Other characters? Nope! Byakuren is literally an E tier, and isn't she one of the more stronger characters? She's a stage 6 boss after all.
Also, the game itself can be a bit grindy sometimes, and a bit boring, but I honestly think that the combat isn't really that godawful, I like it a bit. It's just that sometimes it feels so damn boring to do stages, but thankfully there's an autoplay mode.
And the Rings of Fate... I was honestly surprised when I first saw them. I didn't play TLW for several months and coming back to see that you can marry the characters is just, eugh.
So yeah... I find TLW pretty meh.
+ Good art, okay music, I don't like how it's mixed a lot, but there are some classic tunes there.
+ Honestly the story itself is okay imo, it's pretty interesting.
+ I'd say that TLW can get generous with its resources sometimes.
- The gameplay can get really boring after some time.
- The pull rates for units are attrocious.
- The events aren't anything special.
- Power creep, like I said, I love the retro line, but they should've been costumes.
- Rings of Fate.......

And as for fandom stuff in general, I kinda have mixed feelings about IOSYS lmao, I love IOSYS, they're the circle that brought me into Touhou (Marisa Stole The Precious Thing) and they have some damn good songs, but sometimes the shit they make is just weird man.
For example, the first Touhou song that made me feel weird was Border of Extacy. Everything from the unofficial PV (the official PV is okay and doesn't have any explicit content) and the full song is just weird man. I usually listen to the shorter, PV version of the song because I do not want to hear Yuyuko making those damn sounds.
Also that fucking Chen and Ran song from them... It's so damn catchy but so damn weird and it makes me uncomfy. DAMN YOU IOSYS! also what's the deal with panty shots in the pvs man, the first that comes to mind is Overdrive

Also, I do not like how the fandom treats the characters. Alice became a yandere, Ran is a pervert, Flan is a psycho, etc...
It's honestly quite sad, the characters have so much more to them. :TenshiCry:
 

But yeah, this is how I feel about some Touhou stuff, I apologize for writing so much xd
 

Oh, more points I would like to answer too. And please, do not worry you wrote too much. I actually am that kind of odd person who loves reading and writing walls of texts too, so write as much as yo wish. Anyway, this is what I would lave to say:

For me, PCB has been my first Touhou game played. Even if I found it just a year ago, and did not manage to finish it ever since, it already gave me a very strong sense of nostalgia. It feels as if I get back to the first video games I ever played. The feeling of the story is so intriguing and mysterious, the soundtrack is delightful, and luckily, the game itself is considered among the best for a newcomer into Touhou games. I just got to feel that game be dear to me.

I am having quite mixed opinions on the problem of ZUN art evolution (I still need to congratulat him for working to improve over the years). Even with some...special examples from early games (looking at you, EoSD Sakuya), there is indeed some charm. However, I really do not hate the new style either. Actually, one thing I like a lot is seing fanart of how older ZUN designs would look like if they were redrawn in Touhou 18 style for example, which can end up with quite some nice stuff. Like in this case:

Source for the artist: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/88589574

 

Alright, so now to the Touhou Lost Word points. Oh boy... Besides the fact I have an entire thread discussing the idea of power-creep and multiple character alts (I think I have linked it in a previous comment in this thread), I will try to give some answers here too.

First, I am just as much of a casual player. I like playing new stories whenever they come out, and have some curiosity whenever a new event comes out. As for spending, I really do not want to spend real money in the game - general policy of mine regarding games. I am satisfied with the daily 15-20 Seal Crystals we get for free, and even with all the stuff I have spent for, I still have 2.9K SCs remaining. I just want to get a few specific characters to fill my list.

Should I also mention how Lost Word Global literally decided to speedrun and try get as close to JP as possible in the shortest amount of time? That s why we got some units much earlier than JP did in their timeline, and why some of the recent evens have been messed up (we literally got a beginning of spring event in December, just before the Christmas/New Year event), And same thing happened with banners, for a while JP banners appearing in Global in a matter of weeks at most. Especially when we got strong units like Yuuka and Iku one after another, while also being bombarded by the Ultra FES units. Even now (9th of April 2021), most likely with the coming 1 year celebration and Moon EX ongoing, we have 7 ongoing festivals, out of which 2 are for Ultra FES units and a classic reskin (UFO Byakuren). Good thing I am not feeling interested for any of them.

Indeed, there is quite a lot of power-creep. I feel that also applies for the classic reskins. Basically, many of them exist and are just a much better version of an existing unit (Kanako, Nitori, Byakuren, Reisen, Yukari, Alice etc), Meiling being the only positive example of a normal friend getting improved on. What I find scary is that people actually find this to be a perfectly fine and reasonable thing, and that it could be much worse according to their past experience with other gacha games. They told me that is the classic reskins were just costumes that give you new abilities, it would have made the game even more pay-to-win. Even though in RPG games, isn't your equipment, loadout and outfit something customizable depending on the situation you are in? Another similar response I got was when I was asking about the Forever Prayer system. I was told it is perfectly as it is, and basically that the gambling is what gives it charm. 

 

(for reference, this is the unofficial, fan-made tier list made for JP version) When I look at this, besides the "normal/vanilla" characters (I cannot believe I need to address to them as such, especially in Touhou), everything feels so alien with like a multitude of versions of the same character. But again, as mentioned in the original thread dedicated to Lost Word, at least it is not as bad as in other gacha games, where you have like 10 individual versions of the same character ("Cunny-fied" versions too - for some reason, I have noticed recently that instead of using the word "loli", people seem to be going with "Cunny", which I guess it refers to one character from Girls und Panzer?)

About Rings of Fate and Fantasy Rebirth... Yeah, I did have a bit of a strange feeling when I first saw it being announced. But I got used to it, and until now only used the mechanic for boosting the stats on my Youmu (would probably do that same for Akyuu when she gets it). Besides, I simply take it as just a new character outfit, especially since you do not get any new lines implying stuff about marriage, or at least any sort of relationship other than friendship. But I can see why this whole feature is seen as so controversial, and all the debate. Again, like I was saying in my previous reply - what is wrong with the Japanese and their obsession for underaged girls? (trying to discuss the age of the 2hus usually opens a new can of worms, which if not well moderated, ends up in conflict; the only thing I can be sure about is that Akyuu is 27, but that's about it). 

May be a meh game, but currently it is like the only fan-game I have and which I did not catastrophically fail. But for a quick round:
- mixed opinion about music: there are some tracks I like, some I think were poorly chosen, and some that are meh. But at least the doujins get promoted this way
- story is indeed interesting; until now, one of my favorites is the Hifuu storyline, but I think there is also some bias due to me liking Maribel and Renko a lot
- at least in the past month, the game sure has been generous with its resources; but I have the feeling this is only just bait, and will only work until the 1 year anniversary. Afterwards, it remains to be seen...
- I got bored after a while, but I am still going with it. Gameplay has become rather repetitive, but I am trying to look for stuff I have not noticed before during fights for not getting bored. Also, sometimes I het quite bored at cutscenes, especially when there are too many of those and the game feels like dragging in forever.
- not gonna comment on the last two, as I already presented my take on them earlier


As for the IOSYS part, what can I say... They were part of my early days in the fandom too (interesting how many of us seem to have been exposed to Marisa Stole the Precious Thing as newbies). Songs really can get weird at times, and probably they are to be blamed for creating, or at least putting more fuel to the fire in regards to flanderizations and character butchering (some would call it "character assassination", but I am no Twitter/angry YouTube guy). Eiki has remained the angry midget, Overdrive sure has been...something, Border of Ecstasy and Ribbon and Catnip and Me are just unholy things I want to stay as far from as possible, and for some reason, there is an entire PV in which Aya's sole purpose is to take panty shots of all the girls in Gensokyo...until getting traumatized by whatever she found when taking a photo of Kaguya. Anyway, I am used for most of their songs just with the PV version, most of these songs being found through channels that re-hosted them from Nico Nico Douga in the past decade like reddevils500.

However, no matter whether the influence has been good or not, IOSYS still remains a big and important piece is the history of Touhou fandom. 

 

[CountVonNumenor]

Damn it, this answer ended up being way longer than I expected

 

[FiliStradivarius]

I think that the fandom tends to be disrespectful towards the source material. Especially the characters, who a lot of people remember mostly for their appearance and nothing else. There's all these memes and jokes that I absolutely hate. Like "Sakuya wears pads" and "Cirno is stupid" (I'm looking at you, 9 jokes) and those godforsaken floating heads! WHAT ARE THEY!? WHY ARE THEY!?

The fandom has become larger than the games themselves, to the point it kinda damages the image of Touhou as a whole. People join the Touhou community just for the fanmade stuff, never the official stuff.

As for the games declining in quality? No. They are not getting "worse over time" like some people are saying. Like, you can't expect every single game to be a masterpiece in it's own right (even though, like Castlevania, they are) and live up to the legend that is Touhou 6, a game that I like to compare to Symphony of the Night. Sure, the music and characters aren't as iconic, but asking for that for each and every game is just unreasonable. After all, every game plays differently, and ZUN likes to experiment with the bullet-hell formula and focus on new characters.

Will he run out of ideas? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean he doesn't put any effort into the games he creates.

I think the Touhou fandom is pretty bad. It's not toxic, or cringe, but it's a little disrespectful to the series itself.

 

[CountVonNumenor]

When I originally asked his question in a Reddit thread, I got a variety of answers. I have brought here some of them, in order to see what others see as "controversial". Since this is Reddit we are talking about, I will mark everything as spoiler for the viewer's discretion. So please, let's continue keeping this thread chill, just like until now. If you do not wish to proceed, please wait for the following discussions down the line.

 

• Spoiler

  [SIZE=12pt]Well KKHTA is absurdly controversial not only due to it's horribly out of character depictions but the systematic excessively violent murder of more than 99% of the cast. It's one of those things where people debate whether or not Sentaku-Bune legitimately despises the series. There's also a lot of terrible fanon depictions of Byakuren, more often than not it depicts her as pervert that would make characters like Fate's Sessoyoin Kiara uncomfortable, or a mindlessly violent lunatic towards Miko or even her own disciples. The worst thing is most of the people who make those will argue it's canon. The worst has to be Yukkuri though, it started off just little cute blobs like the slimes from Dragon Quest, but then leaned hard into torture fetishism and gore with poorly justified explanations. (The child-like creature pooped on the carpet, better torture them for 10 hours until they literally die of depression because we made that a part of Yukkuri lore for some reason).[/SIZE]

Spoiler

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• [SIZE=12pt](Q: Why are people still invested in KKHTA?)[/SIZE]
  

[SIZE=12pt]A: Some of the people I've met want to see the last part more out of a "Sunk Cost" sense, they were drawn in by morbid curiosity and want the ending for closure. I personally don't care about an ending because so many members of the cast are dead that there's no way the series could have any satisfying ending. I mean if Koishi and Yukari win... there's no Gensokyo and no people there to go back to. If a Deus Ex Machina happens that restores Gensokyo and it's citizens it would be cheap as there was no build up. Trust me though I have run into doujins that made me depressed for a good week. Like the very idea that someone made it made me feel upset and angry at the world. The whole thing needs to be remade, with less gore, better art style and renewed plot. It has nothing to do with Koishi even she is supposed to be the main character. Not to mention there is no adventure but only a progressive timeline of the impending doom of Gensokyo. Where is the Heart-Throbbing part though? The only people Koishi seems to care about are Satori and Kokoro. Not a single moment about her and her interactions with others besides Flandre and Yukari.[/SIZE]

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• [SIZE=12pt]Well hentai and nsfw exist but let's put them aside because it's just the rule of the internet, those pov touhou characters kissing you vids (cringe). That's about it really. That's kinda meta, not a lore issue, but I agree. You could probably extend the same to all the Fusu confession art, same vibe imo.[/SIZE]
  

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• [SIZE=12pt]Any time Sumireko is brought up, almost every time someone is there to say "cockroach". Whoever made that doujin forever ruined the reputation of best girl, and I'll never forgive him for it[/SIZE]
  

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• [SIZE=12pt]I don't like how some fanon sand off the edges of some of the characters, personally. Like some of the characters are dicks, and I think that's fine. But like, there's also a certain way that they're dicks too; for example Aya is an asshole in a specific way, and that way isn't sexual harassment (I am so tired of this anime and anime-adjacent trope). But like regardless, I'm not saying that you can't sand off the edges if you want to, just that I personally do not like it. (edit: also I really hate people looking at Momiji and just deciding that her personality is "dog" because she's a dog girl, it's the opposite of how she actually acts in canon; and like, there are 2 dog girls with personalities like that now, please use them for their dog stuff instead of Momiji)[/SIZE]
  

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• [SIZE=12pt]Shimadoriru's Love and Peace. As a hardcore Shou fan, that piece is the opposite of everything she is. Even as a Chaos Warlord, its scenes are heinous. Well first, she is the Avatar of Bishamonten, one of the more renowned gods in Buddhism. Second, she is a Tiger Youkai, born from the general Ill informed idea of tigers in Japan (since naturally, tigers are not native to the Japanese islands). She was chosen by Byakuren to become the Avatar of Bishamonten in Byakuren's goal to bring peace between youkai and humans, and Shou was a prodigy towards becoming Bishamonten's avatar. That is the basic gist of it, as unfortunately ZUN seems to have skipped over both Shou and Orin as playable characters despite being stage 5 bosses.[/SIZE]
  

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• [SIZE=12pt]As for Shimadoriru's hatchet job, he ignored most of that, and zeroed in on the Tiger Youkai aspect and had Shou slaughter and pick clean the bones of an entire congregation. Even worse is that he made it that Byakuren planned for this, and her peace mission was a ruse to initiate a youkai invasion. and the notion is exacerbated when he insisted that his doujin is 100% canon and that the Myouren family is secretly evil. The whole thing is worse than Zounose's Hungry Tiger, which was considerably more a grimdark alternate Gensokyo setting that he acknowledges as being non-canon. Shimadoriru comes up with Grimderp settings of Gensokyo and insists it is canon.[/SIZE]
  

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• [SIZE=12pt]Toyosatomimi no Miko is a transgender. I can already see the future when I get a lot of hate[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt](Edited: I'm not stating this as a fact or anything by the way, just want to show a fanon that's very controversial)[/SIZE]
  

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• [SIZE=12pt]Twitter kinda destroyed the Community actually[/SIZE]
  

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• [SIZE=12pt]Character flandarisations are fine until a certain point. That point is "destroying the character's reputation." Flandre is probably the most enduring example. Koishi is on a similar boat to Flan to how both are just mindless psychopaths.[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]How would I know? I mean Yorihime is my favorite girl atm, and god knows how much the hivemind fandom hate her and flandarised her into this husk of the combined bitching of weebs. Flan might have that reputation until the end of time and since her inception, but Yorihime... Jesus Christ she's like, the most hated character that exists atm. Flanderised beyond repair.[/SIZE]
  

Unfortunately, quite a few interesting other comments have been deleted in time (not just the comments themselves, but the users as well). In short, those missing comments were also about various Twitter moments, something related to Sr Pelo following the posting of his EoSD in a Shellnut video, reactions to the Fumo sales of August and October (with like everything - bots, AmiAmi not working well - it crashed, scalpers and absurdly low stocks of plush toys for an ever increasing demand which only leads to artificial scarcity), and more about the flanderization of characters. 

 

[TheM3ds]

You know this whole thing has made me think to myself "Why hasn't anyone made a parody/critique on the Touhou Fandom, it's subcultures and it's flanderization of the characters yet?" granted I feel like making something like that with the current events in the fandom would come across as poor taste, but at the same time I can't help but feel like it would serve as a wake up call to the larger problems at hand. After I've seen TheOVJM's video "Is Touhou in Decine?" it made me wonder about the fandom at large both in it's sure scope in size and how it's overall reputation on the internet is more famous then the games themselfs (Sort of), though with that said I do disagree with some of OVJM's points but I still think they bare some consideration, like how certain characters don't get enough representation in the series or how fans depict them that's entirely different from their canon depictions to the point where they're completely different personalities and when that happens fans might get confused about the character in question though I'm not against the idea of fans making their interpretations (More so with canon than fanon but it depends), but at the same you'd run the risk of having one or several characters having their personalizes hard to differentiate from what is canon and was made up by the fandom, I dunno maybe I'm overthinking a bit here? regardless I'd like to hear what you guys think, even if you disagree with me I hope this able to bring something up to peoples minds.   

 

[CountVonNumenor]

You know this whole thing has made me think to myself "Why hasn't anyone made a parody/critique on the Touhou Fandom, it's subcultures and it's flanderization of the characters yet?" granted I feel like making something like that with the current events in the fandom would come across as poor taste, but at the same time I can't help but feel like it would serve as a wake up call to the larger problems at hand. After I've seen TheOVJM's video "Is Touhou in Decine?" it made me wonder about the fandom at large both in it's sure scope in size and how it's overall reputation on the internet is more famous then the games themselfs (Sort of), though with that said I do disagree with some of OVJM's points but I still think they bare some consideration, like how certain characters don't get enough representation in the series or how fans depict them that's entirely different from their canon depictions to the point where they're completely different personalities and when that happens fans might get confused about the character in question though I'm not against the idea of fans making their interpretations (More so with canon than fanon but it depends), but at the same you'd run the risk of having one or several characters having their personalizes hard to differentiate from what is canon and was made up by the fandom, I dunno maybe I'm overthinking a bit here? regardless I'd like to hear what you guys think, even if you disagree with me I hope this able to bring something up to peoples minds.   

We most definitely need aan essay/analysis kind of video on the OVJM's model, but focused on the fandom. But nobody seems to be eating to do that, either due to not caring enough or being scared not to trigger a lot of negativity towards the content creator. Closest thing I've seen on thus issue was Megapig9001's Q&A video from last week, in which one of the questions was "what is the thing you like most and the thing you like least about the (Touhou) fandom". Megapig seemed to try avoid giving a clear answer on that, with a bit of an "how am  not going to trigger everyone..?" while giving the answer.

Funnily enough, he actually replied to me on Reddit some time ago on exactly a question regarding the state of the fandom, even if again it seemed like he wanted to dodge saying anything clearly. 



But yeah, I really hope others will contribute to the thread here too, since you brought up some points I'd like to talk and see more talk about. 

 

[CountVonNumenor]

Seeing that the video I have linked in my newest thread has attracted so much interest, I will put a similar question, but from a different angle:

What is the state of the Touhou fandom (Japan and rest of the world) now, in early 2022?

I really like the idea behinvideo, but I think he should have also addressed the state of the fandom itself, or at least should do  follow-up to the original video. Especially since the fandom is such an important part of what kept Touhou alive for so long, maybe even more than anything ZUN himself has created in terms of official material. 

This is something I have said a few days ago, in the topic regarding Touhou being ready and accepting for new fans. I think it wod fit just as well in here. After 20 years, more than 25 official games, countless fan-made material of all kinds and a golden age already passed (referring to the 2008-2012 era), I think a bit of an evaluation of this question might be necessary. 

 

[CountVonNumenor]

Huh, only now did I remember about one controversial but of thing. It is not really fanon (more like canon actually), but can be placed into fanon due to the reaction to said bit of lore. 

• Did the official manga turn Reisen into a sadist? I did not read it yet, but fans seem to have taken it as such, and the reception has been rather...problematic