How relevant is IOSYS nowadays?

[CountVonNumenor]

Since r/touhou failed to answer the question I have originally submitted there, I have also decided to post it here as a thread. 

I know they used to be a big name 10-12 years ago when the Touhou craze was at its peak and their famous meme MVs reached YouTube and became defining memes of the community. I also know they have been involved nowadays with getting their music into the fangames like LostWord, DanKagu and so on. How ever, are they still as relevant of a name as they used to be back then? I mean we have not seen any big PV from them to become a meme, and I am not even sure they are still making MVs at all. 

The original discussion from r/touhou 

 

[ACE_DEUCE]

10-12 years ago isn't quite the right time frame. A lot of their break-out hits are actually from before that (e.g. Marisa Stole the Precious Thing is from 2006), but Scarlet Police on Ghetto Patrol which is their most popular song by a landslide was actually released around 2014 or 2015 if I recall correctly.

As for their activity, it's true that they haven't come out with a new album for about a year (longer if you're only looking for vocal albums). Not sure of the exact reasons, but maybe they just have something big in the works? Nowadays they mostly pass the time by hosting their podcast. (which has actually been going on much longer than I thought)

As for MV production, I'm pretty sure that they never had a dedicated MV creator in their circle to begin with (though I might be wrong). No MVs coming out means that they either didn't consider any singles notable enough to collaborate with anyone, or the available labor for MV production these days isn't as plentiful as it once was.

 

[CountVonNumenor]

10-12 years ago isn't quite the right time frame. A lot of their break-out hits are actually from before that (e.g. Marisa Stole the Precious Thing is from 2006), but Scarlet Police on Ghetto Patrol which is their most popular song by a landslide was actually released around 2014 or 2015 if I recall correctly.

Perhaps you are right. However, I have used the 10-12 years ago time frame because my introduction into Touhou was done through channels like reddevils500 who used to bring famous videos from NicoNico to YouTube. And most of the meme videos I am aware of were pretty much brought to YouTube about the 2009-2012 era (therefore why I tend to call it the "golden era" of Touhou community content). 

 

[PriestOfPain]

Funny how you bring this up, I was actually thinking about it the other day. I haven't been keeping up with their albums but looking at their article on the touhou wiki it seems they at least release some sort of touhou-related album once or twice a year. As for their animated videos, the last one I remember being relevant was the 9th year anniversary of Cirnos perfect math class which is going to be 5 years old in a few weeks. If they've posted any new touhou music videos since then they have done a great job of hiding them from me. In terms of their relevancy, even if they fall off the face of the earth they will still be historically significant in the community with all of their previous works. Many people (including myself) were initially exposed to touhou just by having one of their videos appear in their recommended on Youtube and I imagine that won't change anytime soon. 

 

[buskerdog]

Actually I think Scarlet Police on Ghetto Patrol did become a bit of a meme in something like the past year. ACE_DEUCE mentions the release date of that song but I think the time it actually became popular is much more recent than that, at least judging by the appearance of comments on the official video that weren't there before - I'd say that recently English comments on that video became far more plentiful, I remember a few years back it was was hard to find a comment on there that wasn't Japanese.

Also since I'm able to say it, obligatory "I listened to that song before it became cool".