Western Touhou revitalization?

[Gr1ff]

I've been thinking about it for a while, and I think it's fair to say we are on the cusp of a western touhou revitalization, or at least a new wave of touhou fans, culture, and content. This has to primarily be because of the growing influence of Mentiswave and his use of touhou media in his videos. I want your guy's thoughts and if you guys agree, or if I'm just some raving lunatic.

 

[Bonnie MKII]

It isn't just western, I believe we already got that since when 13 was released, for better and worse.

 

[Akos]

I'd say that touhou will never be popular in the west, as it's foreign for the masses. We will always be a niche.
Popular content creators engaging with the project definitely helps, but in the end, it's a slight dent in the whole shape of things.

 

[Gr1ff]

I'd say that touhou will never be popular in the west, as it's foreign for the masses. We will always be a niche.
Popular content creators engaging with the project definitely helps, but in the end, it's a slight dent in the whole shape of things.

I don't know. Fumo culture definitely seems to be helping, even if only a little.

 

[tori_birb]

If you've seen the discord. I've been making these events to garner interest in touhou games and the shmup genre as a whole. While its really small scale I'm just doing my work to show off that many official games and fanmade bullet hell touhous are pretty cool.

As for western toho. it'll never die. not when fumos exist. I see the series as more of a media conglomerate than a mere doujin game now. So imo what makes touhou isn't the games. But also the fan content as I think official content has been falling off slowly.

 

[Idkism]

Western touhou IS popular in the sense that there's references to it, but ultimately it's what i'd call a "post-interest" series; people know what it is, they know a basic image of what touhou is, that it shaped one way or the other how the japanese western fan is, but not a lot actually have an interest in it, they don't like touhou, they just know of it.
Don't personally think we'll have another wave, resurgence or whatever, because frankly, nobody gives enough of a shit nowadays to get into a series, and not only interact with it but fully immerse themselves in it, they'll just see the cute fanon girls and the fumos and call it a day.
...fumo culture is so dumb, i swear...

 

[Akos]

I don't know. Fumo culture definitely seems to be helping, even if only a little.

Aye, but marketable plushies are generally loved everywhere. If umamusume had fumos, people would flock to it the same.

Touhou is a game franchise, and it's a shmup. It's not a very popular genre. I'd say touhou would become more mainstream if ZUN would start shitting out fighting games or whatever. No matter how cool the characters and the world itself is, if you don't like the medium itself, it's hard to get into it.

That's why most people know the project from the music and the fanmade art projects. Those can be consumed more easily.
Sadly or not, we will stay a niche. All these circumstances don't help and the people that claim to be married to fictional characters and the general weirdos you can meet in the only spheres are definitely repulsive for the more general audience.

 

[Bonnie MKII]

Touhou is a game franchise, and it's a shmup. It's not a very popular genre. I'd say touhou would become more mainstream if ZUN would start shitting out fighting games or whatever. No matter how cool the characters and the world itself is, if you don't like the medium itself, it's hard to get into it.

I'd say that the genre is getting back on it's footing for a while. I might talk about the reason why it fell off, but I'll getting ahead of myself.

That's why most people know the project from the music and the fanmade art projects. Those can be consumed more easily.
Sadly or not, we will stay a niche. All these circumstances don't help and the people that claim to be married to fictional characters and the general weirdos you can meet in the only spheres are definitely repulsive for the more general audience.

This isn't unique to Touhou (shocking I know), almost every fanbase has an wave of "secondaries", but this is very notorious. And I know for 2 reasons:
One; the games' themselves are very limited, you can get them on Steam, but the bugs and crashes are really showing, since it wasn't updated when it was released, by that, it's almost unplayable unless you're on a old computer. The only way you play these games (and on english) is either get them on the internet for free with patches to make the game in a playable state. Since piracy is getting normalized again on the internet, this won't be an issue.

But the second issue is more akin to the community as an whole than the games' themselves, I'll repeat what I said before from an previous thread, the community wasn't perfect since PCB was released, meaning that the fans just didn't cared to play the games and focused more on the characters themselves, the lore and whatever. And it's fine to focus more on other aspect, after all, it's not just the gameplay what keeps it afloat.

And the entire waifu culture is EVERYWHERE, it's not exclusive to Touhou and as long as you have a attractive characters, there always be people who fall in love with said character, and most of the time it's not an big of the deal and the ones who's uncomfortable about it, it speaks more to the person than an entire audience.

 

[Akos]

I'd say that the genre is getting back on it's footing for a while. I might talk about the reason why it fell off, but I'll getting ahead of myself.

I'm curious to see your take on it.

This isn't unique to Touhou (shocking I know), almost every fanbase has an wave of "secondaries", but this is very notorious. And I know for 2 reasons:
One; the games' themselves are very limited, you can get them on Steam, but the bugs and crashes are really showing, since it wasn't updated when it was released, by that, it's almost unplayable unless you're on a old computer. The only way you play these games (and on english) is either get them on the internet for free with patches to make the game in a playable state. Since piracy is getting normalized again on the internet, this won't be an issue.

One of the main factors, definitely, I agree. However, the difficulty of the franchise doesn't help the average man to get into the games as well. Of course, we have many talented players here that would disagree with this statement, but I'd say that the average gamer wouldn't be able to finish most games without 30+ hours invested in it beforehand.

But the second issue is more akin to the community as an whole than the games' themselves, I'll repeat what I said before from an previous thread, the community wasn't perfect since PCB was released, meaning that the fans just didn't cared to play the games and focused more on the characters themselves, the lore and whatever. And it's fine to focus more on other aspect, after all, it's not just the gameplay what keeps it afloat.

This second reason is why this franchise survived imo. World building beat the gameplay.

One notorious example of this phenomenon is Pathologic. It's a game, but the gameplay is ass. Walking simulator where you're getting fucked over by everything you encounter. It is a painful experience, however, the story, the setting, the characters have made the game so memorable that it received a remake in 2020 iirc, Pathologic 2.

It is interesting how the main aspect (playing a game) can be ignored and forgiven, if the other aspects of the game are great.

And the entire waifu culture is EVERYWHERE, it's not exclusive to Touhou and as long as you have a attractive characters, there always be people who fall in love with said character, and most of the time it's not an big of the deal and the ones who's uncomfortable about it, it speaks more to the person than an entire audience.

Waifu culture is one of the worst things that has happened to online media. I'd say that if we as a community condone this sort of behaviour, it also speaks about us.

Revitalization can be interpreted in multiple ways. Bringing back inactive members to participate again or bringing in new people. The former is more easier to achieve, the latter is definitely harder, especially with people in the community that I spoke of. Those that come through that filter will be either similar to them, or those with high tolerance for questionable behaviour.

What sort of revitalization do we want and what sort of people do we want to join us?

 

[Bonnie MKII]

I'm curious to see your take on it.

I might post this in Misty Lake.

One of the main factors, definitely, I agree. However, the difficulty of the franchise doesn't help the average man to get into the games as well. Of course, we have many talented players here that would disagree with this statement, but I'd say that the average gamer wouldn't be able to finish most games without 30+ hours invested in it beforehand.

Except that there are already games that are as or way more difficulty than Touhou, while it's way too noticeable to the public eye, such thing as Elder Ring.
Wherever someone will finish it or not depends on person, and even then if, if I say so myself, trial and error. Like all of video games. (plus it has a easy mode)

Waifu culture is one of the worst things that has happened to online media. I'd say that if we as a community condone this sort of behaviour, it also speaks about us.

Again, there's nothing wrong with loving your character as if it was your lover, as long as it's not crossing the line between fiction and reality and harming someone over it. Let's not getting over our head over this.

 

[John_Smith]

I've been thinking about it for a while, and I think it's fair to say we are on the cusp of a western touhou revitalization, or at least a new wave of touhou fans, culture, and content. This has to primarily be because of the growing influence of Mentiswave and his use of touhou media in his videos. I want your guy's thoughts and if you guys agree, or if I'm just some raving lunatic.

Mentiswave only has 100K subscribers, his inclusion of fumo memes and whatnot in his videos is a symptom and not even remotely a primary driving force. And as has been mentioned it's all secondary stuff anyways, there's a growing subsection of society that increasingly engage with everything through just social media and don't have the attention span for actually experiencing them. This is especially prevalent among both the political extreme sides of X/Twitter (in other words, most of X/Twitter), which is where mentiswave probably picked it up. It's not just limited to touhou, there are tons who are "fans" of other things when in reality they just like the way the characters look in memes on social media, animes like azumanga daioh and lucky star and lots of visual novels are big examples of victims of this.

 

[不人气的大狸子]

I am not very familiar with the Western Touhou community, but I can certainly feel its presence. Not only in terms of fan creations—many Chinese circles that produce Fumos have even received orders from Western fans.
Interestingly, most Fumo-related memes actually originate in the West. Yet I feel that Fumo is gradually detaching itself from Touhou and becoming an independent subcultural community.
As an aside. In China, we sometimes call Undertale “the Western Touhou,” because the two share similarities in gameplay, allow considerable freedom in fanworks, and Toby Fox himself is a Touhou fan. But Touhou’s influence in the West is clearly not as strong as Undertale’s. That makes me wonder why Undertale was able to spread so widely in Western fandom.

 

[Bonnie MKII]

I thought it's Five Nights at Freddy's

 

[Bhrjr]

As an aside. In China, we sometimes call Undertale “the Western Touhou,” because the two share similarities in gameplay, allow considerable freedom in fanworks, and Toby Fox himself is a Touhou fan. But Touhou’s influence in the West is clearly not as strong as Undertale’s. That makes me wonder why Undertale was able to spread so widely in Western fandom.

And on the contrary, Undertale and Deltarune (especially, especially Deltarune, actually mostly Deltarune) may be lacking in reach compared to Touhou in China and rest of Asia, right? Right now Deltarune is hot amongst all young Touhou fans (you can almost tell which Touhou fans on twitter are underage by seeing if they're also Deltaune fans or not) in the west, but I seriously doubt even a hundredth of Touhou fans in china could care about Deltarune.
As for why Undertale and Deltarune is more popular in the west, well, it has that "western cartoon vibe" that somewhat was unintentionally created by Toby Fox's nonexistent drawing skills, plus the juvenile random lol x humor that should appeal more to the western taste.

And on that note, while Team Fortress x Touhou memes are decently popular on the west, no one in China ever makes such comparisons, right? Showing how Touhou meme cultures in the west have almost no chance of crossing into the east. (except for that fumo meme you mentioned earlier being a rare exception)

 

[Bonnie MKII]

Funny you say that because Team Fortress 2 (and to extension, the original first entry quake mod) share a lot of similarities to Touhou in terms of fan-content and fanbase in general (for better and worse).