Touhou in China: the story of Jiangsu Touhou Community

[Bhrjr]

Alright, I was planning to reply to your profile, but I couldn't post anything longer than 1k works, so:

Are there any articles on the presence of Touhou merch on offline anime stores, outside Japan (or just articles about Touhou merch on chinese anime stores)? I've seen videos about Bailian ZX (which I assume is the largest anime store in China), and Touhou doesn't seem to have much presence there, where I'd assume that the rest of anime stores in Nanjing Road also have very few Touhou goods. Is there any anime store in Shanghai or elsewhere that's seen as the "de-facto Touhou goods store", similar to Akiba hobby?

I wrote an article about the Korean community before

In relation to Korea, this post shows a comprehensive presence of Touhou goods in Korean anime stores, where 오타쿠 만물상 in Hongdae seems to have the most Touhou merch in Korea. I've went to the largest anime store, Animate flagship also in Hongdae, and they had Touhou merch in one small shelf, so I'd assume it's the same case for Bailian ZX which also has a Animate flagship. I tried going to various anime shops in Hongdae myself, and they also had very few Touhou merch, but there always were LostWord merch whenever I found one, so I guess it shows how Touhou Lostword can be considered the "most commercial form" of Touhou.

In fact, after I finished my article about Korea, I invited them to visit Touhou-only events in China, and they did come—including Dalian THO, Shanghai THO, and several other THOs (the organizers on our side also gave me a lot of support). They used the opportunity to learn many of the highlights and core strengths of Chinese THOs, and it also became one of the reasons Houraisai was later held.

It seems since the Houraisai 4.5 fiasco, neither 한송사, 봉래제 , nor 주망지재상단 have tweeted anything since August 2025, with one of the leaders of 유하, also not posting anything since August 2025. (The raku person barely posts about Touhou in the first place). So it seems that the group as a whole has been blacklisted by the Korean Touhou fanbase as a whole, and will never resume activities. (Unless you did manage to get in contact with them again this year or winter 2025)

I hope they take a real, concrete first step instead of getting stuck in idealistic “what-if” exploration.

Have you heard of "Touhou University Network" (The account was made last year, so I presume this "coalition" didn't exist until 2025)? The same guy that runs Touhou Hijack is the co-founder, and they seem to be making effort to communicate to the Chinese fandom from when I talked to them on reddit. You could probably help them connect to the Chinese university clubs.

Lastly, do you plan to update your English blogs? I can't seem to look at your Zhihu posts without logging in, where I assume it'll take longer to update the blogs due to your aformentioned real life issues.

 

[Pak长(PakZhang)]

Are there any articles on the presence of Touhou merch on offline anime stores, outside Japan (or just articles about Touhou merch on chinese anime stores)? I've seen videos about Bailian ZX (which I assume is the largest anime store in China), and Touhou doesn't seem to have much presence there, where I'd assume that the rest of anime stores in Nanjing Road also have very few Touhou goods. Is there any anime store in Shanghai or elsewhere that's seen as the "de-facto Touhou goods store", similar to Akiba hobby?

If you mean a brick-and-mortar specialty store that sells official,正版 Touhou merchandise, I don’t think there really is one in China. Official Touhou releases here are mainly translated publications—you might see them in some bookstores—and in recent years, some shops in the otaku-themed zones that have sprung up in major commercial areas also sell a bit of related stuff. But it’s usually not displayed as a main product in a prominent spot. (In fact, ever since “otaku” started being seen by young people as something trendy, the word otaku has become less accurate for describing China’s ACG audience.)

As for physical stores that regularly sell fan-made doujin works by circles, those basically don’t exist. If the person in charge of a circle happens to have a good relationship with an anime-goods shop, they might arrange for the shop to sell their works on consignment, but that’s rare.

In China, the main way to buy and sell Touhou doujin works is still online—through platforms like Taobao and other marketplaces (I’ve used at least four, though I can’t remember all of them). Some circles run their own online stores; others sell through third-party shops that specialize in doujin goods. And some don’t use online storefronts at all: they’ll take orders in social groups, collect a deposit, do a small production run, and then collect the remaining payment afterward.

Overall, online sales remain the primary channel aside from convention sales.

 

[不人气的大狸子]

Are there any articles on the presence of Touhou merch on offline anime stores, outside Japan (or just articles about Touhou merch on chinese anime stores)? I've seen videos about Bailian ZX (which I assume is the largest anime store in China), and Touhou doesn't seem to have much presence there, where I'd assume that the rest of anime stores in Nanjing Road also have very few Touhou goods. Is there any anime store in Shanghai or elsewhere that's seen as the "de-facto Touhou goods store", similar to Akiba hobby?

Well, that is indeed a classic question. With the Chinese government's promotion of the "goods economy" last year, ACG-related products have sprung up everywhere, but Touhou-related products are indeed rare.

Are there any official Touhou products? Yes, you can buy cards and badges, but there are no shops that sell Touhou products separately. I think the most common Touhou-related are official publications, which you can easily find in bookstores in major cities. However, with the Chinese government tightening its control over publishing licenses, this has become difficult.

If you really want to buy Touhou products, most people will go to THO. And considering the developed online shopping in China, many Doujin clubs will set up their own online stores.

 

[Pak长(PakZhang)]

It seems since the Houraisai 4.5 fiasco, neither 한송사, 봉래제 , nor 주망지재상단 have tweeted anything since August 2025, with one of the leaders of 유하, also not posting anything since August 2025. (The raku person barely posts about Touhou in the first place). So it seems that the group as a whole has been blacklisted by the Korean Touhou fanbase as a whole, and will never resume activities. (Unless you did manage to get in contact with them again this year or winter 2025)

This is really unfortunate. I know many of them, and they’re very capable and passionate people. I attended Houraisai that they organized in 2023, and I could really feel their strong ability to learn and their organizational skills. (Sadly, the phone I used to store photos was accidentally water-damaged and burned out, and none of the photos or other materials on it were backed up.), even if they applied those abilities to other areas, they would still be successful. Over the past couple of years, for personal reasons I haven’t followed Touhou community news very closely, so I don’t really know what specific conflicts arose between attendees and the organizers. Maybe it was about money; maybe it was slander and rumors; or perhaps disputes of interest with other groups—but either way, it’s not a good thing.
If the problems on the organizers’ side weren’t intentional or malicious, but rather oversights that happened while trying to improve, then they should be met with more understanding—and the organizers should be given room to learn through trial and error. Koreans tend to be quite direct, and if minor issues aren’t communicated effectively, they can easily turn into confrontations, leading attendees to misunderstand and making the organizers feel that none of it is worth it.

 

[Pak长(PakZhang)]

Have you heard of "Touhou University Network" (The account was made last year, so I presume this "coalition" didn't exist until 2025)? The same guy that runs Touhou Hijack is the co-founder, and they seem to be making effort to communicate to the Chinese fandom from when I talked to them on reddit. You could probably help them connect to the Chinese university clubs.

If they really want to talk with me, I think it should be easy for them to find a way to reach me. Even if they talk to Touhou fans in China, they’d very likely mention me.

Lastly, do you plan to update your English blogs? I can't seem to look at your Zhihu posts without logging in, where I assume it'll take longer to update the blogs due to your aformentioned real life issues.

I do have plans, but my earlier articles were written many years ago. I’m more likely to repost the Chinese versions on Bilibili. If I write new pieces, I’ll probably use AI to translate them (though I’ll read through each one myself and polish the wording).

My original plan for a Russia's arcitle had to be put on hold because of the war, though some of the material has already been reworked into that more in-depth article. What I’m planning now is Venezuela. The initial plan was for 2023—to let people see, through a country in decline, how difficult it can be for Touhou doujin culture to develop—but as time has gone on, the situation has changed in many uncertain ways, and I need to reorganize the materials.

If I finish the Venezuela article, I think the next one should be the United States.

 

[不人气的大狸子]

If I finish the Venezuela article, I think the next one should be the United States.

Have you considered compiling all the articles into a physical book? Considering that community research is not mainstream in the Touhou community in China, and that it seems unlikely that 华胥三绝 will release a new book anytime soon, this is a relatively unexplored area.

 

[Pak长(PakZhang)]

Have you considered compiling all the articles into a physical book? Considering that community research is not mainstream in the Touhou community in China, and that it seems unlikely that 华胥三绝 will release a new book anytime soon, this is a relatively unexplored area.

If it’s cheap enough to print it as a black-and-white, pocket-novel–sized booklet, I wouldn’t mind printing some copies and handing them out at THO once the article is published.

 

[neonbear]

I wrote an article about the Korean community before, but due to server issues on Nyasama (喵玉殿), all the images in the post were gone. The Tieba (贴吧) version also had quite a few of my follow-up posts removed by Baidu’s content review, so it’s now pretty incomplete. I still have the original draft and the image assets—it’s just too much work to republish everything.

This reminds me of the first time I saw ZUN in person in China: it was at an event where Peking University invited him to visit and give a talk. Since I wasn’t a PKU student, I had to submit a Touhou-related academic paper within 26 days for a chance to compete for one of 20 tickets. Luckily, I caught the tail end of the deadline, submitted a communication-studies paper on Touhou and memetics, and it was accepted—so I was able to attend.
What I’m getting at is that meeting ZUN up close is indeed a scarce resource for foreigners, which means it tends to be expensive. I’m sure ZUN himself is also very uncomfortable with becoming a kind of “commodity”, after all, doing doujin has a natural resistance to being purely commercial, so relying solely on selling meet-and-greet tickets as the way to get close to ZUN can lead to a lot of uncertainty. I’m not against charging visitors for a meet-and-greet, but I don’t think it should be the only way to participate. If possible, a certain proportion should be offered as “rewards” through other avenues; I think that would draw far less criticism.
Sprunky
For example, writing that Touhou-related paper was genuinely painful, but even today some people still read it for reference and learning—and that was the value I contributed to the community when I went to see ZUN.

In fact, after I finished my article about Korea, I invited them to visit Touhou-only events in China, and they did come—including Dalian THO, Shanghai THO, and several other THOs (the organizers on our side also gave me a lot of support). They used the opportunity to learn many of the highlights and core strengths of Chinese THOs, and it also became one of the reasons Houraisai was later held.

Due to work and personal-life reasons, I wasn’t able to keep myself in a good enough mindset to balance the related research and writing last year, so this will have to wait a bit longer.

I hope they take a real, concrete first step instead of getting stuck in idealistic “what-if” exploration. Even if only a handful of people show up, then run it in a way that fits a handful of attendees. That’s also the point of this post: to offer some China-side event experience as a reference, and to show that Touhou events aren’t limited to sales conventions, people here have already experimented with many different event formats. To anyone who wants to organize one, what matters most is simply taking that first step and then building from there.

The message about taking a concrete first step is especially meaningful. Even a small event with only a few attendees can matter if it is organized with care. Communities grow through action, experimentation, and learning from each other, not by waiting forever for perfect conditions.

 

[不人气的大狸子]

The message about taking a concrete first step is especially meaningful. Even a small event with only a few attendees can matter if it is organized with care. Communities grow through action, experimentation, and learning from each other, not by waiting forever for perfect conditions.

Yes, I agree with this view.

Take Northeast China as an example. It is not one of China’s more developed regions; in some ways, it resembles the American Rust Belt, with substantial population outflow and slowing economic growth. Before 2019, no THO had ever been held there. However, Touhou communities organized around individual cities and schools already existed. I believe this model applies to Touhou communities in any country: start with small, local communities, and gradually expand into a province-wide or region-wide community.

After THO events were held in Dalian and Shenyang, the two largest cities in Northeast China, offline Touhou activities across the region increased rapidly. As of this year, more than ten cities in Northeast China have hosted offline Touhou events. Larger events have attracted more than 300 participants, while smaller ones may have had fewer than ten people, but they were still joyful and meaningful.

Northeast China does not have the same conditions as Beijing or Shanghai. Events in highly developed regions can naturally attract audiences from across the country. Therefore, Touhou communities in Northeast China chose instead to take root at the grassroots level, develop their own community scale, promote themselves at general anime conventions, and also advertise at Touhou offline events in nearby provinces.

In my view, doujin culture is not afraid of failure. It requires constant experimentation. Moreover, Touhou is highly tolerant of doujin activity: as long as you make an attempt and actually do something, people will not criticize you for it. I think this is something that many other doujin communities cannot achieve.