What do people from outside the community think about Touhou?

[CountVonNumenor]

A thread based on a variety on both real life and online encounters with people who are not fans of Touhou, or do not know about the existence of the series, but still get somehow exposed to it without knowing what they were actually looking that (honestly, I was in the same situation until actually finding out what this series is, so I was not much better).

 

Here's a simple question: how do people from outside the community see this series and its fans? Until now, I have had a few different kind of experiences with outsiders, ranging from good to bad.

 

First kind of people I've seen are those who see Touhou as one of the most chill fandoms to be part of, even if they themselves are not part of it. I tended to think just the same thing until recently, when a discussion with some other fellow Touhou fans told me it is not the case.

 

Second kind of people, even if a rather smaller group are those I've seen around Shmup kind of games in general. Their opinions, from what I've seen, seem to be mixed, going from "Touhou is a wonderful introduction to Shmup/bullet hell games" to "Touhou has caused a break in the Shmup/arcade world due to its use of girls instead of spaceships and aliens" or just "Touhou is an overrated series, which had the potential to become something big, but which remained stake in terms of game artstyle and gameplay, and is only kept alive by its fans". This is more recent thing I've seen when I started growing more curious about Shmup games in general, and have seen our series covered along with other famous games of the genre.

 

Third, and probably some of the worst, are those who do not see us as nothing more but a bunch of degenerates listing over some underage looking girls. More than once have I seen outside community talks about how "Touhou is pedo bait" due to the design of the characters (looking very young), the amount of NSFW art surrounding each of them, the unhealthy obsession some fans may have for the 2hus and simply the fact it’s something coming out of Japan, putting it in the same pot with anime ("if it comes from Japan, it has to be anime crap"). It often occurs that people end up arguing online just because they are not sure what age to give the characters, and it just ends up in a shower of insults and on one side a lot of accusations of pedo stuff, while the other desperately tries to defend themselves and the idea our characters are not as young as they look. In a way, I am quite afraid of Touhou was among the things that gave birth to the "thousand years old loli" trope. This last kind of person I've met if to me the worst, especially if you do not know how to defend yourself if you like Touhou and end up with someone like that in front of you.

 

Why did we even end up in this situation? Is it because ZUN simply does not know how to draw an adult woman, combined with his "no fanservice" policy in official material? To be fair, in some cases it may fit such as with the fairies given their nature's, but in others the character may seem too young for what they are supposed to be. Maybe there was something else I wanted to add, but I am writing this very late in the night and might have forgotten.

 

Also another category, more recently met, is that of of the people who spread the memes on various shitposting/meme dump channels especially on places like Discord, without knowing they are Touhou memes. Usually, they just go like "haha, funny anime meme", and just share it. When I say it is a recent case, I refer to the spread of Japanese Goblin even on sources completely unrelated to Touhou. People did not know where the thing came from, who mande it, or the effects it created. As MTB himself was complaining, it was indeed used as a "torture device" (as well as in memes with people, how do I put this mildly, in straitjacket, closed in a room and with a vocals only version of the song, suggesting said person has gone crazy) or as a "Rick-roll" (nowadays Rick-roll 4.0 according to the internet) format.

 

(I will not even add that category of outsiders who more or less unironically ask "Touhou? What hentai is that?/I know about this series from (insert NSFW source)/I came here for the smut", most likely born out of the vast quantity of not safe works out there on certain websites). Feel free to comment on that though if your interactions online about Touhou have, unfortunately, been on such a low level (low level at least in my opinion).

 

 

Anyway, what have your experiences been with outsiders when it comes to Touhou, and how would you explain some of the things I have talked about? I think all of us got into similar situations at one point or another.

[buskerdog]

My Touhou-related interactions with people outside the Touhou fandom have basically just been with my IRL friends who I knew before I found Touhou. Sometimes I talk a bit with them about it, say if I'm excited for a new game coming out, but since they're not really informed on it it's not like I can start a proper conversation. Pretty much of their attitudes about it is respectful to me, but not really knowing anything about it and not acting interested in it. I don't know exactly why they are so disinterested but facts like they aren't into shmup games, aren't super into Japanese setting like I am, find the all-girl cast thing weird, and the possibility they see it as just an "anime game" with a kind of stigma around it could be reasons for them not to care EVEN THOUGH THEY TOTALLY PLAY GAMES WITH ALL THE SAME ANIME TROPES WITHOUT AKNOWLEDGING IT. And the fact the games aren't very accessible, needing to set up an English patch and all that, doesn't help at all.

46 minutes ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Also another category, more recently met, is that of of the people who spread the memes on various shitposting/meme dump channels especially on places like Discord, without knowing they are Touhou memes. Usually, they just go like "haha, funny anime meme", and just share it... People did not know where the thing came from, who made it, or the effects it created.

Oh haha... this? This? This is nothing new. Even outside of internet culture where you might expect a thing like this to happen, Touhou has a way of just slipping into the most bizarre places. So infamous is this phenomenon, that is has its own name: the "Touhou Hijack", also associated with the meme "Touhou Hijack LOL". People being exposed to Touhou without knowing what it is or where it came from is just an everyday occurrence in this fandom. And as shown by the rise of the Touhou Hijack meme, perhaps there is even a sense of accomplishment to be found in knowing this fandom has infiltrated society in plain sight without anyone realising.

There is a Twitter account, Touhou Hijacks in the Outside World, which is a good browse for learning of the many instances in which the Touhou Hijack has occurred. One thing I also really like about this account is that by looking at the thread on each post it helpfully explains or theorises how these happenings... well, happened.

[Hannibalism]

They dont really think much of it, I have people in my IRL circles from weeb sort of people to people who see anime and such as just something to make fun of.

The people from the weeb groups are all mostly the same, they show quite a bit of interest in the meme side of it, the music and the art and some even consider playing the games and then the other group just mostly sees it as something that looks hard as fuck and something to tease me over for watching anime. 

I have a habit of talking about it quite a bit and it usually goes to me and my friends spamming our discord chats with fumo memes or doujin covers (all though even when we send music it most of the time ends in fumos.)

[CountVonNumenor]

Guess I am like the only one who saw weird or negative stuff told about Touhou by those from outside the community?