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Last year, I was feeling very distrustful when we saw the popularizing the stereotypical, generic pre-fabricated content. However, as 2022 went on, a number of new creators started to leave their mark in the community, especially in the west. I did mention some of them in the "Retrospective 2022" thread, but I will bring that up again (this time with links for some of the newer channels): I am happy to announce that since my complains, lore channels are starting to make their appearance in the western community, even if it might seem to be a shy, small scale beginning (quoting again from that very same retrospective thread): And one more thing (probably more of a subjective thing on my side): I see that the Touhou community has started getting their own art trends, or at least they have become more visible recently; what I am talking about is the wave of fanart depicting Sekibanki in the new/adapted outfit created by Akatsuki Records for the recent music video Rock 'n' Rock 'n' Beat: Illustration by teasmacker (source: https://twitter.com/teasmacker/status/1642901954383978497/photo/1) GIF by bmkro (source: https://twitter.com/BmkRo/status/1639995871944409088) Illustration by hajimakura (source: https://twitter.com/ma_kurane/status/1636368578579685387/photo/1) There are so many more great images based on that music video. For more than a week after release, there have been tens of images uploaded on a daily basis, and somehow really made me like Sekibanki more than I thought I would. I could have talked about so many more new things that appeared, but these are some of the ones I came in contact with or had a lot of fun with. But what do you think? Are we slowly going through a renaissance of Touhou content, especially in the western world? Is this just a recent event, or is has slowly been building up for a longer time? Whatever the answer might be, I am enjoying this time of being a fan of the series and its associated fan creations...

Have AMA's recently become some kind of silly trend on this forum? Yes, yes they have. But whatever, it gives me something to discuss about, and having been here a long time I'd like to think I'm an interesting enough person for people to have questions about me. So, if there's anything you want to know about me, this is your opportunity to say it! It doesn't have to relate to Touhou in any way, you can ask me literally any question you want - although I am not obliged to answer, so I recommend keeping things tasteful if you actually want to be taken seriously. Other than that there's nothing else to say about restrictions, so ask away!

Before going into Retrospective 2022 (either on the 31st December 2022 or first days of January 2023), there is one more thing I would like to talk about before the end of the year. This thread is going hand in hand with the one I have posed yesterday. Just before the end of the year, I would like to make both an evaluation of my place within the community and the situation of the regular Touhou fan that engages with the series in one way or another. I was thinking about tackling this question for about a couple months, after a series of weird events. Before going into the thread itself, what makes someone a Touhou fan? Is there such a thing as "fakers", or everyone has their own place? Think of it, then come back to the question once the journey through this thread is complete. So, how did we end up here? Somewhere in July, out of all places possible, I ended up finding another person who knew about Touhou in a Warhammer 40K channel of a Sci-fi Discord server (probably like 10-15K people). The guy was randomly posting a Touhou hijack every now and then, and once I did have the chance to catch it. During one of those hijacks, I was also around, and like the innocent fool I was, I pointed out "oh hey, that's Touhou, nice". Then, I did my big mistake: I said I am familiar with the series. Which spiraled him into asking me how many or which of the official games I have played. When my answer was none, and that I was struggling to finish PCB on Easy, all hell broke loose. "How can you call yourself a Touhou fan? How can you not even finish that game? It is so easy". I responded that I may have not finished any game yet, but at least I read from the official literature (at the time, Perfect Memento in Strict Sense and the first 4 volumes of Forbidden Scrollery), yet that was not enough to qualify me. Then he proceeded to talk about how much he played the games, saying that playing them is one of the qualifying factors. The discussion died off, at least for a few more months. At the middle of November, I caught another one of his hijacks in the Warhammer channel. At the time, I responded with this image, which I thought combined in a funny way the two fandoms (for context, Orin and Space Marin of the Iron Warriors legion acting as if he were her big brother): Art by BIGCAT_4424 (source: https://twitter.com/BIGCAT_4424/status/1267026103106965507) The image itself did not spark any negative reactions, but the guy went into a big rant again about the games, starting to judge categories, who is a real fan and who is not. Then this happened (I have censored names for the name of privacy): The video attachment he posted was an MP4 file of the video "ULTRA Instinct Junko is Born" by lunaPrism. And from there, the discussion died again. It was never brought again, and probably never will (hopefully) if I stay low. Besides, I can not do anything about it, or even just comment, since it would be basically me, a low-ranking member, again a Discord mod. Looking for some more information, I started talking to the other Touhou communities on the question of what makes you a fan of Touhou. The big Touhou server had a very civilized discussion with me, even if it was very late in night. Them , I tried asking the same question on the Moriya Shrine's Discord server. Oh boy... Besides people saying that the take of the mod was "based", they also guided me towards the following image. This, is surely an interesting take: Basically, they have told me I am bad fan, and people like me are one of the causes leading to the decrease in quality of the Touhou community. (slight slander towards the Moriya Shrine Discord server; that place has serious quality control problems when it comes to behavior) When I went back to the other Touhou server, and presented them this image as "the answer I got to the same question from another Touhou community", everyone was in shock. The reaction was quite poor towards the image. They just could not believe someone would even come up with this when answering to the question "am I a bad fan?". Everyone dismissed this image, and I was told not to worry about it. And from that point, I have thought a little bit about how to address this question. Now, coming to the person case - am I a bad fan? Originally, I have addressed this question ever since my early days in the fandom. I have eventually addressed the following text and question on r/touhou on the 8th December, 2021, just 1 year after getting into the series. This was my original text: And now, one year later, this is what the situation looks like, and what has changed: Canon: I am still struggling to finish PCB, but things are not going much better. The best I could achieve was the Prismriver sisters battle, but only after I used all the Continues (damn you, Stage 3 and first half of Stage 4). And that was on "Easy Modo" I have not advanced much more in reading Bohemian Archive, but I can say that I have briefly read through the characters section for Perfect Memento, as we well as briefly reading though multiple parts of Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia. Probably my greatest achievement however was finishing the first 5 volumes of Forbidden Scrollery, with two more to go in the following weeks hopefully. and not just read FS, but actually own physical copies of all the volumes. There is a funny anecdote that given the low supply here in Romania, I may have accidentally ended up buying the entire stock for the first 3 volumes from that manga (now even more so as I bough the final volumes). Before I ordered them, they were in Limited Edition. Now, they are in No Stock remaining: Along with Changeability of Strange Dream and Neo-traditionalism of Japan, I have finally added Ghostly Field Club to the list of CDs I have listened to (actually, right now I am listening to GFC again, since I like it very much). For the next year, I am planning to listen to the other music CSs as well (I may have already listened to CD 9.5, but I am not so sure how much it counts as an actual product and not just a glorified commercial) Fanon: The only fanon game I have constantly played still is Touhou LostWord I have a few more ideas for fan games, but I never ended up sticking with them. My Steam library has a section for free Touhou fan games, yet they still wait to be played. In it, there is stuff like Hina-Chan 2nd Break, Servants of Harvest Wish, Perfect Memento of Touhou Question and Touhou Mystery Reel. Out of all these titles, Touhou Mystery Reel is the only one I have actually played until now. And it convinced me of two things: 1) I suck at platform games and 2) I suck at fighting games. But more on that in my eventual discussion about looking for a Touhou themed game to enjoy... The music scene is just as rich as last year in my collection, even though through the year I have added a few more names like Komeiji Records, Konagusuri, Lyrica Live, Stringstorm (given he has started creating Touhou music), YaboiMatoi, Yuuhei Satellite, Demetori (even if I am still just scratching the surface) and UNDEAD CORPORATION, as well as the regular one-off song I might be listening to from one group or another (some of them discovered through the remix tournaments). My collection of fanart that I like from the community has increased, reaching nowadays an astonishing number of 23.8k pieces. On that note, I have recently created a new Pinterest page, CVN database, that will act as a way to more properly categorize Touhou images of different characters and the games they have come from... if I manage to sort out all that stuf, given the rapid pace in which the collection is growing My skills at creating Touhou fanart have not improved; I am still doing just as poor of a job and as little of a contribution to the fandom as before, if not worse than before I have finally finished watching Memories of Phantasm, and I actually even wrote an extensive review for it here at the Shrine. Next on my list, perhaps after a detour towards Amagami, shall be Hifuu Activity Club Record, simply because I want to see the interaction between Maribel and Renko, and the way it is depicted (I have already seen a couple short clips, and it seems to be quite sweet) My stance towards the way I interpret the characters has changed quite a bit; I have had a period in which I was more of a purist, then I started switching towards a more relaxed attitude. Now, I still prefer some of the canon depictions, while for some characters I tend to accept adding a bit of fanon as well, especially when I consider it to make sense/fir the character in question, still making the difference however (like having it clear in my mind that "this is ZUN canon" or "this is fan canon") I may have actually made a few bad decisions and stir up the lack of satisfaction of the Touhou community, especially in moments like that when I brought up the whole issue of the mountains of NSFW materials we have and the turning of the Touhou characters into mere "waifus to fap to" also in the meantime, I have become a member of this community; in the large scale, it may further bring me some hate due to the sheer association with the group and what Moriya Shrine is, and will always be known for - be the "pirate bay of Touhou" I may have also expanded a little bit into watching some of the...less than safe for work art of Touhou, but that one came mostly by extension since I am using Danbooru so much as my main search engine for Touhou art. It was a shock at the beginning (like for anyone who sees their favorite series being turned into something lewd, the first reaction is.. hard to describe), but in time, I have grown rather desensitized about it. For a better understanding of the situation: And this, kids, is a little bit more of a darker side of mine And for the final question... What really makes one a Touhou fan? Is there really such a thing as a wrong way to enjoy Touhou? Is there something that really makes you say "yeah, that guy is a real fan" or "no, he is not"? The discussion has always been going one way or another. At the beginning, I have had the bad experience of meeting people like BlankGuy... The ever-known "if you are only in for the girls, you are not a real Touhou fan; go play some waifu gacha instead" (unfortunately, the more relevant image was lost to time and files no longer embedding/working). On a surprising twist of fate, he seems to be having a change of heart after everything he did. Could this be genuine? I really hope so. However, I have seen that before with XG3E as well, and immediately afterwards, he ended going back to the customs of milking the "Touhou mommy" format he created/made popular. But, like the very naive person I am, I would really like to believe this is actually a change for the better, and that I could give him a second chance. (also oh no, he knows about some of my threads from the past. If things really have changed, I would like to apologize. It is just that some of the early claims really left a poor taste for some of the people) Good luck to him, and hope next time I will mention the name of BlankGuy, it will be in a positive context ... then there is this image talking about how the players of a specific Touhou fan game are not real Touhou fans (for context, LostWord player = fake Touhou fan)... ... and we are ending it with TheOVJM and his take on the same category of Touhou fans (and for a bonus already mentioned in the Google Doc thread) Anyway, some however say that anyone is welcome in the community, and as long as they enjoy any aspect regarding Touhou, you are part of the group. Some like the art, others enjoy playing the games or even like going for a challenge. Others have been attracted by the fan-games, or just love reading the official or fan-written manga. And some are just here for the porn. Given how vast Touhou is, there is something to satisfy everyone. Therefore, why are we so bothered calling people "primaries" and "secondaries" (terms which are still unironically used now, at the end of 2022)? Probably the best take I have heard until now in regards to the question has been that of the rising star in terms of Touhou lore content, GensouChronicle. Seriously, all my respect for the guy, he is doing such a great job covering a variety of topics, and I even made some references to him through the Memories of Phantasm review (spoiler: everyone is an S tier; in his eyes, everyone can be a Touhou fan) As a bonus, on a needlessly sensitive issue for the fandom, and a reason brought by some for branding people as real or fake fans (that of the Fumo and their recent rise in popularity), GensouChronicle had the following to say:

Oh hey, I've been familiar with the music creations of Stringstorm since early 2020, when he was still doing the soundtrack for If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device and was hosting Warhammer 40K: Idol Month(s). I think I did mention him though ever since last year, when his first Touhou-themed song, Scarlet Sky, dropped. He is a very welcome addition to the list of Touhou-related fan creators, and seems like the introduction of Touhou songs in his playlist came as he decided to cut on the Warhammer songs (due to some legal issues with the IP owners of the franchise and the treatment of fan-made content). There is at least one more song from him that should come soon, and a few more Touhou-themed ones have been announced for the future.

Like what @SoundOfRayne said, it's a bit too early to declare a new renaissance of fan content. However, over the past year I've definitely noticed a boost in quality of Touhou fanworks within the western community. A new contributor that I haven't seen mentioned yet is the YouTube channel Stringstorm. He is primarily known for his Warhammer 40k music but over the past year he has started to create songs and covers for Touhou. His most recent work is a cover for Okuu's theme, Nuclear Fusion and there are many more to come.

I dunno how confidently I can call this a "renaissance," since 2023 hasn't had nearly the amount of content that 2022 gave us. At least, not yet. I can at least say that 2022 was an awesome year to be a Touhou fan. So many new faces in the animation sphere that technically existed before 2022 really had their time to take off. I wanna think that MTB's reanimation of We Are Japanese Goblin in late 2021 played a big part in that. It'd been a while since Touhou had made any big waves outside of its own community, so I'd like to think the overwhelming amount of attention it brought to Touhou from all over the internet helped give these up and coming creators their audience. I'd say it's too soon to call it a renaissance, but it is still indicative of Touhou's longevity. All the creators we already love are still going strong, and new ones are starting to pop up. Touhou sure isn't going to be going anywhere anytime soon. And yes, as a certified Seki-stan, Akatsuki Records did a great job stroking my ego as all these people are coming out of the woodworks to find that I was right the whole time.

I played through all of the Armored Core games from the PS1 era nearly a year ago, except Master of Arena, which I've beaten about 5 months ago, and I got to say, I absolutely love the soundtracks for these games. The OSTs for these games is mostly 90s Detroit Techno/ Breakbeat (I guess that's what you would classify the OSTs as).

gonna take a very long break

At this, the conclusion of this series of Legend of Zelda features, I was left to decide between the remaining titles for a worthy contributor and fitting ending. I've already covered Breath of the Wild, and some soundtracks like Majora's Mask are too closely connected with other entries. I had it narrowed down to two, with no particular leaning one way or the other. I eventually chose Twilight Princess over Skyward Sword; I had little to no familiarity with either title, but figured it was better to favor the earlier release. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is considered a notably darker game compared to other entries, and is commonly contrasted to Wind Waker in tone and aesthetic (for a variety of reasons). Much of the music in the game seems to reflect this, being more somber and often favoring lower tones; some pieces utilize unique instrumentation blends to accomplish intimidating atmospheres. However, the soundtrack is extensive, and has a surprising degree of variety; in between the area and event themes, there are a multitude of mini-game and comedic tracks that somehow avoid contrasting too sharply with the rest of the game. This has resulted in my selection of featured tracks being significantly more difficult than usual. Under different circumstances, I might have divided this into two separate features; as it is, this is will be the largest single feature I've done thus far. Consider the above as the feature proper, and these as "bonus tracks," as it were; they represent the other extremes this soundtrack occasionally reaches, while maintaining a level of quality consistent with the whole:

I'm glad I decided to sleep before coming back to finish this post. I seem to always have a better perspective on things after waking up. I was gonna come in with a spiel about how "there's no definition for what makes someone a fan" and how "only you can define whether you consider yourself a fan or not." But, that one never really felt complete. Something felt off. "There's no such thing as a bad fan"? Of course there are. I just talked about how awful these people are who gatekeep others from the fandom. How I could I in good conscience make the claim that no one can be a bad fan when I clearly admonish that kind of behavior? I didn't agree with this. I liked the sentiment, but just as you said, it felt incomplete. But you got me questioning; thinking about what was missing from it. I've enjoyed things that I never considered myself a fan of. Hell, even within Touhou, I had been engorged with content for well over a month before I could consider myself a fan. Tons of games and fangames, animations, music, art; I saw so much, and I loved all of (most of) it, but I never really wanted to tell people I was a fan. And then FDF II happened, and before you say anything, I know. "Mom!!! SoundOfRayne's jerking off FDF II again!!!" Okay, I get it. FDF II is special to me and I won't shut up about it. But that's just it. It's special to me, and I wanted to share that with other people. Up until that point, enjoying Touhou was for me and me alone. No girls allowed! But, this one was different. Not because I liked it the best, but because for the first time, I wanted to share how I felt about it with other people. And that's the conclusion I've reached. "What makes someone a [Touhou] fan?" When your enjoyment of something extends beyond yourself, that's when you're a fan. Is that answer broad as all hell? Oh, you bet it is! "How far beyond yourself do you have to get to be a 'real' fan?" Doesn't matter! Do you like playing the games and competing for score? You're a fan. Do you like looking up cool artwork of cute girls? You're a fan. Do you like scrolling through comment sections or forums to hear what other people have to say about "whatever Touhou?" You're a fan. Hell, do you just like sending memes about the plushie of a stupid ice fairy? You're still a fan even if I don't wanna admit it. Is it all positive? Of course not. We've had plenty of discussions here that were plenty critical of things inside and outside of the fandom. Being a fan of something doesn't mean you have to love everything about it. Making people feel welcome to talk about not just what they like, but what they don't, is the mark of a healthy community. And then we wrap it back around to the gatekeepers: a genuine, bona fide bad fan. Gatekeepers don't wanna share things. They want to cut the conversations off; keep the riff-raff out; keep things from changing so that the fandom stays centered around them and what they like. The worst part is that the things that they like are still in the fandom. Older games still have their dedicated fans. People still "play for score." Canon is still being explored and discussed. It's just not the only thing. Arguably, it never was. But rather than try and connect with their kindred spirits, they just try and force everyone else out. To what end? To make it easier to find people who think like they do? I don't have the answer to that. And, @CountVonNumenor, I need to correct something from my previous post. I said before that you weren't a bad Touhou fan, and that was seriously understating things. Over the last year, you've brought a lot of people together on the forums. You've brought debates and critiques and passions out of people. I've tried to enjoy the Shrine's Discord, but I doubt I'll ever be able to feel comfortable in it. These forums feel like a home to me to be able to express myself on my own terms. I wouldn't be surprised if others felt the same way. And even now, we've got someone new to jump in for something that you started. (Welcome to the Shrine @EerieCrypts, by the way.) Dude, if that's not evidence of a good Touhou fan, I don't know what is. I don't really like being sappy about it, but it feels fitting to close out the year. Don't let other people's arbitrary standards get you down. You're absolutely appreciated here.

Personally, I never had to deal with people calling me a bad fan, mainly because I didn't interact with other fans up until I found this forum. Well, there was this one guy on a Discord server I am in, but his messages and memes were either very political, suggestive, or sometimes straight up offensive, but that isn't what this thread is about. First question first, "Am I a bad fan?". I don't think you are a bad fan at all. You know what the fandom gatekeepers are. A bunch of people that judge people based on how and why they enjoy the series. For them, this is how it goes: "Oh, you didn't clear all the games on lunatic with a score bigger than 1 billion? Shame on you.", "You are telling me that you actually like a character from Touhou 6, 7 or 8? Go fuck yourself." (God forbid you tell them that you like a character from 6), "You play Lost Word? We don't want you here.", and so on. They think that they are holy knights sent by ZUN to cleanse the fandom from "fake" Touhou fans. I sometimes wonder what is the thought process behind their actions. There is no right way to enjoy Touhou. You can enjoy the shmup games, the fighter games, the print works, the CDs, the game's OSTs, and the enormous amount of fanwork. You can also enjoy whatever character, game or song you like, no matter if others think it's "overrated" or something. For the second question, "What makes a Touhou fan?" I'm pretty sure there is a more elaborate answer that I am not smart enough to give out. But by definition, a fan of something is someone that admires said something, so in other words, merely enjoying something part of the Touhou franchise, be it either canon or fanon is enough to qualify as a fan. I don't think I gave that good or complete of an answer to this question. Like you said, Touhou has something for everyone. You like cute girls? There is plenty of them. Fancy something dark in your life, we also have that. Enjoy mythology? Touhou is riddled with it. Are you more of a fan of fighters than shmups? Well, you're in luck. And those are just some examples of what the series has to offer.

On separate note, I consider the switch of DanKagu from a gacha game to a... non-gacha game an improvement. Yeah, the fact that whatever people achieved in the gacha version is lost forever sucks, but that's the problem with "games as service" as a whole, and shouldn't really be used against the standalone release of DanKagu.

Never a simple post with you, huh Count? Just as I'm trying to write up a response to the Memories of Phantasm post, I get the notification for this. Well, this topic's a little more important. So, I've read through it all pretty quickly, and I've got some pretty strong feelings on the matter. So, just to get the first question out of the way, "Am I a bad Touhou fan?" Short answer: No. Long answer: Fuck no. There is no debate on this. There is no justifiable, well-intentioned way to make a case that there are "better" or "worse" ways to be a fan. And this doesn't just apply to Touhou. It applies to everything. Gatekeeping is inexcusable in my book. It always has been, and it's always going to be. I think that the basis behind this problem, and why some act the way they do about other people joining in their fandoms, is a psychological concept known as "the Other." As per the webpage: "The Other is an individual who is perceived by the group as not belonging, as being different in some fundamental way. Any stranger becomes the Other. The group sees itself as the norm and judges those who do not meet that norm (that is, who are different in any way) as the Other. Perceived as lacking essential characteristics possessed by the group, the Other is almost always seen as a lesser or inferior being and is treated accordingly. The Other in a society may have few or no legal rights, may be characterized as less intelligent or as immoral, and may even be regarded as sub-human." I wasn't sure whether I should bring this one up. The Other is a concept most often used alongside some pretty heavy topics like, for example: differences in race and ethnicity, social class, religion, and political stances. Pretty heavy stuff with a lot of severe implications behind them. And I would be a damned idiot if I tried to make the case that gatekeeping in a fandom is equivalent to being a racist and a bigot. But... I can't deny that when I see stuff like you put in your post, Count, this was the first thing that came to mind. I think on a fundamental level, this is the reason why gatekeeping happens. People like feeling like they're part of something special; that they found this hidden gem, and they get to place themselves in an "us" against "them" scenario because they understand something that others around them don't. It massages their ego to feel like they're part of this "special elite," even though it would make more sense to want more people involved, so that they would have more opportunities to share their passions with others. But people don't want that. If their fandom gets popular, they're not the "special ones" anymore; just another face in the crowd. So to stave it off, they, the "us," have to do something to set themselves apart from the "them." "They" aren't "us" and they can't be "us," because if "they" can be "us," then there's no point in being "us." The Touhou fandom is... weird. Weird in the sense that it is simultaneously an absolute powerhousing giant of a fandom, yet relatively obscure. It's big enough that a lot of people (I'd argue most people) find out about it through means other than its official material. At the same time, getting invested in it takes work. Say you wanna play the games. Sure, the later entries are available on Steam, but they're costly, and aren't officially patched for any language other than Japanese. Better google up a patch. Oh, and I hope you actually like and are decent at shoot-em-ups. You're not getting much story if you can't beat the game. Wanna read the manga? Hope you already know who these characters are; they're not gonna be introduced. Oh yeah, and these also aren't made available in your language. Please, I just want my WaHH... Is that too much to ask? OG Touhou fans outside of Japan had to work their asses off to get into this fandom. It's not hard to imagine them getting an ego when new people join in because Touhou is now infinitely more accessible than it was in their time. Now we get "fake fans." They didn't put in the same amount of time and work and dedication that we did, and yet they get to keep the same title of "fan?" And now even inside the fandom, it's still "us" vs "them." Okay, that's enough on the nature of gatekeeping. Worrying about whether you fit someone else's definition of a "fan" isn't just a fruitless endeavor; it's a harmful one. If you let someone assume the role of an authority on what constitutes a fan, not only are you putting your own enjoyment of Touhou at risk, but also reinforcing their stance that their are "better" and "worse" fans for other newcomers. That's why gatekeeping needs to be nipped in the bud and never be tolerated. I'm not totally happy with my post. I still have the second question to answer about "What makes someone a Touhou fan?" But, I'm out of time for today, and I really don't want to wait a whole 'nother day to get my thoughts out. I'll definitely be coming back to this thread to close things up.