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I've kind have noticed over time that a lot of new artists tend to gravitate towards drawing lewd or fan servicey artwork more so than the past were you saw a lot more kawaii~ stuff. I think this might be one of the main reasons, touhou is a very old and busted series from the 00s that while having very great character design, it just doesn't really lend itself as well to the tastes of men and women that want. need. MUST, goon. I think this is because where as a lot of art online was drawn out of passion, and the skill ceiling or standards also seemed quite lower when we consider how a lot of web art/flash art used to look like, now a lot of art is drawn for profit and commissions, more so than before. Thus, since more artists are drawing more NSFW stuff for money, they gravitate to drawing a lot of these horny gacha characters. Another thing to consider is the fetishization of young female characters in the western otaku community has become a lot more taboo, even for stuff like JK's and because normies look at cute touhou characters, regardless of the age of those characters, some really ignorant people just screech "PDF FILE!!!!!", so there is also an incentive to steer towards characters that are more in the "safe horny" sphere, and yes I do hate these twitter terms. Another thing to consider is that Touhou just isn't the hot, vibrant community it used to be, its not this craze sensation that possesses its fanbase, honestly touhou kind of doesn't feel all that special anymore with how popular it has become, how diluted its core fanbase has gotten. I'm not surprised artist would migrate away from it just out of boredom alone. It held its spark for a very very long time, but it wasn't going to last forever, the internet just isn't what it used to be. Japanese otaku culture was insane, novel, and fun, but that was from the 00s.

Hope you don't mind if I include my story about how I hate LostWord so much. Before LostWord was released in Japan, the only gacha games I played were Love Live: School Idol Festival and Touhou Cannonball. And I find these two games to be fun and enjoyable. Especially, Touhou Cannonball. Once LostWord came out in Japan, I decided to give that game a chance. Because back then, people say that Cannonball is bad but I actually like that game. So since people said that LostWord is bad, maybe I'll enjoy that one too. When I first played LostWord, I think it starts off pretty solid. I do like Main Story's Chapter 1 and the plot is pretty good on paper. But then, Chapter 2 when things are starting to get really dull. The battle are becoming more generic, bland and forgettable, the boss fights feel more forced and unnecesary, Greenwich Debris becomes way too annoying to listen, the pacing from the battles are way too slow (Yes, I know that there's now an option to make the battles faster. But, the x2 speed there feels more like normal speed than its actual speed.), there are times that the characters are just being used for fan-service and nothing else. I was hoping that the devs would fix these issue in future. So, I stopped playing LostWord and get back to Touhou Cannonball. Once Touhou Cannonball got shut down, I became upset. So, I went back to LostWord hoping that some of these issues are fixed to make the game better. They didn't. They made it worse. More fan-service, more generic battles, more moments that makes certain characters unlikable, loli (small) variants (Yuyuko, Yukari, Junko, Satori, Remilia, Kanako, and Suwako), bland/lazy AU designs (Blue Reimu, Red Marisa, Purple Youmu, Green Suika, and the L80 Units), and more BS that I'm not gonna say. Because if I did, it's gonna be a long list. Unlike Cannonball, LostWord doesn't feel like a Touhou fangame to me. It feels more like a generic, everyday gacha RPG with Touhou slapped on it. If I wanna create Touhou LostWord, here's a list on how I would do it: Make it an actual RPG. Add an overworld mechanic. Make different universes have interesting/original enemies and bosses with different abilities. Add context on why we have to fight bosses. No copy and pasted boss fights. No events. Focus on the Main Story. No loli variants! Give the AUs a more interesting design. Balancing. Make the characters be more likable. Make it feel more like a Touhou fangame rather than making it a RPG Commercial of Touhou. Make the plots for the parallel worlds more memorable and interesting. Try including some basic Touhou enemies (Kedamas, Fairies, Wheel Ghosts, Onibis) be part of the story, if necessary. (From the cover of Touhou LostWord, I noticed that there are two fairies and I thought they'll appear somewhere in the game. But, nope. They're not there.) Not making the game too grindy. Less fan-service, more creativity. I wish LostWord is actually good. And I know that everybody else would want that, too.