Pages

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

ZUN speaks

I'm sure by now most people are aware of the announce by ZUN on his blog about new guidelines for derived Touhou work (or, if you can't read moonrunes, you might have read it from here)


EDIT: After reading more comments on the issue, I am further in agreement that the western fanbase can be quite terrible at times (or would you say most of the time?). I'll be honest guys, sometimes the fans do get on my nerves...

Based on what I'm hearing from a few people that I know, they are making a fuss about the possibility that the commercial works (e.g. plushies, figures) would be completely restricted - and not mentioning about the other details of the new guidelines - but is that really the case? Because the closest that I could find mentioning on those are:

 企業でグッズを販売する場合は、許可が必要です。
You need my permission to sell commercial goods.

 東方の二次創作や二次使用についての問い合わせについては、
 現在友人に受付窓口を協力してもらっています。
A friend of mine has graciously offered to serve as the point of
contact for inquiries about works derived from Touhou.

and

 *また、企業グッズで性的表現(性的表現のある抱き枕など)のあるものはご遠慮ください。
In addition, please refrain from making commercial goods of a sexualized
nature (such as dakimakura covers with sexual imagery).

It seems to me that in the announcement, ZUN is focusing more on the restriction for the animation and adult doujins. If my assumption is correct, I'd say the issues that concerns ZUN would be:

-Touhou becoming a commercial anime series
-The series come to be known as some lewd series with a lot of questionable contents

About the second point - I don't think it has reached to that point here, but I know of a western Touhou fan who wasn't too happy on how some people thought Touhou is a series full of lolicons and perverts. Heck, even she thought it was that way before she was actually into the series!

(those who frequent Danbooru know too well of the point being mentioned above... eh, guys?)

Of course, you could say that she is exaggerating things... but knowing the masses, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the fans actually view Touhou as nothing more than that. Who knows? Not me, that's for sure.

Regardless of the reasoning, I don't think the effects of the new guidelines would be as disastrous as some have made it to be. Maybe it'd be slightly harder for the oversea fans to get the doujins, but I don't know for sure since I'm not too familiar with how the doujin channels work. But I'd say that ol' ZUN still wish for Touhou to remain as doujin works, rather than being transformed into a commercial product.

I'll just end this short rambling with one guy's comment on this announcement:

"If Touhou were to become commercialized, all those conformists would just come in and ruin it. Look at what happened to games and anime that become mainstream."


Take it easy, Touhou dudes and dudettes~

8 comments:

  1. Someone posted a link to a Sankaku "article" on jaypee the other day. Seeing how that went I would say that the majority of the so-called western fan base are retarded beyond any hope.

    They basically throw tantrums and when faced with logic and factual information to show their fears as false they bend over backwards to warp the information just because they cannot stand being wrong. "Oh but you pay for doujinshi too so that is probably what ZUN means!"

    From the perspective of the Japanese I bet westerners seem like hostile over-reacting hill billies. Mind you these are the same people who rejoiced that Touhou was getting an "official" anime.

    Basically this is ZUN's reaction, everyone who wanted an anime just got told. At the time he stated he didn't have anything to do with it, and I believe they used some name like Hakurei Shrine Comittee.

    Next month is the Hakurei Jinja Reitaisai, where ZUN is listed as a participant. I highly doubt he's putting a stop to doujin works as then the event would probably be canceled as far as the other 99.9% of participating circles are concerned.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nothing will really change except some figures and goods will be harder to get for westerners like you said. Secondaries will still shit up the fanbase and this whole thing will just spawn more of them.

    Although you can't blame ZUN for doing this. He wants to keep Touhou the way he wants it to be and if companies like GSC, Max Factory, and Gift are making loads of money from Touhou products there's no reason why ZUN shouldn't deserve royalties.

    I'm guessing that big companies will follow through and still produce Touhou goods so nothing will actually change. If they start charging more then if may be a slight problem, but I'm sure people will still buy them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm with ZUN on this one, and I've actually been waiting for him to do something like this. An anime would just ruin Touhou even more and I wouldn't want to see one. And yes, the western "fan"base is horrible.

    I'm with him on the issue regarding sexualization as well. (I don't mind innocent ecchi, but there's some pretty hardcore stuff out there. I don't like seeing them getting degraded like that, and I think neither ZUN does.)

    Well, as long as it doesn't affect figures, plushies and music too much, even if I don't like how some are milking the series, I'm more than okay with this. Touhou is ZUN's creation and he has the right to do whatever he wants.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm glad ZUN is stepping in and doing this. People have already stated my reasons as to why I agree. The fans might not perceive Touhou as a highly sexualized work of entertainment since we're all desensitized to this. All because of a certain image board.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Pocky: I'm not surprised if they felt that way about the western fans. Anyway, guess I'm not missing much out of jaypee, since I have my fair share of those kind of fans elsewhere else.

    @Cpt: When you put it that way, I'm kinda worried on how Touhou will be in the future, getting those kind of fans. But it's not as if you can do anything much about it, right?

    I just hope those merchandise are still affordable to us gaijin...

    @Link: You said it, man. I think a lot of the fans keep forgetting that the whole thing spawns from this one single guy, so there's no problem if he want to stick in every now and then.

    I don't think there's nothing more to say about the western fanbase, yeah.

    @Jerry: I'm with Link on the sexualization issue; I'm not too fond of the hardcore stuff, to be honest. But to each, his own I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I doubt anything will change, really. I can't say anything that hasn't already been said.

    >people thought Touhou is a series full of lolicons and perverts

    I am both, so I'm not really helping in that case..

    ReplyDelete
  7. @HHH: lol don't worry about that man, since I'm sure some of us are that way as well

    But honestly, fandom can be quite an ugly thing sometimes. There are some series that I don't really hate it, but more of the fans...

    ReplyDelete