Dead Fish Chronicle's Arah Timur: 10 Year Anniversary

(Because I have been heavily influenced by them in the creation of our own doujin comic compilation, this post might as well double as Fault's Artists Highlight!)

The Arah Timur anthology is a series of Touhou Project doujin comic compilation by the circle Dead Fish Chronicles, spanning a total of six books. The first of the series was released in Comic Fiesta 2009, and with today being exactly 10 years since that release, I would like to do a sort of retrospective of the series of books.

The time when I started to dive into the Touhou Project series coincided with my first foray into the local anime/comic/games (ACG) conventions. Having been familiar with the concept of doujinshi - and immediately finding out that the series really thrive on interpretations by derivative fanworks - I was curious if there are local artists who have produced such works.

There have indeed been several artists who have at that point been releasing prints or other merchandise of the series, but my first encounter of doujin comic of the series (and I really believe they really were the first in the local fandom) was the first two Arah Timur book back in Comic Fiesta 2010.

Arah Timur #1 and #2 from Comic Fiesta 2010 - I even received a special illustration for being one of the earliest costumer to their booth! 

I have at that point have no expectation of what the 'local flavour' of the Touhou series would be, and they instantly made their work noticeable with the art style, the writing, and - what I would see as their calling card - the bilingual text.

Part of my enjoyment upon reading the series are looking at the various dialect and slangs being thrown into the Malay translation of the dialogue...

Utagha?

Sabahan?? 

Kelate?!

And the art... well, we'll get back to that in a bit.

Although Dead Fish Chronicle (from here on referred to as supposedly unintentionally acronymed DFC) have been there way before the local Touhou fandom as we know today exist, I don't feel that they are that well known outside of those who actively seek out (local) Touhou doujin comic (which are admittedly quite small to begin with...). And looking back at it now, such a reception might have been inevitable, seeing as the circle collective does appear to be coming from a different generation than the much younger demographic that makes up the fandom - where the preference, style and sensibilities of these generation may not necessarily intersect - and with the exception of Dinjerr, there have not been much interaction of the circle member with the local fanbase from what I remember of the early days of the fanbase...

At some point when looking at the series, I thought of one word that could be used to sum them up: punk.

This was evident by the choice of them printing in blacks-on-coloured-paper of the covers (with the exception of Arah Timur #4) - which, from my understanding, were all done on their own without sending to the printer (i.e. the pages were stapled by hands).

This punk and DIY ethos is most prevalent in the art style of one of the circle member, Bokson, where the lines are rough, the subject can be nonsensical and a bit vulgar at times, and there's... durians??

I love durians

And also random (I would suppose not sponsored) product placements... which I guess is 'selling out', if I were to continue using the 'punk' comparison... Or maybe that is some sort of critique on how entrepreneurship is actually intrinsically tied to DIY work, and it's intentional?? Or maybe I'm just overthinking an otherwise  the artist throwing in some silly details???

The other four recurring artists - Dinjerr, Gen, and Onipolice (earlier appearing as Fujiarmu) appears to embody the same ethos, albeit with different themes: Dinjerr being more liberal in the setting and casts, Gen going for a more 'slice of life' feel, and Onipolice sticking close to slapstick.

Dinjerr (even more durians!)

Gen

Onipolice

Joint panels between the four members

Such a lineup is achieved and maintained in what I would consider their peak period (Arah Timur #2 - #3), with the lineup slowly dwindling from that point onward due to various reasons. Throughout all the books, Bokson is the constant member - appearing on all the issues - along with Dinjerr (whose presence was greatly missed in Arah Timur #4.5, where the book is an anomaly with the absence of the Malay dialogue).

Page from Arah Timur #4.5

Looking through the different artists' works, immediately it was evident that the art style is not one that is immediately popular with the audience, being close to an 'indie' or western style as opposed to the more ubiquitous anime/manga style... with Dinjerr's one being what I would consider as being close to the 'popular taste' at that time. While my first reaction to the book is being amazed that there are people who are producing Touhou doujin - and working in a style that was raw and unconventional - I would suspect that the general audience reaction would be that of intrigue at best, and disgust at worst.

The latter was sort of backed up by an anecdote by one of the circle member's experience of seeing a passerby making a face when looking through the book... which may have been why he had once made the comment of 'even if it's different, doesn't mean it's good'...

Arah Timur #3 along with other releases from Comic Fiesta 2011

Arah Timur #4 along with other releases from Comic Fiesta 2013

DFC's Arah Timur series span a period from 2009 to 2014, and in the last two years, the rather lukewarm audience response appears to be affecting them - as one of the member had confided, they were apparently feeling disconnected with the fandom for two reasons: 1) why was it that the fanbase extremely picky with releases from the niche fandom; and 2) there were no other artists in the fanbase releasing work similar to them (i.e. comics) that they could share a sense of camaraderie.

It was only a year after what would be their entry in the series (as of the current time of writing), that we started our own collaboration doujin comic series - and over the years we would also share the same sentiment that they had with the fanbase... But that, I suppose, is not the focus of this post, even if it's tempting to attempt to talk at length about the state of the local doujin 'scene' of the fandom...

From the afterword section of Tauhu Projak II

Sadly, Bokson passed away due to illness in 2016, and both Arah Timur and DFC have been quiet ever since (with their website being out of reach by the time of this writing).

While they have not been as popular in their prime - and perhaps even unknown to newcomers to the fandom - I continue to hear them being spoken favourably by people from the older portion of the fanbase, with most acknowledging that no one else work like they did, bringing in what would undoubtedly be a 'local flavour' to the fandom, through their uncompromising indie spirit.

Such a spirit is the guiding ethos for our doujin comic collaboration series, and while unfortunately we could not commit to continuing the collaboration series as we did in the past, I am ever curious to see the younger artists to try their hands at contributing to the local doujin scene of the fandom.

From the pages of Pop #4 (by Bokson): a short series of talking head extolling the virtues and silliness of the fandom

And for them - as well as any other fans, both old and new - I would like to point them to where it all started, when a bunch of friends with a shared interest in the Touhou Project series decided to put out a fanbook when such a thing was non-existent, to continue to work on it for their love of the series.

(at this point of the post, I would have directed to their website - which had then provided downloads to most of the Arah Timur books - for those who have not come across their work before... As their website appears to be inaccessible, I would like to direct your attention to the internet archive  for part of the site... or if there are troubles to access the files there, I have created a Google Drive folder containing the PDFs of Arah Timur 1-4, as well as other original comics by the circle. 

If DFC have decided to turn their website on/would rather not have the PDFs being shared, do reach out to me and I'll gladly take them off!)


Happy 10th anniversary of Arah Timur. Thank you for inspiring some of us artists to have a go at contributing to the series!