this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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Touhou Project
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Touhou Project is a series of shoot 'em up games created by ZUN. This game series has fostered a vibrant and imaginative fandom, giving rise to numerous fan-made creations such as music arrangements, illustrations, manga, anime, and conventions.
The Touhou universe primarily revolves around Gensokyo. Within Gensokyo, the canon games feature recurring main characters who resolve various incidents. These characters include Reimu Hakurei, a powerful miko, and Marisa Kirisame, a human magician.
Touhou characters are predominantly female and encompass a wide array of folkloric Japanese monsters coexisting within Gensokyo.
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That's a very interesting topic, and gen AI is very controversial for several years.
I'm a bit annoyed that gen AI intertwines with touhou. The touhou fandom was much better without it, but now that the cat is out of the bag, we, as fan, have to deal with it.
I'm somewhat relieved that ZUN communicated this week, and that he did so by assuming his use of gen AI and rationalized it.
Using it as a tool, and not for any creative process, especially coming from a seasoned artist, is a fine stance. Ignoring gen AI by pretending it doesn't even exist would lead the way to a flood of artificial content that would drown the carefully crafted real art, from actual artists. Embracing gen AI as a casual way to generate background, story, sprite... would remove the soul of touhou. Using it as a tool for the lesser creative tasks and freeing time for what's matter most is, imho, a right approach, and I'm happy that ZUN picked this way.
I recall the backlash of "digital" artists near the end of the 90's, hated by analog artists, bashed for their ability to 'Control-Z', called cheaters and shamed for this. The story repeats, with the addition of social networks as amplifiers, echo chambers. And outrage will diminish as gen AI enters artists' workflow as a help. Those who claims to be artists by sharing raw generated images will remain frauds, and those who manages to integrate gen AI in their artist pipeline will be able to create better art pieces.
So now that ZUN clarified his position, I feel better about touhou and gen AI use in its future.
Interesting that I'm not the only one that remembers the days of digital artists being considered as "cheap", "worthless" or "cheating". I found an old reddit threads that discussed it roughly just before genAI became a thing, and I could see the exact same things being said for the more reasonable AI usage these days: https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/9mdnz2/is_there_a_stigma_around_photoshop_now/
Now this was only 7 years ago, and 20 years ago it was even harsher. It just ends up being a 'well known secret' among professionals, and capitalism will find a way to monetize the hatred of those not in the know (willingly, or unknowingly) anyways. It's fueled a long history of the "I can pay artists very little because their work is incredibly easy with Photoshop anyways!" mentality too, which ends up harming artist's wallets and appreciation too.
This is just a great point imo. And it's why we should encourage truthfulness. In my opinion, while there are roads to be an artist that uses AI in their process, just like picking up a camera can lead to becoming a photographer, that's not a given just because you have access to it. You will still have to imprint the work with your artistic spirit, and if the AI does all the work for you rather than assist you in line with your creative decisions, you just don't fit my definition of an artist, even if the result looks good. Just like mindlessly taking pictures wouldn't make someone a photographer to me either.
I hope in a way that ZUN will have ended up making this topic more approachable by choosing to come out and explain them publicly. It's hard to ignore or reject ZUN's prior works without AI. Maybe it will cause Touhou to be among the first communities to move past absolutist stances fueled by hate into more understanding and productive nuanced stances.