Touhou Doujin (Touhou genre) emerged around two decades ago and is still blooming today, despite not being as huge as it used to be a decade ago. Touhou Project fans have spontaneously planned various events, centered on doujinshi sales events, and created a place for fans to interact. The Touhou-only doujin events have served as the core infrastructure supporting the growth of the Touhou genre. Not only are there many events and circles, but the current Touhou-only events are extremely diverse, with regional distribution, work-only or character-only events, and events that are ancillary to the sales events.
Touhou Doujin is also an "experimental field" for different ideas for doujin events. Touhou Doujin in some ways became its own thing, even though they face similar problems to the Doujin scene (but their roots may be different). We will see later how they tried to solve them and how successful it was.
In the Touhou genre, Reitaisai and Kouroumu are often considered special due to their scale and history. But the differences in trends from other Touhou-only events, and the fact that the trends of Reitaisai and Kouroumu are very similar (at least before COVID-19) despite being held in different locations, suggest the existence of a socioeconomic structure and environment surrounding doujin events unique to the Touhou genre.
Before we talk about the history of Touhou Doujin, we should understand what Touhou Doujin is and its characteristics.
Touhou-only sales events are events that specialize in the distribution of Touhou derivative works. In Japan, it is often the case that at least one type of work must be distributed. In addition, there are different kinds of specialized events within the Touhou genre, and in addition to sales events that target Touhou in general, there are also sales events that target specific characters (for example Touhou EoSD only), works (for example Marisa Kirisame only), specific media (for example Touhou music only, Touhou games only) and specific themes (for example Touhou critics only). Compared to the early days, Touhou-only sales events have become more complex, as not only solo-hosted sales events are held, but also joint events and cohosted events. By sharing the facilities and operations on the day of the event while maintaining the unique character of each event, economies of scale can be enjoyed. As the types of events run become more diverse, such as live music events, game corners, reading clubs and presentations, the image of sales events continues to change even now.
Touhou-only events vary greatly in size, venue and subgenres, and depending on the combination of these elements, the image of the event that participants have is formed. In particular, the subgenres are strongly influenced by the organizer's preferences and policies. When a unique event is held, it may encourage an increase in participants and the publication of new works by circles.
From the side of the subgenres there are several kinds of events:
Touhou general events, which welcome all Touhou derivative works, are held all over the country. The largest Touhou-only event in each region is generally a Touhou general event, and it also serves as the face of the region. The main events are Reitaisai (Kanto region), Kouroumu (Kansai region), Meikasai (Chubu region), Dai⑨shu Touhousai (Kyushu region), etc.
Works-only and characters-only, which function as a receptacle when the popularity of derivative works of a particular work or character increases among fans. In addition, when Team Shanghai Alice announces a new Touhou work, the event becomes more popular. In addition, the holding of the sales event itself increases the attention of the work or character, and can play a role in the formation of a subgenre. Examples include Bunbun。Newspaper Friends Club (
文々。新聞友の会) (Tengu-only), Science Century Cafe Terrace (
科学世紀のカフェテラス) (Hifuu-only). The number of circles on these sales events is usually larger than the number of circles, which publish works in the same subgenre, at Reitaisai and Comiket.
Others. There are also Touhou-only events with specific themes, such as "Touhou and sake" at the Engawa of Hakurei Shrine (
博麗神社の縁側), "Touhou and trains" at Enshusai (
東方遠州祭in列車) and "Touhou critics" at the
Gensokyo Forum. There are also sales events that feature a sacred place pilgrimage, for example Suwa at Mishagujisai (
御射宮司祭).
Event format refers roughly to the difference between whether the event is run alone or multiple events running an event together.
From this side there are several kinds of events:
Solo-hosted events*. Examples of solo-hosted Touhou-only events are large-scale events with more than a thousand participants, such as Reitaisai and Kouroumu. There are also many smaller events which are hosted alone, for example
Yarinsai and events by
Anime Club Kofu, etc.
Joint and cohosted. Cohosting type is when different sales events form cooperative relationships to hold an event. There are two types of cohosting: cohosting with Touhou-only events (and as they are more connected they are called joint events) and cohosting with sales events of other genres (they are called cohosted events). Examples of joint events include the
Kyoto Joint Festival and
Touhou Joint Festival, which combines works-only and characters-only events. Examples of cohosted include the Dai⑨shu Touhousai and Meikaisai. In both cases, co-hosting has been effective in securing an appropriate venue for a single event. The first Touhou-only event,
the 1st Reitaisai, was also cohosted with a
Fate-only event.
Mini-only (Petit-only), which are similar to cohosted events in that events with different names are jointly run, but their main feature is that they have a clear "parent event". In other words, rather than starting a new event from scratch, it is a case of using the system of an existing event to hold a small-scale only event. Holding a mini-only event has the effect of promoting the presence of Touhou circles and the trends in their works at existing events. Such events were held between 2010 and 2015.
* In Japan solo-hosted events are called alone or single events (単独).
Touhou-only sales events are held in areas all over the country, mainly in large cities. They are held in a variety of formats, but as of the end of 2024, they have been held in 43* prefectures. In many of them, events are held on a regular basis, but there are prefectures where events have been held only 1-3 times. Nowadays, events are held continuously mainly in areas with a certain concentration of active doujin community.
Events other than doujinshi sales events, such as doujinshi reading groups, live music events, and cosplay events, can also be seen in various places. These are sometimes planned to coincide with sales events, or held as offline meetings in areas with few sales events or after events.
* Some researchers, such as STRIKE HOLE, agree that 3rd floor on 2nd Komachisai (響灯小町祭２), which was held in 2015, "Akita's First Touhou-only" event. This was the only Touhou-only event in this prefecture. If this event is not counted as a Touhou-only event, then by now Touhou-only events have been held in 42 prefectures.Saying about the content of Touhiu doujinshi sales events, derivative works in the Touhou genre are not limited to doujinshi. Of course, the overwhelming majority of circles handle doujinshi (on many Touhou-only events around 50-70% of circles are focused on doujinshi). However, what makes Touhou unique is that it goes beyond that and has a wide variety of expressions. Things like
food and
alcohol are not uncommon in the Touhou community and were rare in other doujin genres for a long time. There are a lot of different forms of
merchandise, even
clothes and
dishes are sold. There are Touhou circles which express themselves in the field of doujin music: there are
arrangements of original songs,
Touhou-
style music and
live performances. Some circles decide to make games and that can be a
digital game or
physical game. Different kinds of
critical doujinshi are spread and, as it was noticed before, there are events where circles can share such works and their opinions.
Pilgrimage and
Travel books are
spread nowadays. There are also
guide books. Touhou Doujin is a place where a variety of expression methods are allowed.
And now that we learned what Touhou Doujin is, we can learn how it evolved.
Looking at the data and information we have, we can split the history of Touhou Doujin into:
- The "dawn period": a high growth rate but lacked breadth.
- The "Touhou bubble period": a dramatic expansion in the overall scale.
- The "stable contraction period": the contraction of smaller Touhou-only events while maintaining the characteristic structure of Touhou genre, the concentration of circles on large-scale events.
- The "structural shock period"*: the noticeable contraction of big Touhou-only events which led to measures to maintain the structure of Touhou genre, the stabilization of small and medium-sized events.
- The "structural contraction period": it occurred when the structure of Touhou genre could not be maintained any longer.
- The "COVID-19 period": the epidemic hit and reduced the structure of Touhou genre greatly.
- The "Post-COVID-19 recovery period": after the end of the pandemic the structure of Touhou genre began to slowly restore to Pre-COVID-19 state.
* In previous research papers the period from around 2014 to 2019 was viewed as one period – "structural contraction period". New data showed that there are a lot of differences between 2014-2017 and 2018-2019, so they were divided.Dawn Period (2004-2008)At this time, individual events such as Reitaisai and Kouroumu showed high growth rates, but the overall growth rate was lower than the expansion during the Touhou bubble period that followed.
Only three sales events were held between 2004 and 2005: Reitaisai, Kouroumu, and
Love-coloured Magic (the first character-only event). There were enough circles interested in Touhou to hold an Touhou-only sales event. Even though the first Reitaisai was the first Touhou-only sales event, more than 100 circles participated in the event, despite the event only having 50 circle spaces available. This shows that there were networks, such as image boards and
Coolier, in which information about Touhou-only events could be circulated through the Japanese Touhou community. Such networks also helped to spread information about the first Touhou Popular Vote, the first Touhou tournament and other community activities. At that time the view of Touhou was slowly shifting from STG to doujin creations.
After that, from 2006 to 2008, other events besides Reitaisai and Kouroumu started to be held, and the genre began to show its own characteristics as a Touhou genre. Some people began to move from other genres (for example from Key & Leaf) to Touhou. The total number of circles per year also grew to around 2000 by 2007, and it was on a stable growth track. But people (participants, circles and staff) continued to be concentrated in Reitaisai and Kouroumu, even though the number of events increased. However, the theme of concentration, which was an important characteristic in the early years, is closely related to the structure of Touhou-only sales events that continue to this day.
Touhou Bubble Period (2008-2010)
The number of fan groups active in Touhou increased dramatically. This phenomenon is called the "Touhou Bubble Period". So what happened at this time? The main reasons are believed to be the spread of new communication tools such as social networks and the Touhou boom on Nico Nico Douga. Nicovideo started its service in 2007 and provides a large number of amateur videos. Among them, Touhou Project, Idol Master, and VOCALOID (Hatsune Miku, etc.) had a large number of video submissions and they were called the "Niconico Big Three". Works such as "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing" (published on Niconico in 2007) and "Bad Apple!! feat. Nomico" (published on Niconico in 2009) are very popular. The former became popular on Nicovideo in 2007, though Touhou in general on Nicovideo would start to get
a popularity boom beginning in 2008. The increase in the popularity of Touhou music and video works has led to an influx of a large number of new members who first learned about Touhou on Nicovideo. The number of circles at Touhou-only events increased dramatically between 2008 and 2010, which can be considered the result of the influx of a new generation from Nicovideo.
At this time, the movement of Reitaisai and Kouroumu to Tokyo Big Sight and INTEX Osaka respectively were viewed as symbolic of Touhou's genre expansion. At the same time, it became notable that the growth rate for other Touhou-only events surpassed Reitaisai and Kouroumu. The foundation of the Touhou genre as a large-scale genre that continues to this day was during this period.
The number of Touhou-only sales events held in local areas increased greatly. Around that time it was believed that "any Touhou work can be sold", so many circles gathered on Touhou-only events. In 2009, events that were the core of Touhou-only events in local areas for a very long time, such as
Hakata Touhou Festival (later was renamed to Dai⑨shu Touhousai),
Tokyousou,
Kamuisai, and
Shikokusai (later was renamed to
Iyoshikokusai) appeared. Existing events such as
Niigata Touhou Festival also began to expand, and the environment for holding Touhou-only sales events in local areas changed.
The wide-spread expansion of Touhou-only events in local areas continued until around 2011, leading to their appearance in
Nagano,
Yamanashi,
Gifu,
Tottori,
Shimane,
Tokushima and other prefectures. These areas are relatively easy to get to from large cities, have a local base of doujin activities or have a management system in place, such as local governments supporting events. Also, doujin sales events in rural areas, especially those aimed at men, were showing a clear tendency to stagnate at the time, and it has been pointed out that the Touhou-only sales events had a great effect on unearthing local doujin circles in addition to Touhou fans in large cities. Meanwhile, Touhou-only events were held in large cities by the Puniket Preparatory Committee, Project-D and KetCom, and Studio YOU and others nationwide organisers entered the Touhou genre, each achieving a certain degree of success. At the time, the overall pie was expanding, and it can be said that circles and the general public were highly motivated to participate in Touhou-only sales events themselves. Reitaisai and Kouroumu were also growing rapidly, but at the same time, many Touhou-only events were able to profit from and take advantage of the genre's expansion.
The number of general visitors was also unusual. There is a term called the "attendance coefficient", which indicates the number of general participants per circle (sometimes it is measured as the "total number of participants" including circle participants), and is calculated by dividing the number of general participants (or total number of participants) by the number of circle participants. According to STRIKE HOLE and Hisayuki Yoshifumi (久幸繙文), this coefficient for a normal doujinshi sales event is around 3-4, while for crowded Comiket is around 13-14. The average for Touhou-only events was 10-12 during the Golden Age (2008-2013), and for both Reitaisai (2008), when it was at its most crowded, and the Hakata Touhou Festival (2009) it exceeded 20.
Stable Contraction Period (2010-2013)
During this period the number of circles on Reitaisai and Kouroumu remained stable at around 5000 and 2500, respectively. The number of circles reached its maximum in 2011, with about 15700 circles. The rapid growth calmed down and an equilibrium occurred between the number of people entering and leaving the genre. However, the number of circles for the other events had already started to slow down its increase in 2010-2011, and greatly reduced in 2012. This led to a decline in the overall total number of circles, and circles became more concentrated on Reitaisai and Kouroumu.
However, the influx of new people into the genre soon began to slow down, and Touhou-only events, which had a weak base of activity, began to cease activity within a short period of time. Some local sales events gained a strong core status, and the number of circles at those sales events continued to grow for a while. Some
new events appeared, which also helped to increase the number of circles in local areas for a while.
The majority of Touhou-only events held in local areas during the Touhou bubble period were Touhou-only general sales events. As the core general sales events in each region consolidated their management systems, the number of events held annually and the times of arrangements became known, and they established themselves as a regular place for participants to interact.
Under these circumstances, it gradually becomes more difficult for new Touhou general sales events to gather participants. At the end of the Touhou bubble, the number of Touhou-only events with much fewer participating circles than the number of recruitment spaces began to increase. The background to the occurrence of Touhou-only events filling less than half of their circle spaces, or in some cases less than a third, is thought to be related not only to the slowdown in the growth of the Touhou genre, but also to the dynamics unique to doujinshi sales events. The process by which representative Touhou general sales events were established is the same not only in rural areas, but in all areas. In the Kanto region, the Reitaisai is an example of this, but as it became larger and held once a year, a more regular place for regular interaction was required. Puniket events such as Kurenai no Hiroba (紅のひろば) and Leave the Magic of Love to Marisa! (恋のまほうは魔理沙におまかせ！) as well as Project-D events such as Moon Feast (月の宴), could be evaluated as having a function equivalent to that of regional representative events. The scale and continuity of Touhou-only events became polarized in terms of whether or not they functioned as a place for regular interaction.
However, new Touhou-only events continued to be established in response to the diversification of Touhou fan activities. Among them, many work-only and character-only events began to emerge. Work-only and character-only events were held by circles who participated in the "standard" Touhou general sales events and looked for new opportunities for activities in their spare time. These types of sales events were held from the early days and many were very successful, but during the stable contraction period, work-only and character-only events began to function as hubs for sub-communities within the Touhou genre. The sub-communities that expanded within the Touhou genre have in some cases become powerful enough to support the operation of individual doujinshi sales events.
For example, The Outside World Visible from the Boundary (境界から視えた外界), held in 2010, was an Hifuu-only sales event, which was a minor subgenre at the time, but it proved to be much more lively than initially expected. The following year, the Science Century Cafe Terrace (科学世紀のカフェテラス), also an Hifuu-only event, was held, and the two events were jointly planned, clearly demonstrating their intention to promote the Hifuu subgenre. The Hifuu works produced by circles were also unique, and increased the buzz around the Hifuu subgenre. What supported this process was the existence of the potential for the formation of a subgenre that was already forming, such as the interaction between staff through the activities of the Reitaisai and Kouroumu, and the interaction between circles and readers through characters, and the work-only and character-only events provided the opportunity to bring this to the surface. The system in which sales events created subgenres was in full swing, which was a major feature of this period.
A feature of these work-only and character-only events is that it is not uncommon that the number of circles on each event to be greater than the number of circles on the same character placement area at Reitaisai or Kouroumu.
When applying to participate in events such as Reitaisai, it is thought that circles often choose the subgenre in which they are mainly active. However, not all circles are always active in one subgenre. If given the opportunity, they may venture into a subgenre that they are interested in. Work-only and character-only events have been successful in capturing the needs of such circles. The same may be said about the Touhou genre at Comiket and Touhou-only sales events. The larger scale of sales events does not uniformly expand the opportunities to present works.
In addition, for those who wish to host sales events, during the stable contraction period in which the total number of circles per year began to decrease, work-only and character-only events made it easier to highlight the individuality of the event and promote appeal to participants.
During the stable contraction period, while the scale of the Reitaisai and Kouroumu was maintained, the number of circles at other events decreased. The major increase of newcomers like during the Touhou bubble era disappeared, and there was a polarization of Touhou general sales events and the formation of sub-communities led by work-only and character-only events. As the number of circles decreased, Touhou-only sales events became more fragmented.
Structural Shock Period (2014-2017)The shrinking trend of the Touhou genre was becoming obvious to everyone in 2014, but the decrease in the number of participating circles at Reitaisai was seen as a turning point for the genre. In the same year, the number of circles at the Kouroumu decreased significantly compared to the previous year; the number of general participant began to decrease (the "attendance coefficient" for most Touhou-only events reduced to around 6-7), and the future of the Touhou genre became more uncertain.
However, when looking at the number of circles at other Touhou-only sales events, the downward trend has stopped and the numbers have stabilized and even began to slightly increase. Considering the magnitude of the impact of the Reitaisai and Kouroumu, when considering the Touhou genre, the decrease in the number of circles at Reitaisai is a turning point, but when considering all Touhou-only sales events, we must think about the structure of the genre while being aware of how this contrast came about.
The reason why the number of other Touhou-only circles began to stabilize is that many events that were established during the Touhou bubble period but were unable to build a stable foundation, or events that were originally intended to be short-term events stopped their activities. Many of the Touhou-only events that continued to be held had a certain degree of scale and know-how; their management base had been strengthened by holding simultaneous events.
According to Circle Goka, another reason for the decline in the number of circles is the change in population composition:
The age of circle representatives in the Touhou genre peaks in the early 20s and decreases in the late 20s. This is thought to be because many circle representatives are university students, and they end their circle activities or decrease their circle participation as they get a job.
If the generation who entered university during the Touhou bubble period stays in university for four years, they will graduate between 2013 and 2015. During the Touhou bubble period, when the genre's population increased significantly, there must have been many circles that were students at the time. It is possible that the decline in circles in the Reitaisai and Kouroumu was caused by the reactionary decline of the sudden population increase, combined with the declining trend in the number of new inflows, which led to the decline in circles in the Reitaisai and Kouroumu.
In this case, like the Reitaisai, other Touhou-only events are likely to be affected by changes in the lifestyle patterns of Touhou bubble-era circles, but it can be assumed that many of them ceased activity before the population decline was felt. In this respect, Reitaisai and Kouroumu, which are held regularly throughout the period and have a high priority for circles to participate, are more likely to be affected by the dynamics of the Touhou bubble generation than other Touhou-only events. This is thought to be an important basis for the argument that links the decline in the number of circles at the Reitaisai to changes in the genre's demographics.
Another reason many people mention is the emergence of Kantai Collection. Back then, Touhou fans had a certain attraction to Kancolle. Both had many girl characters. Each character had its historical or mythological background. Fans could learn information related to the character through investigation, and characters gain popularity among fans through secondary creation and review of the works. Sharing this information between fans is also a common feature of Touhou and Kancolle. In other words, these two are very compatible with fan activities. These characteristics can also be seen in Uma Musume, which has become very popular recently. Some of the Touhou circles at that time, that were good at investigating characters and world views, expanded their scope of activities to the Kancolle field, and the Touhou fans also had an impact on the early stages of the Kantai Collection sphere.
The most striking feature of structural shock period is the increase in younger participants. From its early days to its peak, the participants of the Touhou doujin events were mainly college students and older. However, starting around 2015, more and more high school, middle school, and elementary school students began to participate along with their parents at exhibitions such as Retaisai. Touhou has become a favorite field for Japanese primary school students.
There is a theory that explains that. In the early days, finding out about Touhou and having deep understanding of it required the use of a PC. Playing original Touhou games or watching videos on Nicovideo required a computer, so Japanese Touhou fans are mainly college students and older. However, starting in the 2010s, the popularity of smartphones increased dramatically, giving even primary school children greater access to the internet. As a result, elementary school students began to look for information about anime and games, and Touhou may have become more popular as a result.
With the reduction in participating circles, different events began to compete much more. From the economical side, a doujin event, as well as being a place to trade doujin works, is also structured as a trade between the organizers and circles for the right to exhibit. If there are no proposals that the circles think are acceptable for trading, circles will not gather and can eventually lead to the closure of the event. Organizers have many expenditures: venue expenses, public relations expenses, equipment expenses, labor costs. But they also have several ways to get income: participation fee, corporate exhibition fee, goods sales; and the deficit may be compensated by the organizer's free work and pocket money. The number of participating circles can not only affect the participation fees income, but also the number of general participants.
From the time of the rapid expansion of Touhou-only sales events, the average number of circles has decreased. Initially, the increased costs were borne by the organizers. As the genre scale shrinked, the organizers' burden reached its limit. In response, the participation fees burden on circles also increased. The total participation fee amount remained the same, but as the number of circles decreased the average participation fee for circles increased.
Before this period, event organisers survived the decline in scale by "sharing" circles with each other (adjusting schedules, joint planning, etc.), they tried to cooperate. After 2013, the decline in scale reached the organizers' limit, that is why events began to compete more to survive; it is a structural problem accompanied by a change in the competitive environment. And one of the manifestations of this is the emergence of Autumn Reitaisai.
Before 2014, the structure of relation between Touhou-only events was described as "Reitaisai in the East, Kouroumu in the West", those events being major centers of activities in the Eastern and the Western regions of Japan. But the emergence of Autumn Reitaisai in 2014, which quickly surpassed Kouroumu by the number of participating circles, changed the situation greatly. There were even some critical opinions which claimed that the Autumn Festival has "taken away" the number of circles from Kouroumu.
Here we can see the actual number of circles on Reitaisai, Kouroumu and Autumn Reitaisai. We can see that at the end of the stable contraction period the number of circles which attended only one of the events began to decrease. Comparing 2013 and 2017, the number of circles which attended only one of the two events became less than half. Comparing 2013 and 2014, many circles (around 29%) which attended both events in 2013 participated in all three events in 2014. Autumn Reitaisai managed to create a strong base as the number of circles in each category (last four columns in the table) remained mostly stable even after COVID-19, but that couldn't be said about Reitaisai and Kouroumu. We can also see that the number of circles which participated only in Kouroumu and Autumn Reitaisai is very low compared to the scale of both events, because circles have to choose one or the other. The two events, which are held close to each other in the fall season, are in a certain competitive relationship. Only some circles (around 125 circles or around 5%) decided to fully move from Kouroumu to Autumn Reitaisai in 2014.
The Autumn Festival, which is held on a scale of over 1000 circles, is obviously not an event that can be held only by participants moving from Kouroumu. And the overall decrease in Kouroumu is far greater than the overall increase in circles in Autumn Reitaisai. It is certain that the reduction in the scale of Kouroumu and the holding of the Autumn Festival are not unrelated, but the extent of the actual impact is debatable.
However, some of the arguments that defended Kouroumu by criticizing Autumn Reitaisai could have overlooked other issues that Kouroumu faced by focusing too much on Autumn Reitaisai.
One of the disadvantages that Autumn Reitaisai has over Kouroumu is the closeness of the dates. However, the number of circles that participate in both Autumn Reitaisai and Kouroumu continued to increase year by year. In addition, in relation to the schedule of Kouroumu, it is necessary to consider the Kyoto Joint Festival as well as Autumn Reitaisai. Kyoto Joint Festival has hardly received any criticism because its dates are already fixed through continued holding. In 2016, there were signs of mutual cooperation between Kouroumu, Autumn Reitaisai, and Kyoto Touhou Joint. This alone couldn't improve attendance, but it is worth noting that the organizers were aware that they needed to increase the number of overlapping participants.
In summary, Autumn Reitaisai helped to maintain the number of circles for some time, but the number of unique circles began to decrease greatly.
But "taking away" circles from Kouroumu is not the only thing Autumn Reitaisai was blamed for. It was also criticized for reducing the number of circles in the Kanto region, and as we can see below that is true, and it had an even bigger impact than Reitaisai SP.
The number of circles that participated in small or medium-sized Touhou-only events in Kanto region dropped from around 2150 to around 950 circles, more than twice. Also the number of events dropped greatly from 28 to 11, as those circles could go to Reitaisai. That is why smaller events began to find ways to maintain their activities which in result led to the rise of the participation fees on those events since 2015, as the number of circles reduced. The rise of participation fee during this period was noticeable in other regions of Japan too, but in Kanto Autumn Reitaisai had an impact on these processes too.
The Autumn Festival became a serious issue precisely because the Touhou genre was in a period of decline. This shows a shift from cooperation to a struggle for survival.
The average number of circles decreased with the "Touhou bubble", so the events responded to the decrease in income by saving money. When the organizers reached the limit of their ability to reduce operating costs the strategy began to shift from cooperation to a struggle for survival. Solo-hosted events became much less common, and cohosted and joint planning became common to ensure stable events (Kyoto Joint Festival, Touhou Joint Festival, Meikasai, Dai⑨shu Joint Festival, etc.).
To survive, big and medium-sized events began to differentiate more from other events. While it was often viewed critically by circles, the introduction of various events within the Reitaisai event can be seen as a search for a way for the event to survive from a broader perspective, rather than a fight for a piece of the pie within the Touhou genre. Kouroumu was run more like a general sales event than other large and medium-sized Touhou-only events. Compared to Reitaisai, which was constantly making business-like decisions, Kouroumu's management system, as some researchers say, gave the strong impression of being more like a hobby-oriented sales event organization. Meikasai, which had grown particularly notably, offered circles options that remove hardware constraints, such as Meikasai X, which provides spaces that circles can use freely for events, and participation in poster presentations at the Gensokyo Forum. Dai⑨shu Touhousai was the origin of active live event hosting, and the organizers envision a structure in which they can give back to circles by lengthening the time that general participants spend at the event through planning and implementing the events. Kyoto Joint Festival is a joint event of several Touhou-only events, but it is characterized by the careful consideration and attention to detail of each organizer. These cases are not a silver bullet to dramatically increase the number of circles. Stage events and other events held during circle distribution hours are often dissatisfied by participating circles. However, in all cases, they have a uniqueness that allows the organizer's face to be seen.
However, despite all measures to maintain the structure, at the end of the structural shock period the number of circles per event began to decrease (although the average number of circles on non-cohosted events increased during this period, but at the same time the number of non-cohosted events decreased). Touhou-only doujin sales events slowly began to lose their main role in Japanese Touhou community. There were perspectives that Touhou-only events would become just "one of the kinds of Touhou content" as other kinds of activities (for example social networks) became popular. Changes also happened in the community as individualization was rising while the importance of community was decreasing. Fans' unique information sharing and organizational power was declining. The importance of official materials increased and commercial development became more noticeable (but this topic is for another time). The community wasn't decreasing that time, the interests of the community changed.
Structural Contraction Period (2018-2019)The Reitaisai and Kouroumu shock led to serious changes in the structure of Touhou-only events and some measures were made to maintain the structure. The changes in the community became noticeable too and the pie was shrinking. Those changes were serious for the weak structure of Touhou-only events, which eventually led to the serious decline of the structure in 2018-2019. The future of the genre became even more uncertain.
One of the reasons why it happened is that the number of young Touhou fans increased even more. The generation gap was increasing, which may be supported by data from Touhou Vote* as it was shown in different
research papers. The number of fans who were around 20 years old and older began to decrease, while the number of younger fans was increasing. Taking into account Circle Goka's hypothesis (which was introduced in the previous period) about the change in population composition, then this change can be explained as another demographic cycle of the four-year student generation.
But it is obvious that the number of people who wanted to and could participate as a circle decreased.
Another reason is changes in the series. As it was said before, official works and media began to play a more serious role (as official works became more accessible, more ways to see ZUN's views and interpretations appeared) and commercialization became even more noticeable. Because of this, some circles that dislike such changes were more likely to move on from Touhou to other genres or could begin to make original works.
* The quality of which is questionable, as it was shown in White Paper (2013 Edition) when NicoDouga Touhou Popularity Poll was arranged instead of Touhou Wiki Popularity Poll the data was very different from data by Touhou Wiki Popularity Poll.A serious indicator of the contraction of the structure is the decrease of the summary of the participation fees all circles paid during the 2018-2019. After the shock in 2014, many events began to increase the participation fee to cover their losses. Even though the fees continued to rise, such measures couldn't cover losses anymore as more circles began to leave the genre. That eventually led to even higher fees what again led the decrease of the number of circles per event later. This weak structure couldn't get over this downward spiral quickly, and if COVID-19 didn't happen that could led to even more serious changes in the structure.
During this period the number of circles per event was decreasing, while the number of events was on the rise. Most of the new events were organized by groups, which organise cohosted genre-only events (Studio YOU, SDF, Kangun becter (寒軍べくたあ)). On the other hand, the number of Touhou circles attending such events greatly decreased. Even though the number of Touhou circles on Comiket stabilized and there were a lot of Touhou circles on some events which historically were places where Touhou circles gathered (
Godosai,
Mori no Kiseki). This can indicate that Touhou Doujin was becoming more separated from Doujin as Touhou circles tended to participate more on solo-hosted or joint Touhou-only events than on cohosted Touhou-only events (even nowadays it is not rare when there are an solo-hosted event and a cohosted event in the same prefecture with close schedules, but the former has at least 5-10 times more circle than the latter).
But not only cohosted events suffered, the number of circles on non-cohosted events dropped greatly too. The number of circles on Reitaisai dropped from 3397 in 2017 to 2970 in 2018, and on Kouroumu from 1613 to 1370. Among big-sized events only Autumn Reitaisai didn't fall that much (from 1793 to 1702), but as we noticed before Autumn Reitaisai managed to make a strong base.
Before this period, different Touhou-only events got their characteristics to differ more from other events to survive. The structural contraction of the whole genre became a serious challenge for different events that showed which measures were useful and which ones were not. Meikasai managed to bring even more attention and the number of circles increased even more. Kyoto Touhou Joint didn't suffer during this contraction too, and we even see that the interest in Hifuu genre increased (from 181 in 2017 circles to 208 in 2019). Dai⑨shu Touhousai began to arrange more events per year (8 in 2017, 12 in 2018, 10 in 2019), but sadly this strategy led to decrease of overall circles participating in those events (846 in 2017, 768 in 2018, 558 in 2019).
Puniket holds joint events with a lot of character-only events and Puniket organizers give some attention to detail of each character-only event organizer. But the number of circles dropped there too (283 in 2017, 230 in 2018, 189 in 2019). Kouroumu continued to run like a general sales event and didn't do serious changes, and this event didn't adapt to changes. The different outcomes to each of these events shows how event's characteristics can impact the success of the event. The same can be said about small, medium-sized and big events like Kouroumu and Reitaisai.
We talked about different events, but what did Reitaisai do during this period? Reitaisai continued to make business-like decisions. At the end of 2017 Hakurei Shrine Office (organizers of Reitaisai) and several corporate groups formed Hakurei Shrine Worship Association (
博麗神社崇敬会) to hold many commercial events and collaborations. They got a licence from ZUN which allowed them to make such commercial decisions. During this period they were doing a lot of commercial collaborations with various stores that sold doujin works. As a result, Reitaisai became even more commercial. As the number of participating circles was reducing, such decisions might be seen as a way to survive, but it could also be a way to earn even more money in this competitive environment.
We see that the structure of Touhou genre was weakening, and the scale of doujinshi sales events was decreasing. Some other kinds of Touhou activities were becoming more popular, for example reading clubs, which share a lot of characteristics with sales events, while being simpler to organize and hold. But doujinshi sales events were still very important in Touhou community and their future was uncertain. Some researchers predicted that the structure would continue to contract, but they couldn't envision how much it would actually decrease.
COVID-19 Period (2020-2021)
The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020 has certainly had a huge impact on Touhou Doujin activities in Japan. The amount of circles dropped from around 10100 circles in 2019 to around 3200 circles in 2020. Around half of the Touhou-only events in 2020 were cancelled or postponed (and around 27% of events were cancelled or postponed in 2021). Reitaisai originally scheduled to be held in Shizuoka Prefecture in March 2020 was suspended, and almost all doujin events in Japan from April to June could not be held. Comiket was not able to be held until December 2021, and doujin events in Japan were at a standstill for a long time. The first Touhou-only event which was held, after it was allowed to hold them again, was Spiral Tea Party - Flower Storm (
東方螺茶会 花嵐) on 27th of June. After that some more events were held, while the others were canceled or postponed.
Before that, there were concerns about the "2020 problem" brought about by the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Due to the hosting of the Tokyo Olympics, doujin events near Tokyo were affected, and events' organizers have prepared countermeasures. However, the Olympics were also postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. People involved in doujin activities in Japan had to shift from Olympic measures to dealing with the pandemic.
Doujinshi sales events are difficult to cancel. If there are some problems, in most cases doujinshi sales events won't be postponed or canceled. Before the pandemic, they were mostly cancelled if they were refused by the venue (for example because of earthquakes or typhoons). In other cases, even if the number of applied circles is low, organizers tend to hold events. There are many reasons why they do it. Circle participation fees are generally collected in advance, so there is a legal obligation and a moral obligation to hold the event. Circles and event groups are preparing on the assumption that their events will be held. If the cancellation is not due to venue reasons, the venue fee already paid won't be refunded, and in addition to the huge money loss, the event will lose the trust of its participants, making it nearly impossible to continue.
When a sales event is canceled it is unlikely that circles' losses will be compensated. Sometimes, measures such as refunding already paid participation fees or transferring participating circles to an alternative event are taken. However, if such measures are not taken, the circle's participation fee will be fully lost. In addition, all expenses for accommodation and transportation prepared for the event can result in direct losses. The profit from the sales that could be gained at the cancelled event will be lost, so this could be considered as a loss too. For circles, once these losses occur, they are almost never compensated. There is always an uncertainty whether or not an event would be held. Before the circles were prepared for cancellation of one event per several years, but during this period circles had to face regular cancellations of many events which resulted in high losses.
The events, when they could be arranged, were held with many anti-pandemic measures. Several circles couldn't share one table for social distance. General participants had to social distance too. Because of these measures less circles could participate and less participants could attend these events. Organizers had to follow anti-pandemic measures and supply participants with masks, antiseptics, etc. That increased their work and their financial burden, and they had to increase fees to cover their losses. Some local governments were strict about these measures, making planning even more difficult. Some events weren't able to
be hold anymore (but most of such events were closed because of the Tokyo Olympics, COVID-19 just made the situation even worse) or they weren't hold for a
long time because of these circumstances.
Some people may think that as the opportunities for offline events were limited, many circles would have begun to sell their works online. But actually,
as research by Hisayuki Yoshifumi showed, the number of downloadable Touhou doujin works didn't increase on many doujin digital stores. In fact, since 2021 the number of physical works has been increasing while the number of downloadable works has been on a downward trend.
But what about sales events themselves? As there was no way to hold them offline some people decided to hold them online. And there were a lot of different kinds of such events: some people just
posted their works with a special hashtag; some events were organised with a help of
digital stores,
where circles could submit their items; there was even
an event in VR. In 2020,
pictSQUARE was opened, it is a service with a new form of online doujin events. This service gave instruments to organizers and circles for arranging events and participating in events. It is an
MMO RPG-like game there you can
buy and sell doujin works for money. Organizers can change the
"venue" for
fan activities. Even though some people may think that such activities aren't very doujin and doesn't have the same feeling, this can be a great option when offline activities cannot be held. Later
Picrea appeared, which is
more sales oriented, but it also has
fan activities.
The first Touhou-only event on pictSQUARE was held in May 2020 and after that more events were held. But these services didn't become very popular among Touhou fans (68 circles in 2020, 43 in 2021, 69 in 2022, 45 in 2023, 54 in 2024). On Picrea the situation is
not better. It seems like Touhou circles aren't very interested in such activities as they have a lot of offline doujin events. While circles from other genres are
much more interested in such services.
We see that even though there are a lot of kinds of online activities, Touhou Doujin creators still tend to attend offline events. The similar trend can be also seen in Touhou reading clubs, even though some of such events are held online, most of them are held offline. Touhou Doujin just waited till the pandemic would end to begin holding events again.
Looking at the number if participated circles we can see that the number of circles slightly increased in 2021 (after anti-pandemic measures became less strict), but this only happened because Reitaisai wasn't held in 2020; nearly everywhere (except Autumn Reitaisai and some regions of Japan in West) the number of circles dropped. Smaller events in local areas suffered the most from the pandemic.
Post-COVID-19 Recovery Period (2022-now)Since 2022, the number of Touhou circles has been on a sharp recovery trend, and community activities have become more active. The average number of circles per event slightly increased. Many activities, which had to be held online because of the pandemic, began to be held offline again. By 2023, the impact of COVID-19 has been low, but some impact remains even nowadays. The number of events began to recover and some regular events which weren't held in 2020 (and 2021) began to be held again.
Even nowadays some events are coming back. This year (2024) New Moon Young Demon Night Parade (新月幼魔夜行), Yuenjaku (東方遊宴雀), Taensai (東方多宴祭) and Kamuisai (東方神居祭) were held for the first time since 2020. QuizMagicGemmashin (
げんましんクエスト), Miaresai (
御阿礼祭) and Underground Mind-Reading Trial (
地底の読心裁判) already announced that they would be held next year (2025) for the first time since 2020. And there will be many new events. Next year Let's Meet at the White Mansion (
白のお屋敷で会いましょう), Kagasai (
加賀東方祭), The Special Day for the Floating Dolls That Wiill Last a Thousand Years (
流し雛にも 縁が千代な ハレの日を), On the Sands of the Sea of Stars (
星の海の沙に), Hidasai (
東方飛騨祭), Hiroshima Nazu Festival (
広島ナズ祭り), Oko no Yukari (
往古のゆかり) and Sanmazyosai (
東方三魔女祭) are planned to be held for the first time.
Another change in this period is the inflation of yen and the recession of Japanese economics. Which means that production costs, travelling costs and other costs are rising. And as many participants in Touhou circles are students this may be a problem. Even though average participation fees have begun to decrease, doujin "market prices" are decreasing too, as noticed by Circle Goka. So Touhou circles may face a serious financial burden nowadays. It may lead to problems in the future.
It seems like the situation is begining to change this year. The number of events increased greatly, the number of circles on medium and small sized events increased, but the average number of circles per event decreased. It could happen because the number of events increased and circles had to choose which one they would attend. And as the number of events next year will likely increase, this trend will likely continue. The trend in demographics didn't change, the number of younger fans is still increasing. These can indicate that there might be changes in the Touhou Doujin soon.
ConclusionIn this article, we used statistics to analyze the changes in Touhou-only events in Japan. We saw how the structure of Touhou-only events changed during different periods. Although the structure has shrunk compared with the Golden Age, Touhou activities are still large in scale. Touhou activities aren't limited by sales events, they also include reading clubs, concerts, dancing clubs, forums, game tournaments, photo exhibitions, painting exhibitions and cosplay festivals.
Touhou Doujin has a structure that serves as a miniature of the entire doujin community. It became self sufficient, not dependent on other genres. Touhou Doujin is neither too small to lack sufficient data for trend analysis, nor too large to make it difficult to capture data for the entire genre. Although the pandemic damaged the structure greatly, Touhou genre is recovering and while some other popular genres moved some of their activities to the online field, Touhou genre remained mostly offline. Touhou events can provide valuable knowledge for the growth of fan activities in Japan and show the problems that other genres can face and how different events and the whole genre tried to solve them.
The future of Touhou Doujin may not be bright, but it will still be a big genre. In the following years it will likely increase (at least it won't decrease), but problems caused by inflation and demographics in Japan will show themselves soon. We can only hope that Touhou Doujin will come up with a solution to the problem.
