ZUN on Touhou and derivative works
ZUN posted a bunch of stuff about Touhou and doujin stuff last week.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to post about this because the English speaking Touhou community is pretty active and they’d probably do the same with much more details anyway, but I was told that some other site had posted an article about ZUN and Touhou and tried to portray him like he was an asshole. So yeah.
One-day licenses for figures
ZUN has been asked a lot about one-day licenses and he has decided he’ll follow event rules and require applications for one-day licenses, but it’s basically done just for the sake of it, and he has no intention of disapproving anything unless there’s a really big problem about it.
Goods by commercial corporations
Goods featuring unofficial renditions of Touhou characters have been sold through many commercial corporations recently, and for these cases, he has been allowing them to do so if they give him prior notice and only sell these goods through doujin events, doujin shops, or online doujin stores. Basically all the doujin related stores which would also deal in the original Touhou game or other Touhou goods.
Whatever the commercial corporations want to do with Touhou stuff is basically up to them as long as they tell him, and all the commercial goods on the market have been approved by ZUN.
Doujin goods becoming commercialized
There have been a less resistance recently in using doujin works in commercial work, and ZUN wishes to have some guidelines to what is acceptable and what is not. For example, if somebody wants to have a remixed Touhou track on his commercial, or wishes to play it in a concert, it’s not a problem as long as it says where the original is from. There are also no problems with featuring Touhou stuff as a parody or being used as a motif for an original work.
But Touhou doujin works being sold through the commercial market as-is is not desirable and basically will not be approved. (doujin shops and online doujin stores are not considered part of the commercial market)
About the anime
ZUN was asked by an editor about the doujin anime and what he thinks about it, and the editor was worried that the anime might be mistaken for being an official work as it used so many famous voice actresses.
ZUN says that basically there are no problems at all if it’s doujin work, but if there is too much trouble around a doujin work it’s not good for both ZUN and the circle. Especially with anime when the main market are guys that probably never played the game, and may mistake the anime for being an official work.
Guidelines regarding doujin works to avoid confusion
- Clearly mark the works as being unofficial
- Don’t go overboard with the advertising (especially not to people that would not have even heard of Touhou)
- Limit the distribution channels
Also, the site for the doujin anime by Maikaze is up now.
