Fanbases in Other Franchises
The role of community creations in growing the fanbase of Touhou is not a unique phenomenon; Touhou is certainly not the only large Japanese franchise for which the fanbase plays a significant role. All of the most well-represented franchises at Comiket—Kantai Collection, Touken Ranbu, Love Live, and so on—serve as examples.
Of these, Vocaloid is perhaps the franchise in which the fanbase plays the most critical role of all. Vocaloid is a software program with a bank of voice recordings which enables the user to turn written song lyrics and music into an actual song, sung by the selected "Vocaloid" character. In fact, this software program is all that is provided by Yamaha Corporation, the company behind Vocaloid. Although the original songwriters are sometimes obscured behind the faces of Hatsune Miku and other Vocaloids in the music videos, without dedicated users contributing the lyrics and melodies for the program to "sing", Vocaloid as a franchise simply could not exist. Some singers even upload covers of Vocaloid songs, thereby removing the original Vocaloid software from the equation altogether. Linked below are "Magnet," one of the most popular Vocaloid songs, along with a cover in which the original lyrics have been replaced by silly English lyrics.
Of these, Vocaloid is perhaps the franchise in which the fanbase plays the most critical role of all. Vocaloid is a software program with a bank of voice recordings which enables the user to turn written song lyrics and music into an actual song, sung by the selected "Vocaloid" character. In fact, this software program is all that is provided by Yamaha Corporation, the company behind Vocaloid. Although the original songwriters are sometimes obscured behind the faces of Hatsune Miku and other Vocaloids in the music videos, without dedicated users contributing the lyrics and melodies for the program to "sing", Vocaloid as a franchise simply could not exist. Some singers even upload covers of Vocaloid songs, thereby removing the original Vocaloid software from the equation altogether. Linked below are "Magnet," one of the most popular Vocaloid songs, along with a cover in which the original lyrics have been replaced by silly English lyrics.
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In some respects, Touhou and Vocaloid are actually very similar franchises; attractive character design and user-created music play a central role in the fandom of each one. (Fan art of Vocaloids is quite prevalent.) Although the music of the two franchises is obviously quite different—the artificial, often high-pitched voices of the Vocaloid software are usually easily distinguishable—they share a general trend of relatively fast, upbeat music. Moreover, the videos accompanying the music are often made in the same software, MikuMikuDance, which enables easy animation of character models like that in the "Magnet" music video above (on the left); many Touhou character models have also been made available in this software. I don't currently have any data that could shed light on the overlap between the fanbases of Touhou, Vocaloid, and other Japanese franchises, but I hypothesize that there would in fact be significant overlap between the fanbases of Touhou and Vocaloid in particular. This would be an illuminating subject for further exploration.
It is also interesting to contrast fanbases of Japanese franchises like Touhou and Vocaloid to fanbases of popular non-Japanese franchises—say, League of Legends. As mentioned in the introduction, a Google Image search for "Touhou" turns up almost exclusively fan art, and the same is true for "Vocaloid." But a Google Image search for "League of Legends" returns only official art and screenshots of gameplay; fan art is almost nowhere to be found, despite the plethora of different characters available as art subjects. One might argue that this simply reflects the relative abundance of official art, since League of Legends fan art and cosplays are not hard to find if one specifically looks for them. However, certainly almost nobody remixes League of Legends login themes, or makes League of Legends-themed fan games. Whether due to the culture of the fanbase or due to the nature of the franchise's lore and characters, somehow, it seems that fanbases of many Japanese franchises contribute much more actively to the world surrounding those franchises, in comparison to other franchises overseas.
It is also interesting to contrast fanbases of Japanese franchises like Touhou and Vocaloid to fanbases of popular non-Japanese franchises—say, League of Legends. As mentioned in the introduction, a Google Image search for "Touhou" turns up almost exclusively fan art, and the same is true for "Vocaloid." But a Google Image search for "League of Legends" returns only official art and screenshots of gameplay; fan art is almost nowhere to be found, despite the plethora of different characters available as art subjects. One might argue that this simply reflects the relative abundance of official art, since League of Legends fan art and cosplays are not hard to find if one specifically looks for them. However, certainly almost nobody remixes League of Legends login themes, or makes League of Legends-themed fan games. Whether due to the culture of the fanbase or due to the nature of the franchise's lore and characters, somehow, it seems that fanbases of many Japanese franchises contribute much more actively to the world surrounding those franchises, in comparison to other franchises overseas.