First off: I support everyone’s opinion to dislike and stay away from anything that uses AI, and if Touhou 20 does that for you, there are people making patches that strip the game of AI. I also respect if you don’t want to give ZUN any more money after this.

However, I really, really dislike this author’s (Of the main URL) anti-artist and anti-creative mentality. ZUN is an artist unlike many others in his ability to build characters and worlds, his music, and his bullet patterns, and his games manage to fall into the sweet spot of a coherent experience. These are all things you could never use current AI tech for, but you can use it for other things. And ZUN’s does not deserve to be called the “antithesis of creation” for following the logical developments in game development, nor for making artistic decisions in what tools to use. I do highly recommend reading ZUNs own thoughts on why he used AI, which honestly would have been a better fit for the main URL rather than such an opinionated piece.

Artists that chose to use AI to lessen their workload and create more human effort elsewhere, are not reducing creation, in fact they are trying to amplify it. They do not deserve to be slandered and harassed for the tools they use, that would be against the freedom of expression. If you are old enough to remember, people did this too in the 2000s, to people that used Photoshop over ‘real painting’.

Touhou has and will create so many human artists. That despite it being a doujin series, which embraces derivative ideas as an ingredient to new creation. A doujin series that since it’s inception contained 1:1 references to characters from other franchises, sometimes literally traced assets, and an entire community that builds off the ideas of ZUN despite not being their own. And in turn, ZUN based his initial ideas off other’s work too. This has always been openly admitted, and using AI as a tool does not deviate from that.

And you can see what that freedom allowed people to do despite all requiring them to skip having to create some parts of the process. Eg. You can just skip big parts of the design and coloring phase when using a pre-existing character. If you are a proponent of this anti-AI sentiment, you must also rationally attribute all your dislike to those practices too. And please don’t come with an “but it’s okay if humans do it” response, a human using an AI to do it is also still a human. The AI doesn’t make anything on it’s own. Artists have finite time and finite means, so they will prioritize putting most of their time and means into selective parts of their work, that isn’t lazy, that’s life. And ZUN clearly talks about this in the bluesky thread. (2nd image)

Another great quote:

Leaving the creation of things up to AI is losing to AI. But denying AI and refusing it because you hate it is also losing.

That Touhou is a cornerstone of creativity doesn’t change, not even now. It’s always been the community’s legacy that creative ideas and results can arise even when using someone else’s work. Using AI to supplement an otherwise human creation, is very much in line with that way of thinking. And I personally am glad that I can point to Touhou from this point as good uses of AI, among my growing list.

Tbh few months ago i would be absoluetly against it and argue that this is support for a thing that kills artists. But now and with this specific case i’d just say that’s too bad but not a big deal.

I do some art myself and i avoid using AI for inspiration, like i avoid being dependent on any tool i cannot fully understand. I know that this is not the vision of some others artists and if they find joy in using AI, good for them, just, i think it is putting their creativity on the side, which is wasted potential.

Like others say though, i hope that ZUN will keep his drunk brain as the root of the game he makes. That he will keep touhou “artisanal”. (I think he will do, because afterall, before genAI was everywhere, he used stock image for backgrounds, which have very little importance on the content itself, AI’s a small change).

That aside, with the anti-genAI movement on internet becoming more harsh and unforgiving, i’d say i’m just tired of doing morals on others.

If an artist is passionate and happy, about its project, it is the only thing that matter. If they use gen tools to do it faster and that no one will notice because it’s too good, it’s their problem. It’s them who should question themselves if they want to let an AI putting others ideas on theirs, whitout regretting it later.

(oops i divagued a bit on the end)

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.