I was surprised, while digging, to find almost no evidence of Yonurime ever branching out to original works. Surely the quality of art, construction and writing is strong enough for publication? Yet their work remains pretty safely contained in a handful of doujin spheres. All I managed to find was a listing for chapter 8 of Yuliquer Alxohol x Yuri, sadly untranslated!

^ This seems to be the case with a lot of prolific Touhou doujin authors- Zounouse, for instance, despite having the ability to craft incredibly hard-hitting narratives and stunningly profound themes, also hasn't created any recorded original work (at least not anything that Bakaupdates records), and Carcharias, whose Soga no Tojiko Will Not Talk is one of the best manga I have ever read, period, is similarly only fanwork-active. I suspect this might be the case for fanartists in general, though examples from Touhou are easier to come by, simply because it has a) so many fanworks in general and b) so many translated fanworks we can refer to on this very forum.

The prime reason might just be because some people are infinitely more talented at writing derivative fiction than original fiction- if every author on FF.net or Ao3 who wrote content better than the parent work got a publication deal of their own, the world of popular fiction would be completely different. But without a proper foundation, many authors flounder to create something entirely unique, or simply don't find inspiration at all. Writing new, original stuff is scary and hard and often punishing, especially when you have to pitch it to heartless, market-obsessed publishers instead of a warm community of adoring and supportive fans at conventions. There's also the merciless scheduling of serializations, the push to test well with major demographics, the demands and standards of editors, and a million other obstacles.

Sadly, merit and acceptance in one field of writing don't translate well to others, and since so many fanworks, particularly those of Touhou, are labors of love and respect for the franchise, the process of reinventing and refining concepts within a preexisting world might ironically offer more freedom than the many hidden shackles that come with the creation of something 'original' and 'new'. For one, you could take two years to write a sequel to a fanwork instead of having an editor breathing down your throat to come up with three new ideas in the next week- at least authors in the West get to complete a full novel and then handle the publishing all at once. As a result, brilliant fanartists are often rejected, or never even feel the need to try nabbing an original serialization.

At least Yonurime's still producing manga as of last year- Moe Harukawa, despite being one of my personal favourite artists in terms of style and technical ability and also being affiliated with an official Touhou work, has dropped off the face of the earth- she didn't even return to illustrate Akyuu and Kosuzu in the recently released artbook, even though all the authors who'd ever worked on official publications chipped in. (A check on Twitter revealed that she did get an original serialization about lawyer girls that was axed and has no current scanlations, and we haven't gotten word from her since then).

In short, the manga industry is merciless, and doujinshi might be the most wholesome and honest form of art.

last edited at Nov 24, 2020 3:24PM

I was surprised, while digging, to find almost no evidence of Yonurime ever branching out to original works. Surely the quality of art, construction and writing is strong enough for publication? Yet their work remains pretty safely contained in a handful of doujin spheres. All I managed to find was a listing for chapter 8 of Yuliquer Alxohol x Yuri, sadly untranslated!

Huh, I didn't know Yonurime even did non-Touhou doujins. Looking at their Pixiv they've also done a few Danganropa and Kantai Collection works too, though there's no mention of the Yuri Alcohol chapter. Hopefully that gets picked up again one day.

At least Yonurime's still producing manga as of last year- Moe Harukawa, despite being one of my personal favourite artists in terms of style and technical ability and also being affiliated with an official Touhou work, has dropped off the face of the earth- she didn't even return to illustrate Akyuu and Kosuzu in the recently released fanbook, even though all the authors who'd ever worked on official publications chipped in. (A check on Twitter revealed that she did get an original serialization about lawyer girls that was axed and has no current scanlations, and we haven't gotten word from her since then).

I had no idea; that's really too bad. Wait, does she even have a Twitter account? AFAIK she doesn't have any social media whatsoever.

last edited at Nov 24, 2020 3:26PM

Good points, all. I especially appreciated those other artists you mentioned, though as I considered further, there were quite a few more I would add to the list. Perhaps surprise was an improper emotion. We've seen so many strong serialized artists come out of the Touhou scene or fall out of it, I suppose Yonurime's significant longevity separated them in my mind as an outlier. Given that I don't quite follow the scene anymore, this may too be inaccurate.

Writing new, original stuff is... hard and often punishing, especially when you have to pitch it to heartless, market-obsessed publishers instead of a warm community of adoring and supportive fans at conventions. There's also the merciless scheduling of serializations, the push to test well with major demographics, the demands and standards of editors, and a million other obstacles.

I would add, briefly, that publishing original content is gradually becoming easier. Speaking solely from the yuri community, publications like Galette, and anthology collections like Yuri Liquer offer significant, semi-traditional avenues. Then there are web publications, self-publishing through Pixiv, Twitter, or even monetized platforms like Booth. Of course, even if we assume a desire, there are surely some who would find none of the options available to them acceptable.

At least Yonurime's still producing manga as of last year

And of course, I'm forever grateful to any artist who sticks with it!