The most in-depth English interview with ZUN ever

[cuc]

Hey folks, remember that thing from 2013, when a Western journalist did a "most hardcore ever" interview with ZUN for his book?


I had been keeping watch on the book since then. The author's project went through some ups and downs, but ZUN's interview was finally published in 2014 as part of "The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Volume 1" (physical copy, Kindle).

At this moment, for a limited time, it is also available as part of a DRM-free ebook bundle. You only need $12 to buy it along with some other copious volumes of video game writing.

By the author's permission, I've put up an excerpt on the wiki, which should give you an idea about how much new material there is in the interview.


Disclosure about my involvement:
Long story short, I got into contact with the author in early 2014. When the author said he needed an illustration containing all Touhou characters, I suggested the fanart by Fuuzasa, and helped obtain Fuuzasa's permission.

[cuc]

In my honest opinion, while the StoryBundle is an extremely generous deal, and the author is considering releasing the full ZUN interview for free, buying a physical copy if you can afford it would be a nice way to show support for the author, who still needs to publish the next two volumes at his own expense. The book is absolutely worth it if you care about Japanese video game history.

[Spotty Len]

I didn't know about this book, it got a lot of other people covered.

Consider me interested, thanks for the heads up.

[Clarste]

Got the book, noticed that the author recommends the wikia site for more info. I find this incredibly amusing, somehow.

[Romantique Tp]

Got the book, noticed that the author recommends the wikia site for more info. I find this incredibly amusing, somehow.

He links to touhouwiki.net later on, I think he was just confused over which term to use. A lot of people have started calling any gaming wiki a wikia for some reason.

[Eilaris]

My wallet may not thank you for the heads-up, but I do!   Gonna enjoy reading these all.

[NuclearFalcon]

Hmm...  One of the biggest things in that interview excerpt is the fact that Taito actually attempted to ask ZUN if he would let them release Touhou as an arcade game.  Wow, it was one step away from being commercial and not doujin, but ZUN refused.  XD

I think that was a critical point for Touhou.  Had it gone mainstream it probably would not have become what it is today and may have not lasted as long.  He would likely not have rebooted the series like he did from PC-98 to Windows and thus many characters we know likely would not exist (we would have had some very different plots and characters).

[Romantique Tp]

I think that was a critical point for Touhou.  Had it gone mainstream it probably would not have become what it is today and may have not lasted as long.  He would likely not have rebooted the series like he did from PC-98 to Windows and thus many characters we know likely would not exist (we would have had some very different plots and characters).

Ehh what, the context makes it clear this happened after EoSD.

[Drake]

Time to support an author! Bye money!

[Maple]

If you excuse me, this John Szczepaniak writes for the site Hardcore Gaming 101.  A list of the articles written specifically by him.

I first read about the book on the site, it has a share of interesting articles (the site, i mean, i don't have the book).

[eyeeye]

My english is bad but the link that you share from touhouwiki is just some part not the full version of ZUN's interview in the book right ?

[Silent Harmony]

Correct, the actual interview is much, much longer.

[Drake]

The excerpt on touhouwiki is roughly 1/6 of the actual interview (in number of exchanges), to get a sense of scope.

[N-Forza]

I wanted to order a copy but shipping is probably sort of crazy for something that large. I'll see about getting a digital copy through that bundle site though.

[hungrybookworm]

I was kinda on the fence with this, but then I read the full list of other people interviewed and I'm definitely gonna grab this now.

[helvetica]

=O I need to have this

[Kaizaki]

Sweet :3

[not ZUNs wife]

Bought the digital bundle. Thanks for promoting this - there's tons of interesting stuff beyond the ZUN interview, and these indie authors need the support for their hands-on work.

Edit: aww yiss, the book about Japanese indie games also has an interview with Kotaro Uchikoshi. You know, the Ever17/999/Virtue's Last Reward guy. There's some serious effort gone into this one book alone.

[commandercool]

I wish I knew who any of the other interviews are, and I'd buy it in a second. I don't though, which makes it a lot less appealing to me. Maybe it would be fun to learn, but I don't know that I would get that much out of the other interviews.

I might still buy it though, sounds super interesting.

[Drake]

Man, there's a lot of stuff I want to put up on ZUN's wiki page that isn't in the short version of the interview. At least I get to remove that unsourced, likely misinterpreted quote about ZUN apparently tweeting about having a job other than Touhou since it's been bothering me for months.

[shockdude]

Man, there's a lot of stuff I want to put up on ZUN's wiki page that isn't in the short version of the interview. At least I get to remove that unsourced, likely misinterpreted quote about ZUN apparently tweeting about having a job other than Touhou since it's been bothering me for months.

Is there a reason why you can't? Wikipedia references physical media and non-free sources all the time.

[Drake]

Because I'd basically be summarizing a lot of the full version of the interview. It isn't that I can't, but it's probably best to wait a bit longer to encourage people to get the book.

[N-Forza]

The book's been out for a few months though.

[Drake]

Well, point. Guess I'm mostly thinking about it now because many people who might buy the interview probably wouldn't know it existed until this thread.

[NuclearFalcon]

Well saying "such and such is untrue (source cited)" doesn't really give away much of the content.  And if I recall correctly, the citation only has to state the source, not give the content of the source.

[Uruwi]

Shoot. If I could (read: money and mechanism), I'd buy this book just for the ZUN interview.