Touhou Project is set to get its 20th mainline entry with the release of Touhou Kinjoukyou: Fossilized Wonders in August 2025. While the new game’s announcement and subsequent demo were met with much enthusiasm from the franchise’s devoted playerbase, its use of generative AI for background assets hasn’t sat right with everyone. Touhou creator ZUN recently addressed the controversy, re-affirming his mostly negative stance towards AI art.
Fossilized Wonders’ Steam store page includes an AI-generated content disclosure that suggests the game uses AI-generated textures for some of its backgrounds (most likely for spellcards). Many Touhou fans were shocked to see this, as past remarks from ZUN suggested he was not really on board with AI art. This led to some dissatisfaction among players, with many feeling like the new game’s use of AI goes against the series’ doujin roots. As reported by ITmedia, Touhou Project creator ZUN shared his views on the issue on May 23.
Appearing live on the Touhou Station YouTube channel, ZUN explained that his goal in using AI in Fossilized Wonders was to “reduce it to nothing more than a tool,” rather than let it become a replacement for a real creator. “The most important thing is not to lose to AI. Naturally, entrusting the act of creation entirely to AI means losing to it. However, denying AI outright or rejecting it just because you dislike it is also a form of losing to AI.”
ZUN went on to comment that “AI is just a convenient tool, and using it this way was my way of asserting that I won’t lose when it comes to creative work.” Regarding the ethical issues of art theft and infringement that inevitably come up when AI art is involved, ZUN clarifies that the AI-generated backgrounds in Fossilized Wonders were created using Adobe Firefly. Adobe Firefly’s image generation model is considered to be trained on legally-sound materials such as Adobe-owned and public domain images. It also permits commercial use of exported images.
On the other hand, the Touhou developer condemned the act of collecting other individuals’ artwork and generating content that imitates it, citing the recent fad of “Ghibli-style” AI art as an example. While acknowledging that opinions vary on the issue, ZUN emphasized “Precisely because I have a negative stance towards AI, I believe refusing to use it at all would be the same as losing to it.”
Interestingly, ZUN suggests that the narrative themes of Touhou’s 20th entry have a lot to do with this decision to use AI this time around. He doesn’t reveal any details about the connection though, so we’ll have to wait to find out once the game is out.
Touhou Kinjoukyou: Fossilized Wonders launches in August 2025 for PC (Steam, DLSite). A free demo is out now.
