Ah... this is the sort of mentality that sometime gives a certain stigma on the Touhou fanbase and sadly, it is absolutely deserved. As much as I like the series and the fanbase, whenever someone says that someone isn't/wasn't a real fan for X reason, they sound rather... how to say it... snobbish and elitist? Personally I am not fond of Kancolle for reasons that have already been stated here but I admit played it in the past and while it's true that fanservice has a strong presence in the game, there's various reasons why it can appeal to various folks. In fact, if I had to criticize the game itself, I'd have to say it's a pretty freaking horrible browser game (and the less I say about the anime the better) because of the way it works. Still beyond that, ignoring the fanservice, I know plenty of folks who likes some of the characters designs (Abyss fleet being commonly praised far more than the playable ships) and the personality brought by the lines of the characters. There's enough stuff and effort put in that game to justify having it a fanbase although I do admit that regardless of the reasons, I'm still surprised that it's influence and popularity blew up to the point it reached and in a certain way, I can sort of respect that the game is fairly casual friendly even for F2P players.*
Thank you for the response, upon re-reading what I wrote I admit that I totally botched my argument and it definitely came off as somewhat elitist and snobbish.
I admit I don't have 1st-hand experience with the game, but as you say from a gameplay perspective it looks pretty....bleh from an outside perspective. As for the art, my issue still stands that there is not a lot of "variety" in the girls whether it be personality or appearance. As far as I can tell, there are
four different tsunderes in the cast at this time, and countless copy-paste outfits worn by women/girls of similar body statures to the point where I'm honestly kinda amazed people can keep track of one character over another. Also while abyssal art may be better (again, I'll confess that I can't judge that entirely) there's still the part where a lot of people, including myself, struggle to give the company the benefit of the doubt that they were not, in some way, originally related to the Allies back when the game first launched and there was an obvious lack of foresight for possible success, international or otherwise. The fact it took so long for Iowa, after several German and Italian ships, doesn't help much sadly.
As for "real fans", yeah I own up to wording all of that very badly. I admit I tend to enjoy canon over "fanon" in any fanbase, and in the past that led to me having sour feelings towards a huge chunk of the Touhou fanbase that I've seen tried to accept (it's a process). Still, I've seen how people not care about a game beyond what they "want" the game to be, even if it contradicts canon; for instance apparently
Ryuuojou's ok with being small-chested? You wouldn't think that reading 99% of doujinshi. It all leads to me naturally wondering how many of these fans actually follow the source material, same way I asked the same question towards the Touhou community. I'm not talking buying/playing the games or even necessarily supporting it financially at all. I mean doing bare-minimal research of your favorite
waifu character to know what they are really like vs. what fandom tells you they're like.
Even if you don't like that personality, it's ok to me to continue on as long as you acknowledge it's there. However, I've seem people literally throw out everything that made the character who they are to the point where I wonder if they're making an OC (Akemi Homura is a great example of a character whose entire characterization got put through the wringer for a long while). In every fandom, there are a group of people whom I truly feel refuse to accept reality if it contradicts their fantasy, and unchecked it can get awkward fast. Worst-case you get situations such as fans literally asking the actors playing the romantic lead in their favorite series if they're dating in real life (because they totally ship them), even though one or both of the actors are
publicly in happy relationships with other people.
Again, these are all my personal opinions not as a "Touhou fan" but just as a person. You can replace Touhou with any number of media I enjoy and I would ask the same questions. I hope this clears things up a little.