Bhrjr
Onshi
This idea was inspired by this video, with most of the data copy-pasted from it. (Although the author did get some parts wrong). Kids demographic is the combination of less than 9 (0.72%) and 10~14 (19.51%), teens is solely 15 to 19, which is still the largest of the 4 demographics. 20s is the combination of 20~24 (19.71%) and 25~29 (10.11%), and 30s and up is the largest combination comprised of 30~34 (5.53%), 35~39 (2.88%), 40~44 (1.64%), 45~49 (0.90%), and 50~ (0.91%), and yet is still the smallest of the 4 demographics.
Data entirely based on the 21st Touhou Popularity Poll in 2025. Here’s the google sheet I made that contains the stats for all characters in the 21st Touhou Popularity Poll, and here’s the docs I used to organize all the top 10s.
Characters that are kemonomimi like Ran and Momiji with more moe-like like Nitori and Kogasa (“must protecc”) are popular with men, where Kyouko is likely first as she has the best of both worlds.
The Fortune Teller I believe is probably due to being the most “meme” character. The video however refutes this, saying him and Tenshi are popular with men due to suffering in canon/fanworks despite not being that likable on the surface.
More “butch” characters like Marisa, Wriggle, and evil Kasen or “lesbian-coded” characters like Hisami and Seiga appeal more to women. A third camp I call is “not feminine at all but not quite tomboyish,” which Yoshika and Futo qualifies.
Kaguya had a notable 29.16%, likely due to her princess statis gives her similar appeals as Disney Princess towards young girls.
Mrira of course has an overwhelming 56%, but for some reason Orange has even more. The pc-98 young girls probably connect her with Meiling, who was 32.98%.
The nonbinary votes get higher as nicher the characters get, which makes sense since then just a couple of “other” votes can upturn the whole ranking. So I’m not sure if the nonbinary ranking is accurate enough. I didn't rank wolf and eagle spirits because they were less popular than Kikuri, the lowest ranking pc-98 character, so the otter guy was overwhelmingly more popular.
Flandre and Rumia are probably the most popular amongst young girls because EoSD is the easiest to get to and they can project themselves onto the two. Chen was also pretty close at 25%. Also, Beatmario’s Help me Eirin remix in 2024 was what undoubtedly landed Eirin in top 10 for kids.
Apparently, Nemuno was the lowest ranking windows character in 2024 at 153rd place, so kids felt bad for her and voted for her, which seems plausible as she’s now 141st.
As you can see from the highest ratio of women and kids, all pc 98 is really popular with them, with only Yuugenmagan, Yumemi, and Louise having lower than average female ratios. The only plausible explanation I can think of is that many households still own pc-89 or their games readily available in places like schools or libraries that allows for young girls to get into the pc-98 era. Conversely, the og video speculates that kids have better access to fanworks featuring the pc-98 casts, although I’m not sure how that works.
Koishi (the og video says how her overwhelming teen appeal secured her overall 1st place), Youki(?), Evil Kasen, and Miko have a more “cool” image to them. Seija as her rebellious attitude is similar to a sukeban and appeals to teenagers.
“Newhus” like Misamaru, Urumi, and Yuuma appeal most to the 20s. which I assume are groups most willing to dive into the nichest and newest entries of a series. Apparently, Misamaru is especially so as the 20s are most willing to dive into the lore, and found her connection with the orb. The fairies are 2nd place due to the western fans rigging their polls, as evidenced by the quote “#Vote Fairy” in their comment section.
The poll was held between August 16 to August 29, 2025, which is just a day before 20’s release date (August 17, 2025). So Yuiman, Ariya, and Nina weren’t included, but you can definitely see the adults took notice of Toyohime.
Of course, the “hag” characters like Byakuren, Yuyuko, or Yukari are more popular. “Gal” characters like Hatate and Jo’on are also popular.
Chapter 43, where “Sendai’s official design” was first revealed, came out in April 28 of last year. The reason no one ever wondered about when Sendai started gaining traction in fanworks was due to her incredibly obscure first mention: ZUN made leaflets promoting the lead-up to Imperishable Night in Comiket 65 (2003), and on it said “other humans call the previous miko “The Hakurei Miko”, and only by her title of the miko. They forgot what her name was.”
So all those veterans that speculated about Sendai since 2003 finally had their moment when her design was revealed before the popularity poll.
The third camp for male appeal would be more “waifu-coded” like Aya and Sanae, where for Aya I think it’s due to her often wearing a miniskirt, and Sanae due to her highschoogirl vibes. The tomboyish characters popular with women like Marisa, Mokou, and Wriggle also happen to have a lower rate of nsfw on Pixiv.
This year, Reimu and Marisa’s female voter ratio was 25.2% and 28.44% respectively, but in 2024 it was 23.55% and 28.13%, 23.20% and 26.87% in 2023, 23.01% and 28.14% in 2022, and 20.69% and 26.06% in 2021. So there's been a steady increase of female fans overall over the years.
But on the other hand, the average ~14 age ratio in 2021 was 14.53 compared to the current 20.23, so most of the votes that raised the female ratio over the years are likely elementary-middle school girls.
Of course, the rest of the EOSD cast are also close to the top for kids.
Alice is top 10 in points only for the 30+ due to not appearing for more than 15 years, so it seems.
You can see that almost all characters post-Ten Desires are unpopular amongst kids.
The Three Fairies are probably highly unpopular with young girls (and even teens) due to Sangetsusei being the most “moe slice of life” amongst Touhou manga, which is hardly appealing to little girls and teens and is far more towards adult men 20+. Also, the three Sangetsusei manga ran from 2005 to 2012, compared to something like WaHH which was 2010~2020.
Apparently, Flandre has a steep decrease in overall point from Koishi for those in their 20s (more than 1000) because to them, Flandre is someone who “only” appeared in EoSD and Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, while Aya and Sanae appeared in Touhou 10 and the 20s seems to have become fans around 2007 (Sanae was once 2nd place in 2010).
Kokoro is probably unpopular with the 30s because her blue and “red” color scheme and expression holes make her look a bit “kiddy”.
One thing to note is that Ellen had no votes among people in their 30s, but had 1 vote from 40~44, 2 from 45~49, and 3 from 50+. So those definitely were people about the age of ZUN that were also fans of Izumi Takemoto’s Hatarakimono.
Here’s the artist’s (dairi) pixiv. All of the art used can be found on their pixiv. The artist for Layla, the artist for the pc-98 midbosses, the artists for all the human stock photos with everything from their website, the unnamed Tsuchinoko is from Strange and Bright Nature Deity chapter 9, the anxious moustached villager is from Forbidden Scrollery chapter 34, the previous Hakurei shrine maiden is from Foul Detective Satori chapter 43, the image of Jacketko is from the jacket and CD of Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, Labelko from CD of the Comiket 62 version of Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, Sprite of Kedama are from Mountain of Faith, UFO from Undefined Fantastic Object, Otter Spirits from Wily Beast and Weakest Creature, gold/silver/bronze crown from shutterstock, poop photos from coolhunting.
These are also additional info I used for genders and unpopular with kids & teens.
The og video apparently stopped at 158th place (Labelko) to avoid biases, but I went all the way to 181st place (Kikuri), since HRtP bosses are the last I see as legit characters.
Data entirely based on the 21st Touhou Popularity Poll in 2025. Here’s the google sheet I made that contains the stats for all characters in the 21st Touhou Popularity Poll, and here’s the docs I used to organize all the top 10s.
Characters that are kemonomimi like Ran and Momiji with more moe-like like Nitori and Kogasa (“must protecc”) are popular with men, where Kyouko is likely first as she has the best of both worlds.
The Fortune Teller I believe is probably due to being the most “meme” character. The video however refutes this, saying him and Tenshi are popular with men due to suffering in canon/fanworks despite not being that likable on the surface.
More “butch” characters like Marisa, Wriggle, and evil Kasen or “lesbian-coded” characters like Hisami and Seiga appeal more to women. A third camp I call is “not feminine at all but not quite tomboyish,” which Yoshika and Futo qualifies.
Kaguya had a notable 29.16%, likely due to her princess statis gives her similar appeals as Disney Princess towards young girls.
Mrira of course has an overwhelming 56%, but for some reason Orange has even more. The pc-98 young girls probably connect her with Meiling, who was 32.98%.
The nonbinary votes get higher as nicher the characters get, which makes sense since then just a couple of “other” votes can upturn the whole ranking. So I’m not sure if the nonbinary ranking is accurate enough. I didn't rank wolf and eagle spirits because they were less popular than Kikuri, the lowest ranking pc-98 character, so the otter guy was overwhelmingly more popular.Flandre and Rumia are probably the most popular amongst young girls because EoSD is the easiest to get to and they can project themselves onto the two. Chen was also pretty close at 25%. Also, Beatmario’s Help me Eirin remix in 2024 was what undoubtedly landed Eirin in top 10 for kids.Apparently, Nemuno was the lowest ranking windows character in 2024 at 153rd place, so kids felt bad for her and voted for her, which seems plausible as she’s now 141st.
As you can see from the highest ratio of women and kids, all pc 98 is really popular with them, with only Yuugenmagan, Yumemi, and Louise having lower than average female ratios. The only plausible explanation I can think of is that many households still own pc-89 or their games readily available in places like schools or libraries that allows for young girls to get into the pc-98 era. Conversely, the og video speculates that kids have better access to fanworks featuring the pc-98 casts, although I’m not sure how that works.
Koishi (the og video says how her overwhelming teen appeal secured her overall 1st place), Youki(?), Evil Kasen, and Miko have a more “cool” image to them. Seija as her rebellious attitude is similar to a sukeban and appeals to teenagers.
“Newhus” like Misamaru, Urumi, and Yuuma appeal most to the 20s. which I assume are groups most willing to dive into the nichest and newest entries of a series. Apparently, Misamaru is especially so as the 20s are most willing to dive into the lore, and found her connection with the orb. The fairies are 2nd place due to the western fans rigging their polls, as evidenced by the quote “#Vote Fairy” in their comment section.
The poll was held between August 16 to August 29, 2025, which is just a day before 20’s release date (August 17, 2025). So Yuiman, Ariya, and Nina weren’t included, but you can definitely see the adults took notice of Toyohime.
Of course, the “hag” characters like Byakuren, Yuyuko, or Yukari are more popular. “Gal” characters like Hatate and Jo’on are also popular.
Chapter 43, where “Sendai’s official design” was first revealed, came out in April 28 of last year. The reason no one ever wondered about when Sendai started gaining traction in fanworks was due to her incredibly obscure first mention: ZUN made leaflets promoting the lead-up to Imperishable Night in Comiket 65 (2003), and on it said “other humans call the previous miko “The Hakurei Miko”, and only by her title of the miko. They forgot what her name was.”
So all those veterans that speculated about Sendai since 2003 finally had their moment when her design was revealed before the popularity poll.
The third camp for male appeal would be more “waifu-coded” like Aya and Sanae, where for Aya I think it’s due to her often wearing a miniskirt, and Sanae due to her highschoogirl vibes. The tomboyish characters popular with women like Marisa, Mokou, and Wriggle also happen to have a lower rate of nsfw on Pixiv.
This year, Reimu and Marisa’s female voter ratio was 25.2% and 28.44% respectively, but in 2024 it was 23.55% and 28.13%, 23.20% and 26.87% in 2023, 23.01% and 28.14% in 2022, and 20.69% and 26.06% in 2021. So there's been a steady increase of female fans overall over the years.
But on the other hand, the average ~14 age ratio in 2021 was 14.53 compared to the current 20.23, so most of the votes that raised the female ratio over the years are likely elementary-middle school girls.
Of course, the rest of the EOSD cast are also close to the top for kids.
Alice is top 10 in points only for the 30+ due to not appearing for more than 15 years, so it seems.
You can see that almost all characters post-Ten Desires are unpopular amongst kids.The Three Fairies are probably highly unpopular with young girls (and even teens) due to Sangetsusei being the most “moe slice of life” amongst Touhou manga, which is hardly appealing to little girls and teens and is far more towards adult men 20+. Also, the three Sangetsusei manga ran from 2005 to 2012, compared to something like WaHH which was 2010~2020.Apparently, Flandre has a steep decrease in overall point from Koishi for those in their 20s (more than 1000) because to them, Flandre is someone who “only” appeared in EoSD and Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, while Aya and Sanae appeared in Touhou 10 and the 20s seems to have become fans around 2007 (Sanae was once 2nd place in 2010). Kokoro is probably unpopular with the 30s because her blue and “red” color scheme and expression holes make her look a bit “kiddy”.One thing to note is that Ellen had no votes among people in their 30s, but had 1 vote from 40~44, 2 from 45~49, and 3 from 50+. So those definitely were people about the age of ZUN that were also fans of Izumi Takemoto’s Hatarakimono.
Here’s the artist’s (dairi) pixiv. All of the art used can be found on their pixiv. The artist for Layla, the artist for the pc-98 midbosses, the artists for all the human stock photos with everything from their website, the unnamed Tsuchinoko is from Strange and Bright Nature Deity chapter 9, the anxious moustached villager is from Forbidden Scrollery chapter 34, the previous Hakurei shrine maiden is from Foul Detective Satori chapter 43, the image of Jacketko is from the jacket and CD of Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, Labelko from CD of the Comiket 62 version of Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, Sprite of Kedama are from Mountain of Faith, UFO from Undefined Fantastic Object, Otter Spirits from Wily Beast and Weakest Creature, gold/silver/bronze crown from shutterstock, poop photos from coolhunting.
These are also additional info I used for genders and unpopular with kids & teens.
The og video apparently stopped at 158th place (Labelko) to avoid biases, but I went all the way to 181st place (Kikuri), since HRtP bosses are the last I see as legit characters.
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