The "Sandwiches":
Flandre-Alice-Remilia and Minoriko-Rinnosuke-Shizuha

Once again, Reimu is in 1st place. I'm starting to wonder if she rigged the votes, so she could get more donations for the shrine?

The Aki sisters are clearly loving this result.

Poor Genji.

Interesting symmetry on 3 through 9; Komeiji - blades - Scarlet - Alice - Scarlet - blades - Komeiji

I just noticed.
Little sister sandwich and Older sister sandwich.
Sakuya and Youmu are confused!
Yukari and Tenshi are next to each other.
Okuu learning love from Byakuren.

My thoughts:

-What's sad is Chiyuri and Yumemi are the only PC-98 characters who as far as I can tell got a popularity increase taking the new characters into account. Everyone else has steadily decreased. Yumemi is already ahead of Kisume, I'm surprised she doesn't have 500 posts yet. I expect her to actually surpass Kisume in post count here by 2017, that is, if the popularity poll is actually accurate.

-There are more posts of Totori than Chiyuri... Right?

-I propose a system to indicate which characters are forgotten to what level based on their rank:
14- SDM Warning Rank. If Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, Flandre or Remilia fall below this rank, get out your Brotherhood and Master Sword and expect Crowley to show
up and place a death curse on your girlfriend.
35- No one below this rank will get a doujin with them as the main character. If they do, expect Cthulu to run for president.
67- No one below this rank will have plot relevance at all in any doujin. If they do, prepare the Flanders' bomb shelter.
88- No one below this rank will appear in a doujin at all. If they do, expect a supernova that'll wipe out birds and nocturnals.
Below 100 does not exist as far as the fandom is concerned. If their current first post on Pixiv is not still on their first page by TH16's release, I'd be
surprised if the moon still exists.

Wiimeiser said:

My thoughts:

-I propose a system to indicate which characters are forgotten to what level based on their rank:
14- SDM Warning Rank. If Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, Flandre or Remilia fall below this rank, get out your Brotherhood and Master Sword and expect Crowley to show
up and place a death curse on your girlfriend.
35- No one below this rank will get a doujin with them as the main character. If they do, expect Cthulu to run for president.
67- No one below this rank will have plot relevance at all in any doujin. If they do, prepare the Flanders' bomb shelter.
88- No one below this rank will appear in a doujin at all. If they do, expect a supernova that'll wipe out birds and nocturnals.
Below 100 does not exist as far as the fandom is concerned. If their current first post on Pixiv is not still on their first page by TH16's release, I'd be
surprised if the moon still exists.

I think you should prepare to hide in Flandre's bomb shelter, while the supernova goes boom during Cthulu's precidency. The recent Prismriver doujin beats levels 35, 67 and 88 all in one doujin.

Hisou Tensoku is below place 100 and he has even appeared in an anime.

It was:

a. a joke.
b. just a general rule.

A lot of fun stuff in this picture:

- Momiji and Meiling look like they're ready to battle it out
- Parsee jealous at everyone ahead of her
- Rumia about to pounce on Sukuna
- Renko spots an alien!
- etc etc

Koishi sure jumped up from the last two popularity polls. And my vote helped keep Remilia in the first 7, uu~☆

This isn't good for Sakuya's Safety.

-Sanae keeps her 11th place.

fortunachan said: [...]

Dont forget the "Little Sister (Imouto) Sandwich", and "Big sister (one- sama sandwich)". Fanon will love this.

One thing that made me laugh was Kasen and Eiki lecturing each other.

Comparing this one to post #1106314 is also fun. For example, both Little Sisters are ahead of Older Sister, while it was other way around in 9th poll; Marisa switched places with Alice - 2nd place for a place inside Scarlet Sandwich, etc.

Hooray! Parsee jumped to 25th! Barely edged out Suwako there.
Sadly, Shou backpeddled one space, while Eiki advanced one space. Not bad for my fav 3.

It seems Momiji managed to get past the sleeping Meiling from the last poll, but she's ready to get it back! Heh. Kinda surprised Kokoro got so high. Although, loving the death glares between Yukari and Tenshi.

EoSD guys are really persistent, even Rumia is getting some places, and judging from last 2 polls she may even get ahead of Cirno next time (she already did it in the Nico one last year) :D

[KN] said:

EoSD guys are really persistent, even Rumia is getting some places, and judging from last 2 polls she may even get ahead of Cirno next time (she already did it in the Nico one last year) :D

The time helps a lot with those characters, specially with Meiling being the center of buttjokes is just a thing from years ago, except for some artists. Patchy, Rumia, Yuyuko, Dai, Ran, Chen, Alice, enjoys of new stories at least, and new videos or types of popularizing her characters.

Also, the new games helps a lot with the development of those characters

S_holmes said:

This isn't good for Sakuya's Safety.

-Sanae keeps her 11th place.

Dont forget the "Little Sister (Imouto) Sandwich", and "Big sister (onne- sama sandwich)". Fanon will love this.

And Orin's full moon sandwich.

I noticed that there even is the Chupacabra and Enera present.

A tie between Murasa and Akyuu, very subtle.

I just realized that, if Kokoro and Yukari had switched places, we'd have an Old Maids Alliance at 13 thru 15.

The tag "enera" is incorrectly spelled. The creature is called enenra.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enenra

Not to sound bitter or anything since it's just a fan poll, but I don't understand some of these placings. Flandre appeared in all of two games and has probably the least background and character of any ex-boss and yet she's top 5 consistently. Secondly...Reimu's always first. Why is that? I've rarely seen a series where the main character is actually the most popular. Reimu is in fact not even the most interesting character. She's actually rather flat and just has an "I don't care" attitude half the time. How is that appealing enough to outrank every single character in this huge franchise?

But the biggest anomaly is most certainly Yuuka. Appears in the one game where characterization is even worse than usual, gets a perfect memento article and...somehow places higher than many repeaters with more appealing qualities and more personality than just "general douchebag youkai". I don't know, it's just odd to me. I'm a part of this (Admittedly now dying :() fanbase, but I'll never understand it.

I want to know why Renko and Maribel place so far apart... they're side characters that are never seen apart in the few places that the do appear, but Renko ranks above usual favorites like Chen or Suika in 37th, while Maribel is WAY further down the list at 62nd (right behind Chen).

Also, WTF with Koishi shooting up so high? I never thought she was that popular. (And thought Satori was more popular than her, for that matter...)

I'm kind of surprised with Yukari not placing so high, either. Sanae usually does better, too. Cirno's pretty far down...

I'm personally a Patchu fan first... She's popular-ish, but lucky to hit top 10 in these sorts of polls. The rest of my top 5, Sakuya, Youmu, Alice, and Marisa, are all placing really well, though.

NWSiaCB said:

Also, WTF with Koishi shooting up so high?

Hopeless Masquerade gave her the boost. Next year, she'll be lower.

Flandre have been creeping up the poll for some reason despite not having been appeared in any game since StB.

not that I'm complaining, I'm a fan of the Scarlet sister, just think it strange.

Pointman said:

Flandre have been creeping up the poll for some reason despite not having been appeared in any game since StB.

not that I'm complaining, I'm a fan of the Scarlet sister, just think it strange.

I'm not surprised. Her theme is one of the first Touhou music that people get introduced to now. She is in the first windows game. Many of her fans are newly introduced for a lack of a better term Sin Sacks.

It seems Yuugi's place went down a bit this time :(

Gensokyo-Meltdown said:

Not to sound bitter or anything since it's just a fan poll, but I don't understand some of these placings. Flandre appeared in all of two games and has probably the least background and character of any ex-boss and yet she's top 5 consistently. Secondly...Reimu's always first. Why is that? I've rarely seen a series where the main character is actually the most popular. Reimu is in fact not even the most interesting character. She's actually rather flat and just has an "I don't care" attitude half the time. How is that appealing enough to outrank every single character in this huge franchise?

But the biggest anomaly is most certainly Yuuka. Appears in the one game where characterization is even worse than usual, gets a perfect memento article and...somehow places higher than many repeaters with more appealing qualities and more personality than just "general douchebag youkai". I don't know, it's just odd to me. I'm a part of this (Admittedly now dying :() fanbase, but I'll never understand it.

Because characteristics and backstory are not the only thing which bases a character's popularity. Also, at depends on various memes and popular things which could give a character a boost.

Gensokyo-Meltdown said:
I'm a part of this (Admittedly now dying :() fanbase, but I'll never understand it.

Huh? Dying fanbase...? Why are you saying this?

Gensokyo-Meltdown said:

But the biggest anomaly is most certainly Yuuka. Appears in the one game where characterization is even worse than usual, gets a perfect memento article and...somehow places higher than many repeaters with more appealing qualities and more personality than just "general douchebag youkai".

Yuuka appears in 3 games, has 4 separate music themes, and is the final boss of her own game as well as being the only character that is both a final boss and a stage 5 boss in the same game.

Mirelia said:

Yuuka appears in 3 games, has 4 separate music themes, and is the final boss of her own game as well as being the only character that is both a final boss and a stage 5 boss in the same game.

Except that most people don't even know about the existence of those other two games.

(You forgot to mention Kioh Gyoku, btw)

Miko - Speed reader

AyaReiko said:

Interesting symmetry on 3 through 9; Komeiji - blades - Scarlet - Alice - Scarlet - blades - Komeiji

Speed writer - Miko

The hobgoblin from WaHH is more popular than a lot of PC98 characters?

what

(on a side note I will never understand character popularity within this fandom)

I still find it amazing that if it wasn't for Reimu and Marisa, the main characters, Koishi would win the poll.

When I first saw this I thought Sara looked angry this year. However since she has stopped sliding back in the polls, perhaps it is determination.

Gensokyo-Meltdown said:
Secondly...Reimu's always first. Why is that? I've rarely seen a series where the main character is actually the most popular. Reimu is in fact not even the most interesting character. She's actually rather flat and just has an "I don't care" attitude half the time. How is that appealing enough to outrank every single character in this huge franchise?

Okay. Here's enough reason: Without her, there wouldn't be TOUHOU.

23rd_Break said:

Okay. Here's enough reason: Without her, there wouldn't be TOUHOU.

Tell that to Shoot the Bullet and Great Fairy War.

For that matter, she's an incidental character in Hopeless Masquerade, and can completely sit out most of the games.

Besides, there are tons of animes/games/whatever that have their main characters place way below side characters, (especially the harem anime types,) where the main characters aren't as colorful as the side ones.

Most fan portrayals of Reimu are either fairly boring, a miser, or else portray her as a violent, villainous thug. For that matter, there are plenty of Touhou fanworks that Reimu never appears in. (Tons of Scarlet Devil and Hakugyokuro stuff, which explains those characters consistently scoring high.)

There are plenty of reasons people would vote for characters besides Reimu, so it's not something to just be assumed.

Not even being playable can help Ichirin's popularity... orz

TarotProphet said:

Not even being playable can help Ichirin's popularity... orz

It hurts her that she's a character that appears as a gimmick pairing, rather than stand-alone. It interrupts having the chance to be better fleshed-out on their own, and is the reason why the Prismrivers tend to be near-rock-bottom among Windows games bosses. (Although poor Yamame...)

What she really needs is more doujin/4-koma like the Good Morning Myoren to give her some fanon backing, so that she's more fleshed out than "that girl who bundles up and holds a ring for Unzan".