The results of the Touhou Project Popularity Poll 2026 are finally out, prompting surprised reactions from the Japanese side of X. The Touhou Project Popularity Poll has had a long history, and has been held every year since 2003, documenting people’s favorite characters and music pieces throughout the years, while providing a look into fan demographics. What’s so intriguing about this years’ results, though, is the fact that almost 40% out of over 43,000 respondents were in the age bracket of 15 to 19 years old – suggesting that the Touhou fandom is (still) very young.
Kicking off with Highly Responsive to Prayers all the way back in 1997, over the course of almost 30 years, the Touhou series has become a cult classic among otaku and a staple of internet culture. But despite being mostly associated with the “old age” of internet, the franchise has managed to maintain a loyal fanbase to this day, most of which is, surprisingly, made up of people under the age of 30.
The Touhou Project Popularity Poll 2026’s user questionnaire section collected data on the age, sex, location, of the respondents, but also asked them about their first encounter and history with the series. When it comes to age, 38.17% of respondents (a total of 43,453 people who answered the question) were in the 15- to 19-year-old bracket, followed by the 20- to 24-year-old bracket at 24.90%, and the 10- to 14-year-old bracket at 13.59%. Aside from the 25- to 29-year-old age bracket which accounted for 10.75% of the overall votes, no other brackets reached the double digits.
The poll from three years ago, although seeing fewer respondents, yielded similar results, and it seems like Touhou has constantly managed to maintain its appeal as a media franchise young people can enjoy. And while many older fans are happy to see that teenagers and young adults are actively engaging with the community, others seem quite surprised about “the shift.”
“The Touhou fans from back in the day are now over 30, but in the current Touhou fandom, people in their 30s are a minority, making about 10% of the whole community. In other words, they’ve completely disappeared […] I do get it, those who discovered Touhou back in the days of Niconico probably wouldn’t believe me when I said – highschoolers are now the main target audience, there are even small kids with parents coming to events, there are also many foreigners,” one user commented. On the other hand, others point out that a wider fandom among older generations might still exist, suggesting that, rather than completely “moving on” from Touhou, they simply don’t engage with the fandom in the same way (in other words, not participating in the polls). However, the fact that Touhou’s young fanbase is huge still stands.
As for how Touhou has been able to maintain popularity among teenagers, the answer is: YouTube. To the question “How did you get into Touhou,” 42.69% of over 17,000 respondents said that they found out about the series through YouTube – especially the “Yukkuri” commentary videos (which feature Reimu and Marisa discussing various topics and commenting on lets plays) and the numerous Minecraft Touhou videos, which are also popular among Japanese children. Interestingly, the second most popular response after “YouTube” was word of mouth. Over 15.5% of the respondents said that they got into Touhou because they learned about it from school, club activities, and other in-person connections.
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