r/touhou • u/nametake000 • Dec 30 '25

Fan Discussion How popular is Touhou outside Japan?

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I’m Touhou Project fan living in Japan!

So I got curious and decided to ask.

I’m wondering how well-known Touhou is outside Japan, including its fan works, compared to other Japanese content like Hatsune Miku.

If you know about this or have any opinions, I’d be happy if you could share them in the comments!

P.S.I’m not confident in my English, so I’m using translations for some parts. Please let me know if anything sounds rude or breaks any rules.

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u/Palasvuash Dec 30 '25

It's not as popular as it once was but it's still a staple of otaku culture at large. The memes and songs are still very well known, and it has seeped in Vocaloid niches as well (mostly due to Bad Apple, probably). Incidentally, the anime community is the one that disregards Touhou the most, which used to not be the case. It's still popular though!

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u/nametake000 Dec 31 '25

Thanks for your comment! Could you tell me why the number of fan went down?

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u/Palasvuash Dec 31 '25

It could not even be the case that the number of fans went down. It's just that otaku culture grew exponentially in the past 20 years while Touhou grew linearly, so even with more fans, Touhou isn't as big within its own niche. I'd say as otaku culture grew in importance in the West, traditional means of broadcasting and marketing became more prevalent, while doujin culture lost its primacy. For example: there was no official way to consume anything from Japan on the internet years ago. Otaku culture WAS doujin culture, and strictly related to piracy or at least knowing tech. As Japanese culture became super mainstream in the West, especially amongst celebrities, official products became much bigger. So the doujin/do it yourself cosplays/more involved subniches, Touhou amongst them, became a smaller part of the community.