Wow, great to see something so unique (the horror touhou fan game). It's amazing that since ZUN is releasing official games on Switch and Steam, that fans can now do so too. For the first time in history, fans can create and commercially distribute/sell Touhou fan games (rather than only being able to do it at cons). This is life changing as a Touhou fan who potentially might want to make a living off of making Touhou stuff!!!
Also HI EVERYONE, haven't really used Smashboards in years but it's great seeing newcomer speculation threads like this. Been lurking this thread and just wanted to share some quick thoughts!
First off, Reimu has a LOT going for, she checks a lot of the criteria Nintendo is looking for.
Now her biggest weakness is NOT her popularity. It's common for people like Smashers who aren't familiar with her to say things like "who is she? she's not popular" or like "she's only popular in Japan right? and more with the anime crowd not the gamer crowd".
We as Touhou fans, known she's undoubtly popular worldwide. Let's not be weak in our resolve just because others don't feel she is. But then, why does it seem to many that Touhou is unpopular in the West?
So, I finally realized the answer. Yes, part of it is because the fandom naturally leads to attracting a lot more of the "anime" crowd than the gaming crowd (and part of this is because, unlike a game like Undertale which is accessible and can be bought as a full package complete with a story and all, Touhou games are good games that have had to be played on PC and while the world gives a TON of room for fans to explore the story and lore, that kind of fan content must be experienced OUTSIDE the game hence why it feels like it doesn't overlap so much with the gamer base).
But the REAL answer is not that it's not popular (we know it is) or that it's too niche in the west. It's simply because Touhou as a series has been a dominantly PC game series, which naturally has always had a bit of a rift from the console gaming crowd. Evidence towards this? Well, now that Smash is about bringing in HUGE gaming icons with legacy and a piece of gaming history, is it not strange that we don't hear high demand or discussion about characters like Tracer or Arthas (Warcraft)? I've not seen anyone mention Arthas despite being one of the biggest, hugest game characters ever (and would represent both RTS and MMO genres), and only seen people mention Tracer mostly because of the rumor that Overwatch would be released on Switch and thus she may be added. We've seen some mentions of Heavy from TF2, but it's still much less compared to console game icons like Crash.
So obviously, just from the relative lack of demand/discussion for two of the biggest game franchises ever, it shows that there is NO direct correlation between how "big" a character is, to how much demand/discussion they are getting from Smashers. Thus, the relative lack of knowledge of Reimu within the console gaming community and Smash community is NOT proof that she is not popular enough. It only shows the divide between PC gamer and console gamer, which unfortunately, is much bigger of a challenge than I thought, when it comes to whether Reimu will make it into Smash. I think that it really is the biggest reason holding her back. If she had more games on consoles OR more time had passed and more Touhou games were released on Steam/Switch and more console gamers have been able to experience Touhou, we'd be getting a lot more Reimu requests.
Sorry that this has gotten so long -- I want to touch on another point.It's great seeing everyone thinking critically about any studies/surveys we see, because the methods those are conducted are so important to consider when trying to get a big picture idea of popularity. I do want to share a couple things that also may make it seem like Touhou is not that popular:
The lack of girls on the internet, compared to how many girls are gamers and are fans of Touhou. I think it's safe to say that girls have more of an aversion to participating in and posting in online forums, social media, etc. about games. These platforms are HEAVILY male dominated. Add to this the fact that Smash is naturally more appealing to males than female gamers, AND also the fact that Touhou actually has a pretty big female fanbase (compared to other game series), it simply means that a lot of the popularity Touhou has is NOT voiced on the Internet, or at least not in the kind of places that Smash gamers normally frequent (Twitter, Reddit, Smashboards, etc.). I have many female friends who I know do not use these platforms to talk about games, yet they know or are fans of Touhou. They instead talk within their own friend circles or use sites like Tumblr, Facebook, etc.
Apologies if anything I said was a little weird or sounds inaccurate, I may have just been uncareful with my wording.
To sum it up, the big reason holding Reimu (and her popularity back when it comes to Smash requests) is because of there has always been a natural divide between PC gamers and console gamers, NOT because she's "more of the anime crowd". PC gamers play games on PC, console games play games that are on consoles. And you can't legally play an official Touhou game the way you can other indie games, until very recently on Steam and soon Switch, so it has been even more inaccessible to console gamers who might want to try to play it on PC.
And a big reason people who are against a Touhou rep have the notion that Touhou is not popular in the west, is because female gamers and fans of Touhou simply do not frequent or share their voices in the places that seasoned Smashers use. And, if anything, the audience not directly overlapping with Smash's community would only go towards HELPING Reimu's chances because, unlike the base roster which was Sakurai trying to fulfill all the highly requested Nintendo characters and Smash ballot characters, DLC is about getting BIG characters with legacy that would bring a lot of media buzz while also drawing in a new audience that may not have previously been too attracted to Smash, which would be a very high priority because it would lead to more Switch sales and Smash Ultimate sales, compared to releasing simply a highly requested Nintendo character which would sell mainly only the few bucks needed to buy that DLC character. Attracting a new crowd sounds to me like it would be WAY more beneficial and profitable than simply adding characters like Bandana Dee even if they're highly requested. We've seen how much buzz Ultimate got when Joker and Hero were added, representing two big JRPG series, and Terry who represents SNK games which has not been highly associated with Nintendo's core audience.
Reimu would bring that kind of buzz, she's already ingrained in pop culture especially in Japan, and her high number of crossover appearances is just a testmament to that. She also popular in many different communities (anime community, Internet meme community especially in Japan with all the freaking Yukkuri memes running more rampant than ever, gaming community, manga community, music remix and music performance communities, art community, game dev community, etc.), AND she appeals to both males and females, both casuals and hardcore fans. Reimu's legacy and influence is absolutely top tier, at least when it comes to the remaining possible characters, and it would also be incredibly easy for Nintendo to get the rights to her as ZUN would only need to say "sure!"
