>>50996313
She's (intentionally) not very intimidating, her game sits weirdly between classic and modern games in the series, and she isn't part of a faction unlike every single final boss before her.

DDC is not the best game, shinmy is not that intimidating and i hate to say this but i actually hate her boss battle, that changing sizes gimmick sucks.

>>50996313
She has to compete with Sexja I mean Seija, whcih is hard for someone of her relevance.

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All of the above, her game is one of the least interesting, and it came out in the lowest point between the 2000s Touhou boom and the 2010s boom.

>>50997010
>>50997890
DDC is one of the best game purely because the gimmick is fun to use and doesn't distract from the core shmup gameplay.
The cast is fine and more memorable than a lot of newers entries.

>>50996313
idk but she has the best theme ZUN has ever composed

But she cute?

>>50997913
I like DDC, but playing Marisa B, the gimmick definitely overrides the shmup gameplay.
It's fun though, and different shots are broken to different degrees so you can pick your level of "fun allowed".
I think Shimmy has the problem of not really being the mastermind of her own incident. Her fight also isn't that cool. I don't even mind "You Grow Big": it's a non issue once you've memo'ed a route and it's the most memorable part of her fight for most people.

Any content that doesn't fit in the timeframe of Touhou 6 to 12 will always seem not popular, because the entire series, to this day, lives in its own shadow.
Every new game introduces the newest least popular windows character in the popularity poll. That's because people have solidified in their choices. Does Ubame really suck super hard? No, she's in an oversaturated franchise, at a dip in the fandom. A lot of popularity and fan content is firmly based on whatever people got exposed to during their introductory phase. Even turbo newfags will usually fall in the ballpark of Scarlet sisters, because their popularity sustains itself and stays at the forefront of the series.
If DDC happened to release at the time of a popularity boom, people would obsessively write yuri of the grassroots trio, put Shimmy in every fangame and turn Seija into a cross-fandom meme. But that didn't happen.
If you like Shimmy (or any related characters), count your blessings. At least you get to enjoy her, and fanmade content gets an extra bump of quality. If she was everyone's fan favorite, her personality would end up flanderized to oblivion, or subject to some famous meme-tier fanwork, and 90% of fanart would be wildly off-model or introduce some quirk that's not present in her original design (which can be a blessing sure, but it definitely can be a curse).

File: __kijin_seija_and_sukuna_shinmyoumaru_touhou_drawn_by_kaigen_1025__22a4c9260e05b582428803190fb2d8de.png (330.8 KB)

>>50996313
What other anons said plus her design is kind of bland for 2hu standards, compare her to other kimono wearers like Komachi or Yuyuko and you'll see what I mean.
Other then that, I don't think she shines all that much in the personality aspect either despite being included in the floatans since all I can remenber of her is that she's dumb and whatever the fuck happened with her dream world version