Fans are gearing up for this winter's Comic Market 89 next weekend. While lines may be longer, one thing remains consistent: Kantai Collection is still the most popular franchise for dōjin circles. A total of 2,747 circles dedicated to ship girls were registered, an increase of almost a 1,000 compared to this year's summer Comiket.

KanColle is usually neck and neck with Touhou Project , but the analysis of dōjin registrations reveals another upset. Touhou Project fell to the fujoshi-targeted Tōken Ranbu . The mobile game is a similar format to Kantai Collection , only it stars historical swords reimagined as attractive men. Tōken Ranbu garnered 1.724 circles compared to Touhou Project's 1,666.



Blue bars represent popularity among men's circles, red as women's circles, as purple as both. The gray bar represents the amount at Comiket 88.

The other popular choices include The [email protected] (1,325), Haikyuu!! (816), Kuroko's Basketball (708), Yowamushi Pedal (693), Love Live! (664), Tiger & Bunny (464), Attack on Titan (427), Vocaloid (333), Fate series (296), Hetalia (291), Free! (287), Blood Blockade Battlefront (217) and Splatoon (50).

Analysis author, Meiji University Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library staff member, and Niconico Gakkai β executive committee member "myrmecoleon" also noticed trends by comparing Comiket 88 and 89. Some of these trends matched myrmecoleon's predictions, like Tōken Ranbu's increase in popularity and Love Live! and The [email protected]'s decrease, while others did not.

myrmecoleon also published predictions for Comiket 90 based on certain series' popularity on pixiv. myrmecoleon analyzed posts on the fan art website from November 1 to December 17. Their predictions include:

A major increase in Mr. Osomatsu circles

Increase in One-Punch Man circles

Increase in Splatoon circles

circles Reduction in Attack on Titan circles

Reduction in Tiger & Bunny circles

Reduction in Yowamushi Pedal circles

Reduction in Kuroko's Basketball circles

Increase in Touhou Project circles

Based on Mr. Osomatsu's popularity on pixiv, myrmecoleon expects several hundred circles dedicated to the series to show up at next year's summer Comiket. The amount of fan art for the series posted on pixiv during the analysis period was so high that the bar could not be represented on the graph with the other series.

Pixiv is in green, dōjin circles at Comiket 89 are in blue.

[Via Hachima Kikō]