The results of "Naruto Top 99," the first worldwide popularity poll for the manga " NARUTO," have been announced. Out of the 4.6 million votes submitted, the No. 1 character was "Minato Namikaze," the father of the main character Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto, the author of the original manga, has decided to create a manga focusing on Minato Namikaze. The manga will be released at a later date.

　This voting project will be held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the " NARUTO" anime series, and will be the first character popularity vote for the work in about 11 years since the 7th popularity vote held in 2011, with voting open from December 17, 2022 to January 31, 2023. The top 99 characters were chosen from the 488 characters eligible for the poll, and fans from all over the world could participate in the online voting at a special website.

　The story is about the main character, the ninja Naruto Uzumaki, who overcomes mortal battles with his rivals and past relationships to become the chief of the village of Konohagakure, the Hokage. The original manga was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1999 to 2014. The manga has been published in 72 volumes and has sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.

　The anime began broadcasting on TV Tokyo in 2002, was broadcast as "Naruto Shippuden" from 2007 until March 2017, and has also been released in 11 animated films, as well as games, goods, exhibitions, 2.5D musicals, music festivals, Kabuki, and many more.

■Comment from Masashi Kishimoto, the original author
　Thank you very much for all the votes. It was interesting to see the different results from each region of the world. I was surprised that Minato was the most popular in every region. Also, as the author, I was very happy that the popularity of Sakura was globally high, as I had never expected it to be this much.

　Actually, I personally wanted to add Kurama to the list... I added him to the list along with Guy Sensei, who ranked 21st. I had to ignore the 20th anniversary project because of my own personal feelings.(lol) I am sorry. I am now working on a manga about Minato, who won 1st place. Because I wanted to answer to all of your great responses, I drew more pages than I expected. Please look forward to the secret story about the art of Minato's development. Again, thank you very much for all the votes!

■Top 10 of the Popular Character Poll
No. 1: Minato Namikaze
2nd : Itachi Uchiha
3rd : Haruno Sakura
4th : Shisui Uchiha
5th : Hatake Kakashi
6th : Naruto Uzumaki
7th : Sakumo Hatake
8th : Sasuke Uchiha
9th : Madara Uchiha
10th : Hinata Hyuga