The results of "NARUTOP99," the first worldwide popular character poll for the popular manga " NARUTO," have been announced. From approximately 4.6 million votes, the first place went to "Minato Namikaze," father of the main character Naruto. In the movie released on the website, the 99th to 1st place was announced, with " Itachi Uchiha" in 2nd place, " Sakura Haruno" in 3rd place, and the final results for the 100th place and below are available on a special page.

　This voting project was held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the "NARUTO" anime series, and was the first character popularity poll for the work in about 11 years since the 7th popularity poll was held in 2011. This year's poll was open for voting from December 17, 2022 to January 31, 2023. Fans from all over the world were able to participate in the online voting through a special website, and the top 99 characters were selected from among them, and each person could vote once a day.

　The original illustrations of the top 22 characters by Masashi Kishimoto, the author of the original manga, have been released, and a manga focusing on the top-ranked character, Minato Namikaze, will also be produced. Details will be announced at a later date.

　The " NARUTO" series began airing on TV Tokyo in 2002, and in 2007 it was followed by the "NARUTO Shippuden" series, which ran until March 2017, and 11 animated films.

　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