Minato wins Narutop99 poll leaving behind Sakura, Naruto & others

As revealed from the final results of the Narutop99 Worldwide Character Popularity Poll through a premiere on the Jump Comics Channel on YouTube, Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze has won the Narutop99 poll with 792,257 votes, beating Itachi and Sakura to the top spot.

The Worldwide Character Popularity Poll was announced back during the Jump Festa 2023 event. While the announcement was underwhelming, fans were interested in the poll as the winning character would receive a short manga created by the series' mangaka, Masashi Kishimoto.

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Minato Namikaze secures his top spot from the midterm report on Narutop99 poll

While it has been over two months since the voting period for the character popularity poll ended, fans were still rooting for their favorite characters online. Although Naruto fans were confident that Sakura would win the popularity poll due to fans' activity online, Minato Namikaze has retained his spot from the midterm report and has managed to be voted the most popular character with a total of 792,257 votes.

Itachi Uchiha held the second position with 505,014 votes, while Sakura Haruno remained in the third spot with 489,619 votes.

Ranks 10 - 4 in the Narutop99 character popularity poll (Image via Shueisha)

While the ranks of the top 99 characters were revealed in the stream, here are the top 20 ranked characters from the Worldwide Character Popularity Poll:

1. Minato Namikaze
2. Itachi Uchiha
3. Sakura Haruno
4. Shisui Uchiha
5. Kakashi Hatake
6. Naruto Uzumaki
7. Sakumo Hatake
8. Sasuke Uchiha
9. Madara Uchiha
10. Hinata Hyuga
11. Obito Uchiha
12. Jiraiya
13. Shikamaru Nara
14. Tobirama Senju
15. Gaara
16. Hashirama Senju
17. Deidara
18. Neji Hyuga
19. Sasori
20. Rock Lee

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Masashi Kishimoto shares his thoughts on the poll and the upcoming short manga

Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto was thankful for all the fans who voted in the Narutop99 Worldwide Character Popularity Poll. He was shocked to see that Minato was at the top of the rankings for all regions. Meanwhile, seeing Sakura to receive so much love online made him feel proud of himself as a writer.

Kishimoto was rooting for Kurama to win the character popularity poll, but the nine-tailed beast was ranked 22nd in the poll. Even after it was previously announced that the mangaka would only draw the top 20 characters from the poll, he decided to include the 22nd-positioned Kurama and 21st-positioned Might Guy to illustrate an art featuring the top 22 characters from the franchise.

Minato Namikaze as seen in the anime (Image via Studio Pierrot)

The mangaka also revealed that he had begun working on the short manga for Minato, who was recently placed first in the poll. While working on a manga that could match fans' expectations, Kishimoto has seemingly ended up with more pages than he initially anticipated. In addition, he revealed that the manga is set to focus on Minato's jutsu, but it hasn't been announced which of the Fourth Hokage's jutsu will be in focus.