History of Visual Novel Character Popularity Results from Japan

[NowItsAngeTime]

 

Have you wondered who were the most popular visual novel characters from a certain visual novel, series, company, or even from a whole year? This video will highlight some notable online popularity polls done by Japanese developers.  

 

[littleshogun]

Late to comment here.

For Getchu, usually the most popular one are the heroines, and most of the number one are the main heroines. However, it seems the little sisters characters are also liked by the voters, as shown with Nanami of Riddle Joker in 2018 poll, Hiyori of Hamidashi in 2022 poll (As you've shown), and Amane of Tenshi Re-Boot in 2023 poll. That said, there's always the exception, like in 2016 poll where Minato of Otome Domain won the poll which is really notable because Minato is the MC of Otome Domain and more Minato is the male who was crossdress as the girl in order to enter the girl academy (Admittedly he was very good looking, so I can see the voters decide to vote for him in 2016). By the way actually Getchu character poll was started from 2008, although it was divided into White side and Black side, with the first place of White side was Haru of G-Senjou no Maou and the first place of Black side was the titular character of Beat Blade Haruka (Haruka).

Speaking of male, I can see why Kyousuke won the KEY poll, mostly because he's very cool and more importantly drive the plot Little Busters even further compared to his little sister Rin who supposed to be the main heroine (ie someone who usually expected to drive the main plot in KEY VNs). Nagisa won the 3rd place is also understandable seeing she was the main focus of the successful Clannad anime, in which Kyoani put her more prominently compared the VN which is already prominent given she being the main heroine of After Story part. As for Kanade of Angel Beats, most likely it's because the anime which turned out to be quite popular, although it probably help that it has the VN which greatly expand three of its characters with Jun Maeda planned to make five more of it before he decided that it would be better to not put too much strain on his health in order to finished the hexalogy.

Quite neat that four out of top five of Grisaia trilogy are pretty much related to Yuuji's past, although Michiru here is somewhat quite out there. Then again, she may become popular because of her magical girl spin-off. Original trilogy aside, I didn't follow much of the other contents so no much to say other than it's nice of Haruto as Phantom Trigger MC still got the 4th place in the Phantom Trigger poll even though he's not as popular as Yuuji who got the 2nd place with around twice number of votes.

I find it somewhat interesting that the vote in VNDB did follow the 1st poll result of Aokana, with Misaki comes first following with Mashiro, Asuka, and lastly Rika, and it should be noted that it only for the main heroines so I don't know if the VNDB poll would have same result had the OP adding Saki for the choice. By the way, currently the VNDB poll has Asuka had almost same vote as Mashiro, so perhaps overseas people may favor Asuka a bit more.

I don't know on how Primal x Hearts vote goes on, but at least I'm sure Micchi aka Bicchi is in the top spot because otherwise Marmalade won't made her as the older sister of Primal x Heart 2 MC. Granted people may be disappointed on how she didn't have the route, although it can be chalked up to the VA was already agree to act on the game without voicing the sex scenes and Marmalade need to agree with the contract. As for why there's no Mashimaro FD, I just assume that Marmalade at that time figured out that it would be profitable to just invest their resources into Study Steady. Speaking of Mashimaro, it's quite surprising that Shizuka manage to win the votes with she basically just a kid who in love with the MC too much (I just assume Marmalade made her as the kid instead of teenager like Micchi in order to avoid the same thing only to be failed because some still asking for Shizuka's route).

That's all for my very belated comment in regard of this topic.

Edited February 28 by littleshogun

[Clephas]

The ones I like are rarely voted the highest on the polls, in my experience... When they are it is because they are the true heroine of a VN with a true path, and the entire VN was designed to make you love them, lol.