At the end of 2022, the official team behind the popular Naruto series conducted a popularity survey on a global scale. It was conducted from December 17, 2022 to January 31, 2023 and the voting results were announced recently. And you won't believe this, but a whopping 4.6 million fans attended this amazing event. This makes it one of the largest surveys conducted in the history of anime. The results are quite surprising, and we bet you wouldn't have predicted the ranking. Apart from this, Naruto manga writer Masashi Kishimoto has announced a big surprise for Naruto fans worldwide. So read on to find out the results of the Naruto popularity poll and discover the big surprise that awaits you.

Instead of the usual top 100 format, the Naruto team went with the 99 most popular popularity polls, and the results are finally out now. The official JUMP COMICS channel released the results in a live stream earlier this week. The video includes the ranking from 99 to first position with the manga panels of the respective characters.

We can already feel your excitement, so let's just tell you who is sitting on top in this popularity poll. Well, it's none other than the legendary Minato Namikaze, father of Naruto and the fourth Hokage with a whopping 792,257 votes. Yes! This was really a big surprise not only to us but also to the author himself.

Mangaka Masashi expected Kurama to top the charts (but Kurama felt flat at 22nd). The top three spots in the poll belong to Minato, our beloved Itachi Uchiha (one of the strongest Uchiha clan members in Naruto), and Team 7's Sakura Haruno, respectively. Itachi is one of the most beloved characters of all time, and finally, it's also nice to see Sakura get the love she deserved from the fans.