Kana Hanazawa's Birthday Commemoration! Announcing the results of the "HAMARI Character Popularity Poll! The No. 1 popular voice actress' hamamari character is that girl who is truly a psychopath!

February 25th is the birthday of popular female voice actress Kana Hanazawa. To commemorate this occasion, the voting for the "Hanazawa Kana's Hammer Character Popularity Poll," which was held from February 25 to March 3, 2020, has been closed. The results are as follows.

Kana Hanazawa is one of the most popular female voice actresses in Japan today, and she has played a large number of characters, even if only the main ones. In this project, 146 characters were nominated as candidates for voting, and what character came out on top?

First, let us announce the top 10 characters.

No. 1: Satou Matsuzaka ( Happy Sugar Life ) 214 votes
No. 2: Mayumi Nanakusa (The Lesser Student of Magical High School ) 201 votes
No. 3: Kosaki Onodera ( Nisekoi ) 51 votes
No.4: Ichika Nakano (The Bride of the Fifth Class ) 46 votes
No.5: Nadeko Sengoku ( <Monogatari> series ) 28 votes
No. 6: Ake Tsunemori ( PSYCHO-PASS ) 23 votes
No. 7: Hose Kobuchizawa ( A Place Far Away from Space ) 19 votes
No. 8: Ryoko Kaminagi ( Zegapain ) 18 votes
No. 9: Hinata Kawamoto ( March comes in like a lion ) 17 votes
No. 9: Sonoko Nogi ( Yuki Yuna is a Brave Woman ) 17 votes

The winner of the first place was Satou Matsuzaka, the main character of "Happy Sugar Life. This suspense mystery with a cute picture and atmosphere hides an astonishing fact, and it attracted a great deal of attention during its TV broadcast. The main character, Satou Matsuzaka, is one of the few true psychopaths in the history of anime, who is outwardly very cute, but in reality.... Kana Hanazawa's performance as this half-mad, half-gap character was outstanding. Scary but cute! No, cute but scary! Perhaps it is because of her strong impact that "SATO-chan" was the top character that users chose as their favorite in this year's poll.

Coming in second place, only 13 votes behind No. 1 Satoru Matsuzaka, was Mayumi Nanakusa from "The Lesser Student of Magical High School. Mayumi Nanakusa is the student body president of the First High School attached to the National University of Magic, where the story takes place. She is an extremely talented young lady from a prestigious family, and she seems to care about the main character, Tatsuya Shiba, making her a typical character of the kind of older sister that one would look up to!　Speaking of "The Lesser Student of Magical High School," her younger sister Miyuki (CV: Saori Hayami) is well known for her famous line, "As expected of you, my brother. The interaction between Ms. Hanazawa and Ms. Hayami, two of the most popular female voice actresses of their generation, was also impressive.

While these two characters garnered more than 100 votes, the battle for third place was surprisingly low, but that may have been due to the fact that Ms. Hanazawa played too many characters. The winner of the fierce battle for third place was Kosaki Onodera from "Nisekoi. In this work, Kosaki and Chitoge Kirisaki (CV: Nao Higashiyama) play the roles of love rivals competing for the main character, Raku Ichijo. The love story between the two, Chitoge being the lively Chitoge and Kosaki being the demure girl in contrast, is a major attraction of this work, and I am sure that many fans think that this "slightly reserved girl" (sometimes her voice sounds a bit nervous) is the quintessence of Kana Hanazawa!　I think it is safe to say that Kosaki Onodera is a representative example of such a girlish girl.

The third and final contender with Kosaki Onodera was Ichika Nakano from "The Bride of the Fifth Estate. Ichika is the eldest of the five children in the Nakano family, and is the most older sisterly and firm of the five. However, she also has her own problems, and in the first season of the anime that aired in 2019, the relationship between Ichika and the main character, Futaro Uesugi, developed rapidly in the second half, making the viewer uneasy. Ms. Hanazawa's performance was also impressive, as she successfully portrayed this subtle love interest. The new season will start this fall, and I am looking forward to it.

Also in fifth place was Nadeko Sengoku, one of the heroines of the "<Monogatari>" series. In a sense, she is a cute girl of the Onodera Kosaki type (No. 3), but her gradual transformation into a yandere also has a touch of No. 1 Satou Matsuzaka in it.

In this sense, Akane Tsunemori, the protagonist of "PSYCHO-PASS" (No. 6), and Shirase Kobuchizawa, the protagonist of "A Place Far Away from Space" (No. 7), are also depicted as women with a gap between the front and back sides. Both are usually relatively calm girls, but internally they face various conflicts, which were an important framework of the story. Of course, Ms. Hanazawa's performance brought these conflicts to life.

As a pattern in which such a gap between the two sides of a story becomes tragic, we can mention "Zegapain's" Kaminagi Ryoko (No. 8) and "(Yuki Yuna is a Brave)" Nogi Sonoko (No. 9). Both of them are usually regarded as cheerful younger sister characters, but in the story, they are doomed to be tragic heroines. In this sense, they are characters that require a duality in their performances. Hinata Kawamoto of "March Lion," ranked ninth in the same category, is another character who fits this pattern in a sense: in the first season of the anime that aired from 2016, she was a cute little girl who earnestly supported the main character, but in the second season from 2018, Hinata Kawamoto's bullying problems at school are brought into focus, and she quickly becomes a tragic heroine. and at once becomes the heroine of tragedy. Hinata's performance in the second season, as she is gradually driven into a corner and becomes emotionally ill, was very convincing.

In any case, Ms. Hanazawa's voice and acting are notable in that they usually show the gap between the two sides of the story, and she has successfully portrayed the two sides of the story: on the surface, she is tender and cute, but on the inside, she has darkness and conflict, and her fate is tragic. She is indeed one of the most talented female voice actresses of her generation. Hats off to Kana Hanazawa for bringing to life such well-known characters and making them unforgettable.

The top 11 are also filled with a variety of memorable characters. Please be sure to check them out.

Finally, we would like to wish Kana Hanazawa a very happy birthday!