Favorite Manga Supporting Character Ranking
- Categories: Manga, News
- Date: May 26, 2009 02:37 JST
- Tags: Dragonball, One Piece, Oricon, Rankings, Shonen, Shoujo Manga
A recent poll by Oricon asked manga fans to rank their favorite manga supporting characters, with Dragonball’s Krillin and One Piece’s Zoro taking the 1st and 2nd spots, respectively.
The survey questioned men and women in their teens through 30s who expressed a considerable interest in manga, with a total of 900 participants.
The top 10 selected were as follows:
1. Krillin (Dragonball)
2. Roronoa Zoro (One Piece)
3. Takeshi Goda (Doraemon)
4. Kiminobu Kogure (Slam Dunk)
5. Tony Tony Chopper (One Piece)
6. Kouichi Senigata (Lupin the Third)
7. Kaede Rukawa (Slam Dunk)
8. Vegeta (Dragonball)
9. Tomozou Sakura (Chibi Maruko-chan)
10. Kogorou Mouri (Detective Conan)
The nose-less monk Krillin received significant praise, with Oricon reporting many participants echoing comments similar to that of a Tokyo resident in his 20s – “Without him, the story simply couldn’t have continued.”
The list in general is not surprising, consisting of well-known characters from several classic and long-running manga, with perhaps Slam Dunk’s Kiminobu and Maruko-chan’s Tomozou (Maruko’s grandfather) being the most unexpected this high up in the rankings.
Via Oricon.









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Hey, you're right, he doesn't have a nose. Man it's taken me this long to realize it. Kinda like looking to see if a person has a shadow or not.
The comic even outrightly says that he doesn't have a nose, yo.
krillin FTW
Oh wow, then I am in fact not an idiot for being fond of ol' Kogorou? Either that, or some of the japanese share my messed up taste.
I am a Japanese otaku. I guess that this ranking was polled mainly by non-otaku. Many Japanese otakus say in 2 channel that it is wrong that there is neither Pop (Dai no Daiboken) nor Yokoshima (GS Mikami). They are very popular with twenties and thirties. By the way, Yokosihima's voice is same as Vegeta.
Sorry for my poor English.
I thought the same when I found it, but Oricon doesn't give much details on who they ask in these surveys, usually.
http://www.kiss-sui.com/2009/05/oricon-anime-character-poll-possibly.html
Opinion post from a japanese otaku on this. Looks like there were some dirty intentions on this.
no kero from ccs?
Saying you like Krillin is the same as saying you like seeing small bald men get their ass kicked.
But he ownz !!!
Because he married #18.
I never even saw most of these things T_T
Oh my fucking God! No Sagara Sanosuke (Rurouni Kenshin)
Yeah, that is pretty much the first thought to go through my head after reading that list.
I wonder if DB evolution production staff will see this chart.
We must support Krillin because he is the strongest pure earth-man on DB... :)
True that!
Oww~~ Where's shinpachi? He deserved to be on the list!
yeah, shimura shinpachi (gintama) ftw~
hiruma youchi(eyeshield 21) anyone?
Krillin's a fucking pimp, and that's all there is to it!
They even rewarded him with a hot robot wife later.
I'm surprised Senigata isn't higher.
Why does Japan seem to love chopper. Is it because he's marketable or meant to be 'KAWAIIII!!!'
Yet they ignore Ussop!Its obvious ussop/sogeking is the best supporting character ever.
How could Farnese & Serpico be ignored in the list ;_;
When Miura continues Berserk again, then they'll be considered for inclusion.
I'm not surprised they are, but...hell yeah, Farnese & Serpico.
When Slam Dunk was popular, Rukawa was all the rage... surprised that Kogure ranks higher.
Tomozou is Maruko's grandpa, by the way.
My mistake - thanks.
Rukawa was the Vegeta to Hanamichi's Goku. Megane-kun is the Krillin character.
Krilin is just awesome. He's useless during all the story. The only good thing he does is to die.
kill yourself krillin was awesome and he also did plenty during the earlier sagas. Also he helped goku go super sayian.
helped...by dying
and that's exactly what i meant by only good thing he did.
Wait, wasn't he one of the less important char's ever? Krillin is like... wait was he even in the latest dragon ball episoded?
Don't they know decent manga, like nana to kaoru?
But isn't being 'less important' part of the definition of being a mere 'supporting character'?
cannot beat the classics, Krillian is epic win, but wow im shocked he beat Vegeta O_O
no comment
then why the hell did you comment?
for the attention
heh.
Reasonable enough list. Surprised to see Vegeta on the list though if he didn't manage to get higher than Krillin though. I guess the fans grew out of their own rebellious teenager phase.
I bet many of the voters just failed to realize that he was just a supporting character. Seriously, if you were asked on the street what your favorite supporting character of all times was, you wouldn't think of Vegeta even (or especially) if he was your most favorite character of all categories, right?
People who like Vegeta are prone to thinking of him as a main character, that's why he got less votes than Krillin, who had even fewer time in the limelight. That, and many people probably recognize Krillin as a supportive character more easily because he dished out much more comic relief than villain fighting and hero fighting accomplishments.
Vegeta always jobbed for Goku. Everyone jobbed for Goku. Except Gohan, who Goku jobbed for. But then, "damnit I died for your fuckups and I still have to save the day."
good point.
I've never seem him as a supporting character.
Interesting theory... but then how can you explain Zoro?? XD (he is a supporting chara as vegeta is... as both of them as even main character in their own way)
But in One Piece, it clearly has a ranking system of Luffy as captain, and Zoro as first mate. Even when fighting their enemies, Luffy would always fight the boss, while Zoro would fight the (most likely) second strongest.
I bet OVER 9000 voted.
"900 participants"
I lol'd @ self pwn.
dbz ownz
What about, say, Ed from Cowboy Bebop? If Vegeta is a supporting character...
"Manga"