Anime Anime Global

Jan. 5 is Asanuma Shintarou’s birthday.

Asanuma Shintarou had started his activities as a voice actor around 2006. He won a vocal award as a member of “Hypnosis Mic” in 13th Voice Actor Awards.
In 2019, he has played several protagonists in works including “Ensemble Stars!” and “Given”. He is also active in fields other than voice actor, such as script writer, director, actor and so on.

Here at Anime!Anime!, to celebrate Asanuma Shintarou’s birthday, we conducted a readers’ survey asking, “who is the most favorite character played by him?” following the survey conducted last year. 183 people answered the survey from Dec.16 to 23.
Male-female ratio was 20% male to 80% female, with higher voting ratio from female readers. Younger people made up majority of the vote, with 19 years old or under made up 50% of over all vote, and 20’s made up 30%.

■The 1st place is Aohitsugi Samatoki from “Hypnosis Mic” Do look out for the anime version!

The first place is Aohitsugi Samatoki from “Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle-“. The support rating is approximately 25%.

Aohitsugi Samatoki is a member of MAD TRIGGER CREW. He is a yakuza from Yokohama area, and is a chivalry character as he takes great care of his younger sister. The comments from the readers said, “his deep voice, is bossy, cool, sadistic and sometimes cute and makes me feel at peace” and “he was so cool when he rapped with very deep voice”. “Samatoki’s voice made me surprise how well Asanuma-san can play various roles”, “the gap between the voices are grate. His attitude toward the rap music is very serious”, the comments mentioned this appeal that can’t be felt from the usual plays and music.

The 2nd place is Tsukinaga Leo from “Ensemble Stars!”. The support rating was approximately 20%, and ranked higher than the last year, which was 3rd place.

The comments to Leo, a leader of Knights and a music genius, said, “I love duality of him as free-spirited boy and a genius”, and “I like the difference between his innocent face as a boy and a face of the idol”, and how he plays different roles according to different situations charms the fans. Some comments mentioned his comical catch phrase saying, “His ‘Ucchu~’ is very lovely.”.

The 3rd place is Chigasaki Itaru from “A3!”. The support rating is approximately 6%.

The comments to Chigasaki Itaru, an elite businessman, said, “I like Itaru’s voice which sounds tired” and “Itaru looks mature and free-spirited at the same time. I feel same characteristics in Asanuma-san, who is playing the character”. The character from winter 2020’s anime ranked in 3rd.

■Introducing other comments!
To Kuramochi Youichi from “Ace of Diamond”: “He is always energetic, and does not look like an upper class man, but he is reliable when something bad happens” and “I was not familiar with baseball, but I learned about key-stone combination from Kuramochi-senpai”.
To Tsuda Takatoshi from “Seitokai Yakuindomo”: “The preciseness, timing and voice of his reaction are all wonderful.”

To Maebara Haruto from “Assassination Classroom”: “I think he is good at playing the role of useless handsome boy. He is handsome, but loves to flirt with girls and adult contents… He is handsome when he is not speaking…He has a nice voice.”
To Shimoyamada Kazuo from “AD-LIVE”: “AD-LIVE in 2017 was especially wonderful. I choose him because I especially loved the night concert.” There were votes to the roles he played in impromptu play “AD-LIVE”.

Since we welcomed votes to the characters not in anime as well, the ranking changed drastically comparing to last year. Various characters from popular works waiting to become anime to the characters from stage plays come all together.

■Overall Ranking
“Who is the most favorite character which Asanuma Shintarou played? 2019 version”
1st place: Aohitsugi Samatoki from “Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle-”
2nd: Tsukinaga Leo from “Ensemble Stars!”
3rd: Chigasaki Itaru from “A3!”
4th: Kuramochi Youichi from “Ace of Diamond”
5th: Tsuda Takatoshi from “Seitokai Yakuindomo”
6th: Takigawa Masaki from “Tsurune: Kazemai High School’s Kyudo Club”
7th: Crow Hogan from “Yugioh! 5D’s”
8th: Daimon Kaito from “Phi-Brain Puzzle of God”
9th: Sakurai Yoshiyuki from “D.C. II”
9th: Sogoru Kyou from “ZEGAPAIN”
9th: Matsuda Kouhei from “Wake Up, Girls!”
9th: Murata Amatsuki from “Given”
13th: Iwasa Hiromi from “Baby Step”
13th: Shadow Alien Zena from “Ultraman Geed”
13th: Nishio Nishiki from “Tokyo Ghoul”
13th: Hank Mccoy/Beast from “X-MEN”
13th: Maebara Haruto from “Assassination Classroom”
13th: “Me” from “The Tatami Galaxy”

(Survey conducted: Dec. 16, 2019 to Dec. 23, 2019)