The Comments Behind the Three-Peat
Japanese anime news site Anime Anime runs this poll every year around Kaji's birthday, and the 2026 edition collected 125 responses between August 22 and 28. Women made up roughly 80 percent of voters, and fans aged 19 or under accounted for about 45 percent, according to the full results published by Anime Anime.
Shoto Todoroki's win was not close. The half-cold, half-hot U.A. student took about 26 percent of the vote, his third straight year on top. Reader comments focused on his long thaw. Several voters wrote about first reading him as a lone wolf, then watching him open up to Class 1-A after the U.A. sports festival, and credited Kaji's delivery with carrying the weight of the Todoroki family's suffering under Endeavor. One respondent said Todoroki was the role that introduced them to Kaji in the first place, and that they still prefer the lower register he uses for the character.
Eren Yeager held second place, also for the third year running, with about 15 percent. Voters pointed to the raw fury of Eren's season-one vow to wipe out every last Titan, and one mentioned learning that Kaji went so deep into the role that his own speech turned rougher after Attack on Titan recording sessions.
Sabito Crashes the Top Three
Sabito took third with about 6 percent, up from a sixth-place tie in last year's poll. The fox-masked swordsman who drills Tanjiro during Demon Slayer's opening stretch appears in only a handful of episodes, but voters remembered him anyway. Comments praised the steel Kaji put into his voice and pointed out that Sabito once cleared nearly every demon at Final Selection on his own. One reader wished they could have seen him grow into a full-fledged swordsman.
Anime Anime suggests timing played a part in the climb: a full-series rerun of the Demon Slayer TV anime has been airing in Japan since April 2026, putting Sabito's early episodes back in front of viewers just months before voting opened.
A Packed Year for Kaji, On Screen and Off
The poll lands in the middle of a busy stretch for the actor. Kaji debuted in 2004, won Best New Actor at the 3rd Seiyu Awards (Japan's annual voice-acting honors), then took Best Lead Actor at the 7th and 8th editions back to back. This year he appears in MAO, Cyborg 009 Nemesis, and Star Detective Precure!. His Precure character, Jet-senpai, drew his own share of poll comments as a self-styled genius inventor at the Cure-atto Detective Agency whose tough-senior act hides the fact that he is 222 years old.
Off screen, Kaji went independent in April and founded FRACTAL Inc., a company he heads himself. The business is built around Soyogi Fractal, his voice-AI project, which staged a 3D concert for its AI voice character Bon Soyogi on March 8. The Blu-ray and DVD box of that show, Bon Soyogi 1st EXPO "0rigin", releases September 3, on Kaji's birthday.
Beyond the top three, votes spread across 36 characters. Kenma Kozume of Haikyu!!, Jet-senpai, and MAO's title character Mao tied for fourth, while Ensemble Stars! idol Mao Isara and The Seven Deadly Sins lead Meliodas shared seventh. Nishikata of Teasing Master Takagi-san took ninth, with one voter amazed that an adult could sound so convincingly like a flustered middle schooler. Bungo Stray Dogs' Saigiku Jono and Nintama Rantaro's Ichiro Hamashu rounded out the top ten in a tie. Fans of the quieter picks got specific: an Ensemble Stars! voter wrote that Mao Isara's voice has kept them company daily for over a decade, singling out his vocal on the song "Finder Girl", and a K viewer remembered Tatara Totsuka, already gone when the story begins, for the song "Circle of Friends" that plays in episode 6.
Looking Ahead
All three top finishers are easy to revisit outside Japan. My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, and Demon Slayer stream on Crunchyroll, and Star Detective Precure! is also a Crunchyroll license, so international fans can check out most of the poll's upper ranks today. The Demon Slayer full-series rerun, though, is a Japan-only broadcast.
The Bon Soyogi 1st EXPO "0rigin" Blu-ray and DVD box arrives in Japan on September 3, with no international release announced. Anime Anime has posted the full list of all 36 characters that received votes on the poll's second page, and if the past three years are any guide, Todoroki will be chasing a four-peat in September 2027.