Interest
Prince of Tennis Character Popularity Poll Officially Adds Hamster, Beetle to the Running
posted on by Kim Morrissy
Jump Square is currently holding its yearly character popularity poll for Takeshi Konomi's New Prince of Tennis manga. Although the voting is being conducted online and not through chocolates this year, Jump Square has insisted that every character, including the middle school students, the high school students, the overseas students, and so on, will be eligible for voting.
Last Wednesday, the official Twitter account for Jump Square issued an apology because not all the important characters were, in fact, included. The new additions to the poll are Kaede the hamster and King of Satan the beetle.
【お詫び】現在開催中の『新テニスの王子様』キャラクター人気投票につきまして、下記のキャラクターが漏れていたため追加いたしました→[かえで](高校生関係者)、[キング オブ サタン](氷帝学園中等部関係者)。大切なキャラクターにも関わらず抜けてしまったことを深くお詫び申し上げます。 pic.twitter.com/JK5wV160eO
— ジャンプSQ.編集部 (@JUMP_SQ) January 9, 2019
Although the majority of characters represented on the poll are tennis players, some of them don't participate in matches, and a handful are not human at all. The list includes Karupin (Ryoma's pet cat), Daigoro (Eiji's teddy bear), Koala (a dog), and Kamyu's tennis racket. Even with so much non-human representation, however, fans have been jokingly replying to Jump Square with more characters who deserve to be included, such as Oshitari's pet iguana and Atobe's Afghan Hound Margaret. Prince of Tennis may have opened the floodgates to their wildest character popularity poll yet.
Voting for the poll opened on January 4 and will last until February 14 (Valentine's Day). Users can submit one vote a day until the end of the voting period. The intermediary results will be announced in Jump Square's March 2019 issue, which will go on sale on February 4, and the final results will be announced in summer.
Source: Jump Square official website and Twitter account via Nijimen