Is this going by who are your favorites, who are more popular currently, or who are more popular all time?
Are we only putting up characters that look like humans or have human features?
Is that why Pikachu is not on the list? What about Doraemon? Anpanman (this one might not be as known outside of Japan, but if animals can be on the Mount Rushmore, then it's not possible to not include the first 2).
"Men lie, women lie, numbers don't"
Good questions. Pikachu and Anapaman are two of the highest grossing media franchises period. I figured that Pokémon thrives more on video games and merch than the anime itself but that’s debatable and Pikachu probably should have a spot alongside Goku, Sailor Moon, Astro Boy, and the OG Gundam. Someone also mentioned Speed Racer, who’s another good pick.
I feel like Lupin III and Guts should be in the conversation somewhere. If we’re going Seinen only, I’d put them on the mountain.
Guts (
)
Lupin III
Golgo 13
Motoko Kusanagi
Honorable mention: Kaneda (Akira), Spike Spiegel
but if we’re going strictly on merchandise…
Pikachu
Anapaman
Goku
Gundam (all those gunpla models
)
If we’re talking only manga, then I would say…
Luffy
Golgo 13
Goku
Naruto
Goku did more for the culture overall, but America is still sleeping hard on One Piece. It’s the bestselling manga of ALL time, and the 2nd highest selling comic in history behind only Superman. In Japan there are One Piece themed restaurants and theme parks, etc and it’s still consistently well written for the better part of 20 years, long after it’s contemporaries have either ended, fallen off, or both.
It would be easier to break this down by choosing 1 representative for 1960-1980, 2 representatives for 1980-2000, and then the last representative for 2000-2020.
1960-1980:
Astro Boy (Speed Racer, Doraemon, and Lupin III are up there)
1980-2000:
Goku and the RX-78
Gundam (Sailor Moon, Pikachu, and Kenshiro are up there though)
2000-2020: I’m going to cheat and say
Luffy for the reasons stated above.
?
