Who Are The Most Popular Japanese Characters (Not From Nintendo or Anime)?

[Donizetty]

Godzilla and Hello Kitty

 

[Septimus]

Saber prob these days.

 

[Pandora012]

Toro Inoue

 

[MegaSackman]

Adding Ryu to the conversation.

 

[Deleted member 4093]

It really boggles the mind why One Piece can't reach the same level of recognition in America like it does everywhere else.

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Too damn long and too damn dumb

 

[RedshirtRig]

Guts?
But I am not sure if manga counts as anime.

 

[Damn Silly]

From video game characters, it's almost certainly Sonic. Say what you will about the quality of some of his games (and plenty have), but consistently being there, as well as being the public mascot of SEGA has ensured that pretty much everyone will know who he is, whether they like him or not.

This. Get your head out of your video games. lmao Sonic, yeah right

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[Force_XXI]

I'll throw Yugi in the mix
edit: im an idiot lol

 

[Force_XXI]

dp

 

[Unknownlight]

Thing is, I really can't tell at this point if Sonic is still largely beloved in a non-ironic sense, or loved as a meme/fetish-fueled "so bad it's good" kind of way.

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You've been immersed in meme culture for too long. The six parts of Sonic Mania Adventures have a combined total of 60 million views on YouTube.

 

[mrmoose]

It really boggles the mind why One Piece can't reach the same level of recognition in America like it does everywhere else.

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Just takes too long to ramp up, I think. Even Dragon Ball only got popular here with Z/the Raditz saga.

Since you mentioned Dragon Ball as being disqualified, I guess anything that came from manga but got adapted to a cartoon is disqualified? Otherwise I'd put Doraemon way way up there. Anpanman as well.

 

[Celine]

Internationally Pac man or Sonic.
In Japan the slime from Dragon Quest.