At Tokyo Game Show 2026, an Overwatch character popularity poll was held on-site. Kiriko took first place with over 1,000 votes, pulling significantly ahead of other heroes. This event gauged players' affection and the characters' charm, not their competitive strength.
A physical voting wall featuring hero portraits was set up at the venue. Attendees cast their votes by placing stickers next to their favorite characters. As a Japanese hero, Kiriko enjoyed a home-field advantage at the local convention, ultimately securing more than 1,000 votes.
Rough estimates based on the number of stickers placed show Illari in second place with approximately 710 votes, followed by Ana with around 610, D.Va with about 550, and Reinhardt with roughly 500. Juno and Cassidy each received approximately 440 votes, Genji around 410, while Reaper and Sojourn both hovered near the 400-vote mark.
Among the lower-ranked characters were newer heroes such as Hazard, Nemesis, Emiri, and Seera, alongside familiar faces like Baptiste, Symmetra, and Mercy. This distribution further demonstrates that this on-site survey had no direct correlation with the heroes' performance in the competitive meta.
Notably, Mercy, long considered a popular Overwatch character, received only about 100 votes, trailing far behind Kiriko and other leading contenders. Commenters on Japanese forums also observed that Brigitte ranked higher than Mercy in this poll.
These results stem from interactive voting at Tokyo Game Show, with all figures being approximate counts derived from stickers on the voting wall. In the final ranking, Kiriko placed first, Illari second, and Ana third.