TOKYO, Japan – Sanrio has announced that the 34th annual Sanrio Character Ranking has been officially won in a surprisingly upset by Russian bear character, Hack-san.
“While some might view the result with a bit of suspicion, we are sure of the integrity of the results,” said Sanrio CEO Shintaro Tsuji. “I don’t really remember him, but we’ve got a lot of characters.”
Many users on Twitter showed major support for Hack-san during the voting period of the Sanrio Character Ranking.
“#WakeUpOtaku, Anime Will be Great Again with Hack-san!” tweeted Twitter user Normalanimefan3785. “#Hacksan for #Sanriopresident #notabot2019”
“Hello Kitty isn’t really a cat! #conspiracy Vote #Hacksan,” tweeted Twitter user ZangiefLuver37.
“My Melody runs a #Hategroup, #WakeUpOtaku we need #Hacksan for #Sanriopresident,” tweeted Twitter user AnimeMoscow37345.
Others on social media, however, suggest the results may have been fraudulent.
“The voting looks really suspicious to me,” stated Sonya Johnson in a Facebook post. “Like, how could anyone vote for anyone but Cinnamon?”
“This is the only vote that matters to me in the world,” said Kuromi Johnson in a Medium post. “We’ve warned Sanrio for years their voting process wasn’t secure. Why haven’t they listened?”
Some Sanrio fans remained ambivalent on the matter.
“Wait, there are more Sanrio characters other than Hello Kitty?” said Sheryl Johnson. “It is weird to learn this about such an American tradition.”
We attempted to get more information on the matter from an anonymous source in the Russian government, who also happens to be one of our Patreon supporters, but were unable to get a clear statement. Putin denied his country’s involvement in skewing the results stating that he had personally voted for Aggretsuko.