Reception
Hitsugaya has been highly popular in the Weekly Shōnen Jump's Bleach popularity polls ranking most of the times within the top ten. In early 2008, Hitsugaya was voted the most popular character in the series, replacing Ichigo Kurosaki, who had previously held the position. He received 8278 votes, 383 votes more than Rukia Kuchiki, who finished second. Hyōrinmaru was voted the most popular Zanpakutō in the Zanpakutō Poll. In the 2007 Japanese Newtype magazine character polls, he was voted the 9th most popular male character in any anime. Various merchandise based on Hitsugaya's appearance has been created, including action figures, plush toys and key-chains.
In order to promote the second film of Bleach, the trailer had the line "Execute Hitsugaya!". Kubo admitted that it was his own idea to make everybody be surprised, but he and Masakazu Morita, the voice actor of Ichigo Kurosaki, received a lot of letters from worried fans, causing Kubo to apologize in response. The Japanese music distributor Recochoku has made two annual survey of which anime characters that people would like to marry. Hitsugaya ranked 8th in the category "The Character I Want to Be My Groom" from the 2008 survey and 3rd in the 2009 poll in the same category. In the 28th Anime Grand Prix poll, Hitsugaya was voted as the eighth most popular male anime character.
Various publications from manga, anime and other media have commented on Hitsugaya's character adding praise and criticism. Carl Kimlinger from Anime News Network praised Steve Staley, Hitsugaya's English voice actor, for giving an interesting variation of his voice rather than "integrity-destroying abominations". In another review he comments that Hitsugaya's unresolved personal issue is, along with the ones from others characters, to be a good part from the climax of one of the story arcs from Bleach. He additionally praised Hitsugaya's bankai for the good animation it has in the anime. IGN's Ramsey Isler found Hitsugaya to be one of the most common "fan favorite" characters from the series, but lamented the fact that his first fight against an arrancar was not very entertaining and his character did not "get a chance to shine." His appearances in DiamondDust Rebellion were praised by Active Anime's Holly Ellingwood who noted them "involving and intriguing" and liked his scenes with Matsumoto.
Read more about this topic: Hitsugaya Toshiro
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