of the series would be difficult. While he considered altering the ending, he eventually settled with his original idea. With regards to casting, Watanabe considered Kōichi Yamadera to be "really perfect" for Spike. The staff had him audition as a formality, but Watanabe felt that "no matter how you looked at it, there was only Yamadera". After a decade of work in anime series, Yamadera was pleased to secure his first leading role, but Unshō Ishizuka, Jet's voice actor, was surprised that Yamadera was not cast as Jet. The two characters were designed to be opposites, with Spike being thin and wearing smart attire, while Jet was bulky and wore more casual clothing. Spike's English voice actor, Steven Blum, used film noir imagery to get himself in the right frame of mind to voice the character, but experienced some difficulty portraying in scenes where he was showing vulnerability. Reflecting on his performance, Blum said "there were a few lines here and there that I felt were awkward, and could have been smoothed out better." He called Spike an "example of a character [he] didn't fully appreciate until the series was over", adding that he would like to reprise his role as the character if given the chance. Spike's portrayal was expanded in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Specifically, according to Yamadera, the character displayed more of his inner thoughts and showed a gentler side than he did in the series. This was because the team had more time available to express such details. Blum found his performance in the movie one of his most difficult from an emotional standpoint, as there were scenes where Spike was portrayed quite differently from the version he had been playing in the series. Reception and legacy Spike's character has been well received in Japan. He won first place in the Best Male Character category at Animages annual Anime Grand Prix awards two consecutive times in 1998 and 1999. In the August 2001 issue of Newtype, Spike was ranked first on the magazine's list of "Top 10 Most Popular Male Anime Characters in Japan". The next year in July 2002, Spike was again placed at number one on Newtypes anime list of "Favorite Male Character". In a Newtype poll from March 2010, Spike was voted by readers as the eighteenth most popular male anime character from the 1990s. In 2014, Kōichi Yamadera was voted by fans