[Feedback] AnimeSuki Choice Awards

[Archon_Wing]

As requested, I have created a separate thread to discuss the Annual Awards Ceremony for this site.

The goal of the thread is to discuss ways to improve the event and also increase the overall visibility of it. Certainly our small gathering has been cozy, but given the advent of new media, the landscape of the internet has changed, and so we forumites may also have to think of ways to adjust to the new environment.

Possible Topics to discuss in this thread

• Accessibility. Besides the whole idea of advertising the thing, how can we adjust the format to appeal to a larger audience? What about the time frame of voting?
  
• Consistency. What rules could we have in place that could help future proof the contest against perceived changes in anime itself? That is, if the landscape of anime itself is changing, then so should our views. Please go in depth!
  
• Polish. What do you think is missing when you vote?
  
• Or maybe you think it's fine, and maybe it should stay this way. Do tell.

Topics to not to put in this thread.

• How salty/ecstatic you are about this year's results. Please vent here
  
• Talking about best girl/waifu or whatever. Please go here.
• Venting about other people's opinions or how much they suck. Please go here or here
• Any valuable items or body parts. We are not responsible for the loss of any.

[Triple_R]

When it comes to Accessibility and Consistency, I think the AS Choice Awards are in a pretty good place right now. As some AS members mentioned elsewhere, it would be nice if AS itself did more to advertise/promote these awards, but I respect that's the Moderating Staff's call to make.

When it comes to Accessibility, I'm very happy with 21 award categories, and I'm also happy with how they currently break down into 4 distinct sections. The award categories are diverse and thorough, but are not so numerous as to be intimidating. I also think the time frame provided for nominating, and then voting, is in fact very generous. I tend to procrastinate a lot when it comes to making my own nominations and votes, but I still find it's not that difficult to get them in on time.

As for Consistency, there hasn't been a lot of category changes in recent years, so I think there's a good sense of consistency and continuity here. The genres we're running with right now seem to be holding fairly strong. Favoring Sports over Mystery/Horror seems to have been the right call overall for recent years in anime. This may change in the future, but for now, the genre categories we have seem to genuinely reflect the more commonplace/popular genres out there.

As for Polish, I think felix does an excellent job with Awards banners. And I think the promo images used during the voting phase are generally pretty good!


So overall, these awards probably don't need drastic changes. Perhaps some tweaks are worth considering. One idea I brought up in the Community Awards social group was that we could change Best Male Lead, Best Female Lead and Best Side-Character to Bed Male, Best Female, and Best Group. This would effectively side-step the sort of issue we faced this year with Rem. Clear-cut leads would still have an edge in the gender categories, simply since leads tend to get more screen-time and character development, but as Rem herself showed, a character that isn't definitively a lead character can sometimes manage to beat out those that are. Best Group would also give side-characters a chance at award recognition if they are part of a beloved group. It should be noted that anime has a lot of notable and popular groups, such as the SOS Brigade, the Little Busters, HTT, Walküre, the Ginyu Force, the Puella Magi Holy Quintet, Aqours, and μ's. Any specific named group, or specific school club, would be eligible for this hypothetical "Best Group" award.

But that's just a very tentative idea, and I'm not hardcore on it.

[Guardian Enzo]

The SAG Awards have a category for "Best Cast", and I think that's a possibility - give people a chance for the series they think has the best ensemble on the whole.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Topics to not to put in this thread.

• How salty/ecstatic you are about this year's results. Please vent here
• Talking about best girl/waifu or whatever. Please go here.
• Venting about other people's opinions or how much they suck. Please go here or here
• Any valuable items or body parts. We are not responsible for the loss of any.

Here's an amendment to the rules that can be made for next year:

During nominations a character may be nominated as both Lead Character, Side-Character as well as Antagonist, and may also be nominated as Male and Female at the voters discretion.

Before going to voting, categories where the character would not move on are discarded. Of the remaining categories where the character would qualify, if the character has been nominated in more then one, only the category with the most number of voters (not points) moves to the voting phase. The result in all other categories is discarded and another character added to them (if necessary).

In case of unambiguous gender. If a character looks like a female and is also a female then she is not eligible in the Best Male Lead and is removed before the above applies. Same for unambiguous male characters.

If a character dresses with female clothes but acts and talks like a male, and is a male, then the character is treated as a male (regardless of his cross-dressing quirks) and results in the female category is discarded. Same for females dressing like males (but this should be more obvious, and go with out saying). If this is, for whatever reason, debatable or confusing (eg. characters that also fall into antromorphic-tropes such as "catgirl" Ferris from Re:Zero) the character is considered of ambiguous gender and other rules apply.

In case of ties, the priority is as follows: Lead Male/Female Lead, Antagonist, Side-Character. In case of ties for ambiguous gender characters (ie. traps) even if the actual gender is known, the physical appearance takes precedence.

Example: If Ferris from Re:Zero was voted in all character categories and also happens to be tied in all of them, then "he" will be voted in Best Female Lead. Reason being that since he looks and acts as a female, most of the characteristics by which he would be compared are "female character characteristics" (at least with regard to anime logic).

Any questions?

@ Triple R - The reason Best Side Characters was introduced in the first place was because a lot people felt that there were side characters that don't get as much screentime in comparison to leads but sometimes outshine them. I'm not sure a "Best Cast" would cover that purpose well to be honest. To me that's a different element altogether rather than an overlapping one. My nominations would be considerably different if it were "Best Cast" instead of "Best Side Character" this year. I really don't want to get rid of Best Side Character. Looking back, I really do think it's served a good purpose for the last 7 years and I don't want to see it gone just because of one upset that likely won't happen again. I'd rather just regulate it more.

[Triple_R]

@Haak I like your Rules Amendment suggestion.

I like how the legend of Rem would only grow from this. She'll become the one and only character to pull off the Lead/Side combo, as her doing that prompted a rule change!

[Haak]

We can call it the "The Rem Rule". XP

[-Antares-]

The Rem Rule sounds like exactly what I thought would prevent it from happening again.

[felix]

The question of what to do with robot waifus was brought up in the other thread. Just to clarify, a robot is technically of ambiguous gender, so the amendment still covers them fine; you just go by outer appearance (for the most part). So, as per the Rem Rule, an R2-D2 would be a male character and a Planetarium would be a female character—if a dispute ever arises from a tie.

[Archon_Wing]

God damn it, I specifically said not to mention Rem and...

Oh well.

Spoiler:

Rem will be the first and only undisputed champion I guess

[felix]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

The SAG Awards have a category for "Best Cast", and I think that's a possibility - give people a chance for the series they think has the best ensemble on the whole.

I should probably mention this, just because it's a bit important: any new category has to replace an existing category.

Doesn't matter if we remove a genre category and add a music one, the current count can only either stay the same or go down, not increase. No exceptions, since "just 1 extra" every year will get us back to "too many" again. Most people are at least content with the current count so we try to keep the status quo, for better or worse. (We also don't want to try too many changes per year, so there's a limit on how many changes we'll make too.)

In your case for example, if we were to add this "Best Cast" it would have to replace something. Probably "Best Side-Character" would be the most likely category to get chopped if we were to try it. And since we would chop side-character we would probably be more inclined to narrow it's focus and have it as "Best Supporting Cast" so as to fulfill the role of best side-character and not overlap with Best Male/Female Lead pairs.

Anyway. Feel free to suggest any categories you've liked from other contests for consideration, just suggest one to remove as well if you can.
Also keep in mind that we care a LOT about how many people are in support of an idea, so if you agree with another member, make sure to voice it!
That's all, I won't bore you with our internal details any longer.

[Guardian Enzo]

Haak, I'm good with your lead/side amendment - as long as it keeps the same character from being double-nominated it works for me.

I confess I'm a bit confused by the "unambiguous gender clause" though. Is this addressing a specific issue? Are you saying the physical appearance takes precedence - i.e. if a girl spends the bulk of the series dressed as a boy, she would qualify under "best male character"?

[-Antares-]

I actually rather like the the "best supporting cast" idea too. I think I like it better than the side cuaracter one. You can still keep the Rem Rule, naturally. There's no reason those can't coexist.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Haak, I'm good with your lead/side amendment - as long as it keeps the same character from being double-nominated it works for me.

I confess I'm a bit confused by the "unambiguous gender clause" though. Is this addressing a specific issue? Are you saying the physical appearance takes precedence - i.e. if a girl spends the bulk of the series dressed as a boy, she would qualify under "best male character"?

I also don't know how big of a deal this is. I can't think of a single situation where this could be an issue. Tokyo Ravens had a female character who spent the vast majority of the series in the disguise of a boy, but the fact is she's a girl, and she is known to be such very early on. And as for robots/androids, it's usually pretty clear which gender they're meant to resemble. Actually, I guess there was something of the sort of Mnemosyne (a character with literally both genders...) but that anime is ancient by now. I don't think we're getting something like that again. There might be a few other examples in shows like Simoun and Wandering Son but can't we just use the Rem Rule to solve all these problems in the end?

[IceHism]

I think you should make the helper webpage look a lot smaller. It's very big and can confuse people of whether they need to vote for three things in every category when they don't.

Also, the mods should just like make another role solely for advertising/planning events if they don't want to do it themselves.

[Dawnstorm]

I'd be perfectly fine with only two categories: Best character (male/female). I don't need the main-/side-character distinction at all, and every year so far I've struggled with the antagonist category. I'm fine with the way things are now, but I wouldn't worry about reducing the character-categories to two. If a side-character outshines a main character, then I'd nominate them.

I'd be in favour of inclusion for voice-acting performances. Every year, there are a few that stand out to me as special. Some performances even make the show (for example, Yuki Aoi's performance of Hibiki Tachibana was a very large part of my motivation to watch season one of Symphogear). I'd prefer that category to either of the side-character/antagonist categories.

[Guardian Enzo]

I love the antagonist category - those are some of the best roles out there. I never want to see that dropped.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I love the antagonist category - those are some of the best roles out there. I never want to see that dropped.

I neither love nor hate it, but I suppose it's there for a reason. I don't expect to see it go. But that probably also means that I'd be in favour of conserving the status quo. Dropping the side-character category only makes sense if you re-interpret the main-character category as a character category. However, that would include antagonists, too.

My position is basically:

Either drop both side-character and antagonist category in favour of a single character category (my personal, selfish preference), or retain the status quo (probably what serves the community best).

[Guardian Enzo]

I don't know. Every major academy in TV/movies/stage that I know of (Oscars, Emmys, BAFTA, Tonys etc.) has "lead" and "supporting" categories. I don't see anything fundamentally different enough about anime that it shouldn't do the same.

[Dextro]

@Haak I like your idea of applying the "one category only" rule to the Best Character categories in similar fashion to the limits added to the Genre Categories but I would completely drop all the genre identification clause. I think it adds needless complexity for something that isn't really a problem. I'm fairly confident that, even if Steins;Gate came up again and Luka-kun was up for nomination, the community as a whole would probably settle down into a decision without needing a rule. Just having the most voted one be counted would be enough to let it pass.

As for the "Best Cast/Group" idea I have to say I love both of them.

Having a vote for Best Group would be an interesting take to prevent an issue that can be easily seen in ensemble shows like Love Live for instance: it's hard for any single character to get recognized there unless they completely overshadow their group which usually means that the group itself would probably not win this category anyway.

On the other hand I fell that having a Best Cast award would probably be a more worthwhile endeavour that would recognize shows whose character interactions feel particularly satisfying as a whole. I would put an award like this in the same level as Best Visuals & Animation in that its meant to look into how well a show is made and not so much how popular it is. I know that, deep down, these awards will always be more of a popularity contest than anything else but allow me to contradict myself a bit. I'm only human after all.

The real issue is that I wouldn't remove any of the current awards but I accept and respect the 1=1 approach to categories to keep things manageable. Like Triple_R mentioned I also feel that the awards are currently at a very stable and enjoyable place. I haven't seen Haak or Felix going mad from work and both the nomination and voting phases went off without a hitch. Also, if you really look at them, the results themselves were rather respectable even if people may have individual thoughts on each category.

The only real outlier was the Rem situation and, while I personally feel like the wins were deserved, I can see why introducing a Rem Rule could help increase the variety of future results (as long as said rule doesn't add undue burden on the volunteers) even if I feel like people are blowing this situation a bit out of proportion.

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Topics to not to put in this thread.

• How salty/ecstatic you are about this year's results. Please vent here
  
• Talking about best girl/waifu or whatever. Please go here.
• Venting about other people's opinions or how much they suck. Please go here or here
• Any valuable items or body parts. We are not responsible for the loss of any.

It's at these moments that I miss the rep system. You deserve a cookie kind sir

[relentlessflame]

I would like to contribute that I think it would be helpful to separate the project into two aspects: the "Academy Awards" aspect, and a new "People's Choice Award" aspect.

Basically, the sort of event this is now is fine for what it is, but I believe it is never going to reach "wide appeal" (regardless of advertising) because it is has a very formal process and nature that appeals more to specific kinds of fans (basically "anime-as-a-medium" fans who like comparative analysis and debates about procedure). This sort of person will always be a minority on every fandom forum, because the vast majority are casual fans, genre fans, and people who just don't want to go through this sort of formal process. I realize there has never been any rule or requirement that you had to vote in every category or be part of the entire "democratic process," but I think the overall impression of the whole process (from beginning to end) is that it requires you to really sit down and give it some thought. And again, I think that is perfectly fine -- the Academy Awards are decided by a panel of judges. I would embrace that aspect of this endeavor, and accept it as part of the design rather than trying to fight it. Let the panel of judges be the group of people who are interested in and committed to having the breadth of experience to watch lots of anime and use their critical thinking to make solid judgements. (For example, have the judges write a short paragraph to justify their selection in each category, and have an editor pick a representative sample statement or two about each category's winner. Make it an actual critical thinking exercise even more than it already is now.)

Then I would complement that with a much simpler "People's Choice Awards" series of maybe 3 multiple-choice polls -- simple calls-to-action that just ask people to make their selection for one question, like "Best Anime of <year>" or "Best Male Character" or "Best Female Character". The options can be pre-determined by the judges based on a combination of critical appeal and raw popularity; don't overthink it too much. This is more like your Saimoe contests and the like, and are very easy to promote and get participation. This can then be incorporated into the overall project, just as People's Choice Awards are incorporated into other Award Shows. It's a lot easier to push these simple calls to action in signatures and on social media. (Consider also the huge number of reality TV "text your votes to 12345" whatever shows that are based on this same, simple call-to-action model.)

The result can also present a bit of a contrast between the "judge's picks" and the "people's picks" which encourages discussion and debate in the final thread, just as happens now with real Award Shows. It creates another form of tension that is by design to create hype and conversation. You separate out all the procedural aspects just to those who want to be on the judge's panel, and get wide participation on simple calls to action that are part of the larger project.

In other words, even though AnimeSuki has hundreds of active members who discuss anime on the site every day, most of them are not ever going to be comfortable being anime judges or feel like they are in a position to vote on these awards due to their formal, procedural nature (again, similar to how actual award shows work). The democratization of the awards show model is too lofty a goal because a large part of any award show process is really about politics. So, in essence, keep all the politics between the organizers and judges, and just make it real simple for everyone else. Then I think you can leverage the interest of the "core team" for what this project actually is in practice (a chance to for a group of people to work together to organize an awards show), while still having a more effective call-to-action to reach out to people you're not currently reaching.

In time this sort of model could be expanded to other media like Light/Web Novels. I realize that a lot of the core organizers of this project come from more of an anime background (as do most of the site staff, in fact), but as was noted in the previous thread, Novels are really a central growth area for the site in recent years. As the bench of "experts" expands in those other media, there's an opportunity to expand the concept to cover these other media by following a similar model. It may be possible to go slowly by first introducing some "People's Choice Awards" in those other media to start seeing if there's any momentum and potential organizers. Right now, by focusing so much on anime in isolation (in addition to the focus on protocol/procedure), I believe the contest is excluding a lot of AnimeSuki's current (and, to be frank, younger/more vibrant) audience. That will be another hindrance to potential future growth.

These are just ideas and certainly not perfect by any means, but for what it's worth, anyway...


P.S. As an aside to all the above, I agree with the Rem Rule.

[Liddo-kun]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

@Haak I like your Rules Amendment suggestion.

I like how the legend of Rem would only grow from this. She'll become the one and only character to pull off the Lead/Side combo, as her doing that prompted a rule change!

Assuming this contest goes on for some more years.. that would make people remember her each time this contest happens. Honestly, did not expect her to win at the side character section. But since she won... well, I'd take that as another blessing for the poor maid.