2009 Animation Kobe Award Results
 

Individual Award
Kunio Katō (director and creator of La Maison en Petits Cubes)

Special Award
Shun-ichi Yukimuro (writer for Ashita no Joe, Candy Candy, Dog of Flanders, Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball, Gegege no Kitarō, Getter Robo, Kimba the White Lion)

Theatrical Film Award
WALL-E (Pixar)

Television Award
Eden of The East (Production I.G)

Network Award
Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya & Nyorōn Churuya-san (Kyoto Animation)

Theme Song Award
"Don't say 'lazy'" (K-ON! ending theme) by Sakurakou K-ON! Bu (Sakura High School Light Music Club)

These things slay me as always. Incidentally I don't think there's ever been a selection for the Theme Song Award that I haven't taken as a personal slight. Last year it was Triangler from Macross Frontier (which was the only theme song from the show I couldn't stand meaning they literally could have picked anything else and I would have said it deserved to win as much as any other hit theme song) and the year before that was the controversial Motekke Sailor Fuku, which I'm sure most are familiar with.

Once again I find little reason to argue with the choices for TV Series and Movie because let's face it they were the attention grabbers for animation this year and I'm pretty sure that's the key criteria in deciding who and what these things go too.

Fans are responsible for the top 5 in the Theme song category with the judges deciding the rest. The one with the most votes is usually the winner according to wiki. So basically it's a popularity award and K-On!'s ED song had the most votes if you trust wiki.

Is there a list of the nominees anywhere so that we can see who the competition was?

Yay! :hyper-^v^:

This has totally made my day.

Not only did Motteke! Sailor Fuku won before, Hare Hare Yukai also won the previous year. They're going full circle now. :heh:

That Network award thing is totally rigged. No way Haruhi should be on there after that Endless Eight fiasco.

"Don't Say Lazy" is a pretty good song. I've liked many OPs/EDs this year and that is one of them.

Eden of the East's latter arc was a bit "meh" for me but is (Imo) easily the best on the production side of things. The art and music is awesome.

Off-topic: "Triangular" last year? Nor wonder it made it on the Drum Master game... :| I like the OP2 "Lion" way better.

What the hell is a "Network Award" anyway?

Network refers to anime that are only shown on the internet, Original Net Anime (ONA) and stuff.

Haruhi-chan and Churuya-chan undoubtedly was very interesting and popular.

Haruhi-chan/Churuya-san is not Haruhi TV anime series, it has nothing to do with Endless Eight.

Internets. For example, Haruhi-chan was exclusively released over the net.

Well it's not like Haruhi-chan had much to compete with anyway, the only other ONA i can think of this year atm would be Hetalia and both were equally as enjoying imo. The only reason why Haruhi-chan edged out was probably because of it's popularity. Same thing with the K-ON ED song, I'd say Bakemonogatari's ED is a better song, but lost due to popularity. If it was the ED theme overall, as in the visuals + song and how well they compliment each other, then yea Don't Say Lazy would be a pretty tough competitor to beat.

"Don't Say Lazy" is still selling fairly well it would seem. As are several other K-On songs.

Haruhi-chan was funny, but the lack of competition might be another reason for the win.

So now there's an award category that encompasses at most half-a-dozen shows or fewer? I suppose that's about equal to the number of theatrical films in a given year, but it still seems like a category purely invented to create another award. Is the implication that shows produced for the Internet are likely to be weaker (e.g., have lower budgets) than ones produced for television and thus need to be considered only within their little walled garden?

Candy Boy and Time of Eve are better than 90% of the stuff on TV, so I would have to say it's only to give Kadokawa another award.

There's not alot of ONA anyway. Haruhi-chan was funny-ish, but I'm not sure whether it should recive an award. Haruhi-chan itself without watching Haruhi is pretty useless. Isn't Hetalia more popular anyway? According to the DVD sales anyway. Maybe Hetalia was planned for TV but got canceled afterwards so it doesn't count as ONA?

ONA award should be given to Time of Eve, that was really something.

Triangler is only good when it's sung live.

I don't agree that Churuya-san should get the award either... I mean, the animation is so bad and the content is meh... but it's expected anyways.

I thought that both Haruhi-chan & Nyorōn Churuya-san were funny and watched all the episodes. Also, giving them an award won't get you in trouble with Koreans.

"Don't Say Lazy" was a fresh breeze for ED animation when it was released.

First of all, the award for "Don't say Lazy" was for the song itself, not the ED animation. Second of all, while I won't argue how good the Haruhi-chan/Churuya-san are themselves,
I can't speak for Candy Boy but Eve no Jikan deserves it.

Personally I think Xam'd was leagues better, but judging by DVD/Blu-Ray sales it's only been a minor success and plus it came out in mid- july last year and missed the chance to qualify by just over a month and a half.

The problem I have with Don't Say Lazy is that the final recording of it almost sounds like it was a test take and that they wrapped recording and mixing on it in an afternoon. The vocals sound muffled, distorted and just generally kind of mumbly (could just be the seiyuu) and the instrumentation suffers the same, often times sounding like little more than far off jumble of noise as opposed to instruments that are being up close and skillfully. It's surprisingly LQ for how involved the ending animation is. Who knows, maybe it sounds better live.