AnimeSuki 2009 Choice Award Winners

[Angelic]

Expected results!
Nice KNK and C:AS

[Sheba]

I am for adding "Drama" and doing away with "Worst".

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by Dextro

I don't really feel like Bakemonogatari should win the best Comedy award (seriously?) but the visual one cause it might not have had the best animation (we all know Shaft) it had an amazing art style but that's my opinion as always.

I thought Bakemonogatari had brilliant, unique form of comedy. It isn't slapstick, it isn't childish, it isn't the cute/moe kind. It almost feels as if isn't "Japanese-humour". It was from its own form, through use of crisp, clever dialogue.

On the other hand I would argue Bakemonogatari shouldn't be worthy of the animation nomination considering how many corners were cut in the animation budget and how Bakemonogatari's art style isn't that unique as it was inspired from previous SHAFT titles such as Pani Poni Dash, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and ef.


Back on topic, I think the addition of a "Best Overall Anime" category would be welcome. I have a feeling that Bakemonogatari or Clannad After Story may have been a lot of peoples choices if this category was present.

[Eisdrache]

Originally Posted by Dextro

I'm one of the only few who think all negative votes should be taken out (that means no more Worst Character) because the tendency to troll that awards will always be high and what use is there in giving focus to bad characters? Shouldn't this type of awards serve also as a way to promote series other people might not be familiar with? (I know I found a few)

Nagisa being in the top3 for worst character clearly shows the amount of trolling for worst character. Im all for doing away with the worst character category.

[Pocari_Sweat]

As much as I would like to think the nomination for Nagisa Furukawa was a troll one, I don't really think it is. There is a substantial amount of Clannad fans that dislike Nagisa, most particularily the Tomoyo and Kyou fans. I think it has partly to do with the fact that jumping on the hate bandwagon and hating "moeblobs" is the new fad. Also Tomoyo and Kyou are both a kuudere and tsundere respectively, which are very popular character archtypes.

Though myself I do disagree with Nagisa being the worst character, I can somewhat understand thier haters. Afterall, I nominated Akamiya Mio as the worst character and this was a honest, non-troll nomination. I really do dislike her cliche and stereotypical personality to the point of facepalm annoying. The fact that she is one of the most popular female characters of 2009 furthered accentuated the dislike. Nevertheless, I do understand her fans and her haters respectively. Same goes for Nagisa.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by acejem

I thought Bakemonogatari had brilliant, unique form of comedy. It isn't slapstick, it isn't childish, it isn't the cute/moe kind. It almost feels as if isn't "Japanese-humour". It was from its own form, through use of crisp, clever dialogue.

On the other hand I would argue Bakemonogatari shouldn't be worthy of the animation nomination considering how many corners were cut in the animation budget and how Bakemonogatari's art style isn't that unique as it was inspired from previous SHAFT titles such as Pani Poni Dash, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and ef.


Back on topic, I think the addition of a "Best Overall Anime" category would be welcome. I have a feeling that Bakemonogatari or Clannad After Story may have been a lot of peoples choices if this category was present.

While it is true that Bakemonogatari isn't the first to show this particular art style I have to say it is a very nice evolution of it. The cut corners were obvious true but the fact that it even made the nomination list for the category and even achieved the 2nd place beating the virtually flawless by the book animation of Clannad AS should be enough to paint a picture of how unique people thought it was. Imho it would have won the category if it weren't for shaft being shaft and screwing up on the animation halfway through.

Oh and btw I too feel like a "Best Overall Anime of the Year" could be a nice addition.

[Ascaloth]

Originally Posted by Ansalem

Romance:

[41] Clannad After Story
[23] Bakemonogatari
[23] Toradora!
[15] Aoi Hana

Oh, wow, this is an unexpectedly comfortable win for Clannad ~AS~. Nevertheless, well deserved.

Storyline:

[36] Higashi no Eden
[34] Clannad After Story
[20] Bakemonogatari
[9] Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

A lot closer than I thought it would be. Clearly there's a lot of people who were touched by After Story, but this is a deserving win for Eden.

Male Character:

[33] Okazaki Tomoya (Clannad After Story)
[23] Hei (Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini)
[21] Takizawa Akira (Higashi no Eden)
[19] Araragi Koyomi (Bakemonogatari)

Huh. You know, I thought this would be this year's "Group of Death", but Okazaki Tomoya sure won it by a comfortable margin too, not that he doesn't deserve the win. I am surprised Hei managed second place, though.

Female Character:

[35] Senjougahara Hitagi (Bakemonogatari)
[22] Horo (Spice and Wolf II)
[15] Katsura Hinagiku (Hayate no Gotoku!!)
[14] Beatrice (Umineko no Naku Koro ni)
[11] Aisaka Taiga (Toradora!)

Erm, yeah. We all saw this one coming from a mile away.

Thanks for putting in the time to organize this year's Awards, Ansalem. Somebody needs to do the banners though.

[Pellissier]

Pretty much obvious results for all fields, I'm only a bit sad in seeing Seitokai no Ichizon so close getting a so well deserved comedy award, but that's just personal preference (seen all 5 titles in that category).

About the suggestions, there's the old matter of whether we should allow a series to feature in more than one genre category. On one hand, I think one series should get just one genre category and participate. On the other hand, I do realize how difficult this kind of labelling would be.
By they way, I'm talking about genre only, then the same series can go in multi-nominations with storyline, musics, soundtrack, visuals etc.

About the addition, I concur on a best of the year category. If we pick many "genre's best", why not the best of the best?

Also, I'd suggest a

- Best female seiyuu
- Best male seiyuu

there would be to decide if we want to prize the seiyuu for a specifical role (but in that case I fear the votes would just reflect the best male-female char) or actually for the consistence of his/her work during the designed year, and also in that case there should be attention to fan based preferences.

[jsieczkar]

Other then Time of Eve coming away with 2 wins, the results are predictable.

If we are talking about changes to the structure, I would go the opessite direction of what some people are saying, and reduce the number of categories in the genre classes. There are too many that are overlapping and seems to be set up so everyones favorite show has a chance:
Action/Fighting -- Drop the fighting and combine with Adventure -- Action/Adventure
Mecha/SciFi -- Drop the Mecha I think it is safe to assume that people get that mecha is Scifi. From the old Adventure/Fantasy category move Fantasy with Scifi -- Scifi/Fantasy
Mystery/Horror -- Drop entirely, shows will fit in other categories
Romance -- Drop entirely, shows will fit in other categories
Slice of Life -- Drop entirely, shows will fit in other categories
Sports/Game -- Drop entirely, shows will fit in other categories
Fanservice -- Drop entirely
Soundtrack -- rename Best Score
Worst Character -- Drop entirely
To fill the Romance, Slice of Life, and an existing hole add -- Drama
add -- Best Director
add -- Best Actor
add -- Best Actress

we would have:
Genre based:
Action/Adventure
Scifi/Fantasy
Comedy
Drama
Best Feature length Movie
Best OVA / Web Story / Short Movie
Technical Achievements
Best Storyline
Best Visuals/Animation
Best Score
Best Song
Individual Achievements
Best Director
Best Actor
Best Actress

[Sinestra]

congrats for Kara no Kyoukai well deserved. Majority of the fields were no brainers im a little disappointed that Seitokai no Ichizon got second.

I do think we should have had a "Best anime of the year" field.

[Eisdrache]

Originally Posted by jsieczkar

Action/Fighting -- Drop the fighting and combine with Adventure -- Action/Adventure
Mecha/SciFi -- Drop the Mecha I think it is safe to assume that people get that mecha is Scifi. From the old Adventure/Fantasy category move Fantasy with Scifi -- Scifi/Fantasy
Mystery/Horror -- Drop entirely, shows will fit in other categories
Romance -- Drop entirely, shows will fit in other categories
Slice of Life -- Drop entirely, shows will fit in other categories
Sports/Game -- Drop entirely, shows will fit in other categories
Fanservice -- Drop entirely
Soundtrack -- rename Best Score

Action =/= Adventure
Like I said I can partially see the Mecha/Sci-Fi
I wonder in which category mystery/horror, romance, SoL, sports/game will fit?(???)
Drop fanservice for what reason exactly?
Why rename Soundtrack when the name already fits the category very well?

I don't have trouble with people suggesting things, but please include the reason why you wish to change something.

[Ansalem]

@jsieczkar: I'm looking more to fine tune the awards rather than do a complete overhaul.

People want to see more shows than the biggest shows get awards. That was the biggest discussion in the nomination thread. Perhaps the categories overlap a little, but there are a wide variety of shows out there and they don't all nicely fit into such few choices. Reducing 9 genres (10 with drama) into 4 genres would severely limit the recipients to the biggest shows of the year more than it is already and I don't find that particularly desirable. Trust me, if it were "set up so everyones favorite show has a chance" there would have to be a lot more than there already are, as competition is fairly difficult as it is. I would bet most people have favorites that didn't even get nominated. As there are more than 200 anime from the year, I don't feel 9 is too many.

Changing Mecha/SciFi to just SciFi might work since I do think people get that mecha (most anyway -- I'm looking at you Escaflowne) is science fiction, but combining with fantasy isn't prudent as they are both quite common (and fairly distinct) genres in anime.

Changing Soundtrack to Score doesn't make sense because not all anime have scores in the traditional sense. Additionally, OP, ED, and insert songs are pretty central to the music of the show. Why use a term that excludes them?

[jsieczkar]

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

Action =/= Adventure
Like I said I can partially see the Mecha/Sci-Fi
I wonder in which category mystery/horror, romance, SoL, sports/game will fit?(???)
Drop fanservice for what reason exactly?
Why rename Soundtrack when the name already fits the category very well?

I don't have trouble with people suggesting things, but please include the reason why you wish to change something.

Action is always tied to both Adventure and Thriller categories.
mystery/horror is will fit into Action/Adventure, Drama or Scifi/Fantasy. Horror and mystery are usually used as a secondary descriptor for a film.
romance, SoL, sports/game are all dramas, with romance, SoL, sports/game being secondary descriptors of that category.
Soundtrack to score is just a technical correction, soundtracks include audio effects and dialog. A score is just the original music, but not insert songs which is a seperate category. So it should really be two categories Best Score and Best Song.

I would say that Science Fiction and Fantasy are very closely related, both fall under the broader definition of Speculative fiction. The major difference is one uses magic and other supernatural elements and Scifi uses science and Macabre. With both using elements of the Occult. Escaflowne could be classified as Science Fantasy a sub-genre of both Science Fiction and Fantasy Fiction using parts from both Scifi and Fantasy.

[Ansalem]

Originally Posted by jsieczkar

Action is always tied to both Adventure and Thriller categories.
mystery/horror is will fit into Action/Adventure, Drama or Scifi/Fantasy. Horror and mystery are usually used as a secondary descriptor for a film.
romance, SoL, sports/game are all dramas, with romance, SoL, sports/game being secondary descriptors of that category.

You're trying way too hard here. Horror, romance, and sports are all secondary descriptors?

If a person saw Dawn of the Dead, would they say they saw a sci-fi movie? No, they'd say a horror.
I read that old drama book, Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of Four.
I saw that new action movie, Miracle.
So K-On was a drama?

Yes, you can sort of shove most things into four categories, but they don't all fit well and I don't see a reason to limit the awards that way when there are so many shows that already don't get recognized. Basically, this is not going to happen.

[akimikage]

hehe... as expected to a Type Moon work... though i haven't watched it coz haven't finished Tsukihime manga yet XD
it's unfortunate that i didn't get to do anything bout the voting and nomination stuff coz im a newbie here XD ...

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by akimikage

hehe... as expected to a Type Moon work... though i haven't watched it coz haven't finished Tsukihime manga yet XD
it's unfortunate that i didn't get to do anything bout the voting and nomination stuff coz im a newbie here XD ...

Well, the two former attempts to adapt a Nasu's work fell short. Kara no Kyoukai is the first that did it and got it right.

[james0246]

Awards were, more or less, what I expected (and, as usual, only 1 or 2 of my choices actually won ).

In regards to potential other nomination choices, I tend to agree that personal honors should be given out. There are best directors, actresses and actors for any given year. But, personal honor should also be given to best episode directors as well. Various other awards are also relevant.

For a complete list:

Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supervising Director
Best Episode Director
Best Series

Best Editing (Since post-production for an anime (besides sound and voices) is generally less extensive than in Film, there is no true "editing" involved with a film. Rather, everything is storyboarded ahead of time, and only the "best" shot is ever animated. But, film editing is still the art of storytelling, and this award would be given to the anime that tells the best visual story (i.e. issues of pacing, continuity, general scene transition, etc)

Best Cinematography (Despite the loss of the camera, cinematography is still alive and kicking in anime. Whereas editing deals with pace, cinematography is all about presentation on the "screen". Best cinematography would be awarded to those anime that best convey the sense of "space" and movement within the diegesis.)

Best Sound: editing and mixing (fairly obvious. The use of sound, and the quality of sound)

Best Song (not necessarily OP or ED.)

Also, Best Story should be split into Best Adapted and Best Original Story.

[felix]

I suggest we decide if a category is "too limited" close to the nomination phase; seems a no-brainer to me to say it is now. That's also why I said "if applicable" next to the Trap category suggestion (we certainly have more then other years anyway). As for why the splits, well why group them. Even if the category is weaker this year I still don't see why there's a need to force people's hand and group them together. The reason I suggest OVA+Movie go toghter is because quality wise you can't say one is always greater then the other, length wise you can't say they are always longer then each other (see: Cenroll), you can't say one is always episodic or one is never split, besides a technicality of what they were called they are otherwise [in the long term] pretty much the same thing.

As for the overlap "pretiest male/female character" would have with the current "best male/female" I think if you rename the current to "best male/female character development" (or something like that) then the categories complement eachother IMO. A lot of people seem to vote moe (so as to not say its mostly "looks" =P).

Anyway how about this: you have as many categories as people want, the categories are sorted into topics, people are allowed to nominate each show into at most 2 categories (for every topic, presuming you have more then genre), and each character into just one. The result is given limited number of characters/shows/etc the distribution is not even. Now, to determine that years categories you do this: if a show/character in a category gets more then 70% of total nominations in its category the category is dropped, you sum up all nominations from categories not dropped, sort them based on % of total and best 10 ~ 15 are that years categories. This ensures the years categories are the people's choice, unbiased and competitive.

+1 to Best of the Year category
+1 to Seyu of the Year category

Add, "Best studio", "Best fansub group" ? lol =P
Change "Storyline" to "Best series development". Add "Best Series Story/Concept".
Add "Best Original Story".
Add "Best Manga Adaptation".
Add "Best Novel Adaptation".
Add "Best Game Adaptation".

[Ansalem]

Originally Posted by james0246

For a complete list:
Best Actor
Best Actress

The issue I see with adding voice actors is that we already have awards for characters and I think this would again end up overlapping pretty heavily with the already existing categories. Although they might play a few characters over the course of the year and that might change it a bit, I think the voting would mostly come down to voting for the voice actor that voiced people's favorite character. This has been mentioned a couple times, so I'll see what other people have to say on it.

Best Supervising Director
Best Episode Director

Supervising director seems somewhat plausible. Episode direction is a lot more problematic, since it's so specific. People have to be familiar with specific episodes of specific shows, and there aren't always even easily available complete listing of episode directors.

Best Series

This seems to be have some support.

Best Editing
Best Cinematography
Best Sound

Probably too specific/technical for a users choice award.

Best Song (not necessarily OP or ED.)

This is a possibility, but I think that the specific songs of shows already play a major part for decisions on the soundtrack category.

Also, Best Story should be split into Best Adapted and Best Original Story.

Anime is so heavily dependent on previous source material for this to be a worthwhile split. I think only about 4 or 5 shows even had nominations for storyline that weren't adaptations.

Originally Posted by Cats

I suggest

As someone said earlier, you seem to be suggesting changes for the sake of change. I mean, you advocate splitting categories that are related topics with good amounts of nominees into separate groups that will have too few, yet at the same time want to combine movies and ovas into one group, despite the fact they have decent amounts of releases in each. BTW, the difference isn't just their names: movies are released in theaters and ovas are released on disc.

The awards aren't going to change dramatically. There are also already a LOT of categories and I'm not going to add a dozen more, especially incredibly specific ones. Categories should be broad enough to have competition, but narrow enough to actually mean something. Genres should be setup so pretty much every show fits well in at least one and that there are a decent amount of shows that fit in them. I think adding drama will for the most part take care of this. There should also be a very good reason for their addition/removal, not just "why not?" They should be things that people don't have to research in order to nominate. They are also not going to be decided yearly with suggested categories and a math formula to see if they are viable for that year. So please don't dump large and silly (best trap? really?) lists in the thread, especially without good reasoning behind a suggestion.

[Autumn Demon]

For the most part I like the categories as they are (or will after Drama is added).

Worst Character should be removed; this year it clearly had the least votes and last year it caused flaming.

Storyline should be changed into Anime of the Year (or Best of the Year or Overall Favorite or something). I think Anime of the Year is the most obvious category to come up with and am surprised it hasn't been part of these contests to date. It's not exactly the same thing as Storyline, but I imagine the same series would win in both most of the time, so if something like Overall Best is added, Storyline should be scrapped.

I would also like to see a School Life category, but... that might create too much overlap.