AnimeSuki Choice Award Winners 2011

[hyl]

You do know that some animes like penguin drum stand no chance at all with the mashing of categories?
By reducing the actual genres, you are creating very vague categories with very polarizing results.



{A1} Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
In this category I have no idea if i should vote for madoka because it's fantasy or Steins;Gate because it's sci fi. Comparing those different genres is like comparing fruit with dairy products.

Also if there is dislike for the amount of categories, why is there a distinction between best story for adaptions or orginal works. Best story alone is more than sufficient. It looks even more redundant than all those seperated categories to me.

[Kirarakim]

I think it should just be

Best Drama
Best Comedy
Best Speculative Fiction

And I would get rid of romance but have a category for best romantic couple.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by hyl

You do know that some animes like penguin drum stand no chance at all with the mashing of categories?
By reducing the actual genres, you are creating very vague categories with very polarizing results.



{A1} Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
In thos category I have no idea if i should vote for madoka because it's fantasy or Steins;Gate because it's sci fi. Comparing those different genres is like comparing fruit with dairy products.

I think I see what Sorrow-Kun and Reck are going for here. There's a lot of anime shows that mix these three elements together. Strict Sci-Fi with no Fantasy, and strict Fantasy with no Sci-Fi, aren't terribly common. And most Fantasy/Sci-Fi shows tend to have some action in them (even Steins;Gate had some fights in it).


My own view is that genres, and how they are used, is ever-evolving in anime. Awards like this one probably need to similarly evolve regularly to keep up with that.

Like I argued before in this thread, the days of Tolkien-style Fantasy is pretty much over in anime. It was a prominent anime genre in the 90s (especially the mid-90s), but not so much any more. This is the side-effect of the incredible modern domination of Japan/High School settings. Almost every modern anime has either Japan, or a high school, or both, as a primary or reoccurring setting. So having a category just for "Fantasy" is perhaps questionable given what the term tends to make a lot of people think of.

Pure sci-fi isn't that common either. Steins;Gate is the exception, and not the rule, there.


Looking at the current genre categories, it honestly makes me think that it was wrote up for 90s anime. It would have fit perfectly back then. Not so much now though.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I think I see what Sorrow-Kun and Reck are going for here. There's a lot of anime shows that mix these three elements together. Strict Sci-Fi with no Fantasy, and strict Fantasy with no Sci-Fi, aren't terribly common. And most Fantasy/Sci-Fi shows tend to have some action in them (even Steins;Gate had some fights in it).

Sci-fi and fantasy are not genres that mix too well. In fact the reason for seperating these 2 genres is because of their distinction for being scientific or magical.
Steins;Gate had no fantasy elements in it. Madoka strictly did not have sci-fi in it, because time traveling is not a theme soley for sci-fi, but for other genres like fantasy as well.
Those action scenes in steins;gate were hardly worth mentioning.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

My own view is that genres, and how they are used, is ever-evolving in anime. Awards like this one probably need to similarly evolve regularly to keep up with that.

While animes can have multiple genres in it, they still specializes in 3 or so genres at most.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Like I argued before in this thread, the days of Tolkien-style Fantasy is pretty much over in anime. It was a prominent anime genre in the 90s (especially the mid-90s), but not so much any more. This is the side-effect of the incredible modern domination of Japan/High School settings. Almost every modern anime has either Japan, or a high school, or both, as a primary or reoccurring setting. So having a category just for "Fantasy" is perhaps questionable given what the term tends to make a lot of people think of.

High school setting is not a genre, but like you said it yourself a setting. You can use a location like a highschool for different genres, but when you start adding magic in a medium it already becomes either a supernatural or a fantasy.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Pure sci-fi isn't that common either. Steins;Gate is the exception, and not the rule, there.

Steins:Gate was not a pure sci-fi. It's has a strong mystery and dramatic/tragedic elements to move the sci-fi. In fact, there would have been no sci-fi without the mystery.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Looking at the current genre categories, it honestly makes me think that it was wrote up for 90s anime. It would have fit perfectly back then. Not so much now though.

The current genre distinction seems to the the general most used genres. Regardless if movies have changed over the several decade, you can still easily distinguish if it's sci-fi, horror, thriller, action, romance or a comedy. I still think it's the same for animes, because the movie industry has in my opinion made bigger changes in the last century than the anime industry.

[Kotohono]

I am happy and disappoint with results , I am glad Madoka got what it did, though I would have liked Homura to beat Kurisu(while I like Kurisu, Homura is one of my favorite characters ever), though I suppose I can settle with Kyouko winning supporting. (I am in favor of keeping supporting characters, not removing it).

And as much I enjoyed Carnival Phantasm, I don't think putting Movie and OVAs together was the best idea still, nor did I want to see it beat Colorful or Redline.

Also Mawaru Penguindrum I was hoping would at least win Drama/Tragedy, but I underestimated AnoHana's popularity it seems, so bit sad to see it win nothing.

I am fine with most of the things winning except:
<rant>

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

It was a weak year for comedy-centred shows.

I have to utterly disagree, I would rank at least 10 other shows with a large element comedy as more funny than Nichijou overall in the past year...

Spoiler for some examples:

Working'!!
Yuru Yuri
Nekogami Yaoyorozu
Carnival Phantasm
A Channel
Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
Mayo Chiki
Astarotte no Omocha!
Hidan no Aria
Mawaru Penguindrum
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II
Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai Specials

Nichijou simply won from the split vote caused by the tie in nomination round because there were so many good choices this year for comedy.
And my negative opinion of the series is because of how dull a chain of middle episodes became before it became funny again, and far too many of the jokes were hit or miss compared to other series.</rant>

[hyl]

Well you can combine horror/sci-fi/fantasy for the best supernatural serie, but you will displease lot's of fans that wanted to vote for the other 2 genres.

edit: comedy was not weak this year as Konokaga has easily given some good examples (i don't agree with all of them , but with most of them). Sports and romance were quite weak this year though

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by hyl

You do know that some animes like penguin drum stand no chance at all with the mashing of categories?
By reducing the actual genres, you are creating very vague categories with very polarizing results.

More eclectic series like Penguindrum would have more difficulty snagging away one little category, but lets face it, they had difficulty doing so ever in the first place as we saw here.

It's not creating vagueness to have fewer, unique (Can't be nominated in more than one {Ai} ) categories personally. It actually gives them more meaning and weight, and stream lines the process.

It'll actually reveal to us what the AS community thinks the genre a show like Madoka fits in the best.

To me there is not much difference between sci-fi and fantasy (In some cases the border between them becomes indistinguishable), and USUALLY action shows pass over in the surreal anyways (scifi and fantasy). Typically when they are not about the surreal, they're in a genre with more prominent elements, particularly tragic and dramatic ones.

Also I don't particularly see the need to branch off slice of life from drama. Most slice of life series people typically think of like K-ON! would probably fit more into moe anyways.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To me the general attitude around here is along the lines of disappointment that XYZ could not win because they feel the categories are too general and want to break it off into more specific categories (Where the process starts to become vague and frustrating since it's hard to define these things in the first place), in the hopes that their favorite shows are able to pick up some kind of award.

We have to realize that not everything is going to get an award. It's just a sense of entitlement, and I don't think that approach is going to be helpful for making these awards more clearly defined and easily approachable.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

More eclectic series like Penguindrum would have more difficulty snagging away one little category, but lets face it, they had difficulty doing so ever in the first place as we saw here.

It's not creating vagueness to have fewer, unique (Can't be nominated in more than one {Ai} ) categories personally. It actually gives them more meaning and weight, and stream lines the process.

It'll actually reveal to us what the AS community thinks the genre a show like Madoka fits in the best.

To me there is not much difference between sci-fi and fantasy (In some cases the border between them becomes indistinguishable), and USUALLY action shows pass over in the surreal anyways (scifi and mecha). Typically when they are not about the surreal, they're in a genre with more prominent elements, particularly tragic and dramatic ones.

Also I don't particularly see the need to branch off slice of life from drama. Most slice of life series people typically think of like K-ON! would probably fit more into moe anyways.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To me the general attitude around here is along the lines of disappointment that XYZ could not win because they feel the categories are too general and want to break it off into more specific categories (Where the process starts to become vague and frustrating since it's hard to define these things in the first place), in the hopes that their favorite shows are able to pick up some kind of award.

We have to realize that not everything is going to get an award. It's just a sense of entitlement, and I don't think that approach is going to be helpful for making these awards more clearly defined and easily approachable.

Count me in with the people that feel efficiency is more important that making sure pet favorite shows pick up some kind of award. Personally I'm of the idea that getting rid of the whole Nomination -> Voting phase and instead just having one FPTP style vote where you can vote for whatever is included would be a key move along that very line.

I still really have to question the need for a 2 stage voting process and what benefit it's supposed to offer. To me the most democractic vote is the one where you just get to actually vote for your favorite show in a given category if it's eligible. It's all inclusive and doesn't force a poster to give a vote to a show simply because the show they actually wanted to vote for didn't get enough votes in the nomination phase to make it to the second stage. To me it's a hollow choice if it's not really the one you think deserves the nod and all you're really doing by narrowing the choices down is ensuring that only the most popular choices of the year have any chance at any sort of recognition around these parts and that people that haven't seen those hit shows are guaranteed to be left out of the loop during the 2nd stage of the voting process and that if they haven't seen or support the popular shows then they just plain don't matter.

Granted the most popular shows are still the most likely to get the nod in an all inclusive FPTP one stage style vote, but at least your eliminating some redudancy from the process and ensuring that people will always get to vote for the show they think deserves to win a given category and that that vote will count at least somewhat in the long run.

[Sorrow-K]

To me, the way in which the genre ({A}) categories are divided isn't as important as the stipulation that each series should only be nominated for one genre category. Ideally this rule would mean that the voting community would be forced to come to terms with the ambiguities of a given title's genre and quickly make a decision about which category that title has a best chance of being nominated in and/or winning.

The genres themselves can probably be debated forever, but I think that if there's enough pressure on the organizers to limit the number of genre categories to a reasonable number, like 5 or 6, that Haak and coworkers will probably make a good enough decision about how they should be divvied up. The biggest problem with the genre categories in their current form is the ambiguity. I think it's important that the community be empowered to decide which category is best for which title, and I'd like it to remain that that decision happens during the nomination stage. But the rule each title can only be nominated for one genre category will hopefully help force the community to overcome that ambiguity and be decisive in their categorization.

Edit: Also this is the post where I proposed this idea.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

Count me in with the people that feel efficiency is more important that making sure pet favorite shows pick up some kind of award. Personally I'm of the idea that getting rid of the whole Nomination -> Voting phase and instead just having one FPTP style vote where you can vote for whatever is included would be a key move along that very line.

I still really have to question the need for a 2 stage voting process and what benefit it's supposed to offer. To me the most democractic vote is the one where you just get to actually vote for your favorite show in a given category if it's eligible. It's all inclusive and doesn't force a poster to give a vote to a show simply because the show they actually wanted to vote for didn't get enough votes in the nomination phase to make it to the second stage. To me it's a hollow choice if it's not really the one you think deserves the nod and all you're really doing by narrowing the choices down is ensuring that only the most popular choices of the year have any chance at any sort of recognition around these parts and that people that haven't seen those hit shows are guaranteed to be left out of the loop during the 2nd stage of the voting process and that if they haven't seen or support the popular shows then they just plain don't matter.

Granted the most popular shows are still the most likely to get the nod in an all inclusive FPTP one stage style vote, but at least your eliminating some redudancy from the process and ensuring that people will always get to vote for the show they think deserves to win a given category and that that vote will count at least somewhat in the long run.

Good idea bro. I'm all for reducing complexity, and having 2 phases has a lot of logistical issues such as people remembering one or not the other, leading to the votes being monopolized with whoever was paying attention during the nomination phases. The idea of a nomination phase is to filter, however, since we're not filtering our choices before a panel or something, it is redundant because the filtering phase is largely self-directed.

[Sackett]

Well, I will say that we did have a thread in November with a poll to see what people wanted. Despite the constant complaints that we have too many categories, the majority seemed to prefer increasing the categories.

We're certainly going to be discussing the genre categories. felix has some really interesting ideas... if any of us can figure out how to make them work. As for limiting genre nominations that's certainly going to be something we'll discuss.

Although I do want to ask, considering that Madoka managed to win only 2 genre categories and no other show won more than one- is it really as big a problem as people keep saying? Just asking because I checked the past awards and the most genre awards ever won by a show was 3- Sports/Romance/Drama. Won last year by Cross Game (a 52 episode show allows you to cover a lot of ground). And that was the only year any show won more than two genre awards.

One other idea to bring up that is smaller, but I think might be a good idea. Perhaps we should deprioritize the genre categories by not listing them first? I mean Best Show should really be our first question shouldn't it?

I actually think it might effect nominations and voting behavior.

Anyway, other topics brought up...

Oh yeah, nominations. The problem with nominations is that bluntly people are lazy and don't want to vote in a nomination free for all where they can vote for any show. They prefer to wait until there are fewer shows to pick from to pick the winner. So not having a nomination period means significantly less voters- as in 50% less.

Additionally, the results are quite different. Here are the nomination results. I count no less then 9 categories then had results different then in the nominations.

So basically we've gone with a two stage format to whittle the choices down to gain a greater participation rate. The nominations tell us what the most dedicated and passionate viewers think. The voting stage tells us what the more broad community feels.

Might I point out that all of you were free to participate in the nominations. It's not like it's harder to vote in the nominations then it would be to vote in a one stage free for all. If you don't like the nominations, then please get more people to participate in them.

And least you think I'm saying no to changing, I'm not. I'm just pointing out the reasons we're doing it as a two stage system right now. If there really is a large desire to go to a one stage system we'll certainly discuss it. It's been brought up before.

I will say that if we do try to limit shows to one or two genre I'm not sure how we can do that without a nomination phase. I think I speak for all the people helping organize in saying that we really are not excited about the idea of us trying to decide which genre a show is eligible for- especially not for every show aired during the year.

Overall I'd like to add that all of us really do pay a lot of attention to the ideas and desires expressed about how to improve the Awards. We want to reflect the desires of the community. Unfortunately the community often seems to be pulling in different directions.

So if you don't like what we're doing feel free to let us know, and explain why. We actually have a list this year of suggestions to discuss for next year, and I've tried to get all of the items discussed in the various Award threads on it.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

I still really have to question the need for a 2 stage voting process and what benefit it's supposed to offer. To me the most democractic vote is the one where you just get to actually vote for your favorite show in a given category if it's eligible.

Doesn't that require that the organizing committee make the genre allocations themselves before-hand? I don't see where these lists for each category would come from otherwise.

Personally I don't have a problem with that method, or perhaps a method where a list of nominees in each category is proposed, then opened to discussion for a week or two, then a final list is determined.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Originally Posted by Sorrow-K

The genres themselves can probably be debated forever, but I think that if there's enough pressure on the organizers to limit the number of genre categories to a reasonable number, like 5 or 6, that Haak and coworkers will probably make a good enough decision about how they should be divvied up. The biggest problem with the genre categories in their current form is the ambiguity. I think it's important that the community be empowered to decide which category is best for which title, and I'd like it to remain that that decision happens during the nomination stage. But the rule each title can only be nominated for one genre category will hopefully help force the community to overcome that ambiguity and be decisive in their categorization.

So true. The organizers could have added categories, they could have expanded them to say, each individual theme genre (sci-fi, fantasy, romance, comedy, etc.) and cinematography genre (animation, music), but seriously, I thought there were a ridiculous number of categories as the voting stood. People just needed to CHOOSE.

On a complete side-note, I think it's a damn travesty that Redline didn't win as much as a single category. #1 overlooked anime of the year, in my opinion. I don't think very many people even watched it, given what the voting was.

[Haak]

These are my thoughts on some of the issues raised thus far. Just so everyone is clear these are personal opinions and are not official representative positions of the contest organisers (There's no such thing yet)

Fate/Zero Split Cour

Spoiler for space:

Originally Posted by Dextro

Overall the results are pretty much in line with what I was expecting, even the Fate/Zero wins. But it's exactly the latter that irks me quite a bit since I still stand by my idea that split-cour series should be off-limits until the full run is over mostly because it's unfair to said shows with the occasional instance of being unfair to the other shows like Fate/Zero will most certainly prove to be come next year.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Thinking about it I kind of wish Fate Zero wasn't eligible this time around because now it gets a chance to win twice & it pushed out other shows that only had this chance this year.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Oh and I love Fate/zero and all, but it's splti cour and unfinished and should never have been considered for this year. It's going to rob shows of both years.

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

And what Reckoner said - split cour makes Fate/Zero eligible for two vote-offs at this rate?

Originally Posted by Sackett

Fate/Zero is an interesting question. What should we do about split cours? It was never really a big issue before, but we're considering if we need to handle them differently somehow. What would other people suggest our policy be int he future? How should we identify split cours?

Split cours have to be eligible because we can’t always be sure if an anime is split cour or not. What’s the line between a split cour and a second season really?

That said, I didn’t vote for Fate/Zero because I hadn’t feel as if had ended and I also feel fate/Zero may have perhaps taken advantage of a loophole in the system. My suggestion is that if an anime is split whereby if it continues less than three months after it ended, then it will count as a split cour and thus considered still running (so not eligible). After three months and it becomes a second season/sequel. Still have a sneaking suspicion that won’t have closed the loophole completely (or potentially open up a new one)

Movies and OVAs

Spoiler for space:

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I'm a type-moon fan, but carnival phantasm is better than the likes of Colorful and Redline? People must not have actually seen these films, but this just goes to show that these categories should not even be considered together since people are more more familiar with OVA's.

Originally Posted by hyl

Also like Reckoner has posted: one category for oav and movies doesn't work if there are good movies and good oav's in the same year.

Originally Posted by Sackett

The OVA/Movies issue is one we've been discussing. There is a feeling that they may not be a good combination. Although I wonder about pure OVAs like Read or Die. I can see excluding OVAs that are basically just extra episodes of a franchise, but if the whole series is an OVA where should we put it? Should it compete with TV Series or Movies?

Originally Posted by Triple_R

That being said, there are some suggestions I agree with. I think splitting off OVAs from Movies might be a good idea, and have a category for each.

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Carnival Phantasm was nice, though it makes me think OVA should be separate from the movies.

Originally Posted by DemiSoda

My other major disappointing was with Carnival Phantasm winning the movie/OVA slot. Not only was it dissappointing that the movie and OVA categories weren't separted, it's disappointing because it proves that that not many people watched Colorful and Redline (and to a lesser extent Hoshi Wo Ou Kodomo, but tbh I thought that filmed kinda sucked), which were 2 films that were superb, near-masterpieces for their respective genres. I'm not taking anything away from Carnival Phantasm as it was a pretty good comedy... but it's a comedy (and a parody of Type-Moon) in the end, which doesn't deserve to beat two "legit good" films.

There seems to be a general consensus that OVA’s and Movies should not have been combined and I can certainly see why. OVA’s do seem to have an unfair advantage due to being related to already known TV series, so it might be best to split them again (I swear we’re going round in circles on this though).

The problem I see for next year though would be the problem of Gundam Unicorn. It would be counted as an OVA series even though some might consider it more akin to a movie series. It might be worth establishing a new rule that OVA’s longer than 30 minutes could be considered Movies but that kind of rule sounds like it would be rife with problems. Any suggestions?

Sports and Hobbies

Spoiler for space:

Originally Posted by hyl

Same goes for the Sports/Game/Hobby, but it's more understandable for this because there are usually not that many animes that fit into these categories by themseles. I do find it odd that Im@s won (odd that it even got nominated, but i didn't notice that because i was distracted by romance debate), seeing that it doesn't have sports primarily in it, the anime itself has nothing to do with games and it's kind of debatable if it should belong to hobbies. (for the same reasons why i can't put "White Album" into this category)
I just realized that it kind of looks silly that the banner says : "best sport series 2011" : The iDOLM@STER

Originally Posted by DemiSoda

My biggest disappointment is the Sports/Game/Hobby slot with Idolmaster winning. This was just wtf. How does a "moeblob" show beat out the likes out of something like Redline. Or even Kaiji, Moshidora or God Only Knows.

Originally Posted by james0246

Blah. "iDOLM@STER" winning for Sports sucks. But, I did expect it (or "Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II") to win an award that has, over time, literally been rewritten just to shoehorn shows like "Kami" and "Idol" into the same category as shows like "Moshidora" (the only real entry in the category since "Redline" came out 2+ years ago).

For the future, can we please just separate Hobby/Etc from Sports. As long as there are at least 2 nominations per category (For those who notice this type of thing, I am taking a different stance than I did in previous nomination/award seasons.), I see no reason why Sports anime should be forced to participate/compete with Hobby anime.

Originally Posted by Sackett

Sports/Hobbies/Game is indeed a mish-mash forced on us by the lack of enough Sport anime recently. Yeah... the banner should probably read "Best Hobby" or something. Maybe we should just breakdown and name it Best After-school Activity? Except that would exclude any non school related sports anime. Maybe we should just drop the genre altogether? What do other people think?

Personally I think its fine the way it is. Perhaps is a bit of stretch to include things like Idolm@aster but really I think the category needs this sort of competition. There aren’t really that many sport anime and I don’t think a Hobbies category is sustainable even though I do think there are anime where the story primarily centres on a hobby just like sport anime do.

Fanservice and Moe

Spoiler for space:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Yeah, I'd also like to see fanservice/ecchi split from moe.

It's not like either category doesn't have enough shows to warrant it. At least since K-On!'s first season, ever year has had a significant number of "healing" style moe anime (and most of these have little-to-no fanservice). And every year there's plenty of fanservice/ecchi shows. I really don't see the point in these two types of shows, with very different atmospheres/tones from one another (Tamayura ~Hitotose~ is very different from Maken-Ki), continuing to be combined like this.

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I think it's also useful to look at what some of the more notable moe shows of 2011 were:

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee
Tamayura ~Hitotose~
The Idolm@ster
Mashiroiro Symphony
A Channel
Denpa Onna

None of which actually ended up being options, probably because even the shows that did have fanservice (such as Mashiroiro and Denpa Onna) aren't what one would typically think of as fanservice or ecchi shows. The list we did get was more or less "best harem comedy of 2011". Madoka had more moe in it than most of them. (Actually, I do consider Madoka a moe show, just not one I'd likely nominate.)

I don’t think a “Moe” category on its own would be all that justified being honest, but I suppose that might be to do with my definition of a moe anime. From the list 0utf0xZer0 provided I’ve seen Ikoku, Tamayura, IdolM@aster and Denpa Onna and I would say all those only have elements of moe but are not moe anime. Ikoku and Tamayura was a slice of life, Denpa Onna was a comedy and Tamayura and Idolm@aster are “Hobby” anime imo. It seems to me that Moe is more of a subset of comedy than an actual genre.

Genre categories

Spoiler for space:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I have to admit/concede that the genre category domination by just a series or two that I feared might happen, never really materialized. Madoka Magica won two specific genre categories (Fantasy and Mystery/Horror), and no other anime won more than one.

I wonder why there’s so much hubbub over an anime dominating the genre categories. There may have been examples of that in the last two years but only because of a lack of good titles and there’s been enough response from the community to make sure some anime don’t overstep the boundaries (Steins;Gate with romance: Perhaps it might be best to encourage this sort of thing more after releasing the results of the nomination stage or even make a separate thread for a discussion so people can from stronger opinions for the next round).

That said I’m still willing to consider the idea of limiting nominations for an anime to two genre categories (I didn’t like the idea at first but I guess it is worth a shot in the very least), but it’s just that I feel the most attention should be paid to the non-genre categories, which in my opinion have a far bigger potential for abuse. If you check the winners, you’ll notice that the domination of Madoka Magica and Steins;Gate is primarily due to these categories.

Category Minimalism

Spoiler for space:

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I'm going to steal Sorrow-Kun's lay out from his blog, and hope he doesn't mind .

{A1} Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
{A2} Horror/Mystery
{A3} Drama/Slice-of-Life/Sports
{A4} Comedy/Moe
{A5} Romance
{B1} Movie
{B2} OVA/Short
{B3} Best Adapted Script/Story
{B4} Best Original Script/Story
{B5} Visuals/Animation
{B6} Opening/Ending/Insert Song
{B7} Soundtrack
{C1} Female Character
{C2} Male Character
{C3} Villian
{D} Best Overall Anime

-------

Personally I don't know why people's first inclination in these awards is always to split categories so that XYZ is going to be more appropriate to win it. These awards are too much of the time, ULTRA vague. It is hard to know what fits where, and worst some of these categories have difficulty getting nominations fit in the first place!

Now if we took something like this and let’s say we stipulated that a show cannot be nominated for more than one {Ai} category, then really I think all our problems would be solved. It would not be so goddamn vague and anime would be going to the most appropriate titles I feel.

Stuff like Redline losing is impossible to prevent in categories other than movies if we split it off because movies just aren't watched by people. It's not a matter of hive mind going for the most popular show, people just don't watch the damn thing in the first place.

But here you would be able to cut down on categories, making the awards more clearly defined, and hey, LESS VOTER FATIGUE. I don't know about you guys but the awards this year got me exhausted to fill them out.

Basically tl;dr : CUT DOWN ON CATEGORIES

Originally Posted by Triple_R

This is an interesting format suggestion. The only one that really stands out to me like a sore thumb is Drama/Slice of Life/Sports. Putting Drama and Slice of Life in the same category seems pretty off to me.

So here's a slightly altered suggestion.

{A1} Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
{A2} Horror/Mystery
{A3} Drama/Sports
{A4} Slice-of-Life/Moe
{A5} Romance/Comedy
{B1} Movie
{B2} OVA/Short
{B3} Best Adapted Script/Story
{B4} Best Original Script/Story
{B5} Visuals/Animation
{B6} Opening/Ending/Insert Song
{B7} Soundtrack
{C1} Female Character
{C2} Male Character
{C3} Villian
{D} Best Overall Anime

I think it makes sense to combine Sports with "Drama", since Sports-based anime shows tend to be inherently dramatic.

If we look at the list of 2011 moe shows that 0utf0xZer0 brought up, most of them could also be considered Slice of Life (at least going by a loose definition of the genre). A lot of modern moe shows are "Healing" type anime, and those tend to have an atmosphere very much like classic Slice of Life.

Romcoms are very common in anime, so it makes some sense to me for Romance/Comedy to share a category. This is especially since pure romances and pure comedies are increasingly rare and/or of questionable quality in the eyes of many AS voters it seems.

I think the choice of cutting down the categories will depend on the poll results when we ask the community if they think there are too many categories, since I think this minimalistic approach is largely dependent on whether you feel there are too many categories. It didn’t work so well last year for you guys but hopefully you can convince people otherwise this year. Personally I’m someone who thought the number of categories was pretty much perfect last year (20) so I was just a little bit miffed at adding 4 more.

This means that I’m a little bit less inclined to add more categories but whilst I am receptive to decreasing the number I’m not particularly convinced that reducing the number to a significant degree is all that important. In my opinion I would simply cut out Best Adaptation (Since I’m not convinced many people voted based on how a script was adapted) and the Supporting Characters (since it just seems like more fodder for the popular shows and it’s hard to determine whether a character is supporting or not). My personal idea would be:

-{A1}- [Action/Adventure]
-{A2}- [Fantasy]
-{A3}- [Science-Fiction]
-{A4}- [Mystery/Horror]
-{A5}- [Comedy/Moe]
-{A6}- [Slice of Life]
-{A7}- [Drama/Tragedy]
-{A8}- [Romance]
-{A9}- [Fanservice/Ecchi]
-{A0}- [Sports/Game/Hobby]
-{B1}- [TV series]
-{B2}- [Movie]
-{B3}- [OVA/Shorts]
-{C1}- [Storyline/Plot]
-{C3}- [Original Story]
-{C4}- [Female Character]
-{C5}- [Male Character]
-{C6}- [Antagonist]
-{D1}- [Visuals/Animation/Art]
-{D2}- [Opening/Ending Song]
-{D3}- [Soundtrack]

More thoughts on the genres later.

Miscellaneous

Spoiler for space:

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

Count me in with the people that feel efficiency is more important that making sure pet favorite shows pick up some kind of award. Personally I'm of the idea that getting rid of the whole Nomination -> Voting phase and instead just having one FPTP style vote where you can vote for whatever is included would be a key move along that very line.

I still really have to question the need for a 2 stage voting process and what benefit it's supposed to offer. To me the most democractic vote is the one where you just get to actually vote for your favorite show in a given category if it's eligible. It's all inclusive and doesn't force a poster to give a vote to a show simply because the show they actually wanted to vote for didn't get enough votes in the nomination phase to make it to the second stage. To me it's a hollow choice if it's not really the one you think deserves the nod and all you're really doing by narrowing the choices down is ensuring that only the most popular choices of the year have any chance at any sort of recognition around these parts and that people that haven't seen those hit shows are guaranteed to be left out of the loop during the 2nd stage of the voting process and that if they haven't seen or support the popular shows then they just plain don't matter.

Granted the most popular shows are still the most likely to get the nod in an all inclusive FPTP one stage style vote, but at least your eliminating some redudancy from the process and ensuring that people will always get to vote for the show they think deserves to win a given category and that that vote will count at least somewhat in the long run.

The biggest reason why I think there’s a two stage format is to give more recognition to anime in the voting stage. I think just having one phase will prevent people from gaining an interest in watching anime. I know this might sound strange but I think that saying you have four choices to choose from will make you want to watch all of them so that you can make the best decision. And I know this sounds even more strange but I think pictures help a lot too. I don't think people start gaining an interest in watching as many anime shows to vote for until they see the nominations. Atleast I don't. Saying you need to watch 4 shows in order to make the best decision (aswell as giving their genre and a screenshot) sounds a lot more reasonable than giving a massive list of all the shows that aired in the entire year. And I also thinking having two phases gives more time to watch said shows.

The results are indeed likely to be the same as the nominations but not always. Last year 25% of the top nominations didn't win the category. A whole quarter. This year 9 of the categories had winners that weren’t the anime with the most points on the nomination phase.

The voting phase also attracts more people. Only 58 people participated in the Nomination phase compared 132 in the Voting Phase.

If you think the voting phase is pointless then you can always just pretend that the nomination results we put up is the end of it.

Originally Posted by hyl

edit : i didn't notice untill now, but was there some kind of draw during the nomination phase on some categories? Because some of them had 5 (comedy has 6) possible choices, while most of them had 4 choices.

Yes there were some draws. Here are the results of the nomination phase:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...19#post3950519

Originally Posted by Liddo-kun

It's indeed nice. 765 Pro idols don't go home empty handed.

Was a bit worried when the voting started, so I visited almost every member of the IM@S social group asking for vote.

Spoiler for space:

[Sackett]

I'd like to say that I too find the nominations useful. It told me I needed to take a second look at Steins;Gate, and alerted me to Redline which I hadn't heard of before. Plus, how will Sorrow-kun write his AnimeSuki Choice Awards preview without it?

On the categories, I'd probably like something like this:

Best Of:

-{A1}- [TV series]
-{A2}- [Movie]
-{A3}- [OVA/Shorts]
-{A4}- [Original Story]

General Attributes (all shows across all genre are eligible):

-{B1}- [Visuals/Animation/Art]
-{B2}- [Opening/Ending Song]
-{B3}- [Soundtrack]
-{B4}- [Storyline/Plot]
-{B5}- [Setting/World Building]
-{B6}- [Fanservice] (Personally I'd rather cut this entirely, but since there does seem to be demand for it I think it's better as a general question rather then a genre category)

Character Questions:

-{C1}- [Female Lead Character]
-{C2}- [Male Lead Character]
-{C3}- [Female Supporting Character]
-{C4}- [Male Supporting Character]
-{C5}- [Antagonist]
-{C6}- [Couple] (let the shippers go crazy)

Genre:

-{D1}- [Action/Adventure]
-{D2}- [Comedy]
-{D3}- [Drama/Tragedy]
-{D4}- [Mystery]
-{D5}- [Romance]
-{D6}- [Fantasy]
-{D7}- [Science-Fiction]
-{D8}- [Slice of Life]
-{D9}- [Horror] (I'm currently on the fence about splitting Horror and Mystery, but it seems like last year the category was hurt by being combined. Maybe this one should be split or combined depending on the number of shows in the respective categories that year.)

I cut Sports entirely. Unfortunately there just aren't enough shows anymore, and I think it's better to cut it then try and mash it up with a bunch of other genre that don't really fit together all that well.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Sorrow-K

Edit: Also this is the post where I proposed this idea.

Oh wow, I didn't realise Nihon Review had a blog too. I just usually went there to check out their reviews and occasionally the reviewers forums to see what they're saying.

Quite a lot of raeg in those comments...
But there clearly are some legitimate concerns there too.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Sackett

I'd like to say that I too find the nominations useful. It told me I needed to take a second look at Steins;Gate, and alerted me to Redline which I hadn't heard of before. Plus, how will Sorrow-kun write his AnimeSuki Choice Awards preview without it?

On the categories, I'd probably like something like this:

Best Of:

-{A1}- [TV series]
-{A2}- [Movie]
-{A3}- [OVA/Shorts]
-{A4}- [Original Story]

General Attributes (all shows across all genre are eligible):

-{B1}- [Visuals/Animation/Art]
-{B2}- [Opening/Ending Song]
-{B3}- [Soundtrack]
-{B4}- [Storyline/Plot]
-{B5}- [Setting/World Building]
-{B6}- [Fanservice] (Personally I'd rather cut this entirely, but since there does seem to be demand for it I think it's better as a general question rather then a genre category)

Character Questions:

-{C1}- [Female Lead Character]
-{C2}- [Male Lead Character]
-{C3}- [Female Supporting Character]
-{C4}- [Male Supporting Character]
-{C5}- [Antagonist]
-{C6}- [Couple] (let the shippers go crazy)

Genre:

-{D1}- [Action/Adventure]
-{D2}- [Comedy]
-{D3}- [Drama/Tragedy]
-{D4}- [Mystery]
-{D5}- [Romance]
-{D6}- [Fantasy]
-{D7}- [Science-Fiction]
-{D8}- [Slice of Life]
-{D9}- [Horror] (I'm currently on the fence about splitting Horror and Mystery, but it seems like last year the category was hurt by being combined. Maybe this one should be split or combined depending on the number of shows in the respective categories that year.)

I cut Sports entirely. Unfortunately there just aren't enough shows anymore, and I think it's better to cut it then try and mash it up with a bunch of other genre that don't really fit together all that well.

I don't mind this list, as it does distinguish the genres quite well.
About
-{A4}- [Original Story]
Does it mean the most innovative/creative story or simple means "not an adaption"?

[Haak]

It's supposed to simply mean "Not an adaptation".

"Most innovative/creative" would overlap with [Storyline/Plot]

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Haak

"Most innovative/creative" would overlap with [Storyline/Plot]

It's not always the case, take Steins' Gate and Madoka as an example. The timetraveling idea for fiction is pretty much old and hardly innovative (H.G. Wells, 1895 and possibly older if we look at folklores) and the idea of saving someone from a tragedic death is as ancient as the stories of the ancient greek (and also possibly older).
However the execution of this not very innovatve idea, either breaks or succeeds a story. Which in this case, both stories succeeded

[Sackett]

Well the interest in having that category was to recognize Anime Originals.

So it means "Not an Adaptation"