AnimeSuki Choice Award Winners 2017

[felix]

That's pretty much what I expected to be the case. Famous studios aren't famous with out reason.

[Reckoner]

I forgot to even vote this year, but I will say the awards reflect the state of animesuki forums as a dying website. Without an impetus for people to join these forums anymore, as fansubs used to be back in the day, it seems AS has showed its inability to keep the interest of the modern fandom as a community.

The winners for the most part are niche title choices of the few loyalists to this website and sure we can have a circle jerk about that, but it's practically meaningless with such low vote totals.

The staff puts a lot of (misguided) effort into the AS awards and it's certainly appreciated, but it might be worth just getting rid of these awards in the future considering the state of the forum. It's a lot of IMO wasted effort for such a small community participation.

[larethian]

No one voted for Sakrada Reset. I'm shocked

[Sheba]

With that many subforums, the regulars mostly keep their traffic to few "hanging" places. And seeing the past records, I am guessing it could be disheartening to vote for a favorite only to lose to something else. And when it happens like twice or more in a row, you just stop caring.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I forgot to even vote this year, but I will say the awards reflect the state of animesuki forums as a dying website. Without an impetus for people to join these forums anymore, as fansubs used to be back in the day, it seems AS has showed its inability to keep the interest of the modern fandom as a community.

The winners for the most part are niche title choices of the few loyalists to this website and sure we can have a circle jerk about that, but it's practically meaningless with such low vote totals.

The staff puts a lot of (misguided) effort into the AS awards and it's certainly appreciated, but it might be worth just getting rid of these awards in the future considering the state of the forum. It's a lot of IMO wasted effort for such a small community participation.

Perhaps the awards could be simplified (by merging the nomination and voting phases, for example) but I think they're still worth it, said worth being proportional to how much you value the opinions of the members here. It would be hard to tell which anime were considered great by the community otherwise. We all know popularity doesn't equal quality so we can't just look at the post counts to tell what is good. In fact, a lot of the shows that won have pretty small threads. Not the first year this happened too.

Of course, if our numbers keep dropping and there's only a handful of us left by next year then it will be pretty pointless. But we'll see when we get there. I'm hoping things will remain stable at least.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Of course, if our numbers keep dropping and there's only a handful of us left by next year then it will be pretty pointless. But we'll see when we get there. I'm hoping things will remain stable at least.

I hate to be a downer, but me and felix have already recognised the distinct possibility that there may not be an Awards next year if activity levels keep dropping. Heck I'm not sure if I'm willing to do it next year anyway. I can't say it's worth the effort if only forty-odd people are in it.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I forgot to even vote this year, but I will say the awards reflect the state of animesuki forums as a dying website. Without an impetus for people to join these forums anymore, as fansubs used to be back in the day, it seems AS has showed its inability to keep the interest of the modern fandom as a community.

The lack of a mobile site certainly hasn't helped either. But it's not like the guys running this site are some sort of official corporation that have money and time at their disposal to strategist and action these things so it's not really much of a surprise.

[GreyZone]

I think it might just have been that 2017 had a mostly boring line-up. I myself only watched two series from 2017, which are Tsuki ga Kirei (and I kind of regret it because the ending felt like a carbon copy of another school romance series I cannot remember the name of) and Youjo Senki.

2018 has a much better line-up with highlights like S;G0, probably index III, the currently airing Overlord II, possibly The Rise of the Shield Hero - and much more.

So I suppose people just weren't interested in it in 2017. Since I only watched 2 shows, I didn't even bother to vote. That will be definitly different in this new year of 2018.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I forgot to even vote this year, but I will say the awards reflect the state of animesuki forums as a dying website. Without an impetus for people to join these forums anymore, as fansubs used to be back in the day, it seems AS has showed its inability to keep the interest of the modern fandom as a community.

I don't know, won't argue that it's less active maybe (maybe like by 2 times or 3 times, if memory serves), but it's still one of the few forums out there that's reasonably organized and you can have a decent discussion in.

The current level of activity may be a far cry from the so-called "golden ages" but it's plenty healthy, especially compared to the general landscape. And forums have indeed "fallen" out of favor (for the time being) with much improved procrastination media tacking it's place. But obviously not just this forum. If anything this forum is doing pretty well. Singnal to noise ratio isn't that different from what it was years ago, and even small-ish shows get plenty of discussion—is anything worth discussing not being discussed? Some of the draconian rules like no image posts could be toned down (since everywhere else on the internet it's fine) but it's fine otherwise.

I only see off-topic sections falling out. They can probably be retired into a etcetera section, I don't think there's a problem with focusing on just anime, games and anime games discussion.

General options today as I see them (strictly speaking of anime discussion)

Spoiler:

• the twitters

  chaos, short conversations and jokes, mostly jokes

• discord groups

  Unlikely for conversations to spread wide; mostly 2-3 people participation per topic. But otherwise tight knit communities and good places for having a long discussion. Also unlikely to go too deep into issues due to instantaneous aspects of the chat; and wakwardness of reading too far back. Oh and there's the problem of migration to new interests and discoverability, but otherwise they're good.

• thread list style forums

  most anime forums out there. Not surprising since this over-simplification is what most forum CMS-es have bet on (seems they lost that bet!?). It's not quite the same as just going to the current series section since usually these forums have a lot of crap in there not just series (reddit is kind of one of these)

• vote style threaded-posts forums

  So your reddits, disqus etc; generally has the shortcoming of heavy polarization and "thread silos of opinion"
  They're good at gathering things though

• whitelist-style forums

  resetera style and such; don't think there's any anime specific one out there; probably closest thing to this due to similarity in heavy moderation

• neatly organized multi-section forums (potentially with heavy moderation)

  Technically this; generally characterized by long well thought out discussion.... is what I want to say, but in the modern age of twitter it can also be considered "too long" posts and "very slow" to boil discussion (for better or worse)

• adjacent forum (ie. news site, organization site)

  Things like MAL basically. At one point this forum was the same. Most forums, including this one were usually born this way, many times a split from another forum.

• non-international forums (ie. UK forum for blah, etc)
• oh and the youtube vlogs and blogs (your modern 4chans)
• extremely specialized sites with comments (so, for example image boards if the interest is just images, rating sites if the interest is just ratings, etc)

Dunno about you all but history of this place not counting, it's pretty well off.
You all should think about all the positive aspects (ie. how shitty everywhere else is )

—–—

As for the awards.

So long as Haak doesn't call it quits I don't care if the participation is less then 20 frankly. And as for the voting phase, it's more a tradition thing (and also takes 0.5% of the work involved) so if you guys want to have it be single-phase that's fine by me. Even if the contest were to scale down, all that's needed really is just to scrap the character section and 95% of the "work" involved goes away (I'm not jocking!).

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by felix

So long as Haak doesn't call it quits I don't care if the participation is less then 20 frankly. And as for the voting phase, it's more a tradition thing (and also takes 0.5% of the work involved) so if you guys want to have it be single-phase that's fine by me. Even if the contest were to scale down, all that's needed really is just to scrap the character section and 95% of the "work" involved goes away (I'm not jocking!).

Then for the sake of you and Haak, I support you both doing that. Both of you put an amazing amount of work into this, and it's probably not worth it given declining activity here at AnimeSuki. That being said, I respect your desire to keep the awards going.

So if cutting a mere 4/5 categories would reduce your workload by 95%, then by all means, do it. The categories left would still cover a pretty thorough range.

[blakstealth]

Nice winners. I agree with a good portion of what was nominated and won. It's definitely fuckin better than the Oscar noms this year.

I unfortunately didn't participate in the 2017 awards, but I will definitely get back to it for 2018.

[ruel22]

great list of winners
will syart watching some of these

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Haak

I hate to be a downer, but me and felix have already recognised the distinct possibility that there may not be an Awards next year if activity levels keep dropping. Heck I'm not sure if I'm willing to do it next year anyway. I can't say it's worth the effort if only forty-odd people are in it.

I can understand that. Of course it's all up to you guys in the end.

About Felix's suggestion, I wouldn't really mind the character section getting scrapped. Most of the winners in these categories end up being from anime who won awards, anyway.

As for the state of AS, I agree with Felix. It's actually not all that bad compared to other forums, I've even noticed an increase in activity since the beginning of the season. I mainly wish old members who are still lurking would start posting again (I'm going to single out Triple_R, since he just posted there ), and of course for new blood to join in and stick around. I know it'll be extremely hard to get new members, but AS still has a strength (which is also its weakness): its strict spoiler policy. Surely, that still appeals to some, even if they're the minority.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Then for the sake of you and Haak, I support you both doing that. Both of you put an amazing amount of work into this, and it's probably not worth it given declining activity here at AnimeSuki. That being said, I respect your desire to keep the awards going.

So if cutting a mere 4/5 categories would reduce your workload by 95%, then by all means, do it. The categories left would still cover a pretty thorough range.

It's not really a net negative, after all the reason why we don't have some categories like "Best Overall Cast" (or some other ones people wanted) is just due to the enforced "max limit." Also, at least for male and female lead we can have it as simply "Best Female Lead" and "Best Male Lead" but you only choose the series name; it's not too far off most of the time.

What would you guys want?

Haak would need to approve it, but assuming this motion of removing character-type categories was to pass, what do you guys want in their place?

(4 categories would go away if this passes)

Here are some options to get the ball rolling:

• Best Overall Cast (D)
• Best Female Cast / Best Male Cast (D) (2 categories)
• Best Isekai (B)
• Best VA Work (D)
• Best Tragedy (B)
• Best Rem (R)
• Best New Series (A) -- meaning something that's never had an anime before
• Best Original IP (A)
• Best Fights (A)
• Most Disappointing Story (D)
• Best Mystery (B)
• Best Evil Plot (A)

...feel free to come up with others (this is much harder then it looks)

Of course we can choose to add none in their place and just have a shorter format.

[Haak]

I really like the character categories: To me characters are the heart and soul of a story. But as much as i would loath to do it, it might very well be the best option to get rid of them, in order to make the Awards viable. I had this crazy thought that I'd rather get rid of all the genre categories but then I realised that's where most of the variety comes from. XP

But I wouldn't want to get rid of them just to replace them with four more categories. I think that would just defeat the purpose. I think the best option would be to replace them all with just "Best Character/Overall Cast". Overall Cast might be easier. Best character could potentially become a bit of a free for all.

[Tanuki.]

Originally Posted by felix

What would you guys want?

Haak would need to approve it, but assuming this motion of removing character-type categories was to pass, what do you guys want in their place?

(4 categories would go away if this passes)

Here are some options to get the ball rolling:

• Best Overall Cast (D)
• Best Female Cast / Best Male Cast (D) (2 categories)
• Best Isekai (B)
• Best VA Work (D)
• Best Tragedy (B)
• Best Rem (R)
• Best New Series (A) -- meaning something that's never had an anime before
• Best Original IP (A)
• Best Fights (A)
• Most Disappointing Story (D)
• Best Mystery (B)
• Best Evil Plot (A)

...feel free to come up with others (this is much harder then it looks)

Of course we can choose to add none in their place and just have a shorter format.

Some good suggestions. "Best Action Scenes" would be better than "Best Fights", if you ask me. I also like "Most Disappointing Story", but "Biggest Disappointment" would be more general and also include shows that aren't story-oriented. "Best Mystery" is okay, but there are few shows that really have heavy mystery elements. This year was pretty strong with Kemono Friends, Made in Abyss and Land of the Lustrious, but not sure if there are enough contenders in an average year.

"Isekai" and "Tragedy" are too specific, if you ask me. "Most Emotional Experience", instead maybe?

And maybe add something like "Freshest Experience" to honor works that deviate from established formulas? [/$0.02]

[felix]

Originally Posted by Kanon

As for the state of AS, I agree with Felix. It's actually not all that bad compared to other forums, I've even noticed an increase in activity since the beginning of the season. I mainly wish old members who are still lurking would start posting again (I'm going to single out Triple_R, since he just posted there ), and of course for new blood to join in and stick around. I know it'll be extremely hard to get new members, but AS still has a strength (which is also its weakness): its strict spoiler policy. Surely, that still appeals to some, even if they're the minority.

This, isn't impossible. As one of said old members and someone that's been on hiatus for the most part I can somewhat answer why it is as it is.

First off it's not any major issue, like fansub groups not hanging out here or anything. Fansub groups went away long before the forum entered this so-called "decline." It's not like everyone who posts is a fansubber. Similarly even since the first days I joined the joke has always been that nobody that visits the forums actually knows the site and wiki actually exist. Probably went there 10 times in total.

From my perspective the problem is a sort of torture by 1000 cuts. Both very small changes that happened over the years and also small changes that didn't happen. There's no point in going into debate here so I'll just briefly go though what I think are some of the major landmarks (I'm sure you know most of them with just a word or two to point them out anyway). Everyone sees different problems, so take these with a grain of salt.

[1] Didnt Change. Those banners up top. They're 10 years overdue for a change. Every time I look at them I kind of am reminded of some of the faces of the gfx community that doesn't seem to be as active anymore here. Occasionally I see one I made too, though it's been so long it's probably just coincidence I recognize I made it; wouldn't be surprised if there was one I didn't recognize.

[2] Changed In the older days you used to have a lot more "Sub-Forums." Sub-forums kind of split the community a bit, because mixing single-thread series with sub-forum series doesn't quite fit nicely, but one thing sub-forums do really well is resets and exposure of low key subject matter.

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[3] Changed The Pundit Internet Era. And I mean that in the negative urban meaning. (fortunately it appears to be over)

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[4] Didnt Change / Changed We kind of live now in the graphical, gameafied age. And the forum was kind of in it when I joined but slowly moved away from it.

TL;DR…

 

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[felix]

Originally Posted by Tanuki.

And maybe add something like "Freshest Experience" to honor works that deviate from established formulas? [/$0.02]

How about "Best Original Idea" ?

(the isekai one and some others were a joke; except the Best Rem one of course )

[Kanon]

I've been wanting a "best VA" category for the longest time, but wouldn't that just give you more work?

Or we could just go with what Felix said and simply ask people to name a series rather than a character in the best male lead and best female lead categories. When you think about it, if people haven't watched the series anyway, the name of the character doesn't really matter, does it? What they need to know is which series to watch to witness these great leads. As for the people who have watched it, they'll know which characters people are thinking of most of the time (exception being series with an ensemble cast, but they tend to be rare).

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by Felix

Most Disappointing Story (D)

I remember we had some "worst" categories early on, and I was really glad to see them go. I don't really want negative categories to make a return. For a while, people have made "most disappointing/most pleasant surprise" twin threads; not this year so far, but maybe there is demand for this. I just don't think the awards are the best place for it.

I, too, like the character categories, but I find they're also the hardest to nominate for. You have multiple characters by show, and the variety is so stunning. How do you compare a great reverse harem lead to a shounen lead to well-versed dramatic character? If I look at my past nomination behaviour, this is probably the category where I edit my choices the most and still forget people.

I think "Best overall cast" might be a good category. I also like:

Originally Posted by Felix

Best VA Work (D)

Sometimes a performance really makes a show.

I have plenty of silly categories if you want any of those:

Best inanimate object
Best mascot
Best head pat
Best visual pun

Serious suggestions are much harder.

The current categories I care for the least are "Best Ongoing" and "Best Villain/Antagonist".

And maybe we could collapse the film/Ova categories (to be consistent with forum categories). The problem is that usually watch a few OVAs and a few movies, and I end up with two categories where I've seen little. The biggest problem I see is short OVA series (say Re:Life this year). That would feel odd in there.

In all likelihood I'll still be here next year, nominating and voting, if the awards still exist. I find the Animesuki awards have good variety and good shows tend to have a good chance. There'll always be shows that are underappreciated (Alice & Zouroku, Action Heroine Cheerfruits, Classicaloid, Tiger Mask W), depending on who you ask, but I'm usually happy with the spread. I certainly preferred the AS awards to, say, the Crunchyroll awards. Also because the way to the results is so transparent and fun to follow.

So, basically, thanks for the all the work. The AS awards are my favourite out there.

[felix]

@Kanon The way I was thinking was in the sense of naming a series, yes. That way if a series doesn't have a one punch hits but is overall the best we get those too.

@Haak if by free for all you mean accept all entries? Maybe I guess? But probably too finniky if I don't merge similar one, and it's this inaccurate nature that's actually the core problem. The thing is it's either all "vote for specific character" categories go (we can still have character-related categories of course) or it's no gain at all other then a format change. Since just one category is enough to solicit all the grueling work of getting all the characters from all the shows sadly. Though it of course helps to have less categories to deal with people's character related typos and nicknames.

You don't have to make the decision right now if you really feel torn on it. We still survived this year again after all. But it probably be better now due to the implicit replacement of categories, so people can pitch in to decide what to do with the open spots.