AnimeSuki Choice Awards 2012 Winners

[mystogan]

now that's great to see Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou as the best comedy

[felix]

Originally Posted by Akka

I agree with these points (well, in fact I already pointed them in my feedback, but hey it's good to know you're not alone ^^).

As the awards are for series published in a year, and there isn't THAT many each year, there is far too many categories with each far too few shows - and often the same show appearing in many categories. The opposite would be better, making awards more meaningful, voting more involving and reducing the "lobbying" effect of seeing a few shows completely dominating the entire contest.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

With this in mind, I think there's a certain "sweet spot" for total number of categories. A "sweet spot" were you're recognizing all the key strengths, but not becoming bloated to the point of irrelevancy or voter intimidation. Personally, I think that sweet spot is very close to 20, and not much above it.

The current upper limit of categories (maximum of 25) was determined via a public poll with the community; to avoid bias. It was determined that the people who want very few categories (which includes me mind you) are in the minority. We might be loud, but we're a minority. Most people favor choice. Any re-evaluation would have to be though a poll again (regardless of how much noise people make here), and personally I see no reason to believe we'll get different results if we held one.

Another issue with very "few" categories is that to get there you have to axe a lot of categories and everyone expects us to keep all the categories "they like" and axe all the categories "they don't like." So for example, people who don't like drama want it axed because it's a "catch-all" category while fans of drama want everything else axed because "clearly drama is the better category." Basically it's all a bunch of "I want fewer categories for the shows I don't watch" a lot of the time. We actually try to be useful with the contest. So unlike other awards we do take into account if there is a following for that category so that we may pass down useful information (ie. shows you might like, that you might have missed) though the collective effort of the awards. Basically, we favor practical categories (ie. genres, key selling points, etc), over more random "quality" categories such as "makeup and hairstyling" or "sound editing" you see in the academy awards for example (not that we don't have those too), even if they might seems a little smaller compared to other categories in the same group.

But I digress. Going back to the magic number, while the upper limit is currently 25, if it makes sense we may remove categories and have less then 25 for a given year (the limit is only a maximum). There was talk about not having certain genre's participate if they didn't meet a certain number of shows but sadly it never came to fruition. Listing which categories you think should be removed and why is better then asking us to "magically make it so there's fewer categories, but more for me." Obviously we can't guarantee just because you asked we'll do it since we have to evaluate the consequences and if your point of view isn't simply self serving (see previous paragraph), but we will take it into consideration.

We'll also take into the idea of making the contest more "pick the categories you would like to vote in" more common sense next year.

[Triple_R]

felix, I think you might be misreading me here.

I'm not saying I necessarily want less categories than what we have right now. I'm saying that this is enough; the current number is probably fine. The upper limit of 25 sounds good to me. 25 is the upper limit of my own "sweet spot" conception (I recognize that Reckoner would likely put it significantly lower).

Also, I was mostly aiming to explain why certain category ideas (such as divorcing OPs and EDs into two categories) don't always get adopted, even if they may seem like good ideas. It's often because we have to keep the bigger picture of total number of categories in mind, and strive to avoid bloating.

[Akka]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

With this in mind, I think there's a certain "sweet spot" for total number of categories. A "sweet spot" were you're recognizing all the key strengths, but not becoming bloated to the point of irrelevancy or voter intimidation. Personally, I think that sweet spot is very close to 20, and not much above it.

That's what... one award for every five series released in the year ? 20 % of everything ever released deserve a "best of the year" medal ?

I would say that anything more than 5 to 10 categories is too many.

Originally Posted by felix

The current upper limit of categories (maximum of 25) was determined via a public poll with the community; to avoid bias. It was determined that the people who want very few categories (which includes me mind you) are in the minority. We might be loud, but we're a minority. Most people favor choice.

The thing is, "choice" is the kind of magic buzzword that people will always favour. It's like "quality" or "freedom", they will cause a positive outlook, and their drawbacks will usually be overlooked.
In this particular case, I guess many people simply wanted to be sure to see their pet category to be included, which mean a bloated amount in the end.

Another reason, perhaps even stronger, is that I suppose many people looked at the categories while thinking at their overall anime experience, and didn't fully take into consideration that it's a YEARLY award, which deals with much less series.

For example, "sport series" are sure a big category if you look at the global anime database, and would be fully deserved.
But how many of these is there each year ? Hardly more than five I'd say, and that means basically every single one is nominated, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

As such, for a rather frequent even like this one, I think a LOT of consolidation, in order to keep only the most general overall categories, would be better.

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by Akka

That's what... one award for every five series released in the year ? 20 % of everything ever released deserve a "best of the year" medal ?

I would say that anything more than 5 to 10 categories is too many.

One to five?; it's much closer to 8-12 series per award as there well over 250+ anime series that finished last year between TV, OVA, and Movies, with that many series airing I don't think 20-25 is unreasonable at all.

To achieve 5-10 awards you'd have to gut all the genres, and character related ones to even come close to that. With to me not having any awards for any genres completely defeats the purpose of it.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Akka

That's what... one award for every five series released in the year ? 20 % of everything ever released deserve a "best of the year" medal ?

I would say that anything more than 5 to 10 categories is too many.

It's certainly one way to drum up more participation.

Originally Posted by Akka

For example, "sport series" are sure a big category if you look at the global anime database, and would be fully deserved.
But how many of these is there each year ? Hardly more than five I'd say, and that means basically every single one is nominated, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

There are plenty of sports anime, but nobody at Animesuki watches them!

Originally Posted by Konakaga

One to five?; it's much closer to 8-12 series per award as there well over 250+ anime series that finished last year between TV, OVA, and Movies, with that many series airing I don't think 20-25 is unreasonable at all.

Of these, at most only about 30 works are going to be worthy of any consideration for awards. And really, if there are that many good shows in a particular year, then that must have been an awesome year for anime! It comes down to a question of whether you're satisfied with the participation in the Awards thread.

[Archon_Wing]

I'd like to know which categories should be struck.

Also, I don't see why this format isn't convenient. It's mostly copy and paste and any "trash" categories can be abstained anyways.

We should just put a giant banner as an announcement.

But it's not like it matters. Fate/Zero's going to dominate anyways. :3

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

We should just put a giant banner as an announcement.

I think this is probably the largest issue. I bet you more people didn't vote because they just did not know about the awards in the first place (I have actually seen several people comment as such in the Kamisama Kiss thread)

[Akka]

Originally Posted by Konakaga

One to five?; it's much closer to 8-12 series per award as there well over 250+ anime series that finished last year between TV, OVA, and Movies, with that many series airing I don't think 20-25 is unreasonable at all.

Even with 10 by each categories, it's still about one award for each 10 of all animes of the year (which include a lot of very crappy ones, and a lot of pointless ones).
At this point it's less about "award given to the best anime of the year" and more "listing of all the decent animes of the year" - or, even worse, "let's repeat the same five animes over ten categories", and that's sadly barely an exageration.

I think a short but deep list is much more interesting and meaningful than a long but shallow one. 10 podiums with one gold, one silver and one bronze medals over which 15 to 20 animes fight, are much better than 25 gold medals over which 4 anime fight.

To achieve 5-10 awards you'd have to gut all the genres, and character related ones to even come close to that. With to me not having any awards for any genres completely defeats the purpose of it.

I would see that as an improvement compared to having a single serie showing up in three or more genre. Some shows are genre-busting, but the majority aren't, so when you see so often "multi-classed" series, it means for me that there is just too many genre in the awards.

Also, again, it's not necessarily about a genre being "not deserving", but also a point of being realist about the amount of shows in a year, and that many otherwise "good" genres simply don't have the year-by-year numbers to offer reasonable choices for an award.

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

I'd like to know which categories should be struck.

I'd say, we should mainly keep "meaningful" categories (Opening and ending, for example, are just rather pointless awards, I doubt they are real reason to appreciate a show) that are representative of what make a show "good" or "memorable".

So, well...
I'd say (personal opinion of course) :

Overall "best anime of the year".
Best male character.
Best female character.
Best realization (artwork, animation, etc.).

For the genres, I'm less sure. We'd have to think hard to find big encompassing categories that manage to not overlap too much and to still represent a wide range of anime fairly so that none are left out.

Also, I don't see why this format isn't convenient. It's mostly copy and paste and any "trash" categories can be abstained anyways.

That is precisely a big problem.
As I said in my previous post, the drawbacks of some "positive buzzwords" are often overlooked, but still have real effects. The main one of "lots of shallow choices" is that it dilute the "meaning"/"worth" of the awards. If you have to abstain in more than a very small minority of cases, you will simply feel it's "not worth it". Few people will feel it satisfactory to vote only for five out of 25 categories, and will simply not bother (or be irritated and purposedly not vote).

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Akka

That is precisely a big problem.
As I said in my previous post, the drawbacks of some "positive buzzwords" are often overlooked, but still have real effects. The main one of "lots of shallow choices" is that it dilute the "meaning"/"worth" of the awards. If you have to abstain in more than a very small minority of cases, you will simply feel it's "not worth it". Few people will feel it satisfactory to vote only for five out of 25 categories, and will simply not bother (or be irritated and purposedly not vote).

You just summarized my average mood while in the voting booth.