Each year anime fans celebrate their media of choice by holding awards for their favourites. I don’t really follow award shows because my tastes tend to be a bit out there. I also watch most anime after they’ve aired so I usually have only seen a couple of titles by the time the awards roll around so it’s not that interesting to me. But a lot of people enjoy them. We even have our own WordPress aniblogging versions.
Even thought the awards themselves aren’t my thing, what does interest me more is to see the differences in tastes of our little community compared to the larger anime fandom. Sometimes I fall in our little bubble and forget that anime bloggers don’t necessarily represent all fans out there. Other times I assume we’re cool outliers that have nothing in common with the masses. Both perceptions are probably wrong.
I figured that just for fun, we could go see the winners of the 2019 anime wordpress awards that were put together by Karandi, KawaiiPaperPandas, Ty-chama, MechAnimeReviews, Matt Doyle, Star & Luna, Jon Spencer Reviews, Lethargic Ramblings, Ano_Nora, Alexie the Great, and Bodell. I have to admit I’m not entirely sure how the winners were chosen. Is it just through popular vote or is there a committee, maybe a mix of both like for the Oscars… Still these are choices that represent people that either regularly write about anime or regularly read anime blogs.
And I thought we could see how those results stack up to the recently released Crunchyroll anime winners. I’ll tell you my thoughts as well although they probably won’t be much help. Spoilers there’s most likely going to be a lot of “I’ve only seen this show…” In many respects I’m not the greatest anime blogger. (Extra points for anyone that got the Corner Gas reference…all the points in fact. Also we’re best friends now)
Crunchyroll winners will be first and in orange!
WordPress Anime Awards winners will be second and in blue
My picks are last and in pink (of course!)
Anime of the Year
- Winner: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- Carole & Tuesday
- Mob Psycho 100 II
- O Maidens in Your Savage Season
- The Promised Neverland
- Vinland Saga
- Winner: The Promised Neverland
- Runner Up: Demon Slayer
- Second runner up: Attack on Titan Season 3
I had to look at what came out but here are my picks
- Winner: Sarazanmai
- Promare
- Mob Psycho II
- Bungo Stray Dogs 3
- Dr. Stone (it deserves more respect than it got)
- Given (surprise of the year)
Best Protagonist
- winner Senku from Dr. Stonedouble-dagger
- Emma from The Promised Neverland
- Hyakkimaru from Dororo
- Saitama from One-Punch Man Season 2
- Tanjiro Kamado from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket
- Winner: Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket (2019 Edition)
- Tanjiro flowersRunner Up: Tanjiro from Demon Slayer
- second runner up: Emma from The Promised Neverland
I’m going with Mafuyu from Given but I also liked Senku and Emma.
Best Antagonist
- winner: Isabella from The Promised Neverland
- Ai Magase from Babylon
- Angela from Carole & Tuesday
- Askeladd from Vinland Saga
- Garou from One-Punch Man Season 2
- Overhaul from My Hero Academia Season 4
- Winner: Isabella from The Promised Neverland
- Runner Up: Askeladd from Vinland Saga
- second runner up: Fyodor from Bungou Stray Dogs Season 3
Fyodor… interesting… But no, it’s Isabella all the way! She’s also my favourite unit of measurement.
Best Boy
- winner: Tanjiro Kamado from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaibadouble-dagger
- Bruno Bucciarati from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
- Hyakkimaru from Dororo
- Kanata Hoshijima from Astra Lost in Space
- Naruzo Machio from How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?
- Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama from Mob Psycho 100 II
- Winner: Tanjiro from Demon Slayer
- Runner Up: Haiji from Run With the Wind
- second runner up: Armin from Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2
I’m not entirely sure what Best Boy is suppose to be but I went with Young Chuuya from BSD3
Best Girl
- winner: Raphtalia from The Rising of the Shield Herodouble-dagger
- Carole from Carole & Tuesday
- Chika Fujiwara from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
- Emma from The Promised Neverland
- Kohaku from Dr. Stone
- Nezuko Kamado from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- Winner: Nezuko from Demon Slayer
- Runner Up: Saki from Fruits Basket (2019 Edition)
- second runner up: Shinomiya from Kaguya-sama: Love it War
Once again, this cathegory is a bit loose. I usually call best girl any character I happen to like (occasionally not girls). Since Kotoko is not an option I guess Nezuko will do.
Best Director
- winner: Tetsurō Araki – Attack on Titan Season 3
- Kiyotaka Suzuki – Babylon
- Shinichirō Watanabe & Motonobu Hori – Carole & Tuesday
- Yuzuru Tachikawa – Mob Psycho 100 II
- Kunihiko Ikuhara – Sarazanmai
- Shuhei Yabuta – Vinland Saga
Mob Psycho is a solid choice but I’m still going for Kunihiko Ikuhara – Sarazanmai (sort of amazed he isn’t nominated at least. My runner up is Takuya Igarashi for Bungo Stra Dogs s3. WordPress awards didn’t have this category which is a shame.
Best Animation
- winner Mob Psycho 100 II
- Attack on Titan Season 3
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- Fate/Grand Order – Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia
- Sarazanmai
- Vinland Saga
- Winner: Demon Slayer
- Runner Up: Mob Psycho 100 Season 2
- second runner up: Bungou Stray Dogs Season 3
I’m with WordPress on this one.
Best Character Design
- winner: Design by Hiroyuki Asada – Dororo
- Tsunenori Saito, Original Character Design by Eisaku Kubonouchi – Carole & Tuesday
- Yuko Iwasa – Dr. Stone
- Yuko Yahiro, Original Character Design by Aka Akasaka – Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
- Kayoko Ishikawa, Original Character Design by Miggy – Sarazanmai
- Takahiko Abiru, Original Character Design by Makoto Yukimura – Vinland Saga
hmmm – I actually don’t have a pick for this category. Neither did wordpress.
Best Fight Scene
- winner: Tanjiro & Nezuko vs. Rui – Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaibadouble-dagger
- Emperor Crimson vs. Metallic – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
- Levi vs. Beast Titan – Attack on Titan Season 3
- Mob vs. Toichiro – Mob Psycho 100 II
- Thorfinn vs. Thorkell – Vinland Saga
- Ushiwakamaru vs. Tiamat – Fate/Grand Order – Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia
- Winner: Tanjiro and Nezuko VS Rui in Demon Slayer
- Runner Up: Thorfinn VS Thorkell in Vinland Saga
- second runner up: Chihaya VS Taichi from Chihayafuru Season 3
Rui was a great fight but I prefered personally Tanjiro vs Kyogai. I just loved all those changes in perspective.
Best Couple
- winner Kaguya Shinomiya & Miyuki Shirogane from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
- Baki Hanma & Kozue Matsumoto from Baki
- Mafuyu Sato & Ritsuka Uenoyama from given
- Reo & Mabu from Sarazanmai
- Rika Zonazaki & Shun Amagi from O Maidens in Your Savage Season
- Ymir & Historia from Attack on Titan Season 3
- Winner: Emma and Norman in The Promised Neverland
- Runner Up: Haru and Subaru in My Roommate is a Cat
- second runner up: Kei and Tilarna from Cop Craft
I’m totally about Mafuyu Sato & Ritsuka. Not only are they a great couple in the traditional sense of the word but they’re also good charactre foils for each other. This is probably why the show worked in fact.
Best Score
- winner: Mocky – Carole & Tuesday
- Hiroyuki Sawano – Attack on Titan Season 3
- Go Shiina and Yuki Kajiura – Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- Tatsuya Kato, Hiroaki Tsutsumi, and Yuki Kanesaka – Dr. Stone
- Yugo Kanno – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
- Kevin Penkin – The Rising of the Shield Hero
- Winner: Carole and Tuesday
- Runner Up: Demon Slayer
- second runner up: Given
I’m not sure. I really liked both the intro and outro music in Sarazanmai and in Given. Both EDs still play in my head all the time and I will randomly start humming them. But that’s not the same as musical score…
Ok so what can we see from all of this. For one, WordPress readers and Crunchyroll voters really have much more similar tastes than we may think. In fact, even though the winners may differ, all the nominees are very similar.
Second, 2019 was a really big year for Demon Slayer. Boy it really sweped the awards. I mean I liked it but I’m a little amazed at seeing it in just about every category in both the Crunchyroll and WordPress awards. By the way, the WordPress awards had in fact more categories than these but as there was no Crunchyroll equivalents, I didn’t add them in.
Clearly I liked both Given and Sarazanmai much more than the average but I was surprised to see some Bungo Stray Dogs representation (even if it was only on the wordpress side). Finally, I seriously thought the Promised Neverland would have won more. It was a more interesting premise with better pacing than many of the action shpws we’ve seen in a long time. It did get mentioned a lot but I thought it would overshadow Demon Slayer. It did not… (I liked Mob Psycho more than both of them but that’s a different story).
Are you surprised by how similar we are or did ou think we would be even more similar? like the results would be identical…
I nominate you:
https://matt-in-the-hat.com/2020/02/27/mystery-blogger-award-by-yumdeku/
I know Ayano and a few of the other panelists for the WordPress awards are big Bungou Stray Dogs fans, so that probably explains the skew. Otherwise, great list. Haven’t seen Given or Sarazanmai, but have heard good things from a number of places.
OOhhh! So BSD had an in. That makes me a little sad. It was a really good season, (best one I think) and I was happy that it got some attention.
Kind of. Can’t say how much it affected the decision since I wasn’t in the room, but people definitely liked BSD.
I had nooooo idea there were awards like this! Even better? That there are categories for best score and fight scene! Tastes for animation style varies alot, so I am assuming there are tons of variations in that line (like most psychedelic, linear, life-like, etc.).
Are there not awards for most original story line?
I won’t usually watch an anime just for it’s visuals (although I did watch Monte Cristo all the way through, even though I felt physically sick by the end of it)
But I will stick with an anime if the music captures me, if the story is intriguing and (more shallow) if the characters either inspire me or have a totally different way of thinking (but it feels ‘real’ and not just invented for amusement’s sake).
The Major, for instance, from “Ghost in the Shell” and Ahiru from “Princess Tutu” inspires me in totally different ways. Rin from “Fate Stay Night”, however, has such a foreign way of viewing the world, and in her reactions, that I find it fascinating to watch.
When I think back on the anime that sticks with me the most, it usually goes back to the soundtrack matching the images and the emotions of the characters.
(Like the opening of Ghost in the Shell, or Naruto getting beat up, the drums starting and him getting back up again… or even Bizet’s “Bullfighter” and the cry of “Ooooollllle!” from Princess Tutu)
One of the best combination of animation, soundtrack, actual sound and emotion, I think, is from Studio Ghibli’s “Princess Kaguya” That scene where she tears off all the layers and runs through the trees- unforgettable.
Thanks for introducing us (well some of us anyway) to these awards! I cannot wait to watch through all the soundtracks and fightscenes!
The categories actually seem to change every year. One of the issues with original story line that I can see is that the great majority of anime is adapted. There are very few original series that come out. Although rereading your comment I think you meant original as in unique and that would be an interesting category.
@Promised Neverland: I’ve been participating in the Animesuki Choice awards since 2011, and one thing I noticed is this: Shows that air in winter are at an disadvantage. People don’t tend to remember them as well, or maybe they’re more likely to shelve them with last year’s shows. I’m not sure why. So with Demonslayer serving a similar demographic, but being more vivid in memory, that might explain why it got more votes.
Best character design should have gone to Run With the Wind, IMO, and it’s not even on the list. I mean, you look at a group scene once, and the next time you see them you know exactly who is who. The character designs were amazing. (But then they were the character designers from Haikyuu at work.)
I’m never sure what to do with the “best animation” category. Is it just animation? Or does it include all the visuals – backgrounds, for example. There’s no art direction category, where this would normally go. Character design, though, did get its own category.
And, interestingly, the musical score is one of my favourite categories, but I never can remember the best shows in that category by the end of the year. The best soundtracks don’t tend to stand out (unless they’re deliberately stylish like Madoka). A good soundtrack blends into the scenes so much that I don’t remember it separately.
Best fight scene isn’t a category that interests me much. I’d probably have chosen the first fight between Thorfinn and Thorkell in Vinland Saga, but that may be the recency advantage. I’m fairly sure Dororo (a winter show) would have had a few good ones, but I don’t remember them.
Antagonist: totally agree with Isabella. Easily the best antagonist of the year. Vinalnd’s Askeladd was great, too, but his role can’t easily be summed up as antagonist. And I have to bring up Granbelm‘s Suishou, who was great, too. But really, nobody this year touches Isabella in that category.
All the other character categories are really hard to vote for, since there are so many characters, and how do you compare a comedy character to a drama character? They’re mostly throwaway categories for me. There should be a voice actor performance category. I think Yuki Aoi did a splendid job with Boogiepop; perfect uncanny-valley performance. Shogo Yano also deserves an award for Given’s Mafuyu. The nuance in his voice depending on who he was talking to, and then that song…
I’m watching over 100 shows a year, so it’s always a little difficult to choose and rank. If I took awards a little more seriously than I do, I’d probably be too scared to nominate anyone. The further away I get from 2020, the more I think my favourite anime of the year is either Mob Psycho 100 or Fruits Basket, either a second season or a remake. I usually tend to give the nod to new shows.
(In case someone’s curious: Here are my nominations for the animesuki choice awards, this year, and here here are the winners.)
I’m not sure what happened with the time stamp on this reply. Maica’s post was there when I started typing. And Jack’s post was there when I submitted the post. I swear I didn’t use a mobile phone, and I wasn’t anywhere near a microwave or a giant television… Weird.
There is nothing wrong with your screen… You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer Limits.
*que screeching music*
Yano did a great job and I’m still stunned the man is not a singer. I’m gonna go check out animesuki
There needs to be some corrections here. We DID NOT have a Best Character Design category this year. We swapped that out for another pick. Best Duo was NOT Best Couple. It was simply meaning which characters partnered together were your favorite. Our full category list is as follows:
Best Girl
Best Boy
Breakout Anime of the Year
Best Opening Song
Best Ending Song
Best Fight
Best Duo
Best Animation
Best Antagonists
Best Protagonist
Best Continuing Series
Best Original Soundtrack
Most Disappointing Anime
Best Stll/Stylized Scene
Anime of the Year
We have a panel of judges who come up with nominations but then have a public vote open up to fans in December so they can pick which nominations they would like to vote for. If anyone is interested in joining the panel for 2020 you can either message me on here or get ahold of me on Twitter at paperpandabears!
I stand corrected. Sorry.
I think this is the first time you’ve ever commented on my blog, welcome!
Yeah, the WordPress awards were done through popular vote. Not even my interference could change that, haha.
Yeah, I’m surprised yet but surprised that our choices were similar.
Cute , rising of the shield hero got a mention! Good for them!
Happy you mentioned Promare! Other than that I havent been watching a lot of recent anime. I watched Jojo’s as a snack and I Kinda feel that Attack on TItan got a bit overpresented. Neither did I like VInland Saga, I get it’s appeal to some but that so many people like it that much still was kinda surprising to me.
Mob was great , enjoyable trough and trough but not sure how I can judge directing that well. I mean the voice lines where nice and matched cleanly ..but I dont speak Japanese to well to hear if something is acted out badly in all honesty.
I would be confused by best boy and best girl as well. Like are we talking about the most datable one? Or like the one we would wanna befriend? The one who did the most important safe .. what is it? I would assume it means the Waifu or Husbando pick of 2019.. but I am just not sure!
I think I went with character I generally enjoyed but didn’t have a cathegory for
I assumed there would be some crossover between the two groups. I tend to get swept up in the revisiting and exploration of older titles, typically leaving the newer works for a later viewing. So award seasons are not my cup of tea either. However I am happy to see AOT in here as that’s a story that I’ve kept up on in both the anime and the manga.
On that note, I am very eager to start Promised Neverland be it the manga or anime.
I enjoyed it