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…
