By James Liu
Anime is one of the most diverse forms of entertainment in the world. Where else can you group an action show about a boy fighting skinless giants with a psychological horror centered on a small white cat thing using human souls as fuel to keep the universe running under the same title? Despite the massive amount of variation in topics covered from show to show, many have taken attempts to argue what the best of the best is, with the most prominent attempt being the Crunchyroll Anime Awards. Hosted by Crunchyroll, a streaming service specifically for anime, it lets fans vote for the best anime in various categories from genre to voice acting. This year, after lots of trial and criticism, I believe the Anime Awards have found the right balance between expert opinion and popular vote.
Let’s start at the first Crunchyroll Anime Awards to set the scene: it sucked. While a panel of “expert judges” have always been a part of voting, the first time around they drew up a few nominations and had no actual voting power while letting the fans run the vote. This led to bias in the voting towards shows with dedicated fans that voted for any and everything a show was voted for, most infamously “Yuri on Ice”, a show about figure skating which garnered a large fanbase through the romance between Yuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov. While it’s a good series and did reasonably deserve awards like “Most Heartwarming Scene” and “Best Couple”, other wins were much more questionable, like “Best Ending”, in reference to the ending song at every episode, “Best Animation”, and more importantly, “Anime of the Year”. While Yuri On Ice’s ending song is catchy, the visuals are a little lackluster as a slideshow of photos with an Instagram theme. Compared to future winner Jujutsu Kaisen’s creative doors opening and closing alongside an iconic art style that has inspired countless parodies by other animators and even runner up Mob Psycho 100’s creative use of black and white and colors to show character feelings, Yuri On Ice’s ending falls a little short of the title of “Best Ending”, and was argued as winning only because of its fan base rather than on actual quality. This sentiment was also shared for “Best Animation”, with critics claiming that the scenes were rotoscoped, traced over live action footage, and arguing that reused shots and weird individual frames made the award undeserved as well. As far as my dozen tabs of research have found, no scenes were directly rotoscoped but rather a 3D model was first made as a reference, although some have also argued that rotoscoping could’ve made the animation better with a more accurate reference, ironically. Given that this show demanded dozens of figure skating sequences, an extremely precise sport where every minute detail demonstrates a story and emotion through motion rather than words, all on a time limit of being aired weekly, the animation definitely did have to take shortcuts and cut corners at times to stay sane. Compared to Mob Psycho 100’s animation, the runner up for Best Animation, the difference in quality is noticeable, and I do think Mob Psycho 100 should’ve won, but Yuri On Ice’s win isn’t as undeserved for animation as some of its other more controversial wins. This includes the biggest award of the show, “Anime of the Year”. Out of the eight shows nominated for Anime of the Year, was Yuri on Ice truly the best? As stated earlier, anime is a vast medium and objectively rating something as the best overall is extremely difficult. Pinpointing exact strengths and weaknesses, like characters, genre, and animation, are all easily doable, but an overarching “Anime of the Year” title is sure to draw criticism no matter what. In terms of lasting impact, a general quality that applies to shows regardless of genre and what you associate with a show recognized for being the best of the year, Yuri On Ice is somewhere in the middle out of the list of nominees. Excluding shows that have multiple seasons like My Hero Academia and Mob Psycho 100 which stayed relevant much easier because of them, Yuri On Ice is probably one of the better picks. Going back into the nomination list, I’ve completely forgotten that Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Kiznaiver, and Joker Game existed. If Yuri On Ice hadn’t won, I think it still would’ve been memorable for its LGBTQ representation and ice skating sequences. Taking into account those shows with enough popularity to continue with more seasons though, Yuri On Ice sure didn’t leave as much of an impact as My Hero Academia, Mob Psycho 100, or even Re:Zero did on the overall community, maybe because there’s more source material to be adapted into anime while Yuri On Ice was an anime original and finished cleanly in one season. However, in terms of objectively what was best across all genres… I can’t say. Maybe an industry professional could though. Keeping up with and comparing eight series just to say what was the best is at best a lot of effort for such a trivial debate and realistically not many people as casual fans are willing to put in the effort to make an informed decision when the question is put to an online poll, including myself. This is the fundamental flaw of having an award show dictated by the popular vote: many people aren’t going to have the time to properly look into everything, especially with a fixed voting period and months of anime that could be nominated, and expert opinions are needed to make sure that the winners are better chosen beyond what made the most noise in the shortest amount of time. And it’s a good thing Crunchyroll realized this too.
In the recent years of the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, the winners have been much more representative of the entire industry. While the second Anime Awards drew similar complaints about bias towards popular shows, namely My Hero Academia which also swept through the show that year with 7 wins out of 10 nominations in 18 categories, the Anime Awards got much better with nominees and overall winners as a result of introducing a 70/30 judge/audience voting power split. From the third Anime Awards on, no show has won over 4 awards at once, with more shows getting multiple awards rather than full sweeps. While recent winners Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer are both extremely popular, making it easy to believe that the Anime Awards are still dominated by popular series rather than quality, they both have had tons of effort put into them with amazing animation and adapting solid stories that have captivated millions. In fact, the Demon Slayer movie that was recently released, which covered the next segment of the story after the anime ended, has topped the charts and became the best selling movie in Japan, above the Titanic and Spirited Away within months. If that’s not a show that deserves Anime of the Year, then nothing does. The variety in winners also gives audiences a better scope of what anime are worth watching for new fans. Rather than being guided to either Yuri On Ice or My Hero Academia as shows that seemingly do everything right, the latest Anime Awards had winners ranging from action in Jujutsu Kaisen to comedy/fantasy in “My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!”. If you want a series with good directing and a creative vision, “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!” is a fun and creative anime about making anime. My Hero Academia is still consistently taking home awards year after year, so it’s gotta be good, right? With so many winners, the Anime Awards have become a reliable way to pick out fan favorites and expert approved shows that anyone is sure to love compared to the controversial sweeps with no breathing room of the earlier years.
After 2020 and a much smaller roster of shows to even consider, it’ll be interesting to see how next year’s Anime Awards shape up now that Covid has started to clear up around the world. With a more solid voting system and representation among shows, I’d genuinely recommend looking at it as a solid representation of the best of anime compared to its initial start as a weird, skewed view of what the most dedicated fans have rallied to say is the best. If you’re interested in trying to get into anime and want something new to watch rather than the older and longer series like One Piece and Dragon Ball in the hundreds of episodes, the Anime Awards are a good way to find some short, high quality serieses that anyone can pick up and enjoy over a weekend binge.
