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NEWS: When Marnie Was There, The Boy and The Beast Shut Out of Annie Awards

Mifune: Except that FUNi does dub most of its anime, so..

GATSU wrote:

Mifune: Except that FUNi does dub most of its anime, so..

Do they screen them? Do they submit them? You are only giving on small piece ans saying "see look!" ("so...")

And I am pretty certain why Miss Hosukai was not submitted was that they didn't have a dub. It was eligible for Oscar because it won other recognized international awards (not because it was screened here, like I said it hasn't screened yet.)

And Funi's catalog is what percent feature film, which is what we have focused on due to it being relevant to the article. Television productions are a completely different ball of wax. I will ask this: which single episode out of shows that have aired on a U.S. network (or already won a qualifying award in the case of the Oscars) do you think could win?

That right there may help explain why the U.S. television networks are dominated by sitcom and otherwise stand alone stories. I personally find it rather rare that anime gives us a cogent episode that is award worthy; Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū did this season, but it would still have to air on a U.S. network and be submitted.

And this is compounded with the fact, when it comes to the Oscars, that many of the members don't even watch the animated shorts at all. Stating such things as "who has time for that?" or just "didn't watch, I abstain."-- but let's look at the nominations out of the 60 shorts submitted-- Bear Story (Chile), Prologue (U.S.), Sanjay's Super Team (U.S.), We Can't Live without Cosmos (Russia) and World of Tomorrow (U.S.)

Now, yes seems a bit biased towards the U.S. but why don't we take a closer look at those American productions, shall we? First off, World of Tomorrow has won an astonishing 41 awards elsewhere. I don't think there should be any argument that this is a quality work with that kind of record.

Prologue is by "animation legend Richard Williams" (as Cartoon Brew describes him) and if you have seen any of this, you may understand why this was nominated. (and he himself is Canadian–British) At any rate, he is somewhat like the equivalent of Miyazaki or Takahata in the west. More know by the younger generations for Who Framed Rodger Rabbit but the older gens may associate him with the Pink Panther movies.

And finally Sanjay's Super Team which is a Pixar/Disney and we all know about Disney's production capital. Even if we hate the stories or don't care for artistic style (such as the Pillsbury Dough Boy being cast for Big Hero 6), one has to admit that they have the budget and the capital to produce technically beautiful works. But who wrote the story and what is it about? "Inspired by Sanjay Patel's (who grew up in San Bernardino, CA of immigrant parents) own childhood when he felt conflicted by the modern world and the Hindu traditions of his family, Sanjay's Super Team follows the daydream of a young Indian boy, bored with his father's religious meditation, who imagines Hindu gods as superheroes."(wiki) Not your typical Anglo-American Oscar nominee-- though I have not seen this work and doubtless it falls under Disney's strict guidelines of "quality".

At any rate, I still think you are missing the point of what I was saying. If you want an awards ceremony that is truly international, where those who vote actually understand animation and the awards they give actually have meaning, then look to Annecy. Even Ottowa is better than the U.S. counterparts.

But I don't think that is your issue really, it isn't about what is quality animation internationally but that it isn't "anime" (Japanese) which is exactly the mentality that created the Hollywood bias in American film. It is a win by "nationalism", but that gets into politics so I will stop here...

When you say you find it "rare" that anime gives us a cogent episode that is award worthy do you mean shows that are episodic only or in general? Because I think just like anime gives us at least 5 really good series per year it also gives us episodes that are noteworthy.

Do they screen them? Do they submit them?

And I am pretty certain why Miss Hosukai was not submitted was that they didn't have a dub.

First off, World of Tomorrow has won an astonishing 41 awards elsewhere. I don't think there should be any argument that this is a quality work with that kind of record.

And finally Sanjay's Super Team which is a Pixar/Disney and we all know about Disney's production capital. Even if we hate the stories or don't care for artistic style (such as the Pillsbury Dough Boy being cast for Big Hero 6), one has to admit that they have the budget and the capital to produce technically beautiful works.

Sergio-san wrote:

When you say you find it "rare" that anime gives us a cogent episode that is award worthy do you mean shows that are episodic only or in general? Because I think just like anime gives us at least 5 really good series per year it also gives us episodes that are noteworthy.

"noteworthy" =/= "award worthy"

And yeah, I mean any type. episode spanning stories have the difficulty of leaving the audience lost by not understanding the larger story and episodic tend to be pared down by cultural references, particularly comedies. A comedy (sitcom) that relies on cultural reference (even such where it is sub-culture, like Joshiraku) will leave the audience blankly staring.

So are you implying that there are a great number of TV broadcast anime episodes that have:
excellent animation production from beginning to end
excellent writing from beginning to end
(which implies if it is a multi-episode story, that the episode has an message that is encapsulated in it that has a satisfactory ending and not reliant on future episodes.)
Is easily understandable to foreign audiences.
Is dubbed so that:
Is aired on a U.S. network (or receives an acceptable award elsewhere)
Is submitted for nomination.

The only one I can think of in recent memory is Shouwa and it was a double episode.

And I think you will find, if you actually research, that by far most anything you think of was never submitted. Complaining about someone not winning a race they never entered is meaningless.

I think the idea is that, since most anime are serial, while there are some very good episodes, they are usually not standalone and require knowledge of what happened in previous episodes.

I complained about Marnie

but in my opinion episodes from Mushishi or Space Dandy

They did in this case. There was even an ad in Awards Daily for it.

And I am pretty certain why Miss Hosukai was not submitted was that they didn't have a dub.

That's not why it was not submitted. It wouldn't be worth it

You want the real truth?

...but nothing from Kurosawa ever won.

And the voters hate anime so much, that even when the film does take the time to include white and/or European characters in it, they snub it.

That's fine, but Otomo's got his own share of awards, too. And yet nothing submitted by him ever got in

Sanjay's Super Team

It got in because it had Disney/Pixar money, and is a McDonald's version of Indian culture.

Apparently, I need to make this absolutely clear: stop giving the Oscars any credence. And take the Annies with a huge grain of salt.