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INTEREST: Made in Abyss, My Hero Academia Win Big at Crunchyroll's Anime Awards

While I agree there were a number better animated series than MHA last year, compared to last year's winner in the category, MHA seems like a reasonable choice, given how driven the awards are by popularity. I don't mind it going to MHA when fellow Bones anime Mob Psycho 100 got robbed in the category last year.

I've said this elsewhere but I don't agree with imposing such minimum credentials on anyone but perhaps judges. I watch 30+ new series each season but I wouldn't say my opinion is any more indicative of what is truly the best than that of someone who only watches 5-10 new shows a year, but only the best 5-10 shows as far as they can tell. Certainly some of those watch what one might term entry level anime, but there are plenty of others who have grown tired of much of what comes out season after season, and only pick up what seem to be the cream of the crop, and I don't know that there is a minimum credential that would weed out the former and not the latter, though I think the former are just as much anime fans as any of us and thereby deserve to be represented in such decisions as any of us. To say nothing of how restricting who can vote could (further) harm the event's popular legitimacy with not unreasonable claims of elitism.

I never said that the show didn't deserve any of its nominations, it deserved a good number of them, and I genuinely do think it was one of the best shows of the year. It was well animated, well written, has fun characters, a genuinely engaging story, and all of that. But this was a very strong year, and while many categories are subjective, I would say it pretty unequivocally did not deserve Best Animation.

What? I'm not sure I follow, but assuming you mean that you shouldn't have some sort of minimum credentials to vote, I think it depends on what you're going for. Is this supposed to be a genuine Awards show? Do they want it to have legitimacy for marketing purposes? Is it supposed to highlight the best content of the year? Then having a minimum level of credentials is completely reasonable.
If it is meant to be a community-fan event just-for-fun that confirms the already obvious most popular content of the year, sure, lets leave it as it is.
Considering that they are already weighting judge votes, and presenting it like this... I'm leaning toward them viewing this as more of an official Awards ceremony and less of a community-fan thing just for fun.

To GoldCrusader's point and from my last post, favoritism can't be effectively eliminated where people are concerned, the real question is who's opinions do you want to see represented in awards such as this? A group of industry insiders (AMPAS style) or the maximum number of viewers, for which this stuff is for ultimately anyway? I vote for CR's approach to having insiders suggest a limited pick and then leaving it to the public with an "other" write-in category. However, I'd eliminate the 50/50 judge/public weighing.

relyat08 wrote:

I never said that the show didn't deserve any of its nominations, it deserved a good number of them, and I genuinely do think it was one of the best shows of the year. It was well animated, well written, has fun characters, a genuinely engaging story, and all of that. But this was a very strong year, and while many categories are subjective, I would say it pretty unequivocally did not deserve Best Animation.

Well we will have to agree to disagree then. No show this year had as much personality in it's animation then MHA. Studio BONES clearly know Horikoshi's character super well now and it really shows in how they bring them to life. Also well nothing can beat any of the high animation moments brought by MHA.

They literally started the show saying it was a show from fans to fans. It's a events that's supposed to bring fans together and celebrate the highlights of last year. Having fans participate is the the big drive here. It gives the fan a sense of implication in this big world of anime he/she like. Gating them out because they didn't watch a required amount of anime would be the worst possible thing Crunchyroll would do. It would 1) drive people away and 2) Promote elitism in the anime community, which us as fans should never wish for and which Crunchyroll wouldn't want either since they are aiming for the biggest audience possible.

And really...do YOU really want to isolate the anime culture even more? Do you want want some *expert*-wannabe to tell you what anime he declares the best of the year? I would never want that. It would be the worst.

yet you dare to vote for anything else for anime of the year, best continuation, best ost...

Do you want want some *expert*-wannabe to tell you what anime he declares the best of the year? I would never want that. It would be the worst.

Do you want want some *expert*-wannabe to tell you what anime he declares the best of the year? I would never want that. It would be the worst.

By this logic you are implying that the opinions of professional anime critics are worthless. As an example, I might not always agree with the critics at ANN, but I value their opinions way more than the opinions of a random fan online.

Opinions are just opinions, and you can disagree with them. There is no need to get bent out of shape.

Follow up to my last comment: Also, to your last point. Yes, I do want professional critics and people who are charismatic with strong writing skills to tell me what their favorite shows of the year are. They usually make strong arguments and I enjoy engaging in the activity of reading good criticism, as well as criticizing things myself. I don't need one person to determine the best of the year, but I do like to read individual opinions on their personal bests, and a large pool, not just one or two, of well vetted critics determining the best show of the year does not bother me at all. It, frankly, does hold more value to me than something winning a popular vote because it's mainstream.

I agree with that. Though I don't think it necessarily makes up for the mistakes of last year. And also don't think that being better mostly by sheer coincidence of the fact that MHA actually IS well animated as well as being popular, is much to praise it for. If the most popular show had been a different shonen with less impressive production values, I would expect the same result.

I understand how this sounds, but functionally, they are already doing this with the weighted judge votes. I don't necessarily mean you should eliminate the popular vote, but if people are going to complain about these results every year, these kinds of changes are going to need to happen.
And as per your own comment "as far as they can tell" is exactly the problem. Of course most people think that they are watching the best stuff of the year, but you can only judge what you've seen. That's how you have hard to comprehend tweets like "wow, 2017 was awful for anime, there was only such-and-such that was good" and "why are all anime the same these days?".
You might not think you are more qualified, but having seen well over 100 shows this year, at the very least, you have seen the vast majority of the nominations and that gives you an inherent advantage.
Also, by the very nature of the shows they are attracted to, the type of fan who only watches 10 shows per year that are all niche critical darlings, is inherently a much much smaller segment of the fandom than the millions who only watch shonen. As much as I've made this argument, I don't actually agree with limiting voting based on credentials, for starters simply because it would be difficult to prove any of that stuff. But the suggestion seems like what other people would require to solve their issues. Basically make this the Oscars. But hopefully with better judges, which is something I am not confident they could do.
I feel like I'm being trapped(by myself) into saying some questionable and elitist things that I don't necessarily agree with entirely just to prop up my argument, but simply put, if you want this to be a serious awards show, the popular vote needs to play a less important role, judges need to be vetted, and nominations need to be limited.

Glad that Made in Abyss got AoTY. I don't think anyone will deny that My Hero Academia got too many awards - while they seem to have tried to iron out some of the kinks in the selection process from last year, they still have a ways to go. As for the awards that MHA got, I'll give it best action and hero (seems fairly fair) and I won't dispute best boy, but Chise should have won best girl, and best animation, opening, and villain? Best animation should have gone to either Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid or A Silent Voice (you really can't beat KyoAni). Tanya Degurechaff should have taken best villain (though I haven't seen the second half of MHA s2, so I don't have an opinion on Stain), and I still can't believe Inuyashiki wasn't even nominated for best OP. Honestly, that category was kind of crap, since Re:Creators didn't get a nod either.

The rest of the awards seem like fairly solid choices.

A community vote is way more interesting.

ANN does it ok with there personal fav and the whole community vote.

No, it is predictable and boring.

Assuming you are referring to ANN's end the year, best of lists, their system is not perfect either, but I prefer it because professional critics are involved.

angelmcazares wrote:

No, it is predictable and boring.

Because an expert choices would be less boring and less predictable? Do you really believe that? I don't. Mainly if they are more then 1 and have to commonly agree.

While in terms of seeing most of the nominees (I saw all but Girls und Panzer Der Film and All Out) I can see having a better idea of the quality of all the nominees than someone who has only seen a few shows, but aside from more technical categories like Animation, Score, and CGI, I don't feel any more qualified than someone who has only seen one of the nominees. Now that probably speaks more to the vetting of the nominees (which could still be improved) than as a statement about people's taste per se, but the more I've seen of people's tastes, the more I think they are different and not better or worse, and these awards are no exception. I do agree that more care needs to be taken in making sure that one show isn't over-represented in the nominations.

GoldCrusader wrote:

A community vote is way more interesting.

No, it is predictable and boring.

The best boy and girl categories are too subjective for me to say that the choices are objectively correct or incorrect - unlike last year when Rem was crowned best girl - but I agree that they could have done more to prevent MHA from doubling up. One of the judges from last year mentioned this in his video going over this year's nominees, but apparently if it was done like it was the previous year, the judges submitted their top picks for each category, and the top 6 of the aggregate of their votes became the nominees of the category. Given how widely watched MHA was, not only among fans but also critics, it wouldn't surprise me that more than one of MHA's characters could have made it to the top of the judges choices. They should have gone through them to make sure one show wasn't over-represented, but I don't see the need to make it out as nefarious. It's not a conspiracy, you just disagree with the results.

It's a lot more simple than that. The Judges voted almost unanimously for Made in Abyss, which off-set the MHA domination from the popular vote. Judges having weighted votes at 50% saved this year's Awards, honestly.