Interest

Reddit's 2020 Anime Awards Crowns Sarazanmai, Hugtto Precure, Attack on Titan

Reddit's popular anime discussion board /r/anime organizes its own awards featuring both a jury panel and a popular vote and a livestream to announce the results. The project is relatively new but has seen considerable growth since its debut in 2018, jumping from 300 viewers to over 1,0000. While the awards are new, /r/anime certainly is not; the sub-Reddit thread boasts 1.3 million subscribers.

Reddit's Anime Awards includes a panel of jury members for each award who are asked to view all of the nominees before casting their vote. The awards are broken down into five major categories, the "Main" awards, the "Genre" awards, the "Production" awards, the "Character" awards, and "Test" awards. Each individual award includes a winner from the Jury selection and the public vote as well as four runner-ups.

The dual results gives a taste of how critics choices compare to viewers and also includes series that aren't available via legal streaming platforms in North America. This leads to an interesting situation for the award program's Anime of the Year where Junichi Satō's Hugtto! Precure magical girl series was the critic's choice followed by the second half of Attack on Titan Season 3 as the audience's choice. The site includes what it is about Hugtto! Precure that sent it to the top of the awards.

Hugtto! Precure goes about modernizing the standard approach to mahou shoujo themes through the work of visionary director, Junichi Satou, arguably the godfather of modern mahou shoujo. Despite having a rather large main cast of 5, all characters were able to receive valuable development backed by powerful dramatic moments that were able to elevate them to being great characters, most notably Emiru and Ruru. Further, the pertinent social commentary present in this iteration of Precure lends itself well to the overall changing landscape of magical girls shows and to society itself with us finally seeing the first male Cure (even if only briefly).

Hugtto takes the time to explore each of its different characters and allows them to be fleshed out via more slice of life episodes. Despite this, Hugtto never feels as though it lacks focus, jumping from one fantastic episode to the next, such as the titular mermaid princess episode or the climax of Ruru's arc, all tied together by the overarching theme of the future.

All of this backed by one of the most stellar productions the Precure franchise has ever seen along with the likes of Go! Princess Precure and Heartcatch Precure!. Featuring prolific veteran animators such as Masami Mori and Kazuhiro Ōta, along with up and coming names like Kōdai Watanabe and Itsuki Tsuchigami.

Simply put, Hugtto! Precure excels at everything it sets out to be. It finds itself atop the rankings and is the jury's Anime of the Year for 2019.

There was no divide between the jury and voters when it came to Best Original Anime. Kunihiko Ikuhara, Lapin Track, and MAPPA's Sarazanmai was the consensus winner. The jury also awarded the series "Best Ending Song" for the track "Stand by Me" by The Peggies.

Anime creators and talent shared comments on the award results, including director Junichi Satou.

"Hugtto! Precure is aimed at children, but made with sincerity. That people other than children might be moved by it, and come to like this anime, makes us very happy. Thank you very much," Satou wrote.

The jury's choice for Short of the Year went to The Girl from the Other Side, Wit Studio's 10-minute film based on Nagabe's The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún manga. The short previously premiered at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal, Canada on August 1. The anime will have a DVD that will bundle with the limited edition of the manga's eighth compiled book volume on September 10 in Japan.

Directors Yūtarō Kubo and Satomi Maiya responded to the win.

"Everyone, thank you for watching The Girl from the Other Side. We made it while staying as faithful to the atmosphere of the original work as we could. It may be a short, 10-minute long work, but we're happy if it's something that you enjoyed and that stayed with you all after you watched it. Also, we consider it a great honor to be nominated alongside other such fantastic anime."

The full winners can be viewed at the at the Reddit Anime Award's website. The winners from the "Main" and "Production" award categories are listed below.