The Tokyo Anime Awards Festival announced its annual Animation of the Year winners this morning. The festival was formed from the Tokyo Anime Awards following the consolidation of the Tokyo International Anime Fair with the Anime Contents Expo in 2014 into the AnimeJapan convention. Since then, the event has named film and television series each year for an Animation of the Year award alongside individual awards for Director, Screenplay, Art Direction, Music, and Animator.
Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time won the Animation of the Year award for film, and Hideaki Anno won the individual awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay/Original Story for his work on the film. Anno won the 2008 Tokyo Anime Award for Best Director for Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, the first film in the series that Thrice Upon a Time concludes. The films were animated by Studio Khara, which Anno founded in 2006 after leaving Gainax to produce the Rebuild of Evangelion.
Jujutsu Kaisen, directed by Sunghoo park at studio MAPPA, won the grand prize from television. The serial adaptation of Gege Akutam’s dark fantasy shonen manga has been popular around the world, and we’re sure to see the prequel film Jujutsu Kaisen 0 the Movie at next year’s awards.
Violet Evergarden: The Movie and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! won last year’s grand prizes for film and television.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba swept the rest of the individual awards. For the third year in a row, Akira Matsushima won the Best Animator award, and Yuki Kajiura won the Best Music award. Kaijura shares the award with Go Shiina. And Yuichi Terao took the award for Best Art Direction.
The only award to break from the shonen supremacy was the Anime Fan Award, which went to IDOLiSH7 Third BEAT!. IDOLiSH7 also won last year’s fan award.
It’s award season everywhere. And while anime didn’t have a showing at the Oscars this year, Crunchyroll just announced its own awards yesterday.
Published: Feb 10, 2022 03:44 pm