Some Thoughts on Crunchyroll’s 2016 Anime Awards Before Voting Begins

Crunchyroll launched its inaugural Anime Awards in late December with nominees in 14 categories selected by a panel of seven judges with different backgrounds. Voting begins January 3rd and lasts one week until January 10th. The winners in each category will be revealed soon after voting concludes with one exception: Anime of the Year. The winner for that award will announced live at a party in San Francisco on January 28th.

Subjective awards are often full of debates about who or what should have or should not have been nominated. I’m not going to discuss the merits of any particular series in this blog post, mainly because I have only seen episodes from two anime that received nominations – those two are Flying Witch and Space Patrol Luluco. I’m more critical of the overall categories and gaps in the types of anime series being highlighted. Continue reading