Breaking the Ice: Yuri on Anime Awards

The anime community as a whole is definitely one of the most opinionated communities. Because of this, it came to no surprise there would be an uproar in the community over the results of the Anime Awards. If you do not know what the anime awards are, Crunchyroll, the largest anime streaming platform, created the first anime awards to feature anime of 2016. They pulled together a team of judges to nominate contestants for each category and allow the community to place their votes. This was their first anime awards so anyone can understand errors or hiccups on their first attempt but what happens next is what set the community apart.

Once the nominations were announced it became pretty clear that they were missing something. What they were missing was something that can actually define this year of anime in one word. That word diversity. 2016 was a year of much diversity and variety in anime. Probably one of the best years in anime for some time. To see that the nominations contained the same anime in many categories that just do not belong in these categories while others were set aside is an issue. Do not get me wrong, I know that some series made perfect sense for example Kabaneri and Mob Psycho 100 being two of the options for best animation. While something like Yuri on Ice should not be in best animation.

I want to say this before I move forward on this topic. I do not think Yuri On Ice is bad. I do believe that i’s hype carried its way into categories it has no place in. Not only did it make it into categories it did not belong in but it destroyed its competition. For Yuri On Ice to make it into best animation, we are saying that it was better than all of these shows that did not make it into the list.

There are many reasons that Yuri On Ice won a lot of awards. There were three main players in this game called the anime awards. Crunchyroll for choosing the judges/the judge system, the judges for their nominations, and audience/community. The great things is, this is the first award show of it’s kind. All players can learn from this. Maybe in a few years we will have the best anime awards ever! Only time will tell but do not let this discourage you from voting next year. What are your thoughts? Any anime you feel did not make the list this year?