All the awards, none of the boring speeches!

2017 offered a somewhat different set of problems for the Oscars than 2016 – rather than too many worthy contenders, the main worry was the same series dominating every category. But we muddle through, as always – and the winners are:

Best Song: “Dai! Jigo Jigo Bushi (大！地獄地獄節)” by Jigoku no Sata All Stars  – Hoozuki no Reitetsu Season 2 OP

Hoozuki no Reitetsu weighs in with its second consecutive stellar OP theme. In terms of incorporating in-character cast performances, the series’ two OPs have been just about as good as it gets – and catchy as “Hell”, too.
Honorable Mention: “Taiyou ga Kureta Kisetsu (太陽がくれた季節)”  by Fujimi Koukou Soccer-bu (KeppekiDanshi! Aoyama-kun ED), “fake town baby” by UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Kekkai Sensen & Beyond OP)

Best Soundtrack: Made in Abyss

English musician Kevin Penkin’s soundtrack for Made in Abyss was my clear favorite for 2017. It accomplishes the paramount task of meshing with the narrative, and always accents the mood the series is trying to portray. It’s a masterful piece of work, just like most everything about this unforgettable series.
Honorable Mention: Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen, Kekkai Sensen & Beyond

Best Original Screenplay: Tsuki ga Kirei

As usual, the relative lack of good original series makes the choices in this category rather limited (in fact this year I really couldn’t even come up with a second honorable mention). That being said, though, we do have a clear winner – Tsuki ga Kirei.  Kakihara Yuuko is not a name known to casual anime fans, but she’s an outstanding writer who’s done great work in anime for many years. Most of that has been adaptations of course, but in Tsuki ga Kirei she’s helped craft one of anime’s all-time great romances, and maybe the best ever focused on middle schoolers.
Honorable Mention: Just Because

Best Adapted Screenplay: Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen

This is always an intensely competitive category, and a case could be made that the source manga for “Rakugo” is so strong that the job of writing the adaptation would be relatively easy.  I don’t believe that to be the case, because by necessity this is a very different story on-screen than on the page – a story about stories within stories, and Kumagai Jun did a magnificent job of finessing that transition.
Honorable Mention: Made in Abyss, Uchouten Kazoku 2

Best Art Direction: Masuyama Osamu, Made in Abyss

The plaudits for the visuals of Made in Abyss could really go to just about any department – in terms of world-building and overall look, it’s one of the most impressive anime of the modern era.  Masuyama Osamu is a Ghibli veteran, and that studio’s influence is readily apparent in the look he created for the backgrounds and sets in Made in Abyss.  It’s the contrast that created with the extremely dark and disturbing narrative that makes both of them even more effective.
Honorable Mention: Tsuki ga Kirei, Hoozuki no Reitetsu 2nd Season

Best Animation: Made in Abyss

There’s a currently airing 2017 carryover series that I suspect would be a very strong contender here if it were eligible, but as it isn’t this comes down to a very clear win for Made in Abyss.  Kinema Citrus assembled a stellar team of legendary animators from the likes of Bones and Gainax and spared no detail in making sure they created an anime that would do justice to Tsukushi Akihito’s manga.  Abyss‘ repeated presence in so many categories is evidence of how thoroughly and comprehensively stellar the production was – this was a labor of love (backed with a lot of Amazon’s money) and delivered a final product that far exceeded my expectations.
Honorable Mention: Boku no Hero Academia Season 2, Kekkai Sensen & Beyond

Best Character Design: Omatsuri Jirou, Hoozuki no Reitetsu 2nd Season

This is never an easy category for me to judge, but from my perspective Hoozuki no Reitetsu really stands out.  The character designs for this series are so relentlessly creative – some of them look like Ukiyo-e paintings come to life, some seem to have dropped off ancient Buddhist wall scrolls, while others are thoroughly modern riffs on anime tropes.  Some credit goes to the mangaka of course (that’s why this category is so hard to judge), but for a series with a diverse cast who are all distinct and memorable, Hoozuki no Reitetsu is hard to top.
Honorable Mention: Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen, Made in Abyss

Best Supporting Actress: Izawa Shiori as Nanachi (Made in Abyss)

As I said, it’s no coincidence that Made in Abyss should ride high in so many categories – and the cast is no exception.  Nanachi is an incredibly important character considering that she doesn’t even appear until the last few episodes, but like Orson Welles in The Third Man, Izawa-san makes an enormous impact in very little screen time.  Nanachi runs the tonal gamut from snarky to cute to abjectly in agony, and Izawa manages to communicate all of it beautifully.  It’s a masterful supporting performance, and I look forward to hearing (much) more of her in Season 2.
Honorable Mention: Kobayashi Yuu as Konatsu (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen), Komatsu Mikako as Shinnosuke (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen)

Best Supporting Actor: Miyake Kenta as All Might (Boku no Hero Academia 2nd Season)

Miyake Kenta wasn’t my first choice as All Might (that would probably have been Ishizuka Unshou or Ootsuka Akio) but in hindsight, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing more with the role.  All Might is a deceptively complex character – his heroic side is only a very small part of who he is as a person – and the seiyuu has to convey the man’s vulnerability even when it isn’t apparent in his actions or appearance.  It’s a great role, and Miyake’s a great performance.
Honorable Mention: Ohsaka Ryoua a Ikutsu Shin (Kabukibu!), Nagatsuka Takuma as Sonohara Akira (Nana Maru San Batsu)

Best Actress: Kohara Konomi as Akane (Tsuki ga Kirei)

Kohara Konomi isn’t a household name in anime circles, but maybe she should (and will) be after a great 2017 which saw her star as Kukuri in Mahoujin Guruguru as well as this role.  Tsuki ga Kirei is at heart a very simple series, a love story about two kids experiencing romance for the first time, and that leaves an awful lot to the two leads to carry the story.  And fortunately, both Kohara and Chiba Shouya are very much up to the challenge.  Akane is quite a neurotic girl, and Kohara’s performance expertly communicates that without relying on theatrics.  It’s understated and quite wonderful.
Honorable Mention: Noto Mamiko as Morioka Moriko (Net-juu no Susume), Ise Mariya as Reg (Made in Abyss)

Best Actor: Ishida Akira as Yakumo (Kikuhiko) (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen)

We don’t see a lot of repeat winners in these awards, but there could never be any doubt that Ishida Akira would take the Oscar again despite some other superb performances (such as the aforementioned Shouya Chiba).  If anything Ishida was – incredibly – better in this season, and Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu certainly was.  Not only is his Kikuhiko the performance of the year, for my money it would be on the short list for greatest seiyuu performances of all-time.  Talk about range, Yakumo demands it in every way – and Ishida just kept going to the well and never coming up dry.  I stand in awe of his work in this magnificent series.
Honorable Mention: Shouya Chiba as as Kotarou (Tsuki ga Kirei), Seki Tomokazu as Yotarou (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen)

Best Director: Kojima Masayuki, Made in Abyss

I could have gone with any number of worthy candidates here, including yet another repeat win for Rakugo or to the criminally underrated Kishi Seiji for Tsuki ga Kirei.  They’re all deserving, but in the end I went with the vastly experienced Masayuki-sensei for his work on Made in Abyss.  I won’t defend it as the ‘right” choice when the alternatives seem equally right, but it’s certainly a damn good one – Abyss is a remarkable achievement in anime production across the board.  Kojima did just enough to tweak things from the manga to make the experience even more enthralling on-screen, he never shied away from tough choices, and he orchestrated all the brilliant work done on this series into a cohesive and compelling whole.
Honorable Mention: Hatakeyama Mamoru (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen), Kishi Seiji (Tsuki ga Kirei), Takayanagi Shigehito (Kekkai Sensen & Beyond)

Best Romance: Tsuki ga Kirei

They really ought to put a picture of this one next to “slam dunk” in the dictionary, because this is one category that was never, ever in doubt.  Tsuki ga Kirei is one of anime’s greatest romances, probably its best ever true “first love” story, and quite possibly the best anime-original anime romance (if you stretch the definition to include True Tears that becomes a very tough call).  Simple yet profound at its very best.
Honorable Mention: Just Because, Net-juu no Susume

Best Comedy: Hoozuki no Reitetsu Season 2

I guess I’m doubling-down on bending the rules here, but since Hoozuki was in the year-end Top 10 list it only seems right to include it in the Oscars.  And if you do, it was certainly 2017’s best comedy – another brilliant, literate and delightfully silly season from one of the most beautiful anime comedies ever.  It wasn’t a great year for comedy, true, but this series would always be a strong contender for the award – it’s that good.  Don’t be surprised to see a return engagement in January 2019.
Honoroable Mention: Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama-kun, Kyoukai no Rinne 3rd Season

Best Drama: Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen

Seems like I make a point of mentioning that the winner of this category is not an automatic for “the big one”, but it does seem to work out that way more often that not.  I’ve waxed poetic about Rakugo so many times by now that you’re probably tired of it, and I may just not be done yet so I better conserve some verbiage…
Honorable Mention: Tsuki ga Kirei, Made in Abyss

Best Series: Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen

Is this a surprise? No, obviously not – though given how good the two runner-up series were, it wasn’t as easy a call as one might think. Nevertheless, from the time we were a few episodes into the second season of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu I was pretty certain it would be 2017’s #1 series. The first season was #2 in 2016, Sukeroku Futatabi-hen was even better, and none of the competition was quite as great as Boku Dake go Inai Machi.  Quite simply, character study in anime just doesn’t get much better – Yakumo is obviously the central pillar of the entire series, but he’s surrounded by a cast of fascinating and complex characters. Great writing, great direction, great casting – there’s nothing missing with Rakugo.  It’s great, plain and simple – a worthy AotY in any era.
Honorable Mention: Made in Abyss, Tsuki ga Kirei

Best Picture: Kuroshitsuji: Book of the Atlantic

This may be a surprise winner to some – “Crash” all over again. But on balance I’d say 2017 was ripe for such an upset, given that it wasn’t an especially strong year for cinematic anime. I enjoyed Koe no Katachi but for me, enough of what made the manga stand out was lost that the adaptation ultimately feels like only a partial success.  By contrast, “Atlantic”, while its ambitions might arguably be more modest, accomplishes them almost flawlessly. This movie is everything that makes Kuroshitsuji the flashy, hilarious, sinister and shameless exercise it is, only more so.
Honorable Mention: Koe no Katachi, Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni