The Problem With Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards
The Crunchyroll anime awards slid into the world back in January 2017. Making it almost 6+ years old.
Old enough to say a few
All jokes aside, I’ve never followed or paid attention to it. Not because I’m a hater, but because I filter out a LOT of things that don’t spark my interest.
So why talk about the Crunchyroll anime awards now?
After all – its been running for well over 3 years and it’s no secret in the anime community online. And CR announced their upcoming awards the other day.
On the surface it seems to do a lot of GOOD:
- Anime of the year.
- Best girl.
- Best boy.
- Best director.
- Best animation.
- Best fight scene.
And the list goes on.
The Crunchyroll anime awards celebrates anime and gives shows, characters and directors a chance to “shine” in the limelight. In front of Crunchyroll’s multi-millions who visit their site.
But the way Crunchyroll’s anime awards is “set up” is flawed
It’s well documented how some anime fans and creators call it “anime meme awards” because of how predictable, cliche and cringe it is. So I’m not the first to bring this up.
Lost Pause did this already.
Even though Crunchyroll is a partner with
The Problem With Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards:
1. The voting system is bias
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards is “supposed” to give anime fans a chance to vote for their favorite anime series.
On the surface this sounds cool.
That means you get to vote for potentially obscure anime and even push it to the limelight. With the potential for it to “win” some type of award. And be showcased in front of millions.
But that’s NOT how the voting system really works
In Crunchyroll’s own words:
“Not only do judges select all of the nominees for the Anime Awards, but they help contribute to deciding the eventual winners as well! This year, the points that judges assigned in the nomination period will be weighted 70/30 against the fan vote to decide the final winner in each category.”
In plain English, this means your vote as an anime fan doesn’t mean sh*t.
You have less power than the judges do, even though anime fans outnumber the 20+ or so judges by millions.
An anime fan in Crunchyroll’s post put it another way:
“I’ll repeat here what I said during the travesty that was the last awards: If you’re not going to let us vote for OUR favorites, I don’t see why we should bother voting at all. I and many others quite frankly couldn’t care less about picking from among your judges’ favorites. And now I see you’ve made it so that your judges’ nomination vote has more than twice the weight of all our votes combined (meaning that, if they so choose, your judges can decide a category’s winner themselves before we even have a chance to vote).
Look, if you want to choose the awards’ recipients yourselves so badly, you certainly have the right to do so. Plenty of other sites and groups do the same. But at least give us a fans’ choice category or something, rather than pretending our voices matter in this ridiculous sham.“
This comment is harsh, and there are others like it, but it’s the brutal truth.
Crunchyroll’s voting system as I’ve come to find out is no different from a typical award show.
You’re made to feel like you have more power than you actually do by voting, but in reality the power lies with the judges and their biases. Not to mention favoritism.
Or in this case – Crunchyroll’s short list of judges (I’ve been a judge twice myself).
That leads to my next problem…
2. Political Correctness
We all know how these types of “award shows” go.
All you’ve got to do is look at the history of these anime awards to see what anime “stole” most of the winning spots.
Historically – the only anime that “make it” are the ones judges know will sit well with the mainstream community.
Or in other words – anime that are “safe”.
It’s expected, cliche and borderline politics to choose
The 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and the 2019 results (and 2018 + 2017) shows this.
Goblin Slayer wasn’t included in 2019 for example because of the backlash and drama. And Crunchyroll ran the other way to avoid being associated with it.
The judges are there to fit a narrative, instead of sharing their 100% unfiltered opinions on what anime they like, or what anime should receive votes and awards.
I’m sharing LP’S video again because it’s filled with awkward, scripted and staged comments.
No way is this natural or pure.
3. Mainstream mentality
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards, just like the Oscars is about putting things on a pedestal.
It’s not about diversity, or giving credit where credit’s due. Or giving GREAT anime a chance to shine regardless of how popular or unpopular it is.
No, this is about kissing up to a narrative, while dressing it up as something open and unrestricted.
Once February 2020 comes around this is gonna be even more obvious than it’s ever been.
4. Judges who don’t represent the anime community
If a judge doesn’t run an anime website, blog, organization or YouTube channel, does that mean they’re NOT anime fans?
Of course not. But it’s a little strange to see a guy from a newspaper like “Daily Star” representing the Crunchyroll anime awards 2020.
If this is about representing and promoting the anime community, it would have made more sense to promote and use judges from people within the community itself.
The shortlist is oddly specific.
anime voters, and yet that power is taken away
Your vote is almost 3 times LESS relevant than the judges vote. And the judge can even sway the votes (and the winners) in their favor because they hold so much power.
A better solution
If Crunchyroll ran a poll and let anime fans vote their favorite anime for each category, the results would be drastically different.
And better. It would give a realistic picture of what millions of fans think of:
- Best girl.
- Best boy.
- Best character designs.
- best fight scenes.
And the list goes on.
That’s the 100% legit, unfiltered way to run an anime awards show based on the voices of the PEOPLE. Which matters more than anything else because it’s accurate.
Anything else is just pushing a personal agenda.
And it seems like Crunchyroll is more interested in pandering to politics and swaying opinion, by replacing it with their own shortlist of judges opinions.
Only to then pretend the final result represents what millions of anime fans really think, or what they wanted.
Recommended:
Anime Gatekeeping, And Why The Community Is Doing It The WRONG Way
Racism In The Anime Community, And Where It Stands Today
