It’s that time again – the voice, music, and animation awards – or as I like to think of them: the set of awards that are completely subjective and some of the most difficult awards to pick as a result. And this season was no different.

Best Male Seiyuu

Winner: Hiroshi Kamiya as Izaya Orihara from  Durarara!!, Hiroomi Souma from Working!!, Otonashi Yuzuru from Angel Beats, Kou Ichinomiya from Arakawa Under the Bridge and I think I missed some

The Overall 2008 Best Male Seiyuu and Summer 2009 Seasonal Best Male Seiyuu makes it a hat trick. Then again, it was essentially impossible for any other guy to win this time since so many shows featured Hiroshi Kamiya in leading roles and he continues to do a great job.

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Best Female Seiyuu

Winner: Maaya Sakamoto as Nino from Arakawa Under the Bridge and Akashi from The Tatami Galaxy

Runner-up: Yukari Tamura as Yamada from B Gata H Kei and Togame from Katanagatari, Aki Toyosaki as Yui from K-ON!! and Kena Soga from Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou and Satsuki Hyoudou from Kaichou wa Maid-sama!

Picking the best female seiyuu was a much different experience with a bevy of strong performances from many different women. In the end I had to decide on a tie-breaking criteria so I chose to pick the seiyuu with the best characters to win. And that was, Maaya Sakamoto, for voicing two female characters that came off as slightly odd at times but were really deep, interesting characters.

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Best OP

Winner: Working!!

Runner-up: Rainbow, House of Five Leaves, Durarara, B Gata H Kei, Arakawa Under the Bridge

There were a lot of openings I liked this season but no one single opening was able to break from the pack to be the easy pick, at least initially, because I remembered the old argument about picking the MVP in a sport. Do you pick the best player in the league or the person that contributed the most to a team even if the team didn’t do well? In this case, I’m picking the opening to Working!! because I loved it and it was the sole reason that I didn’t drop the show. Working!! eventually got watchable, barely, in the last 3-4 episodes but before then, it was the desire to see the opening one more time that kept me watching.

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Best ED

Winner: B Gata H Kei

Runner-up: The Tatami Galaxy, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou

And I’m picking the ending to B Gata H Kei because it was by-far-and-away the best ending and it was always like the cherry that one leaves to eat last from a piece of awesome cake.

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Best Background Music

Winner: K-On!!

This award is one of the awards that I almost never feel real comfortable picking the winner because I often don’t remember the background music to most of the shows I watch. There are exceptions, in the case of K-On, the BGM is light and airy and it perfectly compliments the show which is what the BGM is supposed to do.

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Best Dressed Characters

Winner: K-On!!

Much like the award for best action going to Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood was completely apparent and needed no justification, this award going to K-On is also completely apparent and needs no justification.

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Best Animation Style

Winner: The Tatami Galaxy

Runner-up: House of Five Leaves, Katanagatari

I fell in love with the animation style of Masaaki Yuasa in Kaiba so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that I’m picking The Tatami Galaxy with it’s similar style to Kaiba. What kinda surprised me was the number shows that were more stylized in nature this season. When I see animators willing to experiment and these shows actually given air time, I relax when thinking about the future of anime.

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Best Animation

Winner: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Runner-up: Angel Beats, K-On!!, Durarara

There were several very well animated shows this season but Full Metal had this award in-the-bag when it took it’s already great animation and bumped it up even higher this season for the final arc of episodes. Durarara was it’s closest competitor and might have pulled it out if there had been more cool action scenes.

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Top Animation Studio

Winner: Madhouse

The Fall 2008 Seasonal Top Animation Studio and Overall 2008 Top Animation Studio makes it a hat trick this season as well by producing two of the best anime of the season – The Tatami Galaxy and Rainbow. Both were very original works that showcased the best anime has to offer viewers. Both works also turned out to be, surprisingly, heart-warming series that always left me impatiently waiting for the next episode. And it’s possible that Madhouse could win this award again in the summer season because Rainbow continues on which puts them in a strong position.

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That’s it for part 3 of my spring 2010 anime awards. Stay tuned for my top overall picks of the season.

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Spring 2010 Awards Part 1: Cast and Character Awards
Spring 2010 Awards Part 2: Genre and Misfit Awards
Spring 2010 Awards: Top 8 Anime – #8 – #5
Spring 2010 Awards: Top 8 Anime – #4 – #1

Filed under: anime, awards

I’ve made it no secret I’m a fan of Maaya Sakamoto, especially her music. Let me quote myself from the spring 2010 preview post:

I could listen to Maaya’s voice all day (in fact, I sometimes do, putting her music on my playlist).

I was listening to her recent compilation album Everywhere, when 1 song caught my attention. The song is called Pocket o Kara ni Shite or, translated, Emptying Our Pockets (link goes to YouTube video of live performance).

It was released on her first album in 1997, Grapefruit, but I had somehow managed to miss it. I especially liked the chorus, which I found to be quite catchy. So I looked up the lyrics, available translated here.
The chorus goes:

Come on, let’s go on a journey, emptying our pockets. We don’t have a purpose or anything, but

Let’s hurry,

Come on, let’s go on a journey, emptying our pockets. Carrying our scattered feelings along with us.

Now, you might notice that the lyrics on the link say, “Carrying our indecent feelings along with us.” I chose “scattered” because that is what the Korean translation I found via Naver said and because it makes a lot more sense given the context. It’s a shame, because “indecent” would have made the lyrics into something really wicked, and something I would have loved to write a lot about. But gotta stick to what I believe is the truth, even if it’s inconvenient.

Either way, the message of the chorus and of the song in general is pretty obvious. It’s the same message that countless other songs have: that one’s possessions aren’t important, and finding happiness is about doing, not about having.

These lyrics brought to my mind the character of Nino, played by Maaya Sakamoto, of Arakawa Under the Bridge. She clearly personifies the song in many ways. Living under the bridge, she doesn’t have much in terms of material goods. The stuff she does have, she probably happened to find.

But more than simply being poor, she exemplifies that sense of living by the moment and doing things because she loves them. She contributes to the society under the bridge by fishing, but only because she wants to, not out of a sense of obligation. And just look at how good she is at it. By doing what she loves, she’s doing good not only for herself, but for the community as a whole. At the same time, she isn’t bothered at all by the things she can’t do so well, like teaching. Neither is she bothered by others who don’t contribute as much as she does. She fits the image perfectly of that person looking up at a shooting star and having no clue what to wish for. Indeed, when she was given a very similar situation at the start of the series, she had to struggle to find something she wanted. Fortunately for Riku, it was a lover.

And thanks of her style of living, she appears to get more out of it than someone like Riku, whose life is dictated by strict rules. Look at how stressed out he was in episode 5 when he was confronted with the fact that he doesn’t contribute anything. Contrast it with Nino’s reaction, which is that he shouldn’t worry about it, because “everyone does what they do because they want to. So [Riku] should, too” (I’m paraphrasing here). In episode 6, Riku learns the truth behind this, when he teaches the metal headed brothers to swim only because he wants to and later discovers that he did something useful. Were it not for Nino’s being there and pointing it out for him, it’s unlikely that he would have realized this.

The reason that this theme of living by the moment without worrying about belongings is so popular in songs and media in general is that it resonates with a lot of people. And the reason it resonates with a lot of people is that there is truth to it, and it represents a life that people strive towards with different levels of success. Nino has reached it. Riku is at the very bottom. Arakawa Under the Bridge is about the former reaching out to the latter and pulling him up (hence the OP song’s title and the imagery used). It’s a story that I think has been told well so far, and a story I look forward to seeing play out in the rest of the show.

And on a personal note, it’s the type of life I strive for as well. I’m definitely closer to Riku than I am to Nino, but, after all, it’s a journey. That Riku is, obliviously, on the same journey makes this show all the more enjoyable for me. I’m sure it’s the same way with others as well.