2020 Jury Write-Ups
All write-ups for the 2020 r/anime Awards can be found on the site here. Selecting Read Category Info will show the State of the Category Write-Up for that category, as well as show the jurors for that category. The juries I was involved in for 2020 were Adventure, Slice of Life, Character Design, and Movies.
The specific write-ups which I did were:
State of the Category for Slice of Life
Deca-dence for Character Design
State of the Category for Movies
Slice of Life State of the Category
Slice of Life this year saw great variety in shows, giving plenty of options to enjoy for all sorts of Slice of Life fans. The jury found many shows which they enjoyed enough to consider for nomination, lamenting the limit on nominees greatly as they had to narrow it down to just a few spectacular entries. Eizouken showed the great passion and creativity which goes into the anime we love. This season of GochiUsa continued to brew up cozy cafe conversations. Houkago Teibou Nishi hooked us with how it sunk its teeth into the topic of fishing, while providing a fun school club cast. Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai put on stage the episodic stories of various solo idols shining with their own approach to performance. Heya Camp left the club room and gave us a tour around Yamanashi Prefecture, the scenery giving the comf while Nadeshiko brought the energy. And Nami yo Kiitekure broadcast the sounds of a struggling young adult as she bared her life on air. There were just countless ways of having fun shown in the everyday lives of these shows.
Even with many jurors having different tastes in Slice of Life shows, there were a couple of clear front runners, the top two being pretty clear from the start. Still, there were dozens of other shows which entered consideration to fill the final few spots, showing that even with a somewhat limited year, Slice of Life is as strong as ever.
Character Design Deca-Dence 5th Place Write-Up
Deca-Dence features a variety of different designs. Human characters are fairly standard, though varied enough to maintain interest. The protagonist Natsume shines through due to her light color design on her clothing and hair, exuding positivity and cheeriness. Kaburagi, on the other hand, has darker tones (especially their hair) and looks more gruff, giving a more stern impression. The Gears also provide visual diversity with their various skin tones and other traits, marking them as distinct from the Tankers.
The robots are entirely separated from the design principles of the humanoid designs thanks to not being constrained with limitations that affect humanoid figures. The distinctive line work and cartoonish style which accompanies these more varied shapes changes the tone of the show quite significantly, matching the carefree attitude of the robots. This greater freedom of shape design also opens the door to greater use of shapes to convey personality. This can be seen in the administrative bots being wall-like blocks with a protruding head, giving the appearance of a hunched back, or the more mischievous robot having snake-like features and curves.
The final design group on display is the Gadoll, the monsters which inhabit the world of Deca-Dence. These designs don't work nearly as well as the other two types. They are often rendered in 3D, seldom feeling in place in a world filled with 2D characters. This gives them an alien air, but feeling quite out of place.
These three different design principles don't always blend well, but most of them stood out as strong enough to deserve recognition.
Movies State of the Category
2020 was a great year for anime movies, despite the global COVID-19 epidemic limiting the theatrical releases of many films. The jury found themselves lamenting the limits on nominations due to the number of entries which they enjoyed, other categories luckily picking up many which were passed over here. Sequel films for ACCA and Saekano acted as epilogues and final acts of their respective stories. Original IP's like Promare, Her Blue Sky, and A Whisker Away manage to establish their settings and weave interesting thematic and narrative threads in a bite-size portion.
Many of the nominated films (and even some which weren't) were visually beautiful, several having their own unique sense of style and strengths of visual storytelling. Ride Your Wave celebrated a larger-than-life story with grounded designs and animation. Lupin III: The First was a technical marvel in adapting 2D designs to 3D, while Promare does the reverse, expertly incorporating 3D characters and settings into its highly stylized aesthetic. Konosuba and Violet Evergarden show off quality refinements of their aesthetics, while Children of the Sea and Ongaku take full advantage of the anime medium to tell their manga stories with beautiful animation and music.
And with that, we are happy to present these 8 spectacular nominees for best movie released in 2020!
