Over on his blog Precocious Curmudgeon, David Welsh points out a rising “dust up” about the American Anime Awards, which will premiere at the New York Comic Con in February this year. The controversy seems to be threefold … the manga nominees, the venue where they’ll be announced and whether the whole thing is just a publicity stunt by ADV Films:
At MangaCast, Ed Chavez takes a moment from his travels in Japan to look over the ballot, particularly the manga nominees, and he finds it wanting. Anime News Network interrogates ICv2’s Milton Griepp over the conception of the awards program and what could be construed as ADV’s undue influence.
The awards have struck me as a rather odd fit for this particular con since they were announced. Anime isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the NYCC, and the impression was reinforced by the closing remarks from this week’s PWCW interview with con organizer Greg Toplian.
The Anime News Network interview doesn’t pull any punches:
The first press release for this event had ADV Films’ name all over it; the presenters are all ADV voice actors, and it’s being broadcast on ADV’s channel, the Anime Network. Obviously this begs the question: are the American Anime Awards simply a showcase being put on by ADV’s marketing department? Why is one company so directly involved with an awards ceremony that’s clearly designed to appear as though it’s celebrating the industry as a whole?
The only place I saw ADV’s name on the press release announcing the Awards (which went out from New York Comic Con) was in the list of companies that would be participating in the ceremony.
I’ll certainly grant that the association with Anime Network and the talent that was named in that first release does create a link between the Awards and ADV. But if the American Anime Awards were “simply a showcase being put on by ADV’s marketing department,” there wouldn’t be the wide range of nominees from every major anime and manga producer. In other words, if ADV wanted to stack the awards, the process wouldn’t have been set up to have an independent party running the nominations and ballots, with every major company participating.
The award show will be hosted by the “Babes of Anime.” Per the site, they are “eight of the most beautiful and sought-after voice actresses in the anime world.” ADV voice actresses, that is.
And Ed Chavez’s comments on the manga nominees:
I think ICv2 and a few other site are behind this and while the anime kinda works for me (is anything eligible because this is the first one or what are the criteria) the manga is stranger than a PWCW top ten list.
Can someone tell me where the heck this list came from? And how are titles like Twin Signal (which has sold like two copies) and Sword of Shibito (last print in early 2005) on this list? And from the way this list is set up I am almost surprised not to see the Tomb Raider “manga” on there.
The awards will be decided by a vote over the internet.
The NY Comic Con is set for Feb. 23-25. Their website promises “double the space” this year after last year, when thousands of fans were turned away on Saturday. With Stan Lee, Stephen King, George Perez, Jeff Smith and many other big names on their guest list this year, they will certainly need it.
