Thank you everybody for participating in the awards process! NineSwords and I simply wanted this to be a fun thing to wrap up the year with, and I hope that you all had fun with this. We certainly learned a lot about ways we might want to run things differently if we ever do this again, so thank you for all the feedback you have given us through this process.
If you are interested in analyzing the vote data, I have created a github repo here where I have uploaded both the voting data and the code I used to process the data and calculate the election results. Feel free to use this data in any way you see fit!
Without further ado, here are the winners and runner-ups for each of the categories:
2024 Anime of the Year
Winner - Frieren: Beyond Journey's End / Sousou no Frieren
Runner-up - Delicious in Dungeon / Dungeon Meshi
Best Comedy
Winner - Delicious in Dungeon / Dungeon Meshi
Runner-up - Dan Da Dan
Best Drama
Winner - The Apothecary Diaries / Kusuriya no Hitorigoto
Runner-up - Oshi no Ko Season 2
Best Animation
Winner - Frieren: Beyond Journey's End / Sousou no Frieren
Runner-up - Dan Da Dan
Best Fantasy
Winner - Frieren: Beyond Journey's End / Sousou no Frieren
Runner-up - Delicious in Dungeon / Dungeon Meshi
Best Soundtrack
Winner - Frieren: Beyond Journey's End / Sousou no Frieren
Runner-up - Oshi no Ko Season 2
Best Duo: Romantic or Otherwise
Winner - Momo Ayase & Ken Takakura (Okarun) from Dan Da Dan
Runner-up - Holo & Kraft Lawrence from Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF
Best Voice Acting
Winner - Atsumi Tanezaki as Frieren in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Japanese)
Runner-up - Saori Hayami as Rin Nanakura in Pseudo Harem (Japanese)
Best Romance
Winner - Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF / Ookami to Koushinryou: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF
Runner-up - Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! / Make Heroine ga Oosugiru!
Best Opening or Ending Sequence (OP/ED)
Winner - "Otonoke" by Creepy Nuts for the Dan Da Dan OP
Runner-up - "Shika-iro Days" as the My Deer Friend Nokotan OP
Best Action
Winner - Dan Da Dan
Runner-up - Solo Levling / Ore dake Level Up na Ken
Best Slice of Life
Winner - Frieren: Beyond Journey's End / Sousou no Frieren
Runner-up - Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night / Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai
Best Suspense
Winner - The Apothecary Diaries / Kusuriya no Hitorigoto
Runner-up - Oshi no Ko Season 2
Best Character
Winner - Frieren from Frieren: Beyond Journey's End / Sousou no Frieren
Runner-up - Maomao from The Apothecary Diaries / Kusuriya no Hitorigoto
I mostly watch shows when they're finished. It's nice to be able to watch an episode every day, but the downside is I lag behind everyone else and can't really participate in polls like this since the only two shows I watched from this year is Frieren and Dungeon Meshi. So I decided not to vote at all. Overall I watched 25 shows this year, most from 201x, some from 200x and a few from 202x.
Tbf, I think there's a pretty big dip from the super popular anime to everything else that was nominated this year. I ended up giving up on voting, just because there was category after category where I'd only seen one or two of the shows listed.
Why would someone spent their time on something else? Rewatching Frieren a couple times is better than watching anything running this (currently ending) season for example.
Technically everything can be a slice of life. But preferably it is used for stuff that focuses on daily life. Is frieren actually a slice of life or is this a case of shounen fans calling everything with less than 50% action a SOL? I also heard frieren is a slow show. Is it actually slow or just by shounen standards?
That one felt a little weird. I feel like you could make a good argument that the first half of the first season is slice of life, but most of the rest of the series is not.
Aww, I guess I missed the vote. Would've liked to have seen Orb win something, but I'm glad to see Kusuriya and Makeine made it!
I think the only thing I'd contend is Shikanoko for the opening. It is certainly a memorable opening, I suppose, although maybe not for the right reasons. xD
Gotta echo what others already said: thanks for running this.
Will this be done more frequently? e.g. every season
It will mean more work till the process of nomination and voting get automated or simplified, but it also means a shorter turn-around time to gather feedback and improve the process (i.e. be agile)
Edit: it also means that it will feel less special.
Will this be done more frequently? e.g. every season
Depends how quickly I learn flask + some basic javascript. I have some ideas right now on how to integrate all these different things to create a site where I can make polls and then have rikka reach out and let you verify your votes via pm. However, the web dev work is where I need to do a ton of learning. I have never worked on web dev stuff before, so the past week of me exploring it has been a huge learning curve.