I’ll just say things off the hip for this topic, but in a nutshell I can’t stand the CR-administered Crunchyroll Awards. It’s a marketing exercise, but I don’t mind that. What goes in one of these annual bruhaha is basically like, if there’s enough engagement, whatever is fine. Team Miles says it’s a numbers game, but it would pull examples about “fan recognition” for top-of-class works like Frieren which basically undermines the article’s top line point. What is the premise of Team Miles re: the Anime Awards? It’s putting lipstick on pig. I am frustrated because this isn’t rocket science, and it’s not about getting the nerds to agree what the marketing exercise needs to be, it’s just to make the thing where you can actually stand on something that’s just slightly less clickbaity than Solo Leveling winning it. Making it too critical disengages fans, sure, but you don’t have to. It’s not hard; Mile has done it in his hypo, but whatever CR does, just own that this is a marketing exercise. In this 2025 rendition it is just trying to put into terms of the “fandom” (if we still need to use this term to talk about the people who watch 1-2 titles per year as “fans”) consensus. That’s probably fine, but to me that’s kind of just a huge waste of time. Why? Because if you are a fan, how do you not know what is the consensus?
Make no mistake however, I wish the Awards the best, this year and going forward. I would rather engage in the thing that consistently provides my idol-seiyuu internet little sister Sally Amaki a job, than to ignore it completely. It’s one thing when you swallow the bitter pill to watch a trash anime for the seiyuu you care about, it’s another when the twitter/x shitqueen retweets something in your muted/ignored keyword list. Well, my life is no worse off if I ignore it, but I wish my life to be better, which means unfortunately the Anime Awards needs to be better.
The other marketing exercise that is much more engaging (for better or for (mostly) worse), is Anime Expo. There is a lot of positives when Japan can focus its money laser on one US event to show that they care about anime’s largest oversea market. The perspective I have is that, while there is plenty of interest and even maybe money, there isn’t enough of it. As someone who pressed for nearly a decade I can tell you that is one sad game. How do fans get their news other than from PR machines like CR? Is there something not owned by Sony or Kadokawa that we read from? Not to say there is anything wrong with the way things are today(there is so much but that’s for a different post), but if we are to improve on the marketing/news/informational aspect of the fandom we need commercial entities to help.
Which is to say, AX is actually one of those things that has been around forever. SPJA has its myriad of issues over the years, but it serves this function. If anything, that it and AX continue to exist is the proof that good things happen when you bring fans to the commercial side from across the pond. Or maybe I should say you bring Japanese execs and their big booths to Los Angeles and shower them with the many tens of thousands of people who swarm the DTLA summer beer garden that it’s becoming.
I mean there isn’t anything wrong (or is there) with $15 beers on the sidewalks of LA Live, but they keep on growing the footprint of the thing and they can do all this concession outside. Last year everyone was pretty nicely vibing with how AX felt, with slightly lower attendance. This year seems to be slightly bigger lift from the marketing side than last, so we’ll see how it turns out. Which is to say, AX has many problems, but at its core it’s about tapping into the commerical side to give something to the fans. Classic anime cons are fan cons that have to work to pull commercial entities to work with them. From my POV, Japanese companies need to engage all the other large North American cons, not just AX. It’s definitely an unmet need or a vacuum of sorts. AX can feel like a sausage factory with how much commercial content is being squeezed into 4ish days, it’s a feast for that stuff while other cons are in famine.
Which is also to say this fan vs corp thing is toxic, we can coexist as long as, IDK, if we actually have ethics in journalism instead of a dog whistle or something. The reality is both benefits. We are not going to (I am not going to) get IM@S in America without Bandai Namco thinking if they build it we will come. Fans needs to show and showcase their fandom in a more concrete way, and fan cons need to kind of see the forest for the trees and treat it as such and not just vibe until next year. Con runners are exactly the people in the positions to show the execs what the fans want. It really should be a huge part of their game, and for the most part, it is invisible.
Meanwhile AX needs to work on that “for worse” part above. It’s no harm no foul when the Anime Awards crowds some dumb webtoon thing I didn’t even watch as winning a bunch of its categories. It’s another when kids get heat stroke while in line to see some Web 3.0 influencer in the SoCal sun. That is way too close to our postmodern dystopia for me. It’s life and limb when fans trample each other to grab autograph tickets. Or one of the many ways Anime Expo can be UNSAFE. Nobody needs to get hurt or go to the hospital over the Anime Awards or Anime Expo, so let’s keep safety first.
