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An award ceremony for Digital Contents of the Year ‘13 and the 19th AMD Award was held at the Meiji Memorial Hall in Minato, Tokyo on March 18. At the ceremony, award-winners for each category were announced, with the Attack on Titan project winning the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Award/AMD Grand Prize. Sounds of Honda - Ayrton Senna 1989 was chosen for the AMD Chairman Award
Attack on Titan, which caused a huge boom in 2013, took the spotlight once again. In addition to the original manga, which has over 30 million copies in print, the 2013 anime and its theme song were huge hits and it gave rise to a huge fandom in the form of cosplay at events and being popular on UGC sites. Award-winners included the publisher of Attack on Titan, Kodansha, as well as the production committee of the Attack on Titan anime. All facets of the Attack on Titan movement were acknowledged.
Representing the project and accepting the award was Shintaro Kawakubo, editor of Attack on Titan and member of the Weekly Shonen Magazine editorial team at Kodansha, who, regarding the series, said, “It’s said that this work is a favorite everywhere.” He also introduced how after a number of pep talks, many people began to be interested in the work. Also appearing on stage was the series’ mascot character “Colossal Titan-kun” who fired up the crowd with manga and anime-like entertainment. With the release of the live-action movie set for 2015, the movement caused by Attack on Titan isn’t just confined to 2013, but will likely continue on from here.
The Grand Prize winner may have been a manga/anime, but since the Digital Contents of the Year Award covered all digital content, the nine Award of Excellence winners were from a diverse range of fields. Winners included the social game Kantai Collection - Kan Colle, video game Nobunaga no Yabou - Souzou, TV program Kodoku no Gourmet Season 3, music artist Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, the event Nico Nico Cho Kaigi, and Windows 8.1. The Naomi Enami Award (Newcomer Award) was given to modern artist Sputniko. Sounds of Honda - Ayrton Senna 1989, winner of the AMD Chairman Award, is a promotional video that recreates in 3D CG using data from Ayrton Senna his Grand Prix qualifying F1 run in 1989. Also, Matsushiro TV, which manages an internet broadcast channel for the elderly, won the Regional Award. The award winners were very diverse.
Regarding this, Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, chairman of the judging panel, said, “It is becoming harder to find content nowadays that isn’t digital,” pointing out the broadening of digital content. The AMD Award may be a good opportunity to exemplify the abundance of Japan’s digital content.
Also, the Special Achievement Award was given to Yasuki Hamano. However, he wasn’t given the award for his great efforts in promoting Japanese content worldwide, but rather for acting as AMD Award committee chairman since it’s conception 18 years ago.
Works that were recommended for the Award of Excellence but were not chosen have also been released. Among these are many anime works. Broadcast content includes Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Girls und Panzer, Love Live!, and Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures. Five films were recommended, all of them being anime: The Wind Rises, The Garden of Words, Steins;Gate the Movie: Loading Area of Deja Vu, Harbor Tale, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion. Recommended anime works were Uta no Prince-sama and Little Witch Academia. The anime-related events “Machi Asobi” and “Laputa: Castle in the Sky BALS Festival” were also recommended. These recommended works also speak to the breadth of anime.
Source: animeanime
