The Japan Academy Prize Association for excellence in film announced the nominees for the 36th annual awards on Tuesday. The five movies that have been nominated for Animation of the Year are:

Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo



Wolf Children



A Letter to Momo



Friends: Mononoke Shima no Naki



One Piece Film Z





Dearest (Anata e), A Chorus of Angels (Kita no Kanaria-tachi), The Kirishima Thing (Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutte yo), The Floating Castle (Nobō no Shiro) , and Chronicle of My Mother (Waga Haha no Ki) are vying for the top honor, Picture of the Year. Actor Hiroshi Abe was nominated for Best Actor for the live-action adaptation (pictured right) of Mari Yamazaki's Thermae Romae manga, while Erika Sawajiri and Shinobu Terajima received Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nods, respectively, for the manga-based live-action film Helter Skelter.

Emi Takei ( Rurouni Kenshin, Ai to Makoto/For Love's Sake, Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu ), Fumi Nikaidō ( Himizu, Lesson of the Evil ), Ai Hashimoto ( The Kirishima Thing, Another ), Shōta Sometani ( Himizu, Lesson of the Evil ), Changmin ( Ōgon o Daite Tobe ), Masahiro Higashide ( The Kirishima Thing ) and Tori Matsuzaka ( Tsunagu, Kyou, Koi wa Hajimemasu ) were all nominated for Best New Actor. Mitsuo Harada was honored for his art design on Thermae Romae.

The Nippon Academy-Sho Association, a Japanese group roughly comparable to America's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Oscars fame, presents the Japan Academy Prizes every year. The nominees all receive "Awards of Excellence," but the actual top award in each category will be presented in a ceremony on March 8 at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo.

Movies are eligible if they opened in Japan between December 11, 2011, and December 15, 2012 (One Piece Film Z was opened on December 15). A committee of 3,931 members voted on the 171 films submitted for consideration.

The Animation of the Year category was only created six years ago. Last year, Goro Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's From Up On Poppy Hill (Kokuriko-Zaka Kara) won the award. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Tekkonkinkreet, Ponyo, Summer Wars, and The Secret World of Arrietty were the previous winners. Before that, Studio Ghibli won the overall Picture of the Year Award for Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.

Source: Cinema Today