Earlier this week the 2017 Oscar Nominations were revealed, and while Zootopia, Moana, Kubo, The Red Turtle and My Life as a Zucchini got nominations for Best Animated Feature, there was one serious snub, which was of course Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu.

Anime fans protested the snub to the academy, citing reasons as “Hanekawa is best girl,” and “What the hell is My Life as a Zucchini?” They also complained about The Red Turtle‘s nomination, a film which despite being a co-production with Studio Ghibli doesn’t even have a page on MyAnimeList, the one true distinguisher on what is and isn’t anime.

We got in touch with Oscar industry insider Emmett Grammer, who said that anime fans expectations for the Oscars were unrealistic. “You have to remember that the Academy is full of old people who don’t really understand what anime is. Most of them are pretty sure Hayao Miyazaki is the only good director in Japan, and they think he makes every Studio Ghibli movie, so if something doesn’t have the Studio Ghibli name attached it’s basically doomed from the start.”

“Really though, this is partially the fault of the English distributor, who probably should have postponed Kizumonogatari‘s release until next year. You can do that with foreign films, Spirited Away won Best Animated Feature in 2003 despite coming out in 2001. There was no way an anime film was going to beat Kubo or Zootopia, but next year there are no Disney or Laika movies, so its only competition would be Boss Baby, The Emoji Movie and a Pixar movie called Coco, which going off their recent track record has a 50% chance to be terrible.”

“I can honestly say that if they hadn’t chosen to release Kizumonogatri for a single week in 2016 and had waited to give it a full release in 2017, not only would have it been nominated, but there’s a pretty good chance they would have been calling your name in the 2018 Oscars. ‘Your name’ being of course that of Akiyuki Shinbo, the director that was seriously snubbed this year for Kizumonogatari.”

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