Controversy has rocked the newly announced Crunchyroll Anime Awards as an FBI probe discovered evidence that several studios including David Productions have paid bribes to the award’s designated judges seeking to not have their shows nominated.

Agents raided Crunchyroll’s San Francisco offices last night and discovered several pieces of correspondence from David Productions pleading with the company to not nominate their marquee title JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable.

“After seeing these other nominees we are not very comfortable to be associated with these awards,” a leaked email from David Productions read in part. “We need to reflect on what went wrong with this season of JoJo’s to receive praise from a panel with taste as shit as this.”

Investigators were tipped off by one of the selected panelists for the award who received a bribe of $30,000 and a letter from David Productions which contained the line: “For the sake of our studio’s reputation, please do not have our anime win any of these awards.”

David Production is also known for memorable anime such as Inu x Boku, Ben-To, and Dogs: Bullets & Carnage.

Investigators are concerned this is just the tip of the iceberg — evidence of a grand conspiracy involving bribes and sabotage between several anime studios. Other leads officials are currently pursuing include a mysterious $200,000 payment from Kyoto Animation and a partially decrypted email chain titled “funny ways to prank Tetsuro Araki”.

At press time, Crunchyroll judges have collectively decided to replace JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure with Yuri on Ice, after the check from MAPPA bounced.

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