3 novels receive "judge special awards"

The official website of the anime studio Kyoto Animation (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star, K-ON!) announced the results of the seventh Kyoto Animation Award program on Wednesday. However, the studio again awarded no grand prizes, no Animation DO Special Award prizes, and no honorable mentions in the manga, scenario, or novel categories. The studio also awarded no prizes in these categories last year.

The staff thanked readers for their submissions but said they regrettably could not choose winners even though the submitted works went "one step beyond" in originality and entertainment. Unlike last year, the studio did award three "judge special awards" in the novel category this year in order to recognize this "one step beyond." These novels are: Eiji Yoshikawa's Kyōko-san, Fly, High , Makoto Ayano's Yoda-no-Mori Kyūdōjō , and Hoeru Arihiro's Kono Hoshizora ni wa Kimi ga Tarinai . (Note: The official romanized readings have not been revealed.)

In the fifth annual awards in 2014, the Violet Evergarden novel won the grand prize in the novel category, and the Santa Claus no Tomodachi (Santa Claus' Friend) and Kinō no Koi wa Kyō no Yume (Yesterday's Love is Today's Dream) novels received an honorable mention. No grand prizes or honorable mentions were awarded in the scenario or manga categories. 2014 marked the first year that any work won a grand prize in any of the three categories.

For the fourth awards in 2013, three novels were honored in the honorable mention category, but no other awards were given out. No winners were awarded in the third awards in 2012.

Previous honorable mention recipients in the contest's history have been animated despite not winning the grand prize. The honorable mention works that have been animated include Chu-2 Byo demo Koi ga Shitai, Free! (originally known as High Speed! ), and Kyōkai no Kanata . Kyoto Animation's imprint also published O-Yashiki to Coppelia by 1st Kyoto Animation Award honorable mention recipient Mutsuki Ichinose, and later his novelization of Kyoto Animation's Tamako Market anime.

Kyoto Animation announced the award program in 2009 and offered 300,000-yen (about US$3,600 at the time) grand prizes and 100,000-yen honorable mention prizes in novel, manga, and scenario (script treatment) categories. The awards added the "Animation Do Special Award" in 2015. In the first year, the rules noted that popular winning entries were to have had a chance at being animated by Kyoto Animation, but the rules for the second year did not mention this possibility.

[Via Yaraon!]