NEO announces its UK anime award winners

[Melainy]

I think why many of us disagree with some of the results is because most of us actually have our own opinions. I see far too many so called "anime fans" wandering around nowadays who rave about titles simply because absolutely everybody has heard of them.

Chi is best manga character why? Because everybody's heard of Chobits. Cowboy Bebop has best soundtrack (and although it is very well deserved), why? Because everybody's heard of Yoko Kanno. Vash from Trigun, Ghost in the Shell, Howl's Moving Castle...

But, after saying all that, at least the NEO readers have some general sanity. Thank goodness there was no "Yu-Gi-Oh!" or "B-Damen" in there. It would be a sad, sad day if there was.

 

[Solaris Phoenix]

I think Triguns soundtrack works well in relation to the scenes the tracks are playing in but doesn't stand up well on it's own as an album(same goes with Gungrave). Yoko Kanno's music for Bebop, Stand Alone Complex, Wolf's Rain and so on compliment the scenes in which the tracks are played but also work excellently as stand alone tracks. Yoko Kanno doesn't just write music for the series, she writes songs and albums which you can listen to just like any other band or artist without relating it to the show. Thats why people vote for Yoko Kanno I think.

I'd actually disagree there. Well, I mean my opinion differs ^_^;

I think Yoko Kanno writes very well for the series she's asked to do. but out of everything she's done that I've heard, I only really like a couple of the Macross Plus songs as standalones. I've listened to all sorts of her musics in an effort to find one I liked listening to without having seen the series first and there's virtually nothing. Bits of the music are really dramatic when placed against the scenes they're orchestrated for, but as long as you see them with the music you'll always have that association before you can begin to appreciate the music on its own merits.

Taku Iwasaki (of Samurai X music gorgeousness) has a lovely few paragraphs in the Pioneer CD release of the Trust and Betrayal soundtrack where he says basically that he enjoys music that is both connected and unconnected to the images they relate to, and I think that is shown really well in the Samurai X soundtracks, and the Read or Die OVA. Maybe it's just my personal tastes in music, but I hadn't even seen any of Samurai X before I heard the music- as soon as I did I was hooked. But Cowboy Bebop just leaves me cold.

And that's enough ranting from me. I'm very picky about my musics ^_^;

 

[Mangaminx]

It was obvious from the get-go the results here would be only for the most popular anime. The ones that are "mainstream" in the small niche that is anime fandom. Howl's Moving Castle gets best film as it was out there this year in the most cinemas. Stand Alone Complex dominates the sales charts (its good but its certainly not the best released this year) so it gets best anime. CLAMP gets best manga creator pretty much as its the one most people have heard of... etc.

I must admit MVM being best anime distributor is a bit of a joke giving the poor quality of their releases and their rather scary release schedule for next year as their "cutting back" looks to leave so many series in limbo for a good while.