Unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to find a full list of both nominees and winners, so I will just be commenting on the winners. I noticed that they introduced an “Overseas Fan Award” as well, so even though I didn’t get an image for it, I’ll list who won it below. For the full list of award shows (via Wikipedia), here’s a link. I’ll put everything below the “keep reading” line because a lot of my favourite seiyuu won awards in this show.
Best Lead Actor: I’m proud of Hiroshi Kamiya for getting this one. Natsume is a character that isn’t over-the-top like a lot of Hiroshi’s other roles, and he’s much more understated. The rest can be said about the series. It’s not the thrill-ride that gets you hyped like My Hero Academia or something; it’s the type of series where you sit back and watch these characters grow as they share their stories, and I thought Hiroshi Kamiya did a great job in that role. I wouldn’t have wanted to character to be portrayed by anyone else.
Best Lead Actress: YES. RIE KUGIMIYA. The Toradora dub isn’t bad. Let me get that out of the way. But Rie Kugimiya was such a standout role. It’s one of her most iconic, and nobody can nail that tsundere voice as much as she can. She portrayed her to a perfect standard, and unfortunately, the dub doesn’t do it quite the same way (partially because her voice is really unique). She portrays her sadness, anger, and cuteness really well, so I’m proud that she won an award for that. I haven’t heard of her other role.
Best Supporting Actors: Tomozaku Sugita has my respect, but I don’t know any of those roles. None. Haven’t even heard of most of those. I would’ve liked to see his speech though because I really don’t see him as the type to be good at formal speeches. He can barely keep a straight face at events. Kazuhiko Inoue deserves this though because Madara is a character that goes from a cute plushie cat to an epic wolf-creature-thing (don’t know the word for it). He’s epic and has quite the attitude which is different from most of his roles, yet he pulls it off really well. Plus, Kazuhiko is just a good dude altogether. He has been known to raise money after the earthquake that happened and does other work.
Best Supporting Actresses: I’ve somehow managed to skip all of Aya Endou’s lead roles. She plays a lot of cutesy characters though and is very accomplished. But I surprisingly haven’t watched any of these Miyuki Sawashiro roles in their entirety. BUT SHE STILL DESERVES THE AWARD.
Best Rookie Actors: YES. THESE TWO ARE BOTH AMAZING. YES. I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY WERE STILL “ROOKIES” BUT YES. Nobu did a spectacular job nailing the Accelerator’s craziness. The fact he still has his voice too. He’s also the lead in that Persona anime. If it wasn’t so lowly rated and if the series was easy to follow, I would jump on the chance to watch it. Miyuki Sawashiro and Nobuhiko Okamoto? Now that’s cool. In terms of Yuki Kaji’s roles for this award, I haven’t watched Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji), but I’ve watched a few scenes with Finnian in it. He’s such a pure dumb idiot. I haven’t heard of the other anime, but I searched it up. Looks like a superpower shounen harem.
Best Rookie Actresses: These two are both really cool. Kana Asumi usually plays a little girl or things like that. Haruka Tomatsu plays practically everything from Morgiana (Magi) to Asuna (SAO, which I will never ever watch entirely) to Genderbent Gintoki (Gintama). I have a hard time recognizing her because her range is so vast. I weirdly don’t know these roles (for the both of them). But I respect them both.
Best Personality: Dear Girl Stories (DGS) can be funny at times especially when they are at the hosts’ (Hiroshi Kamiya and Daisuke Ono’s) expense. For example, they tried a durian, and it was hilarious. Or when they semi-broke into Hiroshi Kamiya’s house for his birthday and Nyanko-sensei made an appearance on the show (not the character; that’s Hiroshi’s cat’s name). To be honest, I haven’t watched him host a show without his counterpart (Daisuke Ono) so I wouldn’t know.
Best Musical Performance: I haven’t watched a lot of Megumi Nakajima’s roles partially because she is more of a singer than she is a seiyuu. I haven’t listened to a ton of her songs either, but I like the OP of Net-juu no Susume. I also respect her a lot because she acknowledges and embraces her mixed heritage. She’s half-Filipino (from her mom) and half-Japanese (from her dad). I never noticed this growing up, but I find that sometimes in foreign countries, being Filipino isn’t the greatest thing.
Overseas Fan Award (no image): Jun Fukuyama deserves it. He has so many lead roles in anime that have been a hit overseas from Code Geass to Assassination Classroom. He has a distinctly unique voice, and I truly think that he’s a big name in the industry.
On a small side note: I was talking to my sister who was watching a Korean reality series where they follow mixed-race couples and families because it’s so taboo and rare there. I kind of looked oddly (being the sheltered Canadian I am) because I never thought how weird it was being mixed-race. You sometimes go through a little bit of an “identity crisis” because you don’t know where you fit in, and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t know a second language. The outside world speaks English, and my parents speak English because one was born here and the other has been here most of her life. Not to mention, it’s common ground between the two of them (since my mom doesn’t know Cantonese and my dad doesn’t know Tagalog). Filipinos are known for taking “low-status” jobs and such too. I was recently reading an article on the adversity that Filipino and Filipino-Japanese people go through. For a foreign race that takes up such a large number of the population (4th overall), I found it surprising. I was never ashamed of my heritage growing up because I was surrounded with people who weren’t majorly racist, but I’m starting to learn more and more of the racism that occurs outside of my own life.
