Edition No. 2 · Tokyo International Anime Fair

The Year Anime Split Its Own Trophy Three Ways

One year after crowning a single Animation of the Year, Tokyo's awards ceremony changed its mind and let television, film, and OVA each fight for their own crown. Here's how the second edition played out.

Tokyo Big Sight, Odaiba, Tokyo · March 19-22, 2003 · Concluded

9

No Grand Prix, Just Three Different Champions

The Tokyo International Anime Fair came back for round two in March 2003, and it came back bigger. 64,698 visitors and 138 exhibiting companies packed into Tokyo Big Sight, both numbers climbing from the debut year.

The awards format changed shape too. Where the first edition crowned one overall Animation of the Year, this year split the top prize three ways by medium instead. Hanada Shonen-shi took the television Grand Prize, Millennium Actress topped the feature film race, and Sentou Yousei Yukikaze won OVA. No single title got to rule the whole show this time.

Millennium Actress is worth pausing on. It was directed by Satoshi Kon, a name you'll want to remember. One year later, he'd walk away from this exact ceremony with Best Director for a very different film. Think of 2003 as him warming up.

On the individual side, Kappei Yamaguchi picked up Best Voice Actor for InuYasha, a role he'd already been voicing for two years and would keep voicing for over a decade more. And Yoko Kanno, one of anime's most recognizable composers, won Best Music for her score on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, a franchise that was just getting started.

No Studio Ghibli title took home a major prize this year either, for the first time since the ceremony began. *The reign had to end sometime.* It opened the floor for directors like Kon and Keiichi Hara to have their moment instead.

Sidebar

Three Grand Prizes, Not One

2003 skipped a combined Animation of the Year award. Television, feature film, and OVA each crowned their own separate top winner instead, a format the ceremony wouldn't repeat.

Sidebar

A Ghibli-Sized Gap

For the first time since the ceremony began, no Studio Ghibli title took home a major prize this year, clearing space for directors like Satoshi Kon and Keiichi Hara.

The haul chart

Who left heaviest

filled = win · hollow = loss

#1 Crayon Shin-chan Movie 10: The Storm Called: Battle of the Warring States

1 win 1 nom

#2 Fujishima, Kousuke

1 win 1 nom

#3 Hara, Keiichi

1 win 1 nom

#4 Ike, Nobutaka

1 win 1 nom

#5 InuYasha

1 win 1 nom

#6 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

1 win 1 nom

#7 Kanno, Yoko

1 win 1 nom

#8 Millennium Actress

1 win 1 nom

#9 Ookouchi, Ichirou

1 win 1 nom

This edition split its Grand Prize by medium rather than crowning one overall Animation of the Year, so no single title dominates the chart the way Spirited Away did the year before.