One Ceremony, Two Champions

In 2014, the Tokyo International Anime Fair stopped existing as its own event. It merged with the Anime Contents Expo to form AnimeJapan, a single unified convention that drew over 111,000 attendees to Tokyo Big Sight on its debut weekend. The awards ceremony built around the old fair carried on regardless, evolving into what would become the Tokyo Anime Awards Festival.

For the first time, Animation of the Year split into two separate prizes instead of one. The Wind Rises, billed at the time as Hayao Miyazaki's retirement film, took the film prize. Attack on Titan, a show about to become one of the biggest anime exports of the decade, took the television prize. Twelve editions of one combined winner, and now suddenly there were two.

The individual awards reflected the transition too. Best Screenplay and Best Original Story merged into a single combined category this year, awarded jointly to Hayao Miyazaki, Yasuko Kobayashi, and Reiko Yoshida. Tetsuro Araki, the director behind Attack on Titan's explosive first season, won Best Director. And a brand new Best Animator award went to Kitaro Kosaka, recognizing animation craft as its own category for the first time.

A new Anime Fan Award also debuted this year, voted differently from the rest of the slate and going to Danball Senki Wars, a much smaller title than the giants dominating everywhere else on the chart. Sometimes the fans just want to reward what they actually watched.