Edition No. 6 · Tokyo International Anime Fair

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Outran a Stacked Field

Code Geass, Death Note, and Haruhi Suzumiya were all in the room this year. A modestly budgeted time-travel film still walked away with the top prize.

Tokyo Big Sight, Odaiba, Tokyo · March 22-25, 2007 · Concluded

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Award Results

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Grand Prix

Small Film, Biggest Prize

The sixth fair pulled in over 107,000 visitors and 270 exhibitors, another record for Tokyo Big Sight in March 2007.

Animation of the Year went to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a modestly budgeted time-travel drama that beat out a genuinely stacked field to take the top prize. Mamoru Hosoda won Best Director for it too, not long after stepping away from a much higher-profile studio project. Sometimes walking away is exactly how you win the year.

That stacked field was sitting in the television category. Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Death Note, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya all shared the Notable Entry trophy, three shows that would go on to define an entire era of anime fandom online. Aya Hirano, the voice of Haruhi herself, won Best Voice Actor for it.

On the film side, Satoshi Kon returned with Paprika, and its composer Susumu Hirasawa won Best Music. Studio Ghibli veteran Nizo Yamamoto picked up Best Art Direction for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, the character designer behind Neon Genesis Evangelion, won Best Character Designer for the same film.

This was also the biggest Merit Award for Voice Actor yet: five veteran performers recognized together, Kaneta Kimotsuki, Michiko Nomura, Noriko Ohara, Nobuyo Ooyama, and Kazuya Tatekabe, a group whose combined resumes cover decades of anime history.

Sidebar

Five Legends, One Award

The 2007 Merit Award for Voice Actor went to five veteran performers at once: Kaneta Kimotsuki, Michiko Nomura, Noriko Ohara, Nobuyo Ooyama, and Kazuya Tatekabe.

Sidebar

The Director Who Walked Away

Mamoru Hosoda directed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time not long after departing a much higher-profile studio project. This ceremony's Best Director win was an early sign of the run he'd go on to have.

The haul chart

Who left heaviest

filled = win · hollow = loss

#1 Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

1 win 1 nom

#2 Death Note

1 win 1 nom

#3 Gunbuster 2

1 win 1 nom

#4 Hirano, Aya

1 win 1 nom

#5 Hirasawa, Susumu

1 win 1 nom

#6 Hosoda, Mamoru

1 win 1 nom

#7 Kimotsuki, Kaneta

1 win 1 nom

#8 Nomura, Michiko

1 win 1 nom

#9 Ohara, Noriko

1 win 1 nom

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time beat a television field that included Code Geass, Death Note, and Haruhi Suzumiya for the top prize, one of the closer-feeling years in the ceremony's history.