Evangelion Comes Back and Wins Everything

By 2008 the fair had grown into a genuine giant: over 126,000 visitors and 289 exhibitors at Tokyo Big Sight, more than double where it started back in 2002.

Animation of the Year went to Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, the opening chapter of Hideaki Anno's Rebuild project and the first Evangelion film in over a decade. Anno won Best Director for it too. Thirteen years after the original TV series ended, and it was still winning trophies.

It was the smallest field in the ceremony's history so far, but a memorable one. Den-noh Coil and Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann shared the Notable Entry television trophy, and Gurren-Lagann's character designer Atsushi Nishigori won Best Character Designer for it. Summer Days with Coo took the feature film slot, and its director Keiichi Hara, back after his 2003 Best Director win for Crayon Shin-chan, picked up Best Screenplay this time instead.

Mamoru Miyano, one of the busiest voice actors working that year, won Best Voice Actor for playing Light Yagami in Death Note. Yoko Kanno picked up her third Best Music win at this ceremony, this time for Genesis of Aquarion rather than Ghost in the Shell.

Shinji Kimura and Taiyo Matsumoto also picked up Best Art Direction and Best Original Story, both for Tekkon Kinkreet, a film that didn't win the top prize but still walked away with two trophies of its own.