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6th Animax Award-Winning Scripts Announced
posted on by Egan Loo
The Japanese anime channel Animax held a press conference at Tokyo's Imperial Hotel to announce the winning entries in its 6th Animax Awards, an animation scriptwriting competition. The Grand-Prize winning entry, Hayato Takamaga's "Takane no Jitensha (Takane's Bike)," received a prize of 2,000,000 yen (about US$18,000) and earned the opportunity to be animated by A-1 Pictures in 2008 for broadcast on Animax.
A special prize of 500,000 yen (US$4,400) was given to Watanahe Kōhei Shōkyokusuiki's comic, "Gensō Seki London no Seiryō ("Fantavitation Century" or The Mystical Era - The Azure Dragon of London)". Philippines' Carmelo S. J. Juinio "Laminated Woman: To the Sand Planet Cerra" won the Pan-Asia Award out of entries from 10 Asian countries.
This year's competition was the first international one, as entries from Asian countries that broadcast Animax outside Japan were accepted for the first time. It was also the first time that manga and novel submissions were accepted in addition to standard TV script treatments. 3,056 entries (1,062 from Japan, 1,994 from overseas) were accepted from the middle of March to the end of May. About 1,000 were novel entries vying for the special prize Six overseas entries were selected by an online website poll as regional finalists who competed for both the Pan-Asia Award and the Grand Prize.
The 2nd Animax Awards' Grand Prize winner, Yuko Kawabe, eventually created the Ergo Proxy anime. The 4th Grand Prize winner, Ikuko Yoshinari, is now creating manga for the Japanese shōjo manga magazine Ribon. Last year's winning entry, Akari Tsukino's "Yumedamaya Kidan," is being animated by Production I.G for a November broadcast.
Animax has posted an English list of the winners with summaries and pictures. The Japanese version of the winners' list includes links to the full scripts in Japanese in PDF format, as well as "The Mystical Era" manga.
Translated from animeanime.jp with permission.
Images © Hayato Takamaga © Watanahe Kōhei Shōkyokusuiki © Carmelo S. J. Juinio
