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Madoka Magica Nominated for Nihon SF Taishō Award

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ) announced that the Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime series is one of five nominees for the 32nd Nihon SF Taishō Award on Monday. With this award, SFWJ honors the best in the fields of science fiction and fantasy during the past year.

The Nihon SF Taishō Awards are the rough Japanese equivalent of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Awards. Most of this year's nominees and previous years' winners of the Nihon SF Taishō Awards have been novels and short stories, but SFWJ notes that criticism, manga, illustrations, film, television, video, music, and other media are eligible. This year's other four nominees are:

Dynamic Figure by Kōji Mishima
Karyu no miya (The Ocean Chronicles) by Sayuri Ueda
Kibō (Hope) by Hideaki Sena
Gendai Nihon Kisō Shōsetsu Shi Meiji-Hen (A History of Modern Japanese Fantasy Novels: Meiji Period) by Junya Yokota

Previous winners have included Project Itoh's Harmony novel, the Dennō Coil anime series, Moto Hagio's Barbara Ikai manga, Mamoru Oshii's Innocence anime film, Tow Ubukata's original Mardock Scramble novels, Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series, Shusuke Kaneko's Gamera 2 film, and Katsuhiro Ōtomo's Domu manga. The late Guin Saga author Kaoru Kurimoto and the late author/anime "science-fiction researcher" Takumi Shibano also received special awards.

[Via Yaraon!]