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Animax Cancels 8th Annual Anison Grand Prix Competition
posted on by Sarah Nelkin
The official website for Animax's All-Japan Anison (anime song) Grand Prix singing contest announced on Monday that next year's contest has been canceled. This year would have marked the eighth annual competition. The staff apologized to those who had been hoping to apply to perform.
Tatsuyuki Kobayashi won this year's competition, and is performing the opening theme song for the Battle Spirits Saikyō Ginga Ultimate Zero anime.
Jupiter Telecommunications and the Animax anime television channel have run this nationwide audition to find "next generation artists" to sing anime theme songs since 2007. Catherine St-Onge, a 32-year-old Canadian living in Tokyo, won the singing contest on 2008. Her voice (under her stage name HIMEKA) can be heard on Valkyria Chronicles, Letter Bee, and Night Raid 1931. The winner of the first contest, Shuhei Kita, performed songs for Persona -trinity soul-, Natsume Yūjin-Chō, Miracle Train - Ōedo-sen e Yōkoso, and Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi 2.
The other four previous winners were Sayaka Sasaki (Tatakau Shisho - The Book of Bantorra, T.P. Sakura - Time Paladin Sakura - Jikū Bōeisen, My Ordinary Life), Marina Kawano (A-Channel, Nekomonogatari (Black)), Konomi Suzuki (WATAMOTE, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou), and Natsumi Okamoto (il sole penetra le illusioni ~ Day Break Illusion).
HIMEKA just announced earlier this month that she was dropped from her agency amuleto (run by 5pb.), and is in danger of having to return to Canada if she does not have a new contract by the beginning of May.
Via [0takomu]
