First American Independent Anime Awards (Part 2)

Anime in film nominations was a flop this year even at award shows dedicated to animation excellence. Fullmetal Alchemist's The Conqurer of Shamballa and the stunning Satoshi Kon "indie", PAPRIKA (which comes to American theatres on May 25), all mananged to dodge some worthy awards. New York Comic Con's new anime award showcase may change that trend.

The nomination panels for the award will be hosted by primarily independent representatives from different fields of anime media, which is unlike the similar SPJA (Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation) Industry Awards held at Anime Expo which will involve similar categories of nominees, but is instead voted upon by its attendees.

Anime News Network reports that, "[a]wards will be given out in numerous categories, including Best Anime Feature (or OAV), Best Short Series, Best Long Series, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best DVD Package design, etc..."

Here is a link to one of the first Anime News Network articles concerning the award. This may be new news to you depending on whether or not you have been reading the ANN feed.

This article causes me to raise some questions:
Does Japanese animation derserve its own award program from a non-indigenous country?
Does it belong competing with other non-anime programs on American film, etc?
Should the anime industry take part in every opportunity afforded to it to gain popular media recognition?
Or myabe you don't give a care about the American media industry anyway...

(Note: Although that may not be what the award will look like, Kip still likes to imagine it will be a large, solid-gold Gundam.)