The History of Anime At the Academy Awards — Immortallium’s Blog
On the day that this article is posted, the nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards are due to be announced. Of particular note to anime fans will be the category of “Best Animated Feature” which sees six anime films, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, Earwig and the Witch, Lupin III: The First, ON-GAKU: Our Sound, Ride Your Wave and A Whisker Away all on the shortlist for the award. Taking this into consideration, I thought it might be worth looking back on the history of anime at the Academy Awards.
Before I begin this discussion, in the interest of transparency, I should clarify my own personal thoughts on the awards. I, like many others, used to regard the awards quite highly but, as time has progressed, I’ve steadily become frustrated with the ineptitude surrounding Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards and, for the most part, I tend to ignore the awards these days. However, there is no doubt in my mind that a win at these awards increases the mainstream appeal of the film in question and so I do hope each year to see either an anime or a more experimental animated film win the category which, for the most part, leaves me disappointed each year.
Interestingly, the history of anime at the Academy Awards begins prior to the creation of Best Animated Feature in 2001. Japan’s submissions for Best International Film, previously known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020, were the anime films “Pom Poko” and “Princess Mononoke” in 1994 and 1997 respectively. Since then, Japan has only submitted an anime film for Best International Film one other time in 2019 with “Weathering with You”. None of these films were ultimately nominated but I still believe these submissions to be noteworthy when it comes to anime’s relationship to the Academy Awards.
It’s also worth mentioning the relationship between anime and another category, Best Animated Short Film. The inaugural Best Animated Short Film award was presented in 1932 and, since then, as far as I’m aware, only three anime films have been nominated with Mt. Head being nominated in 2002, La Maison en Petits Cubes which was nominated and won the award in 2008 and Possessions in 2013.
Returning to the category of Best Animated Feature, anime saw early success with the category when Studio Ghibli ‘s Spirited Away won the award in 2002. Since then, no other anime film, nor any other non-English language animated film, has won although some other anime films have been nominated such as Howl’s Moving Castle in 2005, The Wind Rises in 2013, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in 2014, When Marnie Was There in 2015 and Mirai in 2018.
Even if the category of Best Animated Film is not amongst the most popular of Academy Award categories, it’s still a boon to win the award. I have distinct memories of talking to people who were unfamiliar with anime and an easy title to bring up was Spirited Away which some had seen and many had heard of due to receiving the Oscar. This award gave Spirited Away an unprecedented amount of attention for an anime film in the Anglosphere and helped to increase the general popularity of anime.
Even if I myself do not care for the Academy Awards as a whole, I still recognise their importance for both marketing and mainstream acceptance and hope that we can eventually see another anime film win Best Animated Feature someday. Let me know your thoughts on the history of anime at the Academy Awards, your thoughts on Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short Film, whether there were any anime films that I missed in association with the Academy Awards and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!
Originally published at https://immortalliumblog.com on March 15, 2021.