Feb 19, 2024

"Beyond the Spider Poem," "Blue–eyed Samurai" comes out big at the Annie Awards - full list of winners

Sony Pictures Animation's "Spider・Man: Beyond the Spider・Verse" and Netflix's "Blue Eye Samurai" appeared as major winners at the ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards on Saturday night at UCLA's Royce Hall in Los Angeles.

The Hostless 51st edition suffered an over-long and disjointed presentation in an anodyne tone that seemed unaware of the ongoing furor in the Los Angeles animation industry (or even that the animation industry existed outside the ceremony).

To be fair, Annies are lovingly awkward year after year, but last night's ignorance felt particularly awkward against the backdrop of everything that happened with last year's animation. No one understands how the animation industry works better than anyone watching Annie's, and it deserves something more daring and entertaining than having to hear the voice actors growl. If this is the animation industry's best step, we can hardly expect others in Hollywood to take us seriously as well. (See Judd Apatow's tone-setting monologue at the recent DGA Awards as an example of how to talk to the industry crowd.

In one important way, last night's ceremony was played out like a repeat of the 2019 Annie Awards ceremony where the previous Spider-Man movie made a big impression on Spider-Man poetry. At both ceremonies, Spider-Verse won the top prize in the animated feature category. In both ceremonies, Spider-verse won all the categories nominated by 7-on-7. And at both ceremonies, Spider-Verse won the Craft Award for feature directing, character design, production design and editing.

But Sony's latest did not wipe out all the feature awards. Netflix's Nimona, which had more nominations (9) than any other film, managed to grab a pair of Annie's (best screenplay and voice actor in a feature film). (Miyazaki did not attend Annie's, nor did he direct Across The Spider-Verse.

Elemental and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, each had six nods, both went home with empty hands. But perhaps the biggest feature of the night was Makoto Shinkai's stunning sparrow, which failed to win a single award from its seven nominations. (Neither Pete Son nor Shinkai appeared in Annie's.

Awards on the series side were more evenly distributed, with Netflix's Blue Eye Samurai leading the way with six wins. Disney Television animation's Moon Girl and Devil Dinoza received 3 awards, while Disney Lucasfilm's Star Wars Visions received 2 awards. The night's biggest series Snub- The Reign of the elegant sci-fi series Scavengers of Max, there were 4 nominations and nothing won.

Some notes and notable wins:

*One of the things Annie does well is to have two feature film categories – one for big budget features and one for indie films, which would otherwise not be recognized. This year's Indie Feature Award was won by Pablo Berger's Robot Dreams and will be shown in theaters in the U.S. later this year by Neon. The film, which has also been nominated for an Academy Award, won the Best Animated Feature Award at the European Film Awards, and is widely welcomed in Spain with 2 Goya awards for Animated Feature and Adapted screenplay.

* Ghee Happy won the best kindergarten series. It's a happy ending for a project with a complex backstory: Netflix produced the show, but decided not to release the show at the last minute. Somehow, the creator Sanjay Patel was given permission to self-distribute the series on Youtube. Success at Annies is a further justification for Patel's project, which is starting to build something like this on Youtube:

*Takeshi Honda, animator of Studio Ghibli, won the Character Animation Award for his work on Boy and Heron. This marks the second time in 14 years that the 2d animator has won this honor.

*Blue Eye Samurai co-creator Michael Green gave one of the worst and best acceptance speeches of the night at the same time. Worst of all, he thanked the crew for not seeing their family, so worked on weekends, and "kill [ing] myself to make this show.""Even if meant as an exaggeration, such comments are by no means a good idea in front of the industry crowd, but while not managed with the Blue Eye Samurai problem, Green is the only one who addressed AI in a substantive way in his speech, among other things," he said. The AI can't touch anyone in this room unless it's unique, honest and guessable.When we create, it is an expression of the soul and cannot be programmed.

* Silvergate Media and Netflix's Hilda won the Best Series for Kids. The award was for the last episode of the series, "Chapter 8: Fairy Island." It's a great bookend for the show, which won the same award in 2019 for its first episode of the series, "Chapter 1: Hidden People."

* By company, Netflix received the most awards at nine, followed by Sony Pictures Animation and Disney with 7 awards each. It is surprising how much the consolidation of awards is in Annie among a handful of companies, a trend we also observed last year. Leading Los Angeles producers who did not win awards, including Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. Animation, Dreamworks, Illumination and Paramount Animation.

The full list of winners of the 51st Annual Annie Awards is below:

Spider-Man: Beyond Spider-Verse Sony Pictures Animation

Robot Dreams Arcadia Motion Pictures

Snoopy Presents: The Only One Mercy Apple's partnership with WildBrain Studios

the war is over. Inspired by the music of John & Yoko Electronic League

"Video games" by Tenacious D Pin Reel Co., Ltd.

Ghee Happy "Navagraha Ghee Happy Studio

Hilda "Chapter 8: Fairy Island" Hilda Productions Limited is a Silvergate media company run by Netflix. And Mercury Filmworks

Blue Eye Samurai "Pilot: Hammer Scale" Netflix Series/3 Arts Entertainment and Blue Spirit Production

Kizaji Moto: Generation Fire "Enkai" Trigger Fish Animation Studio & Blinkink

Little Poet Director: Justin King School: California Institute of the Arts

Blue Eye Samurai "All Evil Dreams and Angry Words" Production Company: Netflix Series/3Arts Entertainment and Blue Spirit Productions FX Production Company: Blue Spirit Thomas Decaens, Carl Bertin, Laurent Bretonniere

Spider-Man: Beyond Spider-Verse Production Company: Sony Pictures Animation Pav Grochola,Filippo Maccari,Naoki Kato,Nicola Finizio,Edmond Boulevard-Gilly

Blue Eye Samurai"101," "104," "106" Netflix Series/3 Art Entertainment and Blue Spirit Productions– Alex Bird

Boy and Heron Distributed by Studio Ghibli/Gkids-Honda Takeshi

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Production Company: Marvel Studios FX Production Company: Framestore- Fernando Herrera, Chris Hart, Nathan McConnell, Daniel Cabral, Chris McGee

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Insomniac Games-Insomniac Games Animation Team

The Girl of the Moon and the Devil Dinosaur "Beyond" Disney TELEVISION Animation / Cinema Gypsy Productions–Jose Lopez

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider's Verse Sony Pictures Animation– Jesús Alonso Iglesias

Star Wars: Vision "The Reach of the Screen" Lucasfilm Inc. - Paul Young

Spider・Man: Beyond the Spider's Verse Sony Pictures Animation - Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K.Thompson

Star Wars: The Vision "Aau Song" Lucasfilm Co., Ltd. -Marcus Wormstorm, Nadia Darrys, Dineo du Toyte

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse Sony Pictures Animation - Daniel Pemberton, Metro Boomin

Blue Eye Samurai "The Great Fire of 1657" Netflix Series/3 Art Entertainment and Blue Spirit Productions–Toby Wilson, James Wilson, Emil Mitef

Spider・Man: Beyond the Spider's Verse Sony Pictures Animation - Patrick O'Keefe, Dean Gordon

The Girl of the Month and the Devil Dinosaur "Run the Rink" Disney TV Animation / Cinema Gypsy Productions–Ben Juwono

Boy and Heron Studio Ghibli/Distribution: GKIDS-Hayao MIYAZAKI

Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur "Moon Girl Landing" Flying Burke Productions/ Disney TV Animation Diamond White (Character: Renella Lafayette/ Moon Girl)

Nemona Annapurna Animation for Netflix- Chloe Grace Moretz (Character: Nimona)

Blue-eyed Samurai "Ronin and the Bride's Story" Netflix Series/3 Arts Entertainment and Blue Spirit Productions- Amber Fountain

Nemona Annapurna Animation on Netflix – Robert L. Baird, Lloyd Taylor

Blue・Eyed Samurai "Ronin and the Bride's Story" Netflix Series/3Arts Entertainment and Blue Spirit Productions-Yuka Shirasuna

Spider-Man:Across The Spider-Verse Sony Pictures Animation-Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider Psalms Team

Windsor McKay (Lifetime Achievement) Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (posthumously) Joe Hisaishi Mercy Page

June Foray Award (Significant and Benevolent or charitable Impact)

BRIC Foundation, Alison Mann and Nicole Hendrix, Co-founders

Ub Iwerks Award (Technological Progress)

John Oxbury (posthumously)

Certificate of Merit (Support to the Arts and Industry)

Walt Disney Animation artist