#Tengoku-Daimakyo, JJK S2, OSHI NO KO Score Wins in Technical Aspect Categories

The Aspect Awards are where we focus on the technical sides of anime. As a refresher, a panel from the Anime Trending team debates on what to nominate in the various Aspect categories — such as Best in Animation and Best in Character Design — every season before releasing the finalized candidates out into the wild for public voting. Here are the Aspect Award winners for the 10th Anime Trending Awards.

Winning our second Best in Episode Directing and Storyboard award (we introduced the category in the 9th ATA) is “Their Choices,” the gentle but emotionally powerful eighth episode of sci-fi anime Tengoku-Daimakyo. The episode earned 4,662 votes out of the 16,350 total, allowing it to narrowly beat Vinland Saga Season 2’s “Oath” (storyboarded by Atsushi Kobayashi and directed by Kento Matsui, 4,440 votes) and OSHI NO KO’s “Egosurfing” (storyboarded and directed by Kuniyasu Nishina, 4,354 votes).

The storyboards for “Their Choices” were contributed by Haruka Fujita, a Kyoto Animation alumni (now freelancer) who was the director of Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll and the series episode director for Violet Evergarden. This is Fujita’s first post-KyoAni storyboard credit (discounting her work on Eve’s “White Snow” music video). The episode direction was handled by Ryou Nakano (co-assistant director for Youkai Watch: Shadow Side, and storyboard artist/episode director on various series). 

Another Tengoku-Daimakyo victory can be found in the Best in Sceneries and Visuals category. The dirty post-apocalyptic landscapes and the contrastive clinical academy interiors of art director Yuuji Kaneko (Josee, the Tiger and the Fish), combined with the (more restrained than usual) sensibilities of director of photography Kentarou Waki (Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway’s Flash) and color design work from Izumi Hirose (Drifting Home), allowed the show to earn 4,722 out of 16,505 votes.  

For Best in Animation, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 won the award with 5,696 out of 15,641 votes. The supernatural action series provided a lot of praise-worthy material, but the animation also struggled visibly on a more than occasional basis — especially during the action-heavy “Shibuya Incident Arc” that consumed most of the season — due to brutal production circumstances. As it turns out, this was not enough to dampen its allure among the show’s fans. The first season previously won the award back in 2021.

The Best in Character Design and Best in Adapted Screenplay awards both went to OSHI NO KO. This is the second show with Kanna Hirayama’s attractive character designs, after Rent-A-Girlfriend in 2021’s 7th ATA, to win the Character Design award. OSHI NO KO’s series composition credit is held by Jin Tanaka, who has done series composition for shows like The Misfit of Demon King Academy and Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. Tanaka’s work on the first Laid-back Camp season garnered it a nomination in the 5th ATA.

OSHI NO KO also won the Best in Voice Cast Award, with 4,651 out of 14,951 total votes.

For Best in Original Screenplay, the award went to the action-comedy Buddy Daddies, which has Yuuko Kakihara (The Aquatope on White Sand, one of the original screenplay nominees in 2022) and the show’s story draft writer Vio Shimokura (You, Me, and Her: A Love Story scenario writer) as co-series composers. 

Finally, Yutaka Yamada’s music compositions for Vinland Saga Season 2 won the Best in Soundtrack award. Yamada was previously nominated for its first season and for his work in Great Pretender.

You can peruse the full Aspect Award results over here.