#SNAFU wins 3rd Best Anime Title, hands Re:Zero 3rd major defeat in the Summer 2020 Anime Awards

“#SNAFU wins 3rd Best Anime Title, hands Re:Zero 3rd major defeat in the Summer 2020 Anime Awards”

The final season of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU clinched their third overall major title in Anime Trending (AT) after being crowned as the Anime of the Season for Summer 2020, the most competitive season in AT history. SNAFU won over the second season of Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World by 289 votes, handing the latter’s third straight defeat and runner-up finish for a major title in AT history. SNAFU previously won the 2015 Anime of the Year title in the 2nd Anime Trending Awards (ATA) and the AOTS title for Spring 2015 – beating Fate Stay/Night: Unlimited Blade Works on both occasions.

With that, it became the first former AOTY champion to win an AOTS title again and to be re-nominated for Anime of the Year. To provide context, the first attempt by former AOTY champion to do the said thing was with Natsume’s Book of Friends, which won the 2016 AOTY title and was close to winning an AOTS title again in Spring 2017 when its sixth season aired, only to be defeated by Tsuki ga Kirei (which would later on emerge also as the Anime of the Year for 2017).

? SUMMER 2020 ANIME AWARDS ?
ANIME OF THE SEASON:
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Climax!

This is the 2nd AOTS Title for Oregairu. It first won back in Spring 2015 – beating Fate/Stay Night: UBW (2015). pic.twitter.com/24ROqsywmy
— Anime Trending (@AniTrendz) October 14, 2020

This is also the third instance that an anime won AOTS more than once. SNAFU is now in the same standing as Noragami, and Kaguya-sama: Love is War which won the AOTS Title twice. Lastly, the show was one of the biggest winners of the awards show, winning five awards in total which includes Favorite Male Character, which was awarded to its male lead Hachiman Hikigaya (who also was recently crowned as the Man of the Decade for the 2010s in AT’s first ever Decade Awards), Favorite Drama, Favorite Slice of Life, and Favorite Romance.

SNAFU’s awards total is tied with Rent-a-Girlfriend, which won the inaugural Favorite New Anime of the Season title. The said award moving forward will be given to the highest ranking new anime franchise in the event that the AOTS winner is connected to an already existing anime franchise.

? SUMMER 2020 ANIME AWARDS ?
Favorite New Anime of the Season: Rent-a-Girlfriend pic.twitter.com/9fDUyZmaxD

— Anime Trending (@AniTrendz) October 14, 2020

Two of the 5 awards won by Rent-a-Girlfriend were in the Character Awards: Favorite Female Character, which was awarded to Chizuru Ichinose, who narrowly won over Yui Yuigahama (My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU) by 223 votes, and Favorite Supporting Male Character, which was surprisingly won by Yoshiaki Kibe, most likely because of how he pushed the male lead, Kazuya Kinoshita in one instance of the show.

Here are your FINAL TOP 10 FEMALE CHARACTERS for Summer 2020!

? Other Results: https://t.co/8FvQuSDZR2 pic.twitter.com/PfNPetl0Pr
— Anime Trending (@AniTrendz) October 14, 2020

Despite not making it to the final list of nominees for Girl of the Year (GOTY) from the Summer 2020 bracket, Echidna (Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World) at least won as Favorite Supporting Female Character. She was on top of the female charts for three consecutive weeks and made history on the AT charts for scoring the biggest return of any character into any of the Top 10 Character Charts, after exiting the Top 10 down to #17 in the 6th week and straight back to #1 the following week. But because of her slow start and after showing her “true colors” in the later episodes of Re:Zero, some of her fans reportedly felt “betrayed” and dropped her support to her, which might have caused her to lose the final Girl of the Year nomination spot within the Summer 2020 Bracket to Asuna Yuuki (Sword Art Online) which earned her second consecutive nomination for the said title. Meanwhile, Yuuki also won the Favorite Couple-Ship title with Kazuto “Kirito” Kirigaya, finally after three attempts.

The Favorite Opening Theme Song Title was also awarded to Rent-a-Girlfriend for The Peggies’ single title Centimeter which was the fourth best theme song title won by the band in AT. Other winning songs by the band are Kimi no Sei, which won both the Best OP Theme Song of Fall 2018 and for the whole of 2018 in the 5th ATA. Stand By Me was crowned as the Best OP Theme Song of Spring 2019. At the same time, Nonoc won her first best seasonal theme song title with her single Memento as the Favorite Ending Theme Song of Summer 2020 for Re:Zero.

Overall, the Summer 2020 Anime Season was record breaking for Anime Trending as a total number of 103,640 votes were collected for the Top Anime Charts, beating the previous record set in Fall 2016 at 86,669 votes. The Character Charts also broke their own all-time records with the Female Charts recording 67,952 votes, and the Male Charts with 59,155 votes. More people voted this time in the Couple-Ship Charts than the Character Charts with 74,816 votes cast for the very first time ever. The Staff of Anime Trending are very thankful for those who participated in this record-breaking competitive season in Anime Trending history!

Oregairu SNAFU wins Anime of the Season by a narrow margin over Re:Zero for Summer 2020. Rent-a-Girlfriend, and Sword Art Online also qualifies for Anime of the Year, while Deca-Dence will compete in the Anime of the Year wildcards