#Mieruko-chan stunningly wins Fall 2021 Anime of the Season

Mieruko-chan puts on a stunning end to the three-season winning streak of sequel anime after winning the Anime of the Season Title over Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation by a very narrow margin of 10 votes – the second closest winning margin ever in the history of Anime Trending’s seasonal awards. Unfortunately, this is Mushoku Tensei’s second time coming up short for the seasonal major title and finishing as a runner-up for the grand prize. It previously lost to Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World in Winter 2021.

🏆 Fall 2021 Anime Awards 🏆
Anime of the Season:
Mieruko-chan

Mieruko-chan denies a “grand-slam” for the sequels; becomes the only non-sequel anime to win AOTS this year. pic.twitter.com/QJdrD7poPp

— Anime Trending (@AniTrendz) December 29, 2021

With the Anime of the Season title win, Mieruko-chan is the second anime produced by Passione to win the Anime of the Season title – ending the 6-year drought since they first won the same title with Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers in Summer 2015.

The fate of the two anime seems to also mirror their lead characters’ performances in their respective character charts. Mieruko-chan’s lead character, Miko Yotsuya, won as this season’s best girl after an outstanding 7-week win streak in the weekly female charts. She is one of the only three female characters to reign for that long. The other two are Karen Kohiruimaki (SAO Alternative: Gun Gale Online) who won for Spring 2018, and Shirayuki (Snow White with the Red Hair), who won for Winter 2016. Meanwhile, Rudeus Greyrat (Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation), just like his show, only finished as runner-up for this season’s best boy title behind Shinei Nouzen (86 EIGHTY-SIX).

It’s not all losses though for supporters of Mushoku Tensei since the show at least won two awards, including Favorite Action or Adventure and Favorite Supporting Male Character, which was won by Ruijerd Superdia. He is the second character from Mushoku Tensei to win a seasonal best supporting character award after Ghislaine Dedoldia, who won as best supporting female character for Winter 2021. This season, it’s Touko Sakurai (My Senpai is Annoying) who won as best supporting female character. She was followed by Anju Emma (86 EIGHTY-SIX) who coincidentally shares the same voice as her. Saori Hayami is the voice actress behind the Top 2 Supporting Female Characters.

Meanwhile, Red and Rit (Banished from the Hero’s Party) ultimately won the best couple-ship title for this season despite the late comeback of the other ship contenders in the latter weeks of the season. It seems the lead that they built up during their earlier 4-week reign was enough to keep them at the top of the race. Their show also won the Favorite Romance Anime award for this season.

Overall, Mieruko-chan turned out to be the biggest winner of the night–not only did it win the Anime of the Season Title, but it won the most number of awards for the night with a total of five awards. In addition, it also won awards for Favorite Supernatural, Favorite Mystery or Psychological Anime, and the Favorite Ending Theme Song award for Sora Amamiya’s “Mita na? Mita yo Ne?? Miteru yo Ne??”.  Meanwhile, 86 EIGHTY-SIX’s second opening theme “Kyoukaisen,” sung by amazarashi, won the Favorite Opening Theme Song Award.

LIST:  Fall 2021 Anime Awards Winners.

Nominations for the 8th Anime Trending Awards

Since Mushoku Tensei and 86 EIGHTY-SIX already qualified for Anime of the Year in the Winter and Spring 2021 Anime Season respectively – Banished from the Hero’s Party and Taisho Otome Fairy Tale will become Anime of the Year nominees as well. This is because they are the next two highest ranking anime after Mushoku Tensei, 86 EIGHTY-SIX, Mieruko-chan, and Komi Can’t Communicate during the 11th issue of Anime Trending’s Fall 2021 Weekly Anime Charts. Ranking of Kings would have also qualified, but since its current season has not yet ended, its nomination will be deferred to 2022 instead. This also applies to the other categories Ranking of Kings qualified for this season.

A total of 16 anime from Fall 2021 have secured a nomination for the 8th Anime Trending Awards. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation leads the pack with 15 nominations. Here are all the anime that have at least one nomination:

• Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – 15 nominations
• 86 EIGHTY-SIX – 14 nominations
• Komi Can’t Communicate – 9 nominations
• Mieruko-chan – 8 nominations
• Banished from the Hero’s Party – 7 nominations
• takt op.Destiny – 7 nominations
• The World’s Finest Assassin – 4 nominations
• Taisho Otome Fairy Tale – 3 nominations
• My Senpai is Annoying – 3 nominations
• Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut – 3 nominations
• The Heike Story – 3 nominations
• Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter – 2 nominations
• SELECTION PROJECT – 3 nominations
• Visual Prison – 1 nomination
• Sakugan – 1 nomination
• World Trigger S3 – 1 nomination

The awards that each of these anime were nominated for are available on the 8th Anime Trending Awards Nomination Portal.