Kyoto Animation confirmed on Wednesday that it decided to cancel the 11th Kyoto Animation Awards after further internal discussions. The awards organizer explained that it would have been difficult to continue the screening and judging process with the current state of the studio. The studio will contact applicants about what will happen with their manuscripts by email by the end of November, and asked applicants to contact the awards organizer if they do not hear back by December.
Kyoto Animation and Animation DO also announced that they are accepting applicants for their next intensive professional training course from November 20 to December 18.
Kyoto Animation had announced on April 19 that it would hold the annual awards again. However, the studio then announced on August 14 that it suspended its plans for the awards, after the fire at its 1st studio building on July 18.
Kyoto Animation announced the award program in 2009 and offered 300,000-yen (about US$3,600 at the time) grand prizes and 100,000-yen honorable mention prizes in novel, manga, and scenario (script treatment) categories. The awards added the “Animation DO Special Award” in 2015. In the first year, the rules noted that popular winning entries were to have had a chance at being animated by Kyoto Animation, but the rules for the second year did not mention this possibility.
The only work that has won a grand prize at the awards was the Violet Evergarden novel in 2014. The Violet Evergarden anime series debuted in January 2018, and an OVA premiered in April 2018. Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll (Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Eien to Jidō Shuki Ningyō), a side story to the Violet Evergarden anime, opened in Japan on September 6. A brand-new film will then open on April 24.
Submissions in the Kyoto Animation Awards have also inspired the Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club, High Speed! -Free! Starting Days-, Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!, Beyond the Boundary, and Myriad Colors Phantom World anime. Kyoto Animation’s KA Esuma Bunko imprint announced in July 2018 that it will produce an anime of Yūki’s Nijūseiki Denki Mokuroku novel.
Source: Kyoto Animation