The Japan Academy Prize Association announced in the 41st edition of its annual awards ceremony last Friday that director Masaaki Yuasa's 2017 film Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyo Otome (The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl) is the winner of the Animation of Year award.

The film is Yuasa's first work to be nominated for and awarded the Japan Academy Prize, considered Japan's equivalent of Hollywood's Academy Awards. It was nominated alongside Uchiage Hanabi, Shita kara Miru ka? Yoko kara Miru ka? (Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?), Hirune Hime: Shiranai Watashi no Monogatari (Ancien and the Magic Tablet), Mary to Majo no Hana (Mary and the Witch's Flower), and Detective Conan Movie 21: The Crimson Love Letter.

Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyo Otome, which debuted in theaters in Japan on April 7, 2017, earned an estimated 138 million yen on 120 screens in its opening weekend. By the end of the month, it had earned an estimated 422 million yen in gross revenues, according to box office data. New York-based GKIDS announced in January that it had acquired distribution rights to the film under the title Night Is Short, Walk on Girl. In a statement provided to MyAnimeList, GKIDS says it plans to screen the film in North American theaters in the fall.

Although the Japan Academy Prize has been awarded for 41 years, the Animation of the Year award has only existed for 12 years. Up until 2006, anime feature films were nominated alongside live-action feature films for the Picture of the Year award. The industry's attitudes toward anime films changed after wins by director Hayao Miyazaki's Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) in 1998 and Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) in 2002.

Source: Official site

← Previous year