Hi everyone! Firstly I'd like to apologise for a post I made about onsion on here earlier for breaking the subs rules; I have checked them with my other posts and they should be fine, but please let me know if they aren't. I'll delete them and upload them to the relevant subreddit or imgur as soon as I can. Secondly thank you to u/Groenboys for reminding me of this drama! Without further ado, let's get into this:

1: What is Yuuri on ice?:

Yuuri on ice is an extremely popular sports anime which aired from October to December of 2016. The series focuses on Yuuri Katsuki, who returns to his hometown of hasetsu following a crushing defeat at the grand prix final. After a video of yuuri dancing to fellow male figure skater Victor nikiforov's routine is posted online, Victor goes to Japan and becomes Yuuri's coach. There's a bit more to it, but this is the shortest and most spoiler free summary.

2: What is crunchyroll/ crunchyroll awards?:

Crunchyroll is a very popular anime streaming service which distributes anime such as Naruto, Haikyuu!! and more; they have also produced crunchyroll originals and helped create the very popular music video for Porter Robinsons Shelter with multiple Japanese animators.

The crunchyroll awards are an anime awards show hosted by crunchyroll created in 2016, where a mix of judges and votes from fans are used to determine who will win. The awards are split into various categories including best girl, best opening and best action.

Part 1: The nominees are announced:

Before I start this part, I'd like to emphasise two things: how insanely popular Yuri on ice was, and how stacked the categories were. When Yuri on ices final episode premiered in December of 2016 both tumblr and crunchyroll crashed with how many people were using the sites, actual Olympic figure skaters such as Johnny Weir gushed about the show, other figure skaters skated to the music or re created the routines from the show, and American figure skater Joe Johnson referenced the anime on live TV. It was big. Yuri on ice was also released in 2016, when other popular anime such as Erased, Mob psycho 100, Jojo's bozzare adventure: diamond is unbreakable and boku no hero academia were also released. In December 2016, Crunchyroll announced it was making its first anime awards show and these were the categories: anime of the year, hero of the year, best fight scene, villain of the year, most heart warming moment, best boy, best girl, best couple, best animation, best drama, best comedy, best action, best opening and best ending. The nominees were chosen for each category, and the race was on for their respective fandoms to get people voting. Many posts were made during this time encouraging people to vote once January 3rd rolled around, and on January 11th the winners were announced.

This is where shit hits the fan.

Part 2: Yuri on ice sweeps the awards:

As I said, in January of 2017 the winners of the first official crunchyroll anime awards were announced. The winners are as follows:

Anime of the year: Yuri on ice

Hero of the year: Deku Midoyira, My hero acadamia

Villian of the year: Gaku Yashiro , Erased

Best boy: Yuri Katsuki, Yuri on ice

Best girl: Rem, re: zero

Best fight scene: Shigeo vs. Koyama, mob psycho 100

Best animation: Yuri on ice

Most heart warming scene: The kiss, Yuri on ice

Best drama: Erased

Best couple: Yuri and Victor, Yuri on ice

Best comedy: Haven't you heard? I'm Sakamoto!

Best action: Mob psycho 100

Best opening: History maker, Yuri on ice

Best ending: You only live once, Yuri on ice

There was a ... pattern in the winners, to say the least.

There were some people who were satisfied with the results; I don't think I need to say what fandom they were apart of. But in general the anime community was pissed, and drama, fights and debates ensued. Mob psycho 100 fans in particular were annoyed with the results, as they argued their anime deserved the sweet best animation and best anime award. The erased fandom also wasn't happy that the kiss won best heart warming moment over *SPOILERS* the scene where Kayo eats a homecooked breakfast for the first time. The animation quality in Yuri on ice also became a meme for a bit after it won; since the animation is all modelled from the moves of retired figure skater Kenji Miyamoto, the animation gets... interesting at times. This was a particularly sore spot for mob fans, as the unique animation is one of the most praised parts of the show. The debate of whether Yuri on ice was even good in the first place also raged on with many weaboos, though most people generally agreed that Yuri on ice was good but didn't deserve all of the awards it got, including YOI fans themselves. The Yuri on ice fandom and the voters also naturally got involved to defend the anime. Others fans also criticised crunchyroll for nor having any kind of moderation or judges to weigh in on the votes and stop YOI from winning every category it was nominated for; while I did find this podcast from mothers basement where one person said they were a judge for the awards, it seems like the judges were there to pick what should be nominated rather than having any actual say in what won. Other people began attacking YOI fans for... being fans of an anime that won a lot of awards I guess? The debate raged on for quite some time, until eventually the drama faded away as Yuri on ice went on hiatus and the crunchyroll awards moved onto the next year.

Part 3: the aftermath:

After this whole drama, the 2017 crunchyroll awards made some changes: firstly the categories where changed, with most heart warming moment and best couple being taken out and judges chosen by crunchyroll who had knowledge of or worked in the industry of anime / manga. In 2020 crunchyroll also gave voters the chance to vote for judges. The awards were also not this controversial again; some reasons may include that while there are still very popular anime from 2017-2020, none of them have arguably gotten to the level of hype that Yuri on ice was at the time of the nominations. Another reason is that YOI has been in hiatus since the first awards; while a prequel movie named ice adolescence has been announced and confirmed to be in production shortly after the ending of season 1, the most recent update was this post from the Yuri on ice team in 2020 stating the movie was being delayed. As a result of this YOI hasn't been nominated since, which is sad for YOI fans but probably relieving for fans of other anime. The nominees for 2017 were also more balanced, with popular name such as a silent voice, your name, little witch academia, the ancient magus bride and Miss Kobayashi's dragon maid being among the nominees that year. Also while you can take this part with a grain of salt, because I don't really have any sources for it, as a fan of YOI at the time I believe the drama definitely helped in killing of the hype; while other anime fans at the time such as the anime man, mother's basement and super eyepatch wolf criticised or just disliked the anime, YOI discussions became less about how great it was and more about whether or not it was overrated or truly the pinnacle of LGBT representation the fandom touted it as being (I may also make a post about the drama surrounding YOI vs. no.6 / killing stalking / classmates / banana fish / samurai flamenco because that was a wild ride too).

And now we have come to the end of this story! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this. As always if anything in here is wrong please let me know, and I will leave with this quote from an absolute prophet of our time :" Can't wait to see Mob Psycho get robbed "