It goes without saying that Malaysia has been caught in a state of merriment after Ipoh-born actress, Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh, was just announced as the first-ever winner of Asian descent, as well as the first-ever Malaysian, to bring home the Best Actress award at last night’s 95th Academy Awards in Hollywood.
Malaysian animation Mechamato nabs win at Tokyo Anime Award Festival 2023
But it turns out that we may have just as much to celebrate in Tokyo as well, as it was just announced by the creators of local animation series Mechamato over their social media pages that they have received the Anime Fan Award at this year’s Tokyo Anime Award Festival!
This comes after the show had been in the running to secure the accolade, and had been competing against other nominees from the category including anime franchise veterans Uta no Prince-sama as well as TIGER & BUNNY. The winner was selected through an open vote from among fans with the results collated before being published on the award’s official webpage earlier in February.
Gained a steady following in Japan
And it would seem that Malaysia’s own animated output has amassed quite a steady following among Japanese audiences, as Mechamato comfortably soared ahead into the top spot with 40,590 votes. This places it 8,976 votes ahead of the first-runner up, Uta no Prince-sama, which bagged 31,612 votes.
The actual awards ceremony took place yesterday (March 13th, 2023), which was attended by Mechamato showrunner, audio director, and Animonsta Studios Chief Operating Officer Anas Abdul Aziz, as well as animation director Dzubir Mohammed Zakaria.
For those who are not familiar, Mechamato was created by Animonsta Studios, an animation company based out of Cyberjaya. An offshoot of their highly popular BoBoiBoy series, Mechamato was first introduced back in December of 2022, where it also debuted on popular American streaming platform Netflix for the greater Asia-Pacific region. The series was said to have been developed based upon an initial pitch idea the creators had with Cartoon Network in 2018
Now in its second season, a prequel movie was also made based off on the show and was released in both Malaysia as well as Brunei in late 2022. It was aired in Japan through Cartoon Network Japan and Netflix Japan. The show was also nominated in the Best TV Anime category at the same award show.
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