Tengoku-Daimakyo has won Anime of the Year at the 10th Anime Trending Awards. The science fiction anime series was awarded with a total of five wins and is the first Production I.G and Disney+ exclusive series to win the top honors.
Besides Anime of the Year, Tengoku-Daimakyo also won in the following categories:
- • Best in Episode Directing and Storyboard: “Their Choices” — Ryo Nakano (Episode Direction), Haruka Fujita (Storyboard)
- • Best in Sceneries and Visuals: Yuuji Kaneko (Art Director), Izumi Hirose (Color Design), Kentaro Waki (Director of Photography)
- • Mystery or Psychological
- • Supernatural
This marks another epic comeback for the series as it beat 【OSHI NO KO】 during the Spring 2023 Anime Awards. The latter came in second place overall in the annual Anime of the Year voting.
Congratulations to Tengoku-Daimakyo for winning ANIME OF THE YEAR (AOTY) at #10thATA! Tengoku-Daimakyo won its seasonal award and now claims the biggest prize of all.
— Anime Trending (@AniTrendz) March 10, 2024
It takes home 5 awards! pic.twitter.com/b7q2384CXB
Tengoku-Daimakyo also won the genre awards in “Favorite Mystery or Psychological Anime” and “Favorite Supernatural Anime” at Anime Trending’s Spring 2023 Anime awards.
Before the start of the Spring 2023 anime season, Tengoku-Daimakyo ranked #17 in the Pre-Spring 2023 Anime Polls before debuting on the sixth spot of the weekly polls at the start of the season. It ascended to the first place spot on the charts during the last four weeks of the season. By the eighth week, the series had all but secured its spot in first place up until Week 11, beating out titles like OSHI NO KO by 51 votes, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury by 68 votes, and Hell’s Paradise by 223 votes.
🏆 Spring 2023 Anime Awards 🏆
— Anime Trending (@AniTrendz) July 16, 2023
ANIME OF THE SEASON:
Tengoku-Daimakyo
Studio: Production I.G (1st title win)
The anime that placed 17th place in the Pre-Spring 2023 Anime Rankings just WON ANIME OF THE SEASON to score the biggest comeback win of an anime in Anime Trending… pic.twitter.com/iID5E2Au2m
The top 10 nominees for this year’s Anime of the Year award were:
- 1. Tengoku-Daimakyo [6,291 votes]
- 2.【OSHI NO KO】 [6,132 votes]
- 3. Vinland Saga Season 2 [6,055 votes]
- 4. The Dangers in My Heart [5,970 votes]
- 5. JUJUTSU KAISEN Season 2 [5,368 votes]
- 6. My Happy Marriage [4,759 votes]
- 7. The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten [3,976 votes]
- 8. The Eminence in Shadow [3,692 votes]
- 9. The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You [3,200 votes]
- 10. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 2 [2,874 votes]
The full results of the 10th Anime Trending Awards can be viewed here.
Hirotaka Mori (Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale assistant director) directed the overall anime series, with Makoto Fukami (Blade of the Immortal) as series screenwriter, Minakata Laboratory’s Utsushita (“Adventuring Party ~Heroes of Forest~” music video) as character designer, Ryota Furukawa (Psycho Pass 3 co-main animator) as Hiruko designer, Shinobu Tsuneki (Fena: Pirate Princess) as mechanical designer, Akira Takata (Moriarty the Patriot) as gun designer, and Kensuke Ushio (Chainsaw Man) as music composer. Production I.G handled the animation production.
The main voice cast of Tengoku-Daimakyo includes:
- • Gen Sato as Maru
- • Sayaka Senbongi as Kiruko
- • Hibiku Yamamura as Tokio
- • Toshiyuki Toyonaga as Kona
- • Misato Fukuen as Mimihime
- • Shunsuke Takeuchi as Shiro
- • Tomoyo Kurosawa as Kuku
- • Misato Matsuoka as Anzu
- • Yuuki Shin as Taka
- • Kazuya Nakai as Robin Inazaki
- • Masako Isobe as the nursery director
- • Tadashi Mutou as Sawatari
- • Atsumi Tanezaki as Aoshima
The anime series adapts the original manga by Masakazu Ishiguro, which began in Kodansha’s Monthly Afternoon magazine on January 25, 2018. The series is published under the Afternoon KC imprint and has released 10 tankoubon volumes as of February 2024.
Hulu streamed Tengoku-Daimakyo in the U.S., while Star+ streamed the series in Latin America. Disney+ streamed the anime worldwide in other territories.
Denpa releases the manga series in English under the title Heavenly Delusion, describing the main synopsis as:
Within the safety of the walls, youths are raised in a nursery-style setting by robots. While life there may appear stale on the surface, the children are full of potential and curiosity. In many ways it is like a slice of heaven.
The outside world is a hell-scape. It is almost entirely void of anything mechanical and is now inhabited by bizarre, yet powerful supernatural beings.
Maru, with the aid of Kiruko, is out there crisscrossing what was once Tokyo for heaven. But after searching for so long, maybe heaven is more of an untenable dream than a potential reality.
Anime Trending also has a review for Tengoku-Daimakyo that can be read here.
