It’s Time To Nominate Your Best Of 2022

/ Kerrie

You thought we forgot about the annual best-of vote? Of course not. Granted, it’s coming much later than it normally would, due to the last few months being incredibly busy for everyone on Team Homicidols as of late. Not to mention the sheer chaos that the idol world has thrown at us.

Which is why I’m recycling 2020’s intro for the second year running!

Oh thank goodness, the ongoing agony that has been 2020 ̶2021 2022 is almost over. Just over a month week to go now, I can almost feel the collective weight that has been this hell year being lifted from my shoulders as 2021 2022, free from possibly the second-worst and most confusing year what was definitely A Year that most of us have had to face in our lifetimes; at least, until three days into 2021 2022 2023 when we’ll probably all get drafted into a war against a vengeful alien species from another planet perish in the impending heat death of the universe collectively get banned from Twitter by a billionaire that really doesn’t like Babymetal at the same time another much-loved Homicidols figure announces her retirement (just like our dear Maniac -sob-and Chris 🙁 )

Wow, that’s starting to get confusing, remind me to start the best-of proceedings extra early in 2023 so I don’t have to re-use this bit again. My twitter is bad enough for repeating tired bits for years straight as it is.

Speaking of repeating the same bit for years on-end, it’s the same nomination system as previous years, because hell yes, does this system work; we at Team Homicidols have made our secret best-of base lists. The stuff we fall back on if none of YOU guys can agree amongst yourselves. Then we compare ours and your nominations in a complicated-yet-balanced method to create the final shortlist that you’ll vote on at the start of the year. That way, our personal album pick of “Toggy Serenades a Froggy” gets replaced by all you guys who kept nominating “Ichigo Rinahamu Reads the Tanya Turner Wikipedia Page”

This year’s categories include:

  • Letdown Of The Year: What disappointed you the most this year? Serious problems, or petty complaints, anything goes as long as it let you down! (Last year’s winner: The Seiko Oomori/Kannagi Maro abuse fiasco)
  • Surprise Of The Year: What was the most shocking or unexpected (in either a good or bad way) announcement to come out of 2022? (Last year’s winner: Kashiwagi Yuki joins every WACK group)
  • Debut Of The Year (Groups): Self-explanatory, out of the new groups formed last year, which did you like the most? (Last year’s winner: ASP)
  • Debut Of The Year (Members and Soloists): Did a group get some particularly endearing new members this year? Or perhaps, a soloist made a particularly impressive debut? This is the category for celebrating individuals. (Last year’s winner: Arima Emily (PassCode))
  • Reboot Of The Year: Reboot was retired last year due to lack of entries, yet, this year, it seems like there are so many artist reboots that we can’t fit them all! Where were you guys in 2021? Which returning group are you happy to see return?
  • Saddest Disbandment: The faucet of wota tears just never lets up. Even after 2021 expanded the tear-filled bathtub into an entire water park, there was no stopping the tragic group disbandments in 2022. (Last year’s winner: Burst Girl)
  • Saddest Graduation: Not to mention, the sheer individual talent we lost, both from members leaving groups and soloists announcing their retirements. The world is going to flood at this rate. (Last year’s winner: Imada Yuna (PassCode))
  • Performance Of The Year: Live events began returning in (almost) full-force compared to last year’s covid-limited options. Online performances are also included! (Last year’s winner: FOREVER GANG PARADE FOREVER (GANG PARADE))
  • Single Of The Year: This includes digital singles btw (Last year’s winner: Coro Da Noite (MIGMA SHELTER))
  • B-Side Of The Year: That other song you get on some singles that isn’t as advertised but usually better (Last year’s winner: BANG ON (MIGMA SHELTER))
  • EP Of The Year: For the sake of convenience, let’s call anything longer than 4 (non-instrumental) tracks and shorter than 7 an EP. (Last year’s winner: Playplay (Akugi))
  • Album Of The Year: And anything longer than 7 tracks goes here! (Last year’s winner: ANAL SEX PENiS (ASP))
  • Music Video Of The Year: Visual treats of the moving kind. (Last year’s winner: END OF DAYS (NECRONOMIDOL))
  • Promotional and Cover Art Of The Year: Visual treats of the still kind (Last year’s winner: Hallucinorange Vol. 2 (MIGMA SHELTER))
  • Collaboration Of The Year: Sometimes when an idol/artist and another idol/artist love each other very much, a beautiful collab is born. (Last year’s winner: Kashiwagi Yuki/WACK)
  • Funniest Moment: What made you laugh this year? PLANCKSTARS in particular has had so many stand-out funny moments that we had to create an additional Plasta-specific variant of this category this year, but there were still plenty of funny moments outside of their weird little world worth mentioning too. (Last year’s winner: MIGMA SHELTER hold a graduation ceremony for Mimimiyu’s chair)
  • Overseas Act Of The Year: While we at Homicidols give the most attention to Japanese idols, there’s plenty of idols and idol-inspired artists all over the world who deserve a nod too. Nominate your favourite non-Japanese act here (Last year’s winner: Fingers Cross (Thailand)) 
  • Friends Of Homicidols: Acts who deserve recognition despite not getting regular coverage on Homicidols.com. We’re talking non-idols, ex-idols, idols who don’t fit exactly into what we cover on here, collaborators and anyone else we love round these parts. (Last year’s winner: Sari)
  • Most Expected To Breakthrough in 2023: Who are you anticipating big things for in 2023? (Last year’s winner: NELN)
  • Song Of The Year: The musical free-for-all, singles, b-sides, album tracks, if it’s classed as a song it counts. (Last year’s winners: The Final Blinkings (Minna no Kodomochan), SAKEBE (ASP))
  • Idol Of The Year: Which idol made the biggest impact in 2023? (Last year’s winner: PIGGS)

Some additional notes:

  • Anything from December 2021 to November 2022 is eligible to be nominated.
  • Multiple nominations are allowed!
  • Appropriate non-Japanese acts are permitted!
  • To avoid confusion, graduations and disbandments that were announced in 2022 but will occur after November will not be permitted (but will be eligible next year!).

To submit your nominations, please fill in the below form between now and December 30th. Alternatively, you can tweet your nominations either to @homicidols, or me, @weeaboo_woman.