We are hurtling towards the end of 2025 and the completion of one more trip around the sun. Here at Homcidols, we mark this annual occasion by scouring our playlists, memories, and therapists’ notes for the best new songs, impressive performances, and most traumatic events of this past idol year.  As per usual, the sheer volume of superb material we saw from our idol oshi and their contemporaries over the past twelve months was simply overwhelming. 

As always, we here on Team Homicidols desperately need your help in identifying the nominees for consideration for Best of the Year honors.

We are sticking with the same nominating system as always so, as per tradition, I am recycling Kerrie’s text from previous years:

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. 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”

While we keep on recycling the preamble, every year is unique. For 2025, we have one very important announcement:

We will be excluding the category of Saddest Departure/Graduation for nominations and voting out of respect for the memory of Urin Kokoro of MAZARI.  It did not seem appropriate to either include or exclude her from consideration so, for 2025, this category will instead serve as a tribute to her memory. Her passing is, sincerely and unquestionably, the saddest departure of the past year. 

Also, please note: we are keeping our big change from last year and allowing everyone to submit up-to three nominations for best Single, EP, Album and Music Video. That seemed to work out really well.

AS ALWAYS: The Homicidols award year begins in December and ends in November, so the Best Of 2025 award period is from December 1, 2024 though next Sunday, November 30, 2025. This means that, for example, neither Konton Shoujo or Cinema & Boy CQ qualify for saddest disbandment since they are calling it quits in December.

Nominations are open now through Friday, December 5th.

Keep on reading for the criteria for each award or you can skip straight to the nomination form and risk nominating an EP in the Album category because you can’t be bothered to read instructions.

Category Descriptions for Homicidols Best of the Year, 2025:

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: Whatever the fxxk continues to plague Codomomental)

Surprise Of The Year: What was the most shocking (in either a good or bad way) or unexpected announcement to come out of 2025? (Last year’s winner: OG BiS 10 Year Reunion Show)

Debut Of The Year (Groups): Self-explanatory, out of the new groups formed in 2025, which did you like the most? (Last year’s winner: Phantom Siita)

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: Shizuku & Yayoi – Broken By The Scream)

Reboot Of The Year: Reboot? New System? They are basically the same thing and SO on trend. There is hardly an idol unit out there that hasn’t re-booted a least once in the last year or two. What is your favorite resurrection and or rebrand? (Last year’s winner: JyuJyu)

Saddest Disbandment: The faucet of wota tears just never lets up. Which unit disbandment will require the most therapy to get over? (Last year’s winner: MIGMA SHELTER)

Saddest Departure/Graduation: Category Suspended for 2025. (Last year’s winner: Brazil – MIGMA SHELTER)

Performance Of The Year: Idols were performing all over the world this year! Of all the 2025 performances you witnessed or experienced (in person, online, or via DVD/Blu-ray) which was the most impressive? (Last year’s winner: “Romeo is Sleeping” – MIGMA SHELTER)

Single Of The Year: This includes digital singles. We define “single” as a release that included one (single), two (single and b-side), or three (maxi-single) songs. (Last year’s winner: “Just Wanna xxxx With You” – Phantom Siita)

B-Side Of The Year: That other song you sometimes get on singles that isn’t as advertised but usually better (Last year’s winner: “Make a Move” – ASP)

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: “ICHI MILLI DEMO” – PIGGS)

Album Of The Year: And anything with 7 tracks or more goes here! (Last year’s winner: “Finger Runs” – Finger Runs)

Music Video Of The Year: Visual treats of the moving kind. (Last year’s winner: “Just Wanna xxxx With You” – Phantom Siita)

Promotional and Cover Art Of The Year: Visual treats of the still kind (Last year’s winner: “Finger Runs” – Finger Runs)

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: BABYMETAL x Electric Callboy – “RATATATA”)

Funniest Moment of the Year: What made you laugh this year? For clarification: What made you laugh in amusement, not despair?  (Last year’s winner: Nemuko (Ex-LEIWAN) Pocky-Day Challenge banned by Twitter as a “threat to self-harm”)

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: LuciDream – South Korea)

Friends Of Homicidols: Acts who deserve recognition despite not being  (or considering themselves) idols. We’re talking non-idols, ex-idols, bands/musicians, dancers/choreographers, collaborators, costumers, composers, producers, models, muses, wrestlers, and anyone else we love round these parts. (Last year’s winner: KILLERMACHINE)

Most Expected To Breakthrough in 2026: Who are you anticipating big things for in 2026? (Last year’s winner: FOKALITE )

Song Of The Year: The musical free-for-all, singles, b-sides, album tracks, if it’s classed as a song it counts. (“YorisouAme” -Chemical X)

Idol Of The Year: Which idol/unit made the biggest impact in 2025? (Last year’s winner: tie – Broken By the Scream/YURAPICO )

The Nomination Process

To submit your nominations, please fill in the Google form at the link below by Friday, December 5th.  If you don’t do the Google, you can DM your nominations to @homicidols on Twitter or message me (daemon444) over on the Homicidols Discord Server.

• Your Homicidols Best of 2025 Nomination Form