Friends, for all of the bellyaching about the overall volume of quality idol output in 2017, we still managed to have an exciting showdown of idol forces for the best of the year. You don’t know it, and I won’t be too specific, but there were a lot of close calls in what follow here, and a number of ties just below the winners even at that — ultimately, even you all couldn’t decide what it was that most deserved to be honored with a Best Of. Good job!

Nonetheless, after months of pre-nominations and voting and etc., we got down to a healthy group of finalists, all of whom deserve a ton of credit for being the literal cream of the crop even thought only one was going to win — ultimately, in a situation like this, everything is subjective, anyway. BUT! To make things more interesting overall, while it is the picks of you all, the Western loud idol community, that really matter, I will again demonstrate my own incredible acumen for being correct about what’s best in idol, as will folks who contributed to the site over the course of the year. You’ll find it fascinating if not unnecessarily obscure!

As a brief preview: Do you remember how BiSH ran roughshod over the awards last year, basically making a mockery of the whole shebang? We managed to avoid that this time, though WACK’s influence was strong. However, for all of Watanabe’s stable’s influence over Western fandom, a new apple of our all-seeing eye has emerged, and the distribution overall, I think, speaks volumes as to where people line up and how they view what idol is producing.

Without further ado, I give you the Best of 2017. Continue reading →

You can still vote on the first ballot for the other categories, too!

Good morning, everybody! A lot of folks have voted on the first half of the ballot, and this half is the one that’s actually the most loaded with big awards. In a few cases, you’ll need to put your thinking caps on, questioning whether your personal fandom or what you know to be true is the greater priority. I’ll tell you, the results so far? People might be surprised, and in a pleasant oh-how-interesting-I-would-not-have-expected-that way.

If this is your first entree into the Best Of process, I’m asking for your contact info so that I can send you the randomly drawn prize, which will be randomly drawn on Sunday! Also, a brief satisfaction survey at the end.

Ready? Continue reading →

It took a while, gang — counting is hard! — but I finally got everybody’s nominees tallied for each category in the Best of 2017. The only thing left to do before we settle this? Figure out what happened in November that deserves to make the cut.

Rather than give up the actual, full list of nominees just yet, I’m approaching this in a completely new way: Below is a table; that table contains the least-vote getting actually qualified nominee per category. The task before you? If you think that something that came out in November (for instance, some highly anticipated album! some particularly violent MV!) needs to make the cut, then nominate it! BUT this isn’t a simple nomination — that thing you like needs to get at least as many nominations as the least vote-getting actually qualified nominee. Make sense? Continue reading →