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Ghibli's From Up on Poppy Hill Nominated for Annie Award

The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood has announced the nominations for the 40th Annual Annie Awards, which will be presented at UCLA in Los Angeles on February 2, 2013. Hayao Miyazaki, Keiko Niwa, and the English-language dub's Karey Kirkpatrick have been nominated in the Writing in an Animated Feature Production category for Goro Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's anime film From Up On Poppy Hill.

From Up On Poppy Hill is competing against the writing staffs of ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Frankenweenie, Brave, and Wreck-It Ralph.

Tron: Uprising, Disney's American television series partially produced by Japan's POLYGON PICTURES, received nods for Best Animated Special Production (for the episode "Beck's Beginning"), Character Design in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production ("The Renegade, Part I"), Production Design in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production ("The Stranger"), and Storyboarding in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production ("The Reward"). Nickelodeon Animation Studios' American series The Legend of Korra has been nominated for Best Animated Television Production For Children ("Welcome to Republic City"/"A Leaf in the Wind") and Character Design in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production ("Welcome to Republic City").

The distributor GKIDS has already submitted From Up On Poppy Hill for a possible Oscar nomination, with its qualifying run held in Los Angeles last month. The film also won the Japan Academy's Animation of the Year award, and it has been submitted for consideration for the Best Animated Feature category of the Golden Globes Awards.

Sources: Deadline.com, The Wrap

Image © 2011 Chizuru Takahashi, Tetsurō Sayama, GNDHDDT

Update: Other anime projects that received Annie Award nominations include Summer Wars (for best direction), Ponyo (for best direction, music), Howl's Moving Castle (for best direction, writing), Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (for best animated feature, direction, animated effects, music), Wolf's Rain (for best music), Millennium Actress (for best feature, direction, voice acting, writing), The Animatrix (for best home entertainment production), and Blood: The Last Vampire (best feature).

Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli's Spirited Away won in every category for which it was nominated: Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Theatrical Feature, Directing in an Animated Feature Production (Miyazaki), Music in an Animated Feature Production (Hisaishi), and Writing in an Animated Feature Production (Miyazaki).