Decision '08... or would it be '09?

And the Winner Is...

Happy New Year! You waited for it, and now it's finally here. The much-anticipated results to The 27th Annual Kaiju Best of 2008 Year-End Awards have finally been announced! And boy, is it a doozy. Over nine thousand votes were recieved, and after three recounts, six busted computers and two arrests (see below), we decided to just count them by hand. Thanks to the hard work of Michael, Max, Rob, Zander, Jenny and all the other Studio Kaiju interns, we finally arrived at a satisfactory conclusion.

The Newcomer of the Year was closer than expected, as injured Kaiju Sophomore Official Nikkuman grabbed a pretty sizeable portion of the vote. But the favorite going in was Hero Intern '08, and there would be no upset this year. For the Best Tandem Team award, in a surprising decision, The Sea Amigos upset the field to grab the trophy. It appears that fans of the Kaiju Heroes were split between the teams of Neo Teppen and American Beetle and the Yokosuka Jump Squadron, which allowed the pocket of dedicated Amigos fans to pull ahead with the win. This ensures that for the third year in a row, Super Wrong will have cost the Heroes a victory in some capacity.

For the Call-Me-Kevin Award, it was down to the wire between Super Wrong and Dai Hachi Hachi. Who was the biggest loser? According to the fans, Dai Hachi Hachi got the nod. Congratulations, we guess. For the Pablo Plantain Memorial Award, in a shocker, the Zombie Pablo won his own award for going berserk and attacking Powa Ranjuru, Nikkuman and Pedro Plantain. And in the biggest vote of them all, as well as the closest, Uchu Chu snuck out another win against Neo Teppen in a tight race that included a surprising showing by undefeated Kaiju Hero Steam Powered Tentacle Boulder, who finished a close third.

Winners and Losers React

As with any award ceremony, there will be those who agree and disagree with the voting results. Typically, those are the winners and losers, respectively. Here now are some of the reactions from the lucky and unlucky amongst the Kaiju roster.

"I want to thank the Kaiju Commissioner for hiring me and giving me a chance, I want to thank the Kaiju Heroes for helping me out in the last year, and I want to thank all the fans out there that voted for me, even though I probably should've won by more. But that's cool. No worries. So when do I get my own character bio page on the website? And when can I drop this '08 from my name?" - Hero Intern '08

"This is all nonsense! Did you see how many awards I was nominated for? One! It wasn't even Kaiju of the Year! And my Furries are the Tandem Champions, and they got fourth place?! I froze a Kaiju Hero, and I don't even win anything? I call shenanigans! There's no way any of this was on the level. I'm furious right now." - Dr. Cube

"Well, you can't win 'em all. I knew I'd be in for a fight when I heard Uchu Chu got all his Swarm to vote for him. He's still the number one contender, and he's a good, tough opponent. And he's the only guy to beat me fair and square all year, so I guess he deserves it. Good for him. But I'm still the champ. Woooooo!!" - Neo Teppen

"My husband Jeremiah spent his Christmas in a coma on his hospital bed. His son was here with me. We both cried all day. Thanks for nothing." - Jessica the Pink Teddy Bear

Question of the Week

That Kaiju Mall sells awesome stuff, but it's a little hard to navigate right now, isn't it? I hope someone makes a new version of it soon.

Call-Me-Kevin, Yarsminko Arrested

Although the vote-counting operation at Studio Kaiju was a success, it was not easy. Complicating matters was the presence of Call-Me-Kevin, who was arrested and charged with voter fraud after attempting to stuff ballot boxes with votes for Call-Me-Thurston as best newcomer and himself as Kaiju of the Year, despite not being nominated for the latter.

Call-Me-Kevin, who entered the year as Kaiju Champion but finished with a 1-3 record, did not come close to qualifying for the Kaiju of the Year award. However, Kevin was undeterred as he broke into the Studio Kaiju headquarters and tried to send multiple emails with votes only for himself. The Kaiju interns, who had sacrificed their New Years Eve party plans for the recount, became suspicious when they saw the ballots only had votes for two categories and all of them originated from Hotmail accounts with usernames like "callmekevin", "cmk1" and "kevin316". Authorities were noted and Kevin, who is not particularly adept at sneaking or hiding, was found and apprehended immediately.

Later in the evening, Space Bug party creature Yarsminko broke through the Studio's brick wall with two pitchers of Royal Jelly and shouted "Oh yeah!". Although he apparently had gotten lost on the way to a New Years Eve event hosted by his bros Murph and Sully, Yarsminko decided to stick around and "party hardy", distracting the Interns and injuring two. The cops returned for a second time to pick up Yarsminko, who refused to believe the police were not actually a rock band led by someone named Sting.