Crunchyroll Anime Awards
| Crunchyroll Anime Awards | |
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| Previous: 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards May 25, 2025 | |
 The Anime Awards logo | |
| Awarded for | Best in anime of the previous year |
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| Presented by | Crunchyroll |
| First award | January 11, 2017 |
| Website | crunchyroll |
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards, also known simply as The Anime Awards, are awards given annually by the anime streaming service Crunchyroll to recognize the best anime of the previous year. Announced in December 2016, the awards were first presented in January 2017.[1] Crunchyroll describes it as a "global event that recognizes the anime shows, characters, and artists that fans around the world love most."[2]
The Anime Awards were originally held in California in the United States. In 2023, the Awards moved to the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo, Japan for the 7th ceremony and have been held there ever since. The most recent ceremony was the 9th ceremony, held on May 25, 2025, where Solo Leveling won the Anime of the Year award.
Process
[edit]The awards have two rounds of voting. Initially, each judge will submit up to five potential candidates for each category. Six candidates that received the highest amount of nominations from this round will be included in the final list for the next round, which is a one-week public voting. Winners for each category are determined by the most amount of judge and public votes weighted in a 70:30 ratio respectively since at least the 6th edition.[3]
For the first six editions of the awards, any anime that was produced by primarily in Japan and released legally on television, cinema, or online from January to December of the previous year were eligible for nomination. The eligibility period was changed for the 7th and 8th editions, from October of the previous two years (Fall season) to September of the previous year (Summer season). However, in December 2024, Crunchyroll announced that starting from the 10th edition onwards, the eligibility period will return to its previous format of eligibility from January to December, with the eligibility period for the 9th edition covering October 2023 to December 2024 to accommodate the change in format.[4][5] Eligible nominations for non-Japanese VA Performance are based on the initial release of the dub irrespective of when the anime was originally released.[3]
The set of categories that will be presented varies for each edition, with categories added, removed, or otherwise renamed. The 9th edition, for example, featured 32 categories.[4]
Categories
[edit]Current
[edit]Crunchyroll announced the categories for each edition around December. The following list are the awards featured on its latest edition. Of these, only four awards (Anime of the Year, Best Animation, Best Opening Sequence and Best Ending Sequence) are currently active in every editions since its inauguration in 2017.
- Anime of the Year (since 2017)
- Film of the Year (2018–2019; since 2022)
Series awards
[edit]- Best Continuing Series (2018–2019; since 2023)
- Best New Series (since 2023)
- Best Original Anime (since 2023)
Production awards
[edit]- Best Animation (since 2017)
- Best Character Design (since 2019)
- Best Director (since 2019)
- Best Background Art (since 2024)
Music awards
[edit]- Best Opening Sequence (since 2017)
- Best Ending Sequence (since 2017)
- Best Score (since 2018)
- Best Anime Song (since 2023)
Voice acting awards
[edit]- Japanese (JP) (since 2019)
- English (EN) (since 2019)
- German (DE) (since 2022)
- French (FR) (since 2022)
- Latin American Spanish (LA) (since 2022)
- Castilian Spanish (SP) (since 2022)
- Portuguese (PT) (since 2022)
- Arabic (AR) (since 2023)
- Italian (IT) (since 2023)
- Hindi (HI) (since 2025)
Genre awards
[edit]- Best Drama (since 2017)
- Best Comedy (since 2017)
- Best Action (2017–2018; since 2022)
- Best Romance (since 2022)
- Best Slice of Life (2018; since 2024)
- Best Isekai Anime (since 2025)
Character awards
[edit]- Best Main Character (since 2023)
- Best Supporting Character (since 2023)
- "Must Protect At All Costs" Character (since 2023)
Special
[edit]These are awards uniquely given on certain editions, and are not part of the voting process. In 2023, two special awards were announced: Special Achievement Award and Presenter's Choice; however, both were not given during the ceremony.
- Industry Icon Award (2018–2020)
- Global Impact Award (since 2025)
Retired
[edit]- Best Character
- Best Protagonist (2017–2022)
- Best Antagonist (2017–2022)
- Best Boy (2017–2022)
- Best Girl (2017–2022)
- Best Fantasy (2020–2024)
- Best Fight Scene (2017–2022)
- Most Heartwarming Scene (2017)
- Best CGI (2018)
- Best Cinematography (2024)
- Best Manga (2018)
- Best Couple (2017; 2020–2021)
- Best Voice Artist Performance
- Russian (RU) (2022)
Editions
[edit]| Ceremony | Date | Anime of the Year | Film of the Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Crunchyroll Anime Awards | January 28, 2017 | Yuri on Ice | — |
| 2nd Crunchyroll Anime Awards | February 24, 2018 | Made in Abyss | Your Name |
| 3rd Crunchyroll Anime Awards | February 16, 2019 | Devilman Crybaby | My Hero Academia: Two Heroes |
| 4th Crunchyroll Anime Awards | February 15, 2020 | Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba | — |
| 5th Crunchyroll Anime Awards | February 19, 2021 | Jujutsu Kaisen | — |
| 6th Crunchyroll Anime Awards | February 9, 2022 | Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 1 | Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train |
| 7th Crunchyroll Anime Awards | March 4, 2023 | Cyberpunk: Edgerunners | Jujutsu Kaisen 0 |
| 8th Crunchyroll Anime Awards | March 2, 2024 | Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 | Suzume |
| 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards | May 25, 2025 | Solo Leveling | Look Back |
Records
[edit]Series
[edit]Films
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The following nominees received multiple nominations (2 or more):
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The following winners received multiple awards (2 or more):
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Criticisms
[edit]Bias towards popular shows
[edit]Since its inception, the Crunchyroll Anime Awards have been criticized for its process in nominations and awarding. Its inaugural ceremony in 2017, saw allegations of possible voting fraud after the sports series Yuri on Ice won all of its seven nominations including Anime of the Year. The win caused a controversy among Crunchyroll users, who accused fans of the series for rigging the vote in a heavily aggressive campaign.[6] Following this, Crunchyroll responded by adjusting the awards system, introducing a new weighting system favoring jury in an attempt to minimize the effect of popular shows sweeping the awards. This change, however, did not stop the extremely popular superhero series My Hero Academia from nearly sweeping the following edition, only unexpectedly losing the Anime of the Year to Made in Abyss.[7]
The bias towards popular shows have been noted by several publications, including those who are part of the jury itself. In a reflection piece after the 8th edition, Animehunch opined that due to its design, the awards favor popularity over merit, noting that Vinland Saga was a far more better recipient of Anime of the Year than the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen.[8] This is reflected again in the following edition, where the extremely popular anime adaptation of the manhwa series Solo Leveling won the Anime of the Year over the critically-acclaimed Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. The decision led some viewers to question whether the awards were prioritizing hype and recency bias over artistic merit.[9] Meanwhile, despite receiving 16 nominations, Netflix's Delicious in Dungeon did not win a single award. This outcome led to speculation about a potential bias against non-Crunchyroll platforms, with many fans questioning whether the series was deliberately overlooked,[10] though Devilman Crybaby and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, both released on Netflix, won the award in 2019 and 2023 respectively.
Lack of diversity in nominations
[edit]The lack of diversity in the nominations was also criticized: 29 of the 32 award winners were works whose originals were published in Weekly Shōnen Jump; of the nine voice acting categories, four went to voice actors who voiced Denji from Chainsaw Man, while only one female voice actress won an award: she voiced Power from the same series. In an article in the This Week in Anime section on Anime News Network, in which editors Steve Jones and Nicholas Dupree had a sarcastic argument, they concluded that this award show was not for animators or translators, but for the bosses who collect the revenue from the franchises. In this context, the award for the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen was viewed critically in various categories, as the animation studio had been criticized in the past for its poor working conditions.[11][12]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Crunchyroll Announces Its First Ever Anime Awards". Anime News Network. December 21, 2016. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
- ^ "How It Works | The Anime Awards - Crunchyroll". Crunchyroll Anime Awards (crunchyroll.com/animeawards). Crunchyroll. Archived from the original on January 17, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
- ^ a b Coats, Cayla (January 21, 2022). "How Anime Awards Judging Works and How Winners Are Chosen". Crunchyroll. Retrieved December 13, 2024.
- ^ a b "Crunchyroll Anime Awards Returns to Tokyo on May 25, 2025". Crunchyroll News (crunchyroll.com/news). Crunchyroll. December 6, 2024. Retrieved December 6, 2024.
- ^ "How It Works". Crunchyroll Anime Awards (crunchyroll.com/animeawards). Crunchyroll. Retrieved December 6, 2024.
- ^ Wolf, Ian (January 30, 2017). "Yuri!!! On Ice wins Crunchyroll's "Anime of the Year" Award – Angering Crunchyroll users". Anime UK News. Archived from the original on December 30, 2022. Retrieved July 31, 2022.
- ^ Piedra, Josh (January 12, 2019). "Editorial: Breaking Down the 2018 Anime Awards". Retrieved June 1, 2025.
- ^ "A Letter To Crunchyroll: The Anime Awards Are Reflecting Popularity Over Merit - Animehunch". Retrieved June 1, 2025.
- ^ "Fans are Furious as 'Frieren' Loses Anime of the Year to 'Solo Leveling'". Anime Senpai. Retrieved May 30, 2025.
- ^ "16 nominations, 0 wins: Is Crunchyroll snubbing Netflix's 'Delicious in Dungeon' on purpose?". The Times of India. Retrieved May 30, 2025.
- ^ "This Week in Anime - Are the Anime Awards Broken?". Anime News Network. May 31, 2025. Retrieved June 1, 2025.
- ^ Fox, Joshua (November 21, 2023). "Studio MAPPA's Long Story Of Controversies Overshadows Its Success". Screen Rant. Retrieved June 1, 2025.
External links
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