Crunchyroll Anime Awards

"Anime Awards" and "The Anime Awards" redirect here. For the list of anime awards, see List of animation awards.

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]

Crunchyroll Anime Awards
Previous: 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards May 25, 2025 (2025-05-25)
The Anime Awards logo
Awarded for	Best in anime of the previous year
Country	United States Japan
Presented by	Crunchyroll
First award	January 11, 2017; 8 years ago (2017-01-11)
Website	crunchyroll.com/animeawards

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

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

Current

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

• Best Continuing Series (2018–2019; since 2023)
• Best New Series (since 2023)
• Best Original Anime (since 2023)

Production awards

• Best Animation (since 2017)
• Best Character Design (since 2019)
• Best Director (since 2019)
• Best Background Art (since 2024)

Music awards

• Best Opening Sequence (since 2017)
• Best Ending Sequence (since 2017)
• Best Score (since 2018)
• Best Anime Song (since 2023)

Voice acting awards

Main article: Crunchyroll Anime Award for Best VA Performance

• 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

• Best Drama (2017–2018; since 2020)
• Best Comedy (2017–2018; since 2020)
• Best Action (2017–2018; since 2022)
• Best Romance (since 2022)
• Best Slice of Life (2018; since 2024)
• Best Isekai Anime (since 2025)

Character awards

Main article: Crunchyroll Anime Award for Best Character

• Best Main Character (since 2023)
• Best Supporting Character (since 2023)
• "Must Protect At All Costs" Character (since 2023)

Special

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

• 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

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

See also: List of Crunchyroll Anime Award records

Series

The following nominees received multiple nominations (5 or more): Nominations Title 47 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba 46 Attack on Titan 45 Jujutsu Kaisen 31 Spy × Family 29 My Hero Academia 25 Chainsaw Man Ranking of Kings 22 Dandadan Mob Psycho 100 20 Frieren: Beyond Journey's End 19 Kaguya-sama: Love Is War 17 Oshi no Ko 16 Delicious in Dungeon Kaiju No. 8 Vinland Saga 14 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 13 The Apothecary Diaries Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Solo Leveling 11 Beastars Made in Abyss Megalo Box My Dress-Up Darling Odd Taxi Wonder Egg Priority 10 Bocchi the Rock! Great Pretender One Piece Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! 9 The Ancient Magus' Bride Carole & Tuesday Fruits Basket Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress 8 Aggretsuko Hell's Paradise KonoSuba: God's Blessing on this Wonderful World! Lycoris Recoil Mashle: Magic and Muscles Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid The Promised Neverland Sarazanmai 7 86 Devilman Crybaby March Comes in Like a Lion Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World Tower of God Yuri on Ice 6 Dorohedoro Dr. Stone Erased Komi Can't Communicate Land of the Lustrous Little Witch Academia Ranma ½ Tokyo Revengers Violet Evergarden Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead 5 Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju Dragon Ball Super Heavenly Delusion Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation SK8 the Infinity Ya Boy Kongming! Zombie Land Saga

The following winners received multiple awards (2 or more): Awards Title 22 Jujutsu Kaisen 19 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba 17 Attack on Titan 15 My Hero Academia 10 Spy × Family 9 Solo Leveling 7 Yuri on Ice 6 Chainsaw Man Kaguya-sama: Love Is War 4 Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Mob Psycho 100 One Piece Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World 3 Dandadan 2 Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Devilman Crybaby Dr. Stone Erased Horimiya JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Made in Abyss Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Odd Taxi Ranking of Kings That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime The Promised Neverland The Rising of the Shield Hero

Films

The following nominees received multiple nominations (2 or more): Nominations Title 6 Suzume 4 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train Jujutsu Kaisen 0 One Piece Film: Red 3 Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time Look Back 2 A Silent Voice Belle Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle

The following winners received multiple awards (2 or more): Awards Title 3 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train Jujutsu Kaisen 0 2 Look Back

Criticisms

Bias towards popular shows

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 stopped the extremely popular superhero series My Hero Academia from unexpectedly losing the Anime of the Year to Made in Abyss in the following edition.^[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

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

• List of animation awards