Crunchyroll Anime Awards

Crunchyroll Anime Awards
Current: 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards
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 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.

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]

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)

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

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

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

• Best Voice Artist 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)

• 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)

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

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)

• 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)

The Crunchyroll Anime Awards have been criticized for the process used to select nominations. Following the first ceremony, there were also criticisms of the voting system and allegations of possible vote fraud. This was due to the anime series Yuri on Ice, which won all of its seven nominations including the inaugural Anime of the Year award, albeit amid controversy among Crunchyroll users who complained the awards that won did not deserve, especially accusing fans of the series for rigging the vote in a heavily aggressive campaign; the discrepancy between the votes cast in categories in which the series was nominated and those in which supposedly did not receive a nomination.^[6]

Jen Corbett of Crunchyroll stated that they have taken the criticism to heart and have adjusted the awards system. The jury's evaluation will be given greater weight than in the original awards ceremony to balance the votes cast in the audience vote. However, a similar scenario occurred at the 2nd Crunchyroll Anime Awards. This time, the anime superhero series My Hero Academia nearly swept all seven awards from ten nominations and an Industry Icon Award; the only loss was the Anime of the Year category. Some anime fans of the series severely criticized Crunchyroll for not winning the category twice.^[7]

The 8th Crunchyroll Anime Awards was also criticized for the fact that the fan vote could have distorted the final result, as some series have a much larger following than competing works and thus accumulate a higher number of votes.^[8]

At the 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards, Crunchyroll's decision to award the Anime of the Year category to Solo Leveling over Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End sparked debate, which heavily favored to win. While Solo Leveling enjoyed significant popularity and won multiple categories, critics argued that Frieren had broader critical acclaim and a more consistent narrative. The decision led some viewers to question whether the awards were prioritizing hype and recency over artistic merit.^[9] Despite receiving a record-breaking 16 nominations, including Anime of the Year and Best Animation, 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]

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]

• List of animation awards

• Official website
• Crunchyroll Anime Awards at IMDb