"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 animestreaming serviceCrunchyroll 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 awards have two rounds of voting. In the first round, each judges will submit up to five candidates per category. The six candidates that got the highest number of cumulative nominations from the panel will then be included in the final list. During the voting period, which lasts for a week, the public can choose a single nominee per category per day. The winners for each category are the ones who received the most votes from the judges and the public.
Any anime that was produced primarily in Japan and was released legally on television or online in Japan from November of two years prior to September of the past year are eligible to be nominated. This means that, for the 7th edition, any anime that was released from November 2021 to September 2022 are eligible.[3][4]
The set of categories that will be presented changes for each edition. The 7th edition, for example, featured 31 categories.
Hero of the Year and Villain of the Year awards were renamed as "Best Hero" and "Best Villain" respectively in 2018. However, they were renamed again in 2019 as "Best Protagonist" and "Best Antagonist" respectively.[5] On the same edition, "Best Opening" and "Best Ending" were renamed as "Best Opening Sequence" and "Best Ending Sequence" as well.
Wonder Egg Priority is the only original anime series to receive the most nominations without a win and did not nominate the Anime of the Year category.
Suzume earned the most nominations for films with 6.
Jujutsu Kaisen earned the most nominations for a franchise with 48.
Jujutsu Kaisen earned the highest wins in each year with 21.
Jujutsu Kaisen earned the highest wins in a single year / edition (8th) with 11 including Anime of the Year, which also became the first anime to win the award twice.
At the inaugural ceremony, Yuri on Ice swept all of the seven nominations including the Anime of the Year, amid controversy by fans.[6]
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is the first anime adaptation of video games to win the Anime of the Year category, which was based on a video game Cyberpunk 2077 by Polish video game development studio CD Projekt Red.
Jujutsu Kaisen earned the most wins for a franchise with 24.
