The Anime of Crunchyroll Awards Debate 2025 explained

The Crunchyroll Anime Awards are a pretty big deal. They are one of the largest awards events completely devoted to anime and the rare one that rewards different aspects of production, rather than just the best show and the best film. It is also an event that gives me hope for an animation future as a medium.

And yet, at the same time, watching the Anime Crunchyroll 2025 live from Tokyo reminded us of the biggest shortcomings of the award show and the reasons it increases arguments each year. You could sense this on -le as fans begin to complain that “individual leveling” wins all awards despite being widely considered a more thoughtless show than a high art anime. (“Solo leveling” made our list of the best Anime of Winter Season 2024.

This is not the first time this has happened, either. In fact, a popular choice seems to finish gaining almost every category annually. This, in turn, highlights an inherent problem with the anime-SEF awards, that it is the awkward position of being as much of a fan-driven event as it is one industry.

First, it’s important to know how the Crunchyroll Anime Awards work. It starts with a vote round to select the candidates for each category. This is overseen by the judges, which include critics, reporters, influencers, YouTubers, and other professionals among their ranks. Then, after the categories have been selected and completed, it is left for fans to vote. Fans can, as it were, vote as many times as they want with many limitations and no limits. As you would expect, this tends to cause issues.

As Crunchyroll CEO Gita Rebbapragada told a unique interview the day before the Crunchyroll 2025 Anime Awards occur, the company and award organizers leave it for fans to assemble themselves and push for their favorites. “We have a huge voting campaign obviously to make people know when they can vote, but much of it is just a grassroots,” Rebbapragada explained. “Supporters are encouraging fans to share who they vote for and that sort of thing.”

“We have seen over the years that there are not many discussions and kind of competitions happening,” it continued. “People like, ‘I want this show, I want this show.’ And is exactly the kind of grassroots. “

Remember you, this kind of fan engagement can certainly be fun. And yet, in terms of rewards, it means that the anime awards tend to be quite predictable, with most of the categories divided year on year between The most popular anime shows like “Demon Slayer” or “Jujutsu Kaisen” in recent years.

It all depends on a problem with identity. The Crunchyroll Anime Awards are both an attempt to become an anime Emmys and the Prestige Awards Show with deep links in the industry, but they are also a fan -driven awards event where regular people have the greatest voice over what wins each individual category. This leads to constant overwhelming winners.

So, what’s the answer? Simple: Start dividing the fans and those involved. Have a single audience award category instead of leaving the fate of each category to the most organized bandom. You can’t be the Children’s Choice Awards and also the Emmys. Here’s how we finish with anime titles like “Ninja Kamui” wins the best original anime although most responses at -le agree that it falls in quality in its second half.

Not just the fan’s vote, here are also the nominations. For the Crunchyroll Anime Awards to be free of arguments like this, they need very industry people who are familiar with certain parts of the animation craft to be part of the nominations. Even experienced journalists (this writer is included) is not necessarily extremely knowledgeable about, say, what, exactly, does it for great character design. For all the number of issues with the Oscars, they at least adhere to the absolutely sensible idea of ​​having peers to vote for their specific categories.