It’s that time once again when anime fans from across the globe place their votes on what series they believe was the best of 2025. The Crunchyroll Anime Awards have wrapped up for another year, and there were some surprises to be sure. From certain series sweeping the field, to others not getting the recognition they deserved, it was a wild time. But if you happened to miss the show and can’t be bothered digging through the internet to find out who won, we’ve got you covered. Here’s the short and sweet recap of the 2025 Anime Awards
Two anime swept the awards this year, with one of them racking up nine awards in total! That series is Solo Leveling Season 1, which won: Best New Series, Best Action, Best Main Character, Best Score, Best Ending Sequence, Best Voice Actor in English, Best Voice Actor in Brazilian Portuguese, Best Voice Actor in Castilian Spanish, and Anime of the Year. This doesn’t come as a surprise, as the first season of Solo Leveling was one of the biggest series last year, with everyone talking about every episode. Do I think it should’ve won all these awards, though? Maybe not, but I’ll get to that later.
The other big winner was Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, which took four awards: Best Director, Best Background Art, Best Drama, and Best Supporting Character. Fireren was one of my personal favourites from last year with its stellar art style and unique story that had me enthralled week after week. If you haven’t watched it yet, do it now. Other series that won multiple awards include Demon Slayer, DAN DA DAN, and Spy X Family, each taking home two awards. Outside of Solo Leveling, it was a pretty even spread, but some shows should’ve received a bit more love.
I know that these awards are decided mainly by fan vote, which is subjective and doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the show. But you’re telling me that people think that Sung Jin-woo is a better main character than Maomao?! Like, I get that he’s cool, but Maomao has so much depth and complexity to her character, and the fact that she was robbed of that award is a shame. In fact, The Apothecary Diaries only winning one award for Best Japanese Voice Actor is just not right. It’s a fantastic series that everyone reading this should go and watch this instant!
With my Apothecary Diaries rant out of the way, some other series that deserve some more love include Kaiju No. 8, Re: Zero, and Mashle, all of which only received one award. And stellar series like BLEACH, WIND BREAKER, Delicious in Dungeon, and Go! Go! Loser Ranger! received no love from the awards, which was disappointing. Not to take away from Solo Leveling’s success, but I wouldn’t agree that it was better than everything else from last year. But at the end of the day, it’s all opinions, so I won’t be salty about it (for long).
And those are our thoughts on the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards. While I may not agree with every result, let’s all just remember that the main purpose of these award shows is to celebrate all the fantastic anime that we’ve gotten over the past year. So if your favourite series didn’t get a win, don’t be that upset, because it’ll always be a winner to you (I just puked a little in my mouth).
You can check out the full list of winners here.
Did you watch the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards? What did you think? Do you agree with the results? Let us know in the comments where we can all agree that The Apothecary Diaries was robbed!
