This Week in Anime
Award Winning™

by Coop Bicknell & Sylvia Jones,

Are awards shows just performative acts of self-reflected glory? Coop and Sylvia discuss.

The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

Crunchyroll streams Apocalypse Hotel.
Amazon Prime streams City the Animation.
HBO Max streams Angel's Egg.
YouTube streams Cinderella Gray.

@RiderStrike @BWProwl @LucasDeRuyter @vestenet

Coop
Oh, baby, our industry's most divisively debated time of the year is here, Sylvia! The nominations for the 2026 Crunchyroll Anime Awards hit just the other day, and there's been a decent amount of chatter around the nominees, the judging pool, and the overall purpose of the show itself.
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© Crunchyroll
Especially since a little show called Solo Leveling swept most of its categories, including Anime of the Year, in 2025. With all that in mind, this crunchyroll-ed bone seemingly has plenty of meat to chew on.
Sylvia
First things first, I'd like to officially announce that you, Chris, Lucas, and I have all won the This Week in Anime Award for the Best Column about the Weeks in Anime. There was some stiff competition out there, but we cinched it and, dare I say, earned it. A hearty congrats to all of us.
sylvia01
© あらゐけいいち・講談社／CITY THE ANIMATION 製作委員会
I suppose, though, we can talk about those other awards if we have to.
Wow! We're part of an Award Winning™ Column, what an honor! But I understand the generally apathetic feelings most people have toward any award show. Between the Oscars not giving an actual hoot about animation and Geoff Keighley seemingly cursing the games he announces into cancellation, I really get it. However, I might be one of those overly optimistic people who love the idea of an award show in concept. Who doesn't want to celebrate the accomplishments of talented creatives? But in practice, it's an incredibly sloppy affair from the sounds of it.

In light of that Solo Leveling win, White Box Entertainment Boss (and former Crunchyroller) Miles Atherton talked about a good bit about the imperfect science of running the Anime Awards in its infancy. Additionally, Geoff Thew and Tristan Gallant threw in their two cents on the judging side of things. To me, it appeared to be a work-in-progress sort of show run with the best intentions, but who knows if that's the case under current management. Like other award shows, the Anime Awards read as a big PR stunt now, with a bunch of questionable strings attached.

No awards show survives contact with the enemy—and in this case, I'm defining "enemy" as the basic concept of an awards show. It's an inherently navel-gazing exercise whose purported objectivity will inevitably reveal every bias and insecurity that plagues the community in charge of it. Worse still if the results are thrown to a popular vote. It's designed to make people upset. And that's why we will never stop talking about them.
sylvia02
© アポカリプスホテル製作委員会
For better or for worse, the Anime Awards show us all our own reflection. So we may as well take some time here to do our makeup. In the proverbial sense. And maybe the literal. I've been working on it.
Do you have the former theatre kid makeup buff? It comes in handy, I swear.
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Heck, we've dealt with many of those same pitfalls whenever Anime of the Year or Season time comes around. Not everyone on staff has watched all the same shows, and it naturally leans toward titles most of us have seen collectively. I get that some folks might not be super thrilled that Cinderella Gray didn't hit our list (as much as I loved it personally), but that's just how it turned out. The Anime Awards generally deal with the same issues, but on a much larger scale. Like, look at how many judges they have. That's just a small anime convention's worth of people.
It makes sense. More people are watching anime now than at any earlier point in its history, so theoretically, you'd want to select a panel of judges who represent a reasonable facsimile of "The Audience," perhaps with a slant towards critics if you're chasing that air of respectability. Or at least that's how I'd do it. I am not one of those judges, and I realize I cannot say anything about the panel's composition that won't potentially come across as bitter on my part. So I'll be careful. But what I will say is that if I were in the room when the nominees were being selected, you'd see a lot more Apocalypse Hotel in that lineup.
sylvia03
© アポカリプスホテル製作委員会
Then again, I was one of the contributors/voters for ANN's 2025 feature, and Apocalypse Hotel didn't even make our top 10 there. So perhaps my love of Yachiyo and Ponko is all for naught.
I actually still need to watch that one... I'll correct that mistake eventually.
It's good...please....there are robots...
sylvia04
© アポカリプスホテル製作委員会
Well, damn...

But in broaching the topic of this year's judging pool, I'll admit that it seems a touch scattershot. There's an amazing range of journalists, creatives, and industry figures from across the globe here, but after that is where the makeup starts to get a little questionable. I've noticed a good handful of general entertainment writers and creators on this list whose primary beat isn't anime; they're just fans. There's nothing wrong with that, but if we're taking this event at its face value, it should be limited to people who are primarily on the animation and anime beats. The judges who fit that ideal bill to a tee are folks like Kambole Campbell, Isaiah Colbert, and Kate Sánchez, for example. I've also noticed that despite the international push, where are the editors from Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Southeast Asian publications? What about someone from Newtype or Animage?

If there's one thing I appreciate about the Anime Awards, it's their voice-acting awards for a slew of languages beyond Japanese/English. That's a very good acknowledgment and celebration of the international aspect mentioned there. But I agree, it would be nice to see that attitude reflected in the voting pool as well.

As far as who is on there, I think the sad fact of the matter is that there just aren't that many journalists focused on the anime beat in the American sphere. Certainly more than those included in the panel, and especially so if you would pull from smaller independent sites. But I don't believe the bigwigs at Crunchyroll (by which I mean, Sony) really care about that side of things. They want influencers. They want numbers. They want spectacle. They don't want my many Bluesky mutuals who write fascinating, well-researched, and incisive articles week after week.

That's true! Sony has positioned Crunchyroll as "the place you go to for anime" in the Western world, and they're looking for personalities who will loudly reaffirm that for them...or people willing to bend their opinions enough to be involved. That's part of why I'm generally skeptical of influencer involvement. Some established figures on that side of the industry have a modicum of integrity, but for many, it's a matter of who's signing the check. They don't exactly have a code of ethics.
And again, no specific shade to anybody chosen for the panel. I'm not here to be gauche. But I think the Gamer Awards are an instructive analogue, i.e., they are not about celebrating the medium as much as they are about advertising the medium. And advertisement is, on a fundamental and structural level, at odds with legitimate critical assessment.

Now, having said that, if you'll look at ANN's top 3 anime of 2025 as voted by you, me, and the rest of us, all 3 of those shows are also nominated for Anime of the Year. So it's not like there's no overlap between what's popular and what's critically acclaimed. In fact, I'd say there's usually more overlap than not.

It all goes back to what we've seen collectively. And frankly, I'm not too worried about the specific shows nominated. If people enjoyed something and think it deserves some recognition (even if others loathed it), that's totally fine by me. Like looking back at Solo Leveling's win, it was honestly callous of me in a previous column when I equated its win to a drop in standards among general audiences. People like what they like, and it's not my place to shit on them for it. It's actually quite rude to do so.
It's tricky, because I think it's important to recognize and, if needed, call out trends in what happens to be popular. Most anime viewers do not watch anime critically. They watch it recreationally. That's not unique to anime by any means—everyone has things they approach casually or uncritically. We can't all be neurotic about everything. So I believe an anime critic worth their salt needs to be able to call it as they see it. It just gets more difficult and muddled when people's identities (both on the critics' and fans' sides) get wrapped up in these art forms and how they approach them.
Absolutely, and how attached or detached someone is to a particular topic plays a huge role in that. Just look at the whole hubbub around Steel Ball Run's release schedule.

A little bird is telling me that you may see more discussion on that topic in this space later this week. Like, literally. A bird flew in my window and spoke to me. It's one of Lynzee's familiars.
sylvia05
© あらゐけいいち・講談社／CITY THE ANIMATION 製作委員会
While we're talking the birds and horses, the only horse I have in this race is 100 Meters taking Best Film. Just goes to show what you meant by "the enemy," Sylvia.
Perhaps unfortunately for you, I think that is Reze Arc's category to lose, but I'm certainly glad to see 100 Meters in the mix alongside the second Mononoke film. Not too sure what Scarlet is doing there, mind you. What they should have done is nominated Angel's Egg. I don't care if it doesn't meet their criteria. The people want eggs. Give us eggs.
sylvia06
© 押井守・天野喜孝・徳間書店・徳間ジャパンコミュニケーションズ
Oh yeah, speaking of criteria, I noticed that their qualification period is normal again. January to December. Just like the calendar. What a concept.
The absence of eggs has me thinking about a related topic to this, and might it be another factor in the presence of all those big crowd pleasers among the nominees? In the Western mainstream, anime's still a fairly new phenomenon. There have been industry folks and fans around for a good long while, but a huge swathe of current viewers got into anime during the pandemic. And when you're mostly exposed to the big shonen and isekai titles, it becomes your primary vision of what anime is. All that to say, mainstream viewership as it stands has a fairly immature (I mean this in wine terms, not as an insult) palate for the medium. It'll take a while for that to develop, but perhaps they'll discover egg and some of the celebrated works us weirdos have been going on about along the way.
Some of them will! I didn't start watching anime with stuff like Angel's Egg or Utena. I started with Pokémon and Sailor Moon. Gradually, over the years and decades of my life, my curiosity and tastes broadened, and now I'm the erudite weeaboo you see before you. That path is open to anybody. And lord knows, I will yap about it if you ask me to. But the majority of those fans will stick with the devil they know, because that's all they need. Or they'll drift away into other artistic mediums. Which is totally fine, as I've already explained. However, while they exist in our domain, their presence does not impact any popular vote. And that's always going to be contentious. Because a popular vote always is.
Something something the median voter?
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© Tatsunoko Production ©2015 NTV•VAP•Tatsunoko
Many such cases.
sylvia07
© Tatsunoko Production ©2015 NTV•VAP•Tatsunoko Pro.
Another point I'd like to highlight on the Anime Awards is Crunchyroll's involvement in series production these days. Miles and the White Box Crew went into depth on this topic near the end of last year, but perhaps a disclaimer or two would be for any nominations with CR money put in. It's also messier when you consider the company handles localization and many other elements of the whole kit and kaboodle. All that would make a list of disclaimers look like a Christmas tree.
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There's a reason I regularly throw this up when anything tied to my industry work is brought up in this column.
Crunchyroll's share of the market means it has little incentive to "play fair," so one should take any recognition they hand out with a grain of salt. I'd recommend several grains to be safe. But ultimately, that alone kinda gives the game away when it comes to what the Anime Awards are for.

Like, aside from pulling voter/viewer traffic, I think the Anime Awards are largely a networking activity. They give Crunchyroll more contact and visibility on the Japan side of the equation, and the more awards they hand out, the more their reputation grows in that sphere. More directors and animators know who they are. They link and build with the personalities who present and the musical acts who play. It's a big party. And we're not invited.

I don't mind that, but when someone styles themselves as an industry steward, I believe that role should be taken incredibly seriously. After all, the titles being celebrated will be remembered for way longer than you, me, our colleagues, or anyone at that party. It's all about those works at the end of the day; at least, that's how I see it.
You say that, but I fully intend on outliving and outdoing the scope of Solo Leveling's relevance. I will eat more vegetables and do even more cardio if that's what it takes.
That moment when you out-level Solo Leveling.
I guess, for me, I think the Anime Awards are a lost cause unless they are radically altered. The bare minimum that needs to be done is separating them from Crunchyroll, perhaps instead running them through an independent organization made and run by industry professionals. You know, like how the Oscars do it. That's hardly a perfect system either, but at least you have more public buy-in to the idea of their prestige.
A great point of comparison in our space is the American Manga Awards (of which our executive editor is a judge).
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© American Manga Awards
The winners of these awards have been nominated and voted upon by industry professionals. And as someone who had the opportunity to vote last year, the criteria for voters and judges are stringent to keep the focus on the works themselves. It's still a young show that's probably run into the same hurdles faced by the Anime Awards in its own early years, but I think the AMAs are a solid blueprint to work off for future shows.

And if we're looking for a show that truly aimed at the fan vote, the Anime Trending Awards have done an amazing job of appealing to the hardcores. Heck, we've got all of Cinderella Gray streaming on YouTube right now thanks to its Anime of The Year win at that show. This is all to say, there are many different avenues to approach an awards show.

True! Better things are possible, and it's important not to forget that, nor to ignore examples that do right by their ambitions. Worse things are always possible, too. The Anime Awards could partner with Kalshi next time. A whole world of potential horrors awaits. But that world isn't inevitable.
Man, that would be a whole other kind of horse betting.
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© K, S, I/S, UCP © Cygames, Inc
Yes, I think people want something to celebrate and feel good about, given all the nonsense in our world. It gets sticky on occasion when you're looking into the inner workings of such things. As is life, but there's no need to be bogged down by it all. At the end of the day, it's just an awards show.
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