Despite a very impressive gathering of Asian animation talent, one series dominated the 2025 Anime Awards. Here are all the winners announced during the 25 May ceremony in Tokyo.
Between enchanting fantasy, high school romance, and supernatural thrillers, the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards looked set to be a showdown between heavyweights of the animation industry in Asia. This year, series like Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, The Apothecary Diaries, Dan Da Dan, and Delicious in Dungeon all went head-to-head, but out of nowhere, it was Solo Leveling that dominated the awards show, which was hosted in Tokyo on 25 May.
Winning nine of the 13 awards it was nominated for, Solo Leveling took home all the glory when it clinched the coveted Anime of the Year prize. It’s worth noting that this year’s Crunchyroll Anime Awards covered all anime released from October 2023 through to December 2024, meaning that only the first season of Solo Leveling was eligible. The show, which is based on the South Korean web novel of the same name and its webtoon adaptation, has been a massive hit since it first debuted in January 2024. A power fantasy about a monster-hunter named Sung Jin-woo, who rises in status from weakling to an absurdly powerful necromancer, Solo Leveling has been a critical and commercial smash hit so far. The series is available with a Crunchyroll subscription.
