The 9th annual Crunchyroll Anime Awards streamed from Tokyo this past Sunday, May 25 as a celebration of the biggest anime shows and movies of the past year. The full list of winners can be read on Crunchyroll's official Anime Awards page, and we here on the Bam Smack Pow team have a list of the night's biggest winners, along with the best place to watch them.
Additionally, anime fans can relive the full ceremony of the 2025 Anime Awards any time on-demand via Crunchyroll's YouTube channel here:
If you don't have time to watch the full ceremony, however, let us update you on the night's biggest winners!
Solo Leveling — 13 nominations, 9 wins
Where to watch: Crunchyroll
Based on a Korean web novel, Solo Leveling wrapped up its second season just in time for the fan voting for the Anime Awards to begin. That wave of popularity clearly helped the series surge in the fan vote. In the biggest surprise of the weekend, the popular Portal Fantasy anime cleaned up, with the most wins of any of this year's nominees, winning several of the most significant awards including:
• Anime of the Year
• Best New Series
• Best Action
• Best Main Character
• Best Score
• Best Ending Sequence
• Best VA Performance in three language categories
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End — 20 nominations, 4 wins
Where to watch: Crunchyroll, Netflix
Popular with both critics and fans and for its introspective, melancholic approach to what is otherwise a fairly typical Fantasy world as it follows the virtually ageless Elven title character, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End entered the 2025 Anime Awards with the second-highest number of total nominations. The Fantasy anime took home the following awards:
• Best Director
• Best VA Performance (Japanese) for Atsumi Tanezaki as Frieren
• Best Supporting Character
• Best Background Art
In both its manga and anime forms, Frieren has already won acclaim for critics. The manga has won the Grand Prize at the 14th Manga Taishō, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize New Creator award and the Shogakukan Manga Award, only with other nominations and top-five placements in other ranked awards. Similarly, the Frieren anime adaptation has won Best Actor awards for Atsumi Tanezaki's performance and previous Best Drama awards, and a Best Anime award from IGN in 2024.
Dan da Dan — 22 nominations, 3 wins
Where to watch: Crunchyroll, Netflix
One of the breakout anime hits of the last year, Horror-Comedy Dan da Dan led the way in total nominations. Fans will likely consider Dan da Dan to have under-performed, but it at least won recognition for its universally praised opening (linked above), which accounts for two of its wins:
• Best Anime Song
• Best Opening Sequence
• Best Character Design
Dan da Dan fans — and newcomers to the series — still have time to relive the first season before the new Dan Da Dan movie, Eye Evil, gives a first look at the show's second season on June 6. The second season of Dan Da Dan debuts in earnest on July 3.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — 8 nominations, 2 wins
Where to watch: Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hulu
As the hugely popular anime series Demon Slayer wrapped up its run as a serialized show — the story will reach its conclusion with a movie trilogy starting summer 2025 — Demon Slayer managed to go out on a high note. The final arc of the anime series, Hashira Training, took home two awards:
• Best Continuing Series
• Best Animation
Following the end of the Demon Slayer anime series, the final story arc of the original manga series will be finished out with a three-movie theatrical run in the form of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle. Infinity Castle will premiere in Japanese theaters on July 18, 2026 and then go through a staggered release across different international regions throughout the rest of summer and fall.
Attack on Titan — Global Impact Award
Where to watch: Crunchyroll
Finally, it's also worth noting that this year's Anime Awards also marked the colossal impact of one of the most popular anime in recent memory. Fittingly, the anime in question features monsters just as big as its overall influence on anime and pop culture in general. That series is the iconic Attack on Titan. Actually announced ahead of the Anime Awards ceremony on May 25, the hugely popular series won a special Global Impact Award, which Crunchyroll describes as follows:
"The Global Impact Award celebrates 'visionary creators and groundbreaking works that have left an indelible mark on culture, history and the hearts of audiences around the world.' The adaptation of Hajime Isayama’s epic Attack on Titan saga that kicked off in 2014 and ran until 2023—concluding with big-screen compilation film Attack on Titan: The Last Attack in 2024—certainly fits the bill."
This year's ceremony was the first to hand out the Global Impact Award. Fans can assume that the Anime Awards will commemorate and celebrate anime series that have had a similar influence going forward.
As always, the Bam Smack Pow team will be back this week to bring you the biggest anime news, plus a new anime series to recommend!