I’m Sorry, but Crunchyroll Could Have Picked Anything Better for Anime of the Year

The 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards included some of the toughest competition in years. The event took place on May 25th, celebrating the very best of new anime from the past year (or, at least, anime from October 2023 through to December 2024). Like many fans, I was watching with bated breath to see which of this year’s nominees (hopefully, my favorite, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End) would win the coveted Anime of the Year prize. I wouldn’t have minded if one of the other worthy candidates topped Frieren for the prize. But, my jaw was left agape when 2024’s unstoppable hype train, Solo Leveling, took home the award.

Season 1 of Solo Leveling debuted in 2024 to strong reviews and decent fanfare, but it was the more recent Season 2 that dominated the pop culture landscape. I personally enjoyed the show as a great switch-off, action show with a power fantasy and mindless but entertaining fight scenes. But was it really the best anime of the year, especially against such strong competition?

Did Solo Leveling Actually Deserve Anime of the Year?

On the night, Solo Leveling won nine awards from 13 nominations. The series deserved some of the awards it won, including Best Action and Best Ending Sequence. But that’s where the accolades should have stopped. As well as Anime of the Year. Solo Leveling also earned awards for Best New Series, Best Main Character, and Best Score.

Let’s look solely at the big prize: Anime of the Year! Is Solo Leveling a good show? Yes. Is it a great show? It depends on who you ask. Was it the best show of the year? Absolutely not. Pitted against Solo Leveling for the grand prize were Dandadan, Delicious in Dungeon, Frieren, Kaiju No. 8, and The Apothecary Diaries. That might be the strongest group of nominees the Anime of the Year award has had in years. Solo Leveling’s action is head-and-shoulders above the rest, but the other shows dominate in every other aspect of storytelling.

Dandadan was widely celebrated as the next big shonen hit when it was released last October. The show blended excellent action with a bonkers sci-fi concept and genuinely engaging characters. Both Delicious in Dungeon and Frieren are commonly referred to as two of the new Big Three of the fantasy genre (with the third being Witch Hat Atelier). Kaiju No. 8 is another gigantic shonen series that manages to balance great action with three-dimensional characters and includes an interesting examination of masculinity within the action genre. And The Apothecary Diaries is referred to as one of the best romance series in years.

So, what do all of the above shows do better than Solo Leveling that makes them deserve the top prize more? Emotional and layered storytelling, on top of stellar animation in each of their respective cases. I don’t want to throw undue shade on Solo Leveling, as previously mentioned, it’s an entertaining show. But, in terms of the complexity and depth of its storytelling, characters, plot, pacing, tone, and almost every other aspect of visual storytelling, it is unremarkable.

[RELATED – Crunchyroll Reveals 2025 Anime Awards Winners With One Series Winning It All]

Solo Leveling‘s Win Highlights the Problem With the Anime Awards

Major awards shows are often criticized by regular audiences and fans for ignoring popular movies and shows in favor of some arthouse nonsense or predictable academy fodder (admittedly, I do enjoy arthouse nonsense). Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards have attempted to negate this problem by combining the decision of its judging panel with audience votes. In the build-up to the awards, fans can enter their email on Crunchyroll and vote in each category. But, as we’ve learned this year, that creates a whole host of problems.

The biggest issue is the general hype and comparative size of the fan bases for each series. Solo Leveling sits aloft the list of most popular trending series on Crunchyroll. There’s almost no way a smaller show like The Apothecary Diaries could fairly compete. If the award was for the most popular series, it would make more sense. But “Anime of the Year” implies the one with the highest quality, and, as we learned above, that isn’t Solo Leveling.

Secondly, many Solo Leveling viewers thought they were voting for the wrong season. Season 1 was moderately successful, but Season 2 (which premiered this year) was an unstoppable hype train. However, it was the first season that was nominated for this year’s award. It is highly likely that many new fans who joined in the second season unknowingly voted for Season 1 because of the newfound popularity of the show during its sequel season.

Finally, and potentially, most importantly, not every voter has seen every show. I’m a media journalist who writes about anime every day, and even I occasionally have to miss a show because of time constraints. For example, from this year’s nominees, I still need to catch up on The Apothecary Diaries and Delicious in Dungeon. Because of this, can I actually judge the category fairly and vote for a series above one that I haven’t actually seen?