Fan Art from Crunchyroll Anime Award-Winning Series - Voted the Best of the Best by Fans Like You

The entertainment industry is rife with award shows, where either a jury of judges or votes cast by ardent fans determine who will be named the best in their genre for that particular year. Naturally, anime is no different, so on March 4, 2023, viewers from all over the world tuned in to the Crunchyroll Anime Awards.

The Crunchyroll Anime Awards, which debuted in 2017, are a global event organized by Crunchyroll, a well-known anime streaming service in North America that provides anime fans access to both subbed and dubbed anime content while also increasing the accessibility of anime to a wider audience.

The categories for the awards cover a wide range, including "Anime of the Year", "Best Main Character", "Best Score", and "Character Who Must Be Protected At All Costs". All of this year’s winners, including “Anime of the Year” award winner Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, were announced on location at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo, Japan, marking the first in-person ceremony to be held since 2020.

This year’s ceremony saw winners in a total of 29 separate categories, including the introduction of the Best Voice Actor Performance in both Arabic and Italian.

Initially, each member of a panel of judges will select five candidates for each category, and the six that receive the most cumulative votes from the panel will become that category’s nominees. The public is then given a week to cast their votes, with one vote per category per day allowed. The winner of the category is the nominee who garners the most support from the judges and the general public. 70% of the votes came from the judges, and the other 30% came from the reported 18 million votes from fans in around 200 regions.

A series must have been produced primarily in Japan in order to be eligible, and it must have aired on television or online between the November of two years prior and September of the previous year. For example, 2023’s edition of the awards featured series from November 2021 to September 2022.

Some of 2022’s most popular anime series, like Attack on Titan, Lycoris Recoil, and Kaguya-sama: Love is War, and genre mainstays, like Hunter x Hunter and One Piece, all walked away winners in a number of categories. Ranking of Kings was also top-ranked in the “Best French VA Performance” category.

We've gathered some of the incredible artwork featuring these series' cherished characters to help them celebrate their victories. See if you can detect a winning vibe emanating from the selection of illustrations below.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners won Anime of the Year and Best English VA Performance (Zach Aguilar as David Martinez).

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Entertainment District Arc won Best Character Design, Best Animation, Best Director, Best Action, Best Fantasy, and Best Spanish VA Performance (Alejandro Orozco as Gyutaro).

Spy x Family won Best New Series, Best Ending Sequence, Best Supporting Character, “Must Protect At All Costs” Character, Best Comedy, and Best Portuguese VA Performance (Nina Carvalho as Anya Forger).

Attack on Titan: The Final Season - Part 2 brought home Best Opening Sequence, Best Score, Best Anime Song, Best Main Character, Best Drama, Best Japanese VA Performance (Yuki Kaji as Eren Jaeger).