Fan Favorites Win at The Third Annual Anime Awards
On Saturday, February 16, Crunchyroll hosted their Third Annual Anime Awards from Twitch HQ in San Francisco. We were up more than double from last year’s votes with over 5 million global votes cast across 15 categories from fans celebrating their favorite characters, series, and creators.
This year, Crunchyroll decided to livestream the entire awards show for a larger global audience with a live watch party at the Foundry in San Francisco. Fans and guests were invited to watch and react together as we saw the results come in. Our diverse group of presenters shared their opinions for each category both before and after the results were revealed.
Presenters at this year’s Crunchyroll Anime Awards include:
- Cristina Vee — English voice actress (“Sailor Moon,” “Hunter x Hunter”)
- Freddie Wong — RocketJump Productions, Director(“Anime Crimes Division”)
- Geoff Thew — Creator/Influencer (Mother’s Basement)
- Justin Briner — English voice actor (“My Hero Academia”)
- Kevin Penkin — Composer (“The Rising of the Shield Hero,” “Made in Abyss”)
- Michelle Phan — Entrepreneur, EM Cosmetics, and influencer
- Miles Luna — Writer/Director, Rooster Teeth (“gen:LOCK”)
- Miranda Sanchez — Senior Editor, IGN
- Roger DiLuigi — Creator/Influencer (Roger’s Base)
- Ryan Potter — Actor (DC’s “Titans” and “Big Hero 6”)
- SungWon Cho (ProZD) — Creator/Influencer (“Anime Crimes Division”)
- Tristan Gallant — Creator/Influencer (Glass Reflection)
- Yssa Badiola — Animator/Director, Rooster Teeth
- Victoria Holden, Miles Thomas and Tim Lyu — Crunchyroll supporting hosts
The open format made viewers feel like they were right in the living room joining in with Tim Lyu, Crunchyroll Host, manning the station for conversations occurring on Twitch’s chat extension. This year’s Anime Awards aimed to be interactive with our fans to celebrate our community’s casted votes. Crunchyroll created 15 custom Twitch emotes for each category and 8 special edition Crunchyroll Hime emotes that fans used within the chat. Crunchyroll and Twitch also invited streamers to co-stream Anime Awards to add original live commentary to the broadcast as they streamed directly to their own communities. This year we were excited to see that over 1000 Twitch streamers had signed up when last year we only had 100!
Fans from all across the globe tuned in on Saturday to find out the results and the winners of this year’s Crunchyroll Anime Awards:
- Anime of the Year — “Devilman Crybaby” from Science SARU
- Best Protagonist — Rimuru Tempest of “That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime”
- Best Antagonist — All for One of “My Hero Academia” Season 3
- Best Boy — Izuku ‘Deku’ Midoriya of “My Hero Academia” Season 3
- Best Girl — Mai Sakurajima of “Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai”
- Best Opening Sequence — “DARLING in the FRANXX” for the opening sequence “KISS OF DEATH” sung by Mika Nakashima and produced by Hyde, sequence director Toshifumi Akai and storyboards by Atsushi Nishigori
- Best Ending Sequence — “Attack on Titan” Season 3 for the ending sequence “Akatsuki no Requiem” sung by Linked Horizon, sequence director Satoshi Kadowaki
- Best VA: Japanese — Mamoru Miyano for his character Kotaro Tatsumi from
“ZOMBIE LAND SAGA” - Best VA: English — Christopher R. Sabat for his character All Might from “My Hero Academia” Season 3
- Best Director — Masaaki Yuasa of “Devilman Crybaby”
- Best Animation — for “Violet Evergarden” from Kyoto Animation
- Best Film — “My Hero Academia: Two Heroes” from BONES
- Best Character Design — “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind” from Takahiro Kishida with Original Designs by Hirohiko Araki
- Best Fight Scene — All for One vs All Might from “My Hero Academia” Season 3
- Best Continuing Series — “Dragon Ball Super” from Toei Animation
Attendees at the live watch party in San Francisco enjoyed some cool onsite activations including demos of Capcom’s Devil May Cry 5 (releasing on March 8 of this year), and an exclusive photo opportunity at Red Grave City, the main location in the game. Fans were also present for the presentation of this year’s Industry Icon Award, which is presented to those who have meaningfully contributed to the art and industry of anime. Crunchyroll was proud to present this year’s Industry Icon Award to Masahiko Minami, President. & Producer at BONES INC, who was present at the Foundry to accept this award. Fans were excited to be present in front of such a celebrated icon in the anime industry with an extensive history in the business.
Once the awards show was over, everyone enjoyed the after party with the DJ spinning the best of anime music and a specially-themed drink menu from our favorite anime titles as our team, fans and community celebrated the winners of Anime Awards together.
