In a shocking conclusion to the Crunchyroll Anime Awards broadcast live on 25th May 2025, the much sought-after Anime of the Year Award went to Solo Leveling. Some were delighted with the outcome, citing Solo Leveling as the true Anime of the Year, while some said that either Dandadan or Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End should have come away with the prize as Crunchyroll’s flawed voting system turned the event into more of a popularity contest that didn’t quite adhere to the criteria of the awards being given.
All three anime have so much to offer the industry, with Solo Leveling helping to put manhwas on the map, Frieren showing the importance and the artistic brilliance of a slower burn storyline, and Dandadan showing off the strengths of genre transcendence. But if taken on its own merits, why should Solo Leveling have taken that prize? Today, we pit Solo Leveling against Dandadan exclusively to settle who should have come out on top. Will we do the same for Solo Leveling and Frieren?
To avoid a further turf war between anime fans wielding paper fans, we will be looking at Season 1 only for Solo Leveling over the course of this article.
Narrative Innovation
Part of the reason that both Solo Leveling and Dandadan were nominated for the prestigious Anime of the Year Award is because of how brilliant the storytelling was in each anime. While Solo Leveling doesn’t come across as starkly innovative as Dandadan, it does, instead, unapologetically take on the identity it wants for itself and wears it very well indeed.
Subtlety In Power Fantasy
Solo Leveling never tries to make itself something it’s not, taking the genius of a simple concept and concentrating its efforts into making that story as fun as possible. Though Sung Jinwoo achieves Sword Art Online’s Kirito levels of bad assery within the first five episodes, the anime is then quick to draw attention to the unique way that Sung Jinwoo, and by extension the rest of his world, handles this, not just in terms of making him a trump card for every encounter, but in exploring the negatives as well.
The anime essentially deep-dives into the pure notion of a power fantasy, taking a unique perspective that subverts previously established conventions. Sung Jinwoo struggles with self-worth from the moment he is introduced. At first, it’s because the world tells him he is useless as an E Ranker, and in one way or another, a lot of the audience has been there. This struggle is relatable, and when Jinwoo is given the keys to the city, essentially, he still struggles with self-worth.
The show is a homage to the idea that gaining this kind of power won’t be an immediate fix. Though Sung Jinwoo is able to punch down mega bosses in A and S Rank dungeons, he works tirelessly to save his mother from the Eternal Sleep disease. When that has concluded, he reaps the benefits of his hard work by reuniting with his mother in the most human manner, and we, as the audience, can see outright how much of a mental strain Jinwoo has been under. Despite his power, he is still progressing through struggle.
All this is handled with expert pacing, the tiniest of hints of themes and red flags during fascinating banter, and marvellous looks into Sung Jinwoo’s altering psychology as the show progresses, which is more than enough, when done with such finesse, to earn the title of Anime of the Year.
Comedy? Tragedy? Something In Between?
Where Solo Leveling embraces its identity as a power fantasy, Dandadan likes to flip the bird on convention and, subsequently, expectation. Set up as a romantic comedy of a sort involving the titillating characters Ayase and Okarun, things get weird in the very first episode when Ayase is kidnapped by aliens and Okarun is possessed by the spirit of an ancient grandma inhabiting a haunted tunnel.
Quick-witted banter and intimate personal growth quickly turn into a fast-paced, action-packed narrative with stakes just as high as any other battle or power trip anime. What is impressive about Dandadan is however much it likes to dip just a toe into a genre, whatever it takes from that genre to tell its story, it does just as well as the mainstream stories that lean into their respective genres.
Particularly memorable is Episode 7: To a Kinder World, which directly follows an episode painting the character of Acrobatic Silky as an antagonist of the ridiculous and comedic sort. Just as the episode takes viewer expectations of the silliness in the series thus far and utterly destroys it with emotional poignancy, so the viewer is forced to reassess Silky and her motivations when presented with her truly tragic backstory. Dandadan has no problem making you sit up and pay attention when you might be getting most compliant in a way rarely seen in any other anime, and for this continual bombardment of evolution, perhaps it should have taken Anime of the Year after all.
Animation and Sound Design
Both Dandadan and Solo Leveling are brought to life through beautifully crafted artwork and solid animation. Solo Leveling has a stunning sense of movement attached to each altercation, the facial expressions on each of the characters are thought-provokingly nuanced through every interaction, giving extra layers to those scripted lines, and the way the series uses lighting, in particular to amp up a scene, is electric.
The development team at A-1 Pictures is, like their protagonist Sung Jinwoo, always pushing for more and aiming for more innovative heights in the field as well, adding extra frames into the action sequences to make movements more breath-taking and action more organic overrall which lends real weight to Jinwoo’s power and makes the audience excited whenever he graces the screen.
Dandadan is just as gorgeous, with expert anatomical understanding shown in the human characters. This is then tested with the aliens and ghosts that come to torment them, though these monsters somehow never seem out of place in the world because of the way these designs have been so masterfully balanced.
Continuing on with its identity as a Jack-of-all-trades series, the show does justice to extreme close-ups for those tender character intimacies, as well as giving space to show off movement during moments when Otakun puts on his Turbo Granny mask and zooms off at 100mph. The colour palette is reflective of Studio SABA’s previous work on Scott Pilgrim, giving the show a grainy realism that extends into things like the black and white sections of Episode 2.
When considering animation alone, both of these shows deserve the Anime of the Year title. They both stand out for excellence in what they do, with Solo Leveling using innovative techniques to elevate their production into something special and Dandadan excelling in versatility.
Solo Melody
The hills are certainly alive with the sound of music in both of these shows, and Solo Leveling did, in fact, take Best Score in the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025 alongside Anime of the Year. It’s not surprising with an industry legend like Hiroyuki Sawano at the helm, and indeed, the show is on point with its sound design.
The gravitas of the choice Jinwoo makes in Solo Leveling’s Episode 6 of the first season to kill the Hunters after being told to by the ‘System’ wouldn’t be nearly as potent without the Dark Aria Lv2 track playing in the background, particularly because it’s unusual to have scenes like that with lyrically enhanced music and the lyrics themselves add so much weight to Jinwoo’s struggle with humanity in this moment. The entire arrangement promises a reach into a darker story that is mystifying, capturing its audience well, and elevating the intimidation factor of the entity that Jinwoo is so blindly following to achieve his own goals.
This expertise in sound arrangement is seen throughout the rest of the season, as well, particularly during those combat-heavy moments and right at the beginning when Jinwoo is about to die. The sense of tragedy in that moment is only heightened by the sudden lack of music as the message comes up asking Jinwoo if he wants to be considered a player. With the ending soundtrack, Request by Krage to end each episode on a breath-stealing high as well, then it is embarrassingly easy to see how Solo Leveling took Anime of the Year.
Dandading-dong
Like Solo Leveling, Dandadan’s sound design brilliantly highlights everything that’s great about the series, embracing the weird-core aspects and unconventional take on genre to fit whatever scene it needs to fit. There are gloriously slow piano crescendos for moments between Otakun and Ayase, fast-paced dance tracks with heavy dreamcore beats for the moments Otakun transforms and goes Turbo, and quirky, off-beat comedy tracks for the downtime like Tiger and Flower, often played when Ayase’s grandmother is around.
Of course, the star of Dandadan is in Episode 7, once again, when the sound is used to mercilessly rip our emotional cores to shreds as we’re shown Acrobatic Silky’s tragic backstory. The show, and the show’s musical composer, Kensuke Ushio, spares us no quarter as we’re thrust into the tale, particularly with the montage showing Silky’s relationship with her little daughter to the swelling track Love Theme.
Just put this track next to Tiger and Flower, then let’s discuss how incredibly and professionally versatile Kensuke Ushio’s composition is. An absolute triumph enough to rival the legend, Hiroyuki Sawano, I’d say. Certainly enough to elevate Dandadan as a serious contender for Anime of the Year.
Solo Leveling Season 3 and Dandadan Season 2
So, who should have walked away with Anime of the Year? Who wins the epic battle of Solo Leveling vs. Dandadan? Our conclusion is that both of them should have come away with equally as important awards. Both shows demonstrate levels of immaculate storytelling, gorgeous animation, and soul-wrenching sound design. But regardless of who came away with Anime of the Year, it’s safe to say that both of these anime are notorious enough to be guaranteed another season, and indeed, Dandadan Season 2 is scheduled for release on the 3rd of July 2025 in Japan.
Season 3 of Solo Leveling is yet to be confirmed, though Crunchyroll has said that “fans will continue to see the story”, and speculations dictate that Season 3 could be out for the 2028 Olympics.
