The Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025 have been and gone, with Solo Leveling spawning in a massive nine wins out of the thirteen categories it was nominated for, including the overall title of Anime of the Year. While fans rejoice, there are some who believe the accolades for Solo Leveling weren’t exactly earned based solely on the merits of the debut season. They figure that other, more deserving titles should have taken the win for this year.
But if not Solo Leveling, then who should have taken the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025 for Anime of the Year? And why might Solo Leveling have deserved that win after all?
The True Anime of The Year
Major Awards ceremonies will, as a general rule of thumb, use internal panels to select and judge the nominees for certain categories so that the most relevant titles can be put forward for the subsequent win. With the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, they open that selection process to the general public who might not understand what is truly being judged and may simply vote for their favorite anime, and it looks like this has happened with Solo Leveling.
While an incredibly impressive and enjoyable show, the first season, which was that part of Solo Leveling that qualified for the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, did not break that many records, and considering the Crunchyroll Anime Awards voting began just days after the climax of Solo Leveling’s Season 2 was aired, anime nerds are speculating that people were voting based on the hype they carried from the second season, and not on the merits of the first.
Dandadan For The Win?
This anime was nominated for nearly twice as many Crunchyroll Anime Awards as Solo Leveling, with twenty-two sprawling nominations overall. The show did win Best Anime TV Series, which meant that fans were really gearing up for the show to take Anime of the Year.
Like Solo Leveling, it’s easy to see why this show is so heavily celebrated. With an intriguing story, fantastically designed characters, and an impactfulness that will last across the seasons, Dandadan has just as much to offer as Solo Leveling and was arguably better established for the Crunchyroll Anime Awards when voting rolled around.
Frieren For The Win?
Solo Leveling is a power fantasy at its core. It’s not exactly a ground-breaking genre, but Solo Leveling does the power fantasy thing with such finesse that the series has been able to smash through the isekai wall to broaden anime horizons. Frieren is a different beast, providing a delightfully unique and heavily themed story in a slower burn format that has had multiple critics citing it as something special. This series was also rightly nominated for a huge number of awards, including Best New Series and Best Animation.
Once again, this was an insane contender that could have quite possibly walked away with the Anime of the Year title had Solo Leveling been assessed only on the merits of its first season. Like Dandadan, it has immaculate character designs, and that deeper narrative elevates it to entirely new heights. The emotional depth of this series is arguably king, and a lot of anime fans wanted that depth to triumph over the flashier contenders.
Solo Leveling’s Popularity
So with these spectacular anime on the table, what was it about Solo Leveling that made people eager to vote for the win?
Even in the first season alone, Solo Leveling was amping itself up as something particularly special. While it is incredibly easy to overdo the idea of the OP protagonist, the balance of the story to Sung Jinwoo’s elevation is subtle and interesting, never crossing that easy line into being obnoxious. The art is beautiful, the composition in particular gives a viewer goosebumps, and the soundtrack takes the mood of each scene to give it that nail-biting kick.
While Solo Leveling Season 2 was the one to start breaking the records and take off at light speed like its formidable protagonist, Season 1’s animation is just as wonderful as the second, and Season 1 still boasts some of the best moments in the entire anime. The moment that Sung Jinwoo makes the decision to become a player in the double dungeon (Season 1: Episode 2), and when Jinwoo is manipulated by the System to kill human players (Season 1: Episode 6) are just a few examples we can name.
Do you have a favorite Solo Leveling moment that made this your anime of the year? What do you think can make Season 3 even better to give the anime a little more edge at the next Crunchyroll Anime Awards?
Sung Jinwoo’s Partner
Perhaps, the answer lies with Cha Hae-In, Jinwoo’s future partner and the mother of his son for the spin-off, Solo Leveling: Ragnarok. With the creation of Cha Hae-In: Pure Sword Princess opening up the enclosed world of Solo Leveling and giving room to the secondary characters where there isn’t really breathing space in the main storyline, perhaps Season 3 will lend a bit of weight to the emotional connection that forms between Jinwoo and Cha Hae-In to highlight Jinwoo’s humanity as he pulls further and further away from the realms of comprehension in terms of power.
At the moment, in only Seasons 1 and 2, the secondary characters haven’t been given that opportunity to shine much at all. It is a shame, considering how much fascinating nuance is already injected into each interaction between them, as with Hae-In’s sense of smell, for example, which sparks her curiosity in Sung Jinwoo when they first properly meet. Surely, it would be nice to see a little more of the world through her perspective as she fights to catch up to Sung Jinwoo, while knowing with that coveted sense of dramatic irony that she never can.
