Crunchyroll Anime Awards is returning in 2023! We have our hosts, Sally Amaki and Jon Kabira, but the judges have yet to be announced.
The event will be held at The Grand Prince New Takanawa in Tokyo, Japan, on March 4, 2023. This is the first time the Crunchyroll Anime Awards will be held at this venue, but it’s the first time being live!
2023 will mark the 7th Crunchyroll Anime Awards, and it’s constantly evolving. Categories are added, removed, or renamed, and voting has changed over the years.
The judges will be announced before the end of 2022, and an international fan vote will begin for the final nominees in early 2023. And naturally, the Crunchyroll Anime Awards will be live-streamed.
What are the Crunchyroll Anime Awards?
Starting in 2017, Crunchyroll began putting on an award show to celebrate creators, musicians, and performances across streaming platforms and theatrical releases of anime. Netflix has been represented in the past, and I’ll be surprised if we don’t see it during the event.
Unfortunately, this is one of the events that can’t please everyone. Crunchyroll tries, but some of the problems are more than a matter of opinion.
The main rule for being nominated is coming out the year before. It doesn’t matter if the anime is still being completed, such as being divided into cours, and some series/anime have been over-represented.
For example, the same year, Eren Jager from Attack on Titan was nominated for Best Protagonist and Best Antagonist. I understand why Eren can be both, but with the limited number of spots per category, they could have found another character for one of them.
They do mark which cour or season you’re voting for, but if it’s the last cour of the season, why can’t we vote for the whole season? According to Wikipedia, the categories for the 7th Crunchyroll Anime Awards are:
- Anime of the Year
- Best Protagonist
- Best Antagonist
- Best Boy
- Best Girl
- Best Opening Sequence
- Best Closing Sequence
- Best VA Performance in JP, EN, DE, FR, LA, SP, PT, and RU
- Best Director
- Best Animation
- Best Film
- Best Character Design
- Best Fight Scene
- Best Drama
- Best Comedy
- Best Score
- Best Fantasy
- Best Action
- Best Romance
I love the focus on more dub voice actors, but changes can still happen. So keep checking Crunchyroll and us for future updates.
Who are our hosts?
Sally Amaki is a member of a voice-acting idol group, 22/7, which debuted in 2017. She’s the group’s overseas representative and appears as herself and an animated character, Sakura Fujima.
Amaki has also voiced Akubi from Pandora to Akubi, Carol Olston from Tomo-chan Is a Girl!, Kiriko from Overwatch 2, and more. Jon Kabira is a freelance presenter, tarento (TV personality), radio personality, and narrator affiliated with Sony Music Artists.
He’s appeared in commercials and TV shows and has a following in the West due to his narration of the Winning Eleven video game series and Doris in some of the Shreck movies.