Demon Slayer edges out One Piece and Bleach for a controversial win at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025

On Sunday, May 25, 2025, Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025 presented Demon Slayer with the Best Continuing Series Award for its Hashira Training Arc anime. Before being presented with the award, the anime was also awarded the Best Animation Award.

While Demon Slayer winning the Best Animation Award would seem fair considering its animation quality, its win under the Best Continuing Series category seemed controversial. This was because the Ufotable anime was nominated against some big-name titles, such as One Piece and Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War.

Demon Slayer wins the Best Continuing Series at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025

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On Sunday, May 25, 2025, as part of its main show, The Crunchyroll Anime Awards announced the winner for the Best Continuing Series category. For this award, Crunchyroll Presenter Sally Amaki brought out Stranger Things stars Finn Wolfhard and Gaten Matarazzo to present the award.

With that, as voted by fans, Finn Wolfhard and Gaten Matarazzo announced Demon Slayer as the Best Continuing Series at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025. Before being presented with this award, the Ufotable anime was also named the recipient of the Best Animation Award.

Monkey D. Luffy as seen in One Piece anime (Image via Toei Animation)

While Kimetsu no Yaiba's win for the Best Animation category seemed justified to most fans, the anime's win under the Best Continuing Series category seemed controversial, especially since it was nominated against big-name titles, such as Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Conflict, My Hero Academia season 7, One Piece, Oshi no Ko season 2, and Spy x Family season 2.

Anime fans react to Kimetsu no Yaiba's win for the Best Continuing Series Award

While Kimetsu no Yaiba fans were indeed happy to see their favorite anime win the award for the Best Continuing Series, they too were surprised that the anime edged out against the other nominees.

Ichigo Kurosaki as seen in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War (Image via Pierrot Films)

Meanwhile, One Piece and Bleach fans were left rattled by the award announcement. Both anime have been some of the longest shounen series to come out. Hence, losing against Demon Slayer did not make sense to them, especially since its latest season was just eight episodes long.

"Demon Slayer winning best continuing series is a great surprise," one fan said.

"Quality over Quantity, let that sink in your heads. Bleach and One Piece are good, they are stretched," another fan said.

"No shot One Piece anime just lost "Best Continuing Series" award to Demon slayer." another fan added.

"Was convinced Dan Da Dan would best animation, then I saw KNY," other fan said.

Surprisingly, while most anime fans thought that it was justified for Kimetsu no Yaiba to win the Best Animation Award, some fans believed other anime like Dandadan were more deserving of the award.

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About the author

Gokul has been an anime writer in Pop Culture division at Sportskeeda since 2022. His love for watching anime and his interest in the ever-growing anime industry inspire Gokul to produce insightful content about the genre on a daily basis. He holds a Master's degree in Communication & Journalism, and has worked for close to 3.5 years in the field.

Gokul likes to thoroughly research about the anime he is writing about and only credits a source after verifying its credibility. He loves the popular Shonen anime, Black Clover, for its memorable characters and their development throughout the story.

When not racking his brain behind his next anime story, Gokul likes to play video games, read manga, and play football.

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Edited by Gokul Chettiyar