Solo Leveling wins Best New Series at Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025

On Sunday, May 25, 2025, the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025 announced Solo Leveling anime as the Best New Series. While the anime has been highly popular on Crunchyroll, this award further cements its place as one of the best anime to come out in 2024.

The Crunchyroll Anime Awards is the annual awards program that celebrates everything to do with anime, including characters, cast, staff, and much more. This year, global anime fans have cast over 51 million votes, a massive jump from the 17 million votes cast the previous year.

Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025 crowns Solo Leveling as the Best New Series

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On Sunday, May 25, 2025, as part of its pre-show, the Crunchyroll Anime Awards announced the winner of the Best New Series category. For this award, Crunchyroll host Tim Lyu brought out pioneering anime YouTuber Gigguk to present the award.

As voted by fans, Gigguk announced Solo Leveling as the Best New Series at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025.

Sung Jinwoo as seen in the anime (Image via A-1 Pictures)

The A-1 Pictures anime won the award over several big-name nominees, such as Dandadan, Delicious in Dungeon, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Kaiju No. 8, and The Apothecary Diaries.

Anime fans' reaction to the Best New Series Award winner

As expected, the Solo Leveling fans were elated by their favorite anime's win for the Best New Series category. However, many believed this was only the start, and the anime would likely sweep up several other awards.

Cha Hae-in as seen in the anime (Image via A-1 Pictures)

Meanwhile, some anime fans weren't so pleased with the award. According to them, while the A-1 Pictures anime winning the Best "New" Series award was acceptable, the same series should not be the case for the Best Series Award.

"And so the Solo Leveling sweep begins," one fan said.

Best "New" Series is ok, but not the Best Series award, another fan added.

"This will likely end as a pure popularity vote and not quality per se. and yes, solo leveling had its quality moments, but overall it has far less depth in design and story," another fan said.

"L. Frieren or Apothecary Diaries should have won," other fan said.

Other fans believed the anime did not deserve to win the Best New Series, especially given its competition against some big titles.

Frieren as seen in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Image via Madhouse)

They attributed Solo Leveling's win to its popularity, claiming it had nothing to do with its quality, be that in the depth of design or story. Some fans even expressed that anime like Frieren: Beyond Journey's End or The Apothecary Diaries 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