TAAF 2025 Anime of the Year Winners Announced

by Snow
Feb 3, 10:00 AM | 15 Comments

The winners of the Anime of the Year categories from the Tokyo Anime Award Festival 2025 (TAAF 2025) were announced on Friday. A panel of judges selected the winners from a pool of 417 titles that either screened, aired, or were distributed in Japan between October 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024, with 100 titles (80 television anime and 20 theatrical anime) ultimately in the running for the Anime of the Year awards.

Grand Prize
Look Back (Feature Film)
Sousou no Frieren (Television Series)

Anime Fan Award
Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo

Individual Awards
Writers Category: Hiroyuki Yoshino (Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo)
Directors Category: Kiyotaka Oshiyama (Look Back)
Animators Category: Touko Yatabe (Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo)
Visual Artists Category: Mai Ichioka (Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo)
Sound Artists/Performers Category: Evan Call (Sousou no Frieren, Sengoku Youko: Yonaoshi Kyoudai-hen)

Note: The titles listed for the individual awards are merely titles the recipient has worked on during this period; they are not the sole title the recipient won the award for. The Anime Fan Award is awarded to the entry that received the most votes in the general voting.

The Tokyo Anime Award Festival is scheduled to be held in Ikebukuro, Tokyo between March 7 and 10. The event will also present additional entries from around the world for its Feature Animation Competition and Short Animation Competition categories. The former category includes 34 entries from 26 countries, while 997 entries from 70 countries were submitted for the latter. TAAF 2025 Preliminary Selection Committee is selecting 30 of these entries (four for Feature Animation and 29 for Short Animation) to qualify for the Grand Prize and the Award of Excellence in their respective categories, with each category awarding it to two titles.

Source: Official Site 1, 2, 3

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15 Comments Recent Comments

At least they let the fans vote first before the judges make the final vote. Unlike Crunchyroll!

Anime of the Year consists of three categories: Best Film, Individual Award, and Anime Fan Award. Among works previously released or broadcast in Japan for commercial purposes,
we draw up a list of “Top 100 Favorites” based on fan votes. From the list, winners of Best Film and Individual Award are voted for by a wide range of industry professionals including first-rate producers and creators. In addition, Anime Fan Award is given to the work that receives the highest number of public votes via X.

I would love to see the list and scores for all shows involved.

Mar 19, 10:59 PM by alpo42ab

I really enjoyed Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo so I'm happy.

Feb 7, 12:41 PM by BluaPapilio

Nice results. Congratulations to all winners. They definitely deserve those "Anime of the Year" titles, in my opinion.

Feb 7, 3:09 AM by Adnash

Out of everything, Freeren? Bleh

Feb 6, 8:13 AM by Turak

Snow said:
Anime Fan Award
Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo

Woooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

Feb 4, 3:03 PM by Daviljoe193

Sousou no Frieren won an award. The world is healing. It seems there is still hope for the modern anime community

Feb 4, 2:02 PM by Yubisoft

Frieren deserves it

Feb 4, 1:03 AM by Dmoneh

what a joke. meanwhile , the Oscars finally get better nominees in animation when choosing Inside out 2 and wild robot among them

Feb 3, 7:46 PM by MichaelJackson

amen on frieren!!

Feb 3, 7:42 PM by a0i-kun

Congratulations to Sousou no Frieren, it deserves the grand prize award :)

Feb 3, 5:27 PM by Rinrinka

Look Back wins? Good.

Feb 3, 3:23 PM by Geark77

please add the award winning tag to frieren and look back already i made a request too here https://myanimelist.net/forum/?goto=post&topicid=2004232&id=72318981

Feb 3, 12:48 PM by deg

So, can it be said that Frieren actually became a universally recognized best anime series of its year?

Feb 3, 12:44 PM by RobertBobert

I am not surprised at all that Look Back is there. I don't live in Japan but i bet that movie started a discussion.

Feb 3, 11:12 AM by Swagernator

Should take it serious?

Feb 3, 10:56 AM by pnr2

Related Database Entries

Anime:	Look Back, Sousou no Frieren, Kitarou Tanjou: Gegege no Nazo
People:	Yoshino, Hiroyuki, Oshiyama, Kiyotaka, Yatabe, Touko, Ichioka, Mai, Call, Evan