Solo Leveling wins Anime of the Year at the Anime Awards 2025

Strangely dismissive responses in this thread. "It's just the most popular anime that's why it won", uh... yeah? That's kind of how this works?

These awards are the anime equivalent to the VGA's. Solo Leveling is insanely popular, has cool characters, a cool story, cool fights and gets the adrenaline pumping. Steady supply op dopamine hits when watching. It's difficult to hate it unless you're some puritan fart sniffer.

"Frieren is better", yeah okay but the award doesn't say "best anime of the year", just "anime of the year". Plus Frieren also won important awards like best director, best drama, best art.
 
Frieren has a much better story. It's bettered paced and has far more gravitas.

Frieren's art is much more refined too, though it is still standard anime art.

Solo Levelling does have more interesting animation and great action, the latter likely why it won.

I definitely don't agree on the score though.
 
It's difficult to hate it unless you're some puritan fart sniffer.

Happy Excuse Me GIF


Geezus, calm your tits there, cowboy.

Also, there's a difference between popularity, as in how many people saw it, versus their actual rating of the show. I mean, MAL flat out has a ranking for the actual average rating of a show and a separate ranking for the popularity (as in how many have seen it) of that same show.

Solo Leveling is at 8.2 on MAL, while DandaDan is at 8.5, Frieren is at 9.3, Delicious in Dungeon is at 8.6, Apothecary Diaries is at 8.8, and Kaiju No. 8 is at 8.2. So Solo Leveling is tied in lowest place of the nominees in terms of the rating rankings.

So based on that, the majority of people who actually watched a good deal of or all of the nominees (AKA the most qualified to make a legit vote) clearly prefer almost all the nominees over Solo Leveling. So Solo Leveling likely won due to many voters not even watching many of the other nominees. So, you know, good for it, I guess.

Zzz Ok GIF by Jim Gaffigan
 
I opened the thread and after seeing who won without knowing anything said to myself "Wait was Frieren 2024?"

eh I'm not that mad at this Solo Leveling is good it would be my #2 after Frieren.

I'm just glad "Dandadan" didn't win I don't like anything about that show so many tired tropes its like "babbys first anime"
 
Frieren got robbed.

Haven't watched the anime of Solo Levelling but read the Manwha front to back. I understand the anime was popular but I fear it's for the wrong reasons. I fear people are just in it for the action set pieces and that will bleed into future anime just like Isekai slop is the norm.
I've seen some scenes from it and it was consistently good. Not sure if it's for me, based on the premise, but I liked what I saw and I hate like 50-60% of all new anime.
 
Frieren is absolutely top tier and deserves awards, but this looks like an extremely surface level fan's selection of anime. Was this primarily targeted to the west/Crunchyroll subscribers or something?
Binged most of this yesterday, I think I am on epi 18 should finish up today.

The voice actor for Stark does a fantastic job so far. Just waiting for the "anime ending"...
 
Dude last decade was safe as fuck. There was some good anime during that decade but I felt stuff was too safe for my liking and that because they choose to go after the global audience. They are finally going back to making stuff that is distinctively Japanese

But here's some reccomandations from the last decade

Made In The Abyss Season 1
Made In Abyss Dawn of The Deep Soul
Made In Abyss Season 2

(For Made In Abyss, watch it in that order)

Also Made In Abyss is really messed up so just a warning

My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai
Kids on the Slope
Fire Force
Rent-A-Girfriend (Giggles)
Erased
The Future Diary
Heavenly Delusion
Cyberpunk 2077 Edgerunners (Fanservice Heavy)
Highschool of the Dead (Fanservice Heavy)
Love Is War
My Dress Up Darling
Summertime Render
Rebuild of EVA
Weathering With You
Your Name
Wolf Children
The Boy And The Beast
Oh I did watch the new Eva movies. Those fuckin slapped!
 
Frieren is a tad overrated but it's still miles better than Slop Leveling.

SL won because it's a wish-fullfillment power fantasy where a loser MC gets super-duper powerful and has a bunch of hot girls slobbering all over all him. It also has good animation.
 
Someone mentioned Kaijuu No 8 in here. Solo Leveling is a 10 compared to that, I assure you. Solo Leveling world building is swift and eases you into the show pretty quick and the opening episodes give you something to get into. Kaijuu No 8 is "Build an anime" tier.
 
I've seen some scenes from it and it was consistently good. Not sure if it's for me, based on the premise, but I liked what I saw and I hate like 50-60% of all new anime.
It's not bad per se. It's typical shonen stuff.

I just think Frieren is better. Animation wise, they're pretty much on the same quality. It's just the story and writing itself is better in Frieren. What Solo Levelling does is give you back to back action sequences which some might prefer over Frieren's slow burn pacing.
 
For those who liked Frieren look for Witch Hat Atelier releasing later this year.
Tell me why i should watch frieren. After seeing it mentioned in this thread i gave it a shot and was bored out of my mind after 10 minutes, then something came up and i just had no desire to go back. I believe that it's good it's just that literally nothing happened so far anyway. But what makes it great? Just wanna know if it's even for me.
 
Tell me why i should watch frieren. After seeing it mentioned in this thread i gave it a shot and was bored out of my mind after 10 minutes, then something came up and i just had no desire to go back. I believe that it's good it's just that literally nothing happened so far anyway. But what makes it great? Just wanna know if it's even for me.
If didn't like it, I'm not going to try to convince you to watch it.
I'm not sure why you wanted me to convince you, I was merely suggesting another anime coming to those who liked Frieren.
 
Tell me why i should watch frieren. After seeing it mentioned in this thread i gave it a shot and was bored out of my mind after 10 minutes, then something came up and i just had no desire to go back. I believe that it's good it's just that literally nothing happened so far anyway. But what makes it great? Just wanna know if it's even for me.
Your attention span is cooked
 
My problem with the voting is that it began right after the end of SL season 2. I guarantee that most of the people voting took Season 2 into account for Solo Leveling. Season 1 was ok. Season 2 took it to another level. I find Frieren to be better overall compared to Solo Leveling. But I do see why it won, its the most popular thing going in Anime right now.
 
Tell me why i should watch frieren. After seeing it mentioned in this thread i gave it a shot and was bored out of my mind after 10 minutes, then something came up and i just had no desire to go back. I believe that it's good it's just that literally nothing happened so far anyway. But what makes it great? Just wanna know if it's even for me.

Mate, if you can't even watch a whole episode, then that's on you, but what you are watching.

It's a slow burn story, with a slow pace in places. The nature of the story means such pacing fits it well.

It does pick up pace later on and become more shonen-like.

Now, it might still be not for you, but you can't say that having given it only 10 minutes.
 
That absolute trash of an anime should have won "The most Shilled Anime" award instead, is like both Koreas are paying for talking about Solo Leveling.
 
damn I honestly thought Frieren would take it. For me personally it was Dandadan, me and the other half enjoyed it immensely but I understand it is not everyones cup of tea
 
Mate, if you can't even watch a whole episode, then that's on you, but what you are watching.

It's a slow burn story, with a slow pace in places. The nature of the story means such pacing fits it well.

It does pick up pace later on and become more shonen-like.

Now, it might still be not for you, but you can't say that having given it only 10 minutes.
Its nit like i cant watch an entire episode. I stopped watching because something in real life came up. Just wasnt very interested in going back. If nothing came up i would have finished it.
 
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