Look Back, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Win Tokyo Anime Award Festival 2025 Anime Of The Year Awards

The official website for the Tokyo Anime Award Festival (TAAF) announced the winners of its 2025 Anime of the Year awards on January 31, 2025. The awards are given to the most outstanding anime works or individuals from all works that were screened, broadcasted or streamed in the fiscal year 2024 (October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024).The selection process begins with a vote by anime fans to select the 100 best works (20 theatrical films and 80 TV series). From those 100 works, "Best Work" (Feature film and TV series categories) and "Individual Award" awards were voted on by a wide range of animation industry professionals, including producers, creators, other media and stores handling anime merchandise.

The official website for the Tokyo Anime Award Festival (TAAF) announced the winners of its 2025 Anime of the Year awards on January 31, 2025. The awards are given to the most outstanding anime works or individuals from all works that were screened, broadcasted or streamed in the fiscal year 2024 (October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024).The selection process begins with a vote by anime fans to select the 100 best works (20 theatrical films and 80 TV series). From those 100 works, “Best Work” (Feature film and TV series categories) and “Individual Award” awards were voted on by a wide range of animation industry professionals, including producers, creators, other media and stores handling anime merchandise. Additionally, the “Anime Fan Award” was selected by voting by the general users.The “Best Work” award in the feature film category went to Look Back, an anime film adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s (Chainsaw Man) coming-of-age manga of the same name. The 58-minute film produced by Studio Durian released in Japan on June 28, 2024, earning 2.04 billion yen (13 million USD) from its total domestic run. Meanwhile, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End won the “Best Work” award in the TV series category. The first season of the TV anime adaptation of Kanehito Yamada (story) and Tsukasa Abe’s (art) fantasy manga series of the same name aired for 28 episodes from September 2023 to March 2024. The anime’s second season has already been in the works.The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe received the “Anime Fan Award” from a total of 21,316 votes cast by fans. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the original GeGeGe no Kitaro manga author Shigeru Mizuki’s birth, the original PG12-rated version of the film released in Japan on November 17, 2023. The R15+ rated version Shinsei-ban then followed on October 4, 2024. The combined box office revenue of both versions exceeds three billion yen (19 million USD).

Additionally, the Festival also announced the winners of the “Individual Award” as follows:

Writer: Hiroyuki Yoshino (The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe)
Director: Kiyotaka Oshiyama (Look Back)
Animator: Toko Yatabe (The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe)
Visual Artist: Mai Ichioka (The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe)
Sound Artists: Evan Call (Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End)