Public voting for the 10th Crunchyroll Anime Awards has closed, with the ceremony set for May 23 at Tokyo's Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa and a Yoko Takahashi Evangelion tribute on the bill.
Public voting for the 10th Crunchyroll Anime Awards closed on April 15, locking in fan tallies ahead of the May 23 ceremony at the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa in Tokyo. Crunchyroll confirmed the date, venue, and a special Evangelion musical tribute by Yoko Takahashi as part of the milestone anniversary show.
Nominations across more than 30 categories went live earlier this month, and the voting window ran through April 15. With ballots now sealed, winners are being held for the live reveal on May 23. The 10th edition marks a decade of the awards and returns to Tokyo after last year's ceremony, leaning into a broader celebration of anime milestones rather than a single-year retrospective.
Crunchyroll has framed the 2026 show as both a competitive awards night and a tribute event. The headline performance is a live set from Yoko Takahashi, the vocalist behind "A Cruel Angel's Thesis," honoring 30 years of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The ceremony will be hosted on-site at the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa, the same venue Crunchyroll has used for its Tokyo-based award programming in recent cycles.
This year's ballot spans Anime of the Year, Best Continuing Series, Best New Series, Best Film, genre categories (Action, Drama, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance), craft awards (Animation, Direction, Score, Cinematography, Art Direction, Character Design), and performance categories split by language and gender. Dedicated categories for Best Opening and Best Ending sequences also return, alongside the "Must Protect at All Costs" character award.
The nominee slate leans heavily on 2025's biggest theatrical and streaming hits, with multi-category nods concentrated among a handful of tentpole titles. Crunchyroll has not disclosed interim vote counts, and no winners will be announced before the live telecast.
The May 23 show begins in the evening Japan Standard Time and will be carried live by Crunchyroll, with simulcast availability extending to international markets. Presenters and additional performers are expected to be rolled out in staggered announcements in the weeks leading up to the event, in line with how the 2025 show was promoted. A red-carpet segment featuring Japanese voice talent and industry guests is again part of the run-of-show.
For viewers in India, Crunchyroll's platform is the primary destination for the live stream, with on-demand replays typically posted within 24 hours of the broadcast. The May 23 start time in Tokyo translates to an evening slot IST, making it one of the more accessible live-watch windows for Indian anime fans in recent award cycles. Winners lists and clip packages are usually mirrored to Crunchyroll's regional social channels shortly after the telecast wraps.
Expect Crunchyroll to begin drip-feeding presenter names, additional performers, and red-carpet details in the run-up to May 23. The full winners list will land the night of the ceremony, after which attention turns to how heavily the 10th-anniversary show leans on legacy-franchise tributes versus spotlighting the 2025 class of new series.
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