Summary

The anime film adaptation ofCHAINSAW MANauthorTatsuki Fujimoto’sLook Backmangawas among the winners at the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards hosted in Tokyo this past Sunday. While A-1 Pictures' major anime adaptation of the Solo Leveling manhwa swept a whopping six different awards at the event,Look Backsolidified its place as one of the great anime films of the 2020s by beating out very strong contenders for the award.

The film’s victory at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards follows a very successful run in which Look Back has earned itself Best Animated Picture award at the Hochi Film Awards, Tokyo Anime Award Festival and even the Japan Movie Critics' Award, to name a few.

Filmmakers pour their heart and soul into every frame, taking creative risks that stretch the boundaries of storytelling. It’s about vision, about capturing fleeting moments of emotion and memory. These films take us deep into the worlds of heroes, spies, ghosts, artists and friends; each one driven by something vivid and something deeply human.

– Rina Sawayama, introducing the Best Film category at the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards

The Nominees For Best Film at the 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards

Look Back Beats Several Strong Contenders

Look Backwas nominated for the Best Film category at the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards and found itself among very strong competition, with several major anime movies from 2024 that also stood a very strong chance of clinching the award, includingHaikyu!! The Dumpster Battle, produced by legacyGhost in the Shellstudio, Production I.G;Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in the Rainby studio EOTA;My Hero Academia: You’re Nextby Studio BONES;Spy x Family Code: White, which was produced as a collaboration between WIT Studio and CloverWorks, andThe Colors WithinbyDANDADANandupcomingGhost in the Shellstudio, Science SARU. Look Back also had an individual award as Italian voice actor Ilaria Pellicone won Best Italian Voice Artist Performance for her performance as Kyomoto. Look Back’s Best Film Award was accepted by Kiyotaka Oshiyama, the director of the film at Studio Durian.

Look Back was supported by many people in the anime industry, and we worked as hard as we could. So many people in this room that work in anime – people that really supported me and my journey. I want to express my gratitude to them; to you as well. Last year, we received many awards, but I don’t think there were many awards that are specifically for anime, so for Crunchyroll to give awards to anime from Japan really means a lot. Thank you very much.

– Kiyotaka Oshiyama, director, Look Back

The 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards were co-hosted by English/Japanese voice actress Sally Amaki, who voiced Carol in both the English and Japanese versions ofTomo-chan is a Girl!, alongside Japanese presenter Jon Kabira. The event was dazzled by electrifying musical performances from Creepy Nuts, the Japanese rap duo behind “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born”, the smash-hit opening song toMashle: Magic and Muscle, and this year’s winner in the category ofBest Opening Sequence, “Otonoke”, the DANDADAN opening. Legendary Japanese band FLOW made an appearance to perform the song “Days”, which was the first opening to Studio Bones’Eureka Seven, in celebration of the series' 20th anniversary.

Source: press release