Anime Grand Prix

• 1. Introduction

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  Anime Grand Prix has crowned a single best anime of the year every year since 1979, decided entirely by the readers of one magazine. That magazine is Animage, published by Tokuma Shoten since July 1978.

  Each ballot cast by a subscriber carries real weight. The results shape which titles, characters, voice actors, and songs get remembered as the best of their year.

  The first prize was not announced until the January 1980 issue, and every winner since has usually appeared in the following year's June issue. Behind that yearly ritual sits five decades of anime history, with tastes shifting year after year.

  Which studio would end up dominating those five decades? Which single voice actor would rack up more wins than almost anyone else? And which categories would eventually vanish from the ballot altogether?

• 2. The Best Anime Race

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  Mobile Suit Gundam, animated by Sunrise, won the very first Best Title prize, beating Galaxy Express 999: The Movie from Toei Animation into second place. Every year since, readers have ranked up to eight titles, from a first-place winner down through seven runners-up. That structure never changed even as the anime being ranked kept changing from year to year.

  Studio Ghibli entered that race in 1986, when Castle in the Sky took first place. My Neighbor Totoro followed in 1988, then Kiki's Delivery Service in 1989, giving the studio three wins inside four years.

  Inazuma Eleven, made by OLM, won the top prize in 2010, the first of three straight wins for that franchise. Inazuma Eleven GO won the following year, and Inazuma Eleven GO 2: Chrono Stone completed the run in 2012.

  Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, animated by Ufotable, took the prize in 2019 and returned to win again in 2021 and 2022. The Apothecary Diaries, credited to Toho Animation Studio and OLM, is the newest name on that list, winning in 2024.

  The ballot even split into two separate contests within 1980 alone, entries numbered two and three, both still labeled that same year.

• 3. Characters Voters Crowned

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  Ryo Saeba, from City Hunter, won Best Male Character three years straight, from 1988 through 1990. No other male character matched that streak across the entire chart.

  Lelouch Vi Britannia, from Code Geass, answered with his own three-year streak, winning in 2006, 2007, and 2008. His reign coincided with Code Geass and its sequel dominating the ballot's Best Title category those same years.

  Rei Ayanami, from Neon Genesis Evangelion, won Best Female Character back to back in 1995 and 1996. Lacus Clyne, from the Gundam SEED franchise, later claimed the same prize four times between 2002 and 2006.

  Sakura Kinomoto, from Cardcaptor Sakura, topped the female character ranking in 1999 and 2000. She returned to win once more in 2017, under the Clear Card revival of the same franchise. Nezuko Kamado was runner-up for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba in 2019 before taking first place outright in 2021.

  C.C., from Code Geass, added her own back-to-back win in 2007 and 2008. One series, it turned out, could crown characters on both sides of the ballot.

• 4. The Voice Acting Crown

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  Megumi Hayashibara won the voice acting prize twelve times, more than anyone else in the award's history. Akira Kamiya trails just behind her with eleven wins of his own.

  Kamiya won the men's-only category almost every year of its existence, taking first place in 1979 and again through most of the 1980s. The award ran separate men's and women's voice acting rankings until its fourteenth edition in 1991, after which the two merged into one list.

  Hayashibara's run began in the women's category, where she won in 1989 and 1990, and continued almost unbroken through the merged rankings until 2001. The only interruption came in 1994, when Megumi Ogata took the prize instead.

  That single year turned into a sweep for Ogata. She won the voice acting prize herself. Kurama, the character she voiced in YuYu Hakusho, won Best Male Character that same year. Haruka Tenoh, another role of hers from Sailor Moon S, won Best Female Character too.

  Sōichirō Hoshi's wins in 2002 and 2005 marked the start of a new generation of names the ballot kept adding for two more decades.

• 5. Anthems Of The Year

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  "A Cruel Angel's Thesis," performed by Yoko Takahashi for the opening of Neon Genesis Evangelion, won Best Song in both 1995 and 1996. No other opening theme repeated that exact feat until the turn of the century.

  "Platinum," sung by Maaya Sakamoto for Cardcaptor Sakura, then won the same prize in both 1999 and 2000. Both back-to-back winners were listed as opening themes, not endings or background scores.

  "Get Wild," performed by TM Network for the ending of City Hunter, won Best Song in 1987. Roughly two decades later, "Colors" by Flow, the opening theme for Code Geass, won in 2006 and finished third again in 2007.

  "Gurenge," performed by Lisa for the opening of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, won Best Song in 2019.

  "Zankyōsanka," Aimer's theme for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, won Best Song in 2021. One franchise, it turned out, could keep resupplying winners across categories for years.

• 6. The Studio Scoreboard

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  Sunrise tops the studio tally with 13 first-place finishes, 13 second-place finishes, and 9 third-place finishes for Best Anime of the Year. No other studio comes close to that combined total across the awards' history.

  Toei Animation sits second with 5 first-place wins, 6 second-place finishes, and 5 thirds. OLM and Studio Pierrot each hold 4 first-place wins, with OLM adding 2 seconds and 2 thirds against Pierrot's 2 seconds and a single third.

  Gainax also reached 4 first-place finishes, though only 1 second and no thirds round out its record. The scoreboard groups Studio Ghibli together with Topcraft under one combined tally. Topcraft's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind won in 1984, bringing that combined total to 4 firsts and 1 third.

  Wit Studio needed just a single win, for Attack on Titan, to earn its place on that same scoreboard.

• 7. Awards That Faded

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  Best Episode ran as its own category from 1979 to 2015, ranking individual installments rather than whole series. In its first year, episodes 13 and 14 of Song of Baseball Enthusiasts took first place. Episode 42 of Space Pirate Captain Harlock followed in second.

  Best Director existed for a much shorter run, from 1979 to 1989, and Hayao Miyazaki won it four times in that span. Yoshiyuki Tomino matched him with four wins of his own, while Rintaro took the top spot twice.

  Miyazaki also topped the Best Screenwriter category in 1986, 1988, and 1989, the same three years he won Best Director. Masaki Tsuji had won screenwriter honors most often before that, taking first place five times between 1979 and 1982.

  Best Character Designer and Best Art Director both ran only from 1979 to 1982, and each crowned exactly one winner every single time. Yoshikazu Yasuhiko won character designer honors all five times the category was held, and Takamura Mukuo did the same for art direction.

  Hiroyuki Hoshiyama placed second in the screenwriter ranking three separate times, twice in 1980 and again in 1981. He never reached first place before the category itself disappeared.