Since 1979, the Emmy Awards have made area, between the various live-action sequence it honors, handy out some recognition to animated packages via its Excellent Animated Program class. However within the practically 50-year historical past of the trophy, a big, more and more vital subset of the medium hasn’t even been eligible to compete: anime.
The foundations for the Emmy Awards state that, for a present to be submitted within the Primetime Emmys ceremony, the present must be produced at the very least partially by an American firm. In consequence, the uniquely Japanese artwork type — regardless of its rising recognition within the West — has solely been capable of compete within the worldwide class for “Finest Youngsters Animation.”
Six sequence produced in Japan have been nominated in that class since 2012: “Digimon Xros Wars,” “Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter,” “Shimajiro’s WOW!,” “Design Ah!,” “To Your Eternity,” and “Rilakkuma’s Theme Park Journey”; “Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter” gained in 2015, thus making it the one anime with an Emmy Award to its identify.
Because the medium has risen from a cult curiosity to an enormous trade in the US — and as American distributors of the medium have dipped their toes into manufacturing work — extra anime have technically change into eligible for Primetime Emmys, however none have truly managed to crack into the awards dialog. This yr, although, anime streaming service Crunchyroll is hoping to alter that, with an Emmys FYC marketing campaign for considered one of their largest hits, Season 2 of the Korean webtoon adaptation “Solo Leveling.”
A co-production between Japanese leisure firm Aniplex (which operates Crunchyroll as a three way partnership with Sony Footage) and animation studio A-1 Footage, “Solo Leveling” has been submitted by Crunchyroll for consideration within the 2025 Emmys race within the Excellent Animated Collection class. Ought to it get a nomination, the present — which tells the story of Sung Jin-woo, a no person who acquires unimaginable powers to change into a warrior referred to as a Hunter — would make historical past by cracking into the Primetime Emmys class.
It’s a milestone that, as Vice President of Communications at Crunchyroll Brian Eley instructed IndieWire, would mirror on the rising dominance and cultural ubiquity of anime in the US. “I wouldn’t say it’s the long run, as a result of it’s not,” Eley instructed IndieWire throughout a latest interview. “It’s proper now. It’s occurring proper now.”
As a result of a lot of their content material is distributed from Japan, Crunchyroll remains to be a really new firm to the awards dialog. They first submitted to the Emmys in 2022, when Eley joined the corporate, with the favored sequence “Rating of Kings.” On the time, Crunchyroll needed to foyer for the sequence — produced by Aniplex — to qualify for Emmys consideration.
“We didn’t actually know precisely what we had been doing,” Eley stated of that first marketing campaign. “We needed to do numerous schooling with our manufacturing companions on what’s an Emmy marketing campaign, what does it entail. And our Japanese companions don’t love to do numerous lobbying. They just like the content material to talk for itself.”
With the present marketing campaign for “Solo Leveling,” which aired its second season from January to March this yr, Eley stated that the teachings from their previous efforts helped them stage a extra complete and full marketing campaign. “We had been capable of actually speak to the producers from Aniplex, from A-1 Footage, and get them excited in regards to the risk, and actually get them to comprehend that voters are actually simply followers who’ve much more weight,” he stated. “There are numerous voters on the market who’re followers of anime and followers and solo leveling. So that you’re actually speaking to only form of a subset of your followers already, and at that time they actually need to speak to followers. Japanese companions all the time need to get on the market and go to cons and the conventions and premieres, as a result of they wished to see their inventive via the lens of how followers react to it.”
For the “Solo Leveling” FYC marketing campaign, Crunchyroll flew out a number of inventive producers behind the sequence — together with Aniplex’s Sota Furuhashi, A-1 Footage’ Atsushi Kaneko, and Crunchyroll’s Kanako Takahashi — for an April 30 screening on the Tv Academy. Different methods the marketing campaign labored to succeed in out to followers included a Reddit AMA with the three producers, in addition to a press junket towards the tip of April.
When speaking about why Crunchyroll selected the sequence because the one to place their backing behind throughout this awards season, Eley pointed to the present’s recognition and broad world attraction. Based mostly on an internet novel by Korean creator Chugong, the sequence turned a breakout hit when it first premiered in 2024, and solely grew in recognition throughout its second season. Whereas Crunchyroll doesn’t present streaming information, the present notably has extra rankings and evaluations on the streamer, beating out sequence like “One Piece” which have effectively over 1,000 episodes and counting. When Crunchyroll introduced the nominees for its 2025 Anime Awards, the present’s first season was probably the most acknowledged total, receiving 14 nods.
A part of what made the present such successful are its high-quality battle scenes, lots of which have gone viral on-line: Eley described the sequence as “dominating” by way of engagement on all Crunchyroll social media accounts. That animation takes an infinite quantity of assets on the a part of A-1 Footage. Talking to IndieWire, Atsushi Kaneko stated the typical episode had 150 to 200 individuals engaged on manufacturing in some capability. As well as, whereas Kaneko estimates that the typical episode of a Japanese animated sequence may take three to 5 months to develop and produce, the longest episodes for “Solo Leveling” Season 2 took 10 months to create, leading to roughly 30-minute episodes that contained worlds of element.
“Japanese anime produced for tv, It’s typical to depend them within the variety of frames that the animators must create, and I’d say 7,000 to eight,000 frames earlier than an episode, a single episode is already fairly spectacular. Some particularly action-heavy anime may go above 10,000 frames for an episode,” Kaneko instructed IndieWire. “For Episode 24 of ‘Solo Leveling,’ there was greater than 17,000 frames, so it fully eclipsed all different kinds of anime finished prior to now. That’s so effing loopy. As an animation producer, that’s in all probability one thing I ought to have intervened and stopped. However I feel the problem and the form of dynamic that we’ve got as three corporations, it virtually empowered us to say, ‘You recognize what, let’s do that.’”
Along with the principle animated sequence class, Crunchyroll moreover submitted the present for consideration for Excellent Particular person Achievement in Animation Emmys, that are decided by a jury, fairly than a vote amongst nominees. One nomination was for Character Animation for Yoshihiro Kanno and, the opposite for Character Design for Tomoko Sudo. Eley stated that convincing the producers behind the sequence to submit for particular person classes proved to take “a little bit little bit of convincing,” because of Japanese tradition’s emphasis on workforce effort fairly than particular person achievement. “These two are actually simply leaders of a bigger group, and they might say the identical factor,” Eley stated. “They might humbly take it away, as a result of that’s the one strategy to get the present extra, you understand, extra accolades and extra press.”
As a sequence primarily based on Korean supply materials, “Solo Leveling” is a small rarity within the anime area, because the overwhelming majority of anime produced inside Japan come from manga or mild novels produced inside the nation. In keeping with Aniplex producer Sota Furuhashi, the corporate’s objective whereas making the sequence was to not cater and alter it for Japanese audiences, however as a substitute to discover a strategy to serve the worldwide viewers that the unique supply materials had already picked up.
“In fact, the comedian had numerous Japanese followers as effectively, however I feel bigger than that was the worldwide group and fandom. Occupied with how an anime could be acquired by them was actually the main target and the objective and mission of ‘Solo Leveling,’ whether or not it’s the character names, how these are localized and tailored, even all the way down to numerous the element within the background that form of actually categorical and showcase the world setting,” Furuhashi instructed IndieWire. “There are numerous selections that had been constituted of, how will we serve this to the followers in a approach that’s very palatable and is seamless to the fan and viewers expertise?”
“Crunchyroll and Aniplex are each a part of the Sony household, so to talk. However, regardless of that, there hasn’t been numerous joint ventures of this nature,” Crunchyroll producer Kanako Takahashi added. “So whether or not it’s the localization of the franchise and the difference the advertising and marketing, there’s a really shut communication and strategy to how we took ‘Solo Leveling’ from manga to anime to the worldwide viewers.”
In engaged on Emmys campaigns for anime, Eley instructed IndieWire that one issue Crunchyroll has to think about is schooling and outreach in direction of voters who aren’t essentially conversant in anime, and instructing them that it isn’t a distinct segment style, however as a substitute a big medium with a range of tone and a big, rising base who eat it regularly.
“Perhaps you’re not watching anime. We will inform you that in all probability any particular person round you who may match inside the 18 or 34 demographic, and even youthful, is watching anime and may be very conversant in it, and watches it a number of instances a day,” Eley stated. “You won’t find out about it, however the individuals round you understand about it.”
Eley is optimistic for “Solo Leveling” and its possibilities to interrupt into the Emmys discipline — at the same time as he jokingly famous that the Animated Collection classes are inclined to gravitate towards the identical few exhibits like “Bob’s Burgers” or “The Simpsons.” He pointed to Netflix’s “Blue Eye Samurai,” which gained the class in final yr’s ceremony, as an indication that that voters at present are open to giving the medium an opportunity. The present isn’t technically an anime — it was produced by French studio Blue Spirit — however it’s a blood-soaked story of revenge takes many stylistic and inventive inspirations from the medium all the identical.
“It’s good to see that for the anime ecosystem. Agnostic to model, whether or not or not it’s French or anyone else, it’s nice for the trade,” Eley stated. “It’s nice for individuals seeing animated content material from different areas of the world. To us, that’s a win, and I feel if we will get extra of these, it actually can showcase the ability of anime.”
Each episode of “Solo Leveling” Season 2 is now streaming on Crunchyroll.