Dandadan Got Robbed and We Need to Talk About It
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 are over, the confetti has settled, and I’m still furious. Dandadan season 2 walked into the ceremony with 20 — twenty — nominations and walked out with exactly two wins: Best Comedy and Best Opening Theme. That’s it. Two. For the anime that basically redefined what weekly TV animation could look like in 2025. If you watched anime this year, you know this feels wrong. Let’s break down exactly why.
Look, I’m not here to hate on the winners. MHA Final Season taking Anime of the Year is a feel-good story for a franchise that earned its victory lap. Solo Leveling season 2 winning Best Action makes sense. But when the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 tell you Dandadan S2 isn’t even the best-animated show of the year? That’s not a difference of opinion. That’s a broken system.
20 Nominations, 2 Wins — The Math Doesn’t Add Up
Let’s just lay out the numbers because they speak for themselves. Dandadan season 2 was nominated in 20 categories at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026. Twenty. That’s not just “had a good showing” — that’s a dominant presence across virtually every category that matters. Best Animation, Best Action, Best Director, Anime of the Year, Best Character Design, Best Background Art — Dandadan was everywhere.
And the wins? Best Comedy and Best Opening Theme for “On The Way” by Aina the End. Both deserved, both legitimate. But let’s be real — calling Dandadan the “Best Comedy” is like calling the best fight scene in anime a “neat action moment.” It’s technically true but criminally undersells what’s happening on screen.
Here’s the bitter pill: Dandadan S2 lost Best Animation to Solo Leveling season 2. It lost Anime of the Year to MHA Final Season. It lost Best Action. It lost Best Director. The ceremony had 20 chances to recognize what Science SARU pulled off and took a pass on 18 of them. That conversion rate — 10% — is brutal for a show that many critics considered the defining anime of 2025.
Why Dandadan Season 2 Was the Best-Animated Anime of 2025
This isn’t subjective. Or rather, no more subjective than any artistic judgment — but the gap between Dandadan season 2 and everything else on the ballot is enormous. Science SARU didn’t just make a pretty show. They reinvented visual storytelling for weekly broadcast anime. And they did it on a TV schedule, which makes the achievement even more staggering.
Every episode of Dandadan S2 felt like a different artist’s wild experiment, and I mean that as the highest compliment. The alien invasion sequences used rotoscoping techniques that made the movements feel unsettling and alien in a way that straight keyframe animation never could. The horror segments — the Evil Eye arc in particular — deployed color theory and frame manipulation that would make ufotable take notes. The way the screen warped during Turbo Granny’s appearances, the smeared motion lines during high-speed chases — this was animation that wasn’t just moving characters across frames, it was making you feel the supernatural weight of every scene.
And then there’s the fight choreography. Momo and Okarun’s tag-team battles blend martial arts staging with supernatural flair in a way that no other show on the ballot even attempted. The gravity-defying camera movements during the Turbo Granny chase episodes alone deserve an award. Each battle scene in Dandadan season 2 has a distinct visual rhythm — no copy-pasted impact frames here.
Solo Leveling season 2 is gorgeously animated — I’m not taking that away from A-1 Pictures. But “gorgeous” and “groundbreaking” are different words for a reason. Solo Leveling executes within established boundaries. Dandadan season 2 smashed through them. The best anime 2025 produced in terms of raw visual ambition was Dandadan, and it shouldn’t be controversial to say that out loud.
“Best Comedy” Is the Wrong Award for the Right Show
Here’s what grinds my gears about the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 giving Dandadan the comedy label: it’s not wrong, but it’s reductive in a way that harms how we talk about anime. Yes, Dandadan is hilarious. The comedic timing is razor-sharp. Okarun’s pathetic energy and Momo’s deadpan reactions are pure gold. But calling it a comedy and stopping there is like calling Cowboy Bebop a space western and leaving it at that — technically accurate, spiritually incomplete.
But Dandadan season 2 is also a horror show. The Evil Eye arc is genuinely unsettling — the body horror, the psychological deterioration, the way it makes you feel trapped alongside the characters. It’s a romance — the slow-burn between Momo and Okarun is one of the most emotionally honest depictions of teenage connection in recent anime. It’s an action series — the fight sequences in the best anime 2025 had to offer go toe-to-toe with anything Solo Leveling produced.
By slapping “Best Comedy” on Dandadan and calling it a day, the awards accidentally reinforced the idea that funny anime can’t also be serious art. That comedy is a lesser genre. That a show that makes you laugh can’t also be the one that makes you cry, gasp, and think. This is the same trap that kept shows like Gintama from getting their due for years, and it’s frustrating to see the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 fall right back into it.
The anime community deserves better from its biggest awards show. When anime of the year discussions automatically exclude anything with a comedic core, we’re not evaluating art — we’re sorting it into arbitrary boxes.
The Popularity Problem: How Fan Voting Skews the Awards
Let’s address the elephant in the room at every discussion about the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026: these awards are decided by fan vote. Not a panel of industry professionals. Not critics who study animation for a living. Not animators who understand the craft at a technical level. Fans. And fans vote for what they love, not what’s objectively the best. That’s not a criticism of fans — it’s human nature. You vote for the show that made you feel something, the characters you’ve spent years with, the franchise that defined your teenage years.
MHA Final Season winning Anime of the Year is the textbook example of this. Is it good? Yes. Is it a satisfying conclusion to a beloved franchise? Absolutely. Did it have the cultural moment that Dandadan season 2 had? Not even close. MHA won because millions of fans wanted to give their hero a proper sendoff. That’s legacy voting, not quality voting, and the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 are particularly vulnerable to it.
And that’s fine! Popularity matters. The ceremony is explicitly fan-voted. But we need to stop pretending the results are a definitive ranking of quality when they’re really a ranking of audience size and emotional attachment. There’s nothing wrong with loving MHA. There’s something wrong with pretending that love equals artistic supremacy.
Solo Leveling season 2 beating Dandadan for Best Animation is where the anime awards controversy gets real. Solo Leveling had more viewers. More Twitter engagement. More fan art. More everything that translates to votes. But more popular doesn’t mean better animated, and treating it like it does is dishonest to the artists at Science SARU who pushed the medium forward. The Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 should be the place where that distinction matters — where craft gets recognized alongside popularity.
The Other Snubs: Takopi’s Original Sin and Chainsaw Man
While we’re talking about the awards getting things wrong, let’s pour one out for Takopi’s Original Sin. Seven nominations at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026. Zero wins. That’s not just a snub — that’s the awards actively telling a deeply affecting, brilliantly crafted anime that none of its qualities were “the best” at anything. How does a show get seven nominations and not win a single one?
Takopi’s Original Sin is one of the most emotionally devastating anime of 2025. It tackles bullying, despair, and the weight of failed second chances with a rawness that most anime wouldn’t even attempt. The deceptively cute art style makes the dark themes hit even harder — a tonal contrast that takes real skill to pull off. Seven nominations and zero wins tells you everything about how the voting system rewards safe, popular picks over genuinely challenging work.
And then there’s the Film of the Year category. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is a technical marvel — nobody is disputing that. ufotable’s work on the Infinity Castle arc is stunning. But Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc told a more compelling story, had more emotional weight, and featured animation that served the narrative rather than overwhelming it. The Reze Arc is a masterclass in how to adapt a tragic romance for the screen.
Demon Slayer swept Film of the Year and Best Score, and while those wins are defensible, they also reflect the same pattern: bigger franchise, bigger fanbase, bigger vote count. Demon Slayer’s theatrical presentation was flawless, but the Reze Arc had more soul.
What Dandadan’s Snub Means for the Anime Industry
Here’s why the results matter beyond just hurt feelings on Twitter: they send a signal to studios about what gets rewarded. And the signal from the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 is loud and clear — play it safe, stick to established franchises, and you’ll get the votes.
Science SARU took massive creative risks with Dandadan season 2. The experimental animation styles, the genre-hopping, the willingness to let horror coexist with comedy and romance — these are choices that advance the medium. And the awards told them that none of those risks mattered as much as a popular franchise’s farewell tour.
Studios are businesses. When the biggest anime awards ceremony tells you that safe wins over innovative, you make safe shows. The next Dandadan season 2 — the next show that could genuinely push what anime looks like — might not get greenlit because the ROI on creative risk isn’t there. That’s the real cost of the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 results: not just hurt feelings, but a structural incentive to play it safe.
This isn’t hypothetical. Gachiakuta is coming down the pipeline with its own wild visual identity. Solo Leveling season 3 will dominate awards conversations on name recognition alone. The cycle continues unless we push back.
The awards should be the moment where fans and critics alike say: we need a better way to recognize artistic achievement. Fan voting is one input. It shouldn’t be the only one. As Polygon’s coverage of the ceremony noted, Dan Da Dan led all nominees with 20 nominations — and still walked away with barely anything. If the biggest anime awards show can’t distinguish between popularity and quality, what are we even doing here?
Did MHA Final Season Actually Deserve Anime of the Year?
Let me be fair for a second. The Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 giving Anime of the Year to My Hero Academia Final Season isn’t a crime. It’s a valid choice with valid reasoning behind it. I don’t want to take anything away from MHA fans — their show earned a beautiful ending, and celebrating that ending is legitimate.
MHA’s final season stuck the landing in a way few long-running shonen manage. The conclusion to Deku’s journey was emotionally satisfying, narratively coherent, and visually strong. After years of investment, fans got an ending that honored the story. That matters.
But — and this is the critical “but” — Anime of the Year should recognize the show that defined the year in anime. The show that everyone was talking about. The show that set new standards. Dandadan season 2 was that show. It dominated the conversation, broke viewership records, and made non-anime fans pay attention to what was happening in the medium. It was the best anime 2025 had to offer in terms of cultural footprint and artistic ambition combined.
MHA Vigilantes season 2 arguably told a tighter story than the Final Season itself. But even MHA’s most ardent defenders would admit that the win was as much about saying goodbye as it was about recognizing the year’s best anime. And that’s the problem with legacy voting — it crowds out the present for the past. The Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 shouldn’t be a lifetime achievement ceremony disguised as a yearly competition.
The Solo Leveling vs Dandadan Animation Debate
This is the one that hurts the most. Best Animation at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 going to Solo Leveling season 2 over Dandadan season 2 isn’t just debatable — it fundamentally misunderstands what “best animation” means.
Solo Leveling season 2 looks expensive. Every frame drips with production value. The lighting, the particle effects, the sheer density of visual information — A-1 Pictures clearly invested enormous resources. But “expensive” and “best” aren’t synonyms.
Dandadan season 2 under Science SARU looked inventive. The animation wasn’t just technically proficient — it was creatively ambitious. Different scenes employed different visual languages. Horror episodes used distortion and unsettling color palettes. Comedy sequences leaned into squash-and-stretch exaggeration that felt like watching classic Looney Tunes reimagined for horror. Action scenes combined dynamic camera movement with fluid character animation that made every impact feel visceral.
That’s what the awards should be rewarding: studios that expand what anime can look like, not just studios that spend the most money making anime look expensive. The best anime 2025 had to offer in terms of pure visual artistry was Dandadan, full stop.
Frieren season 2 also brought gorgeous, understated animation that served its contemplative tone. But even Frieren’s fans would acknowledge it plays in a different visual register than Dandadan’s maximalist approach.
What Needs to Change Before the Next Anime Awards
If the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 taught us anything, it’s that the current system needs an overhaul. The anime awards controversy around Dandadan’s results isn’t just sour grapes — it’s a legitimate structural critique. Here’s what I’d change:
Weighted voting. Keep fan votes but add a professional panel with actual weight. The ceremony already has a judges’ selection — make it count for more than a PR footnote. A 60/40 fan-to-judge split would maintain community engagement while ensuring artistic merit isn’t drowned out by popularity.
Better category definitions. “Best Animation” should consider innovation, not just polish. The awards need criteria that distinguish between “technically impressive” and “artistically groundbreaking.” Both are valuable. They’re not the same thing, and treating them as interchangeable does a disservice to the studios pushing boundaries.
Separate popularity and quality. Add a “Fan Favorite” category that’s pure popularity, and let the main categories lean more toward critical assessment. The ceremony can celebrate both — it just shouldn’t pretend they’re the same thing.
Genre diversity in top categories. The anime awards controversy around Dandadan’s “Best Comedy” win reveals a deeper problem: comedy anime are implicitly treated as lesser than drama or action. Anime of the year should consider shows across genres, not just the ones with the most dramatic finales. A show that can make you laugh, cry, and gasp in the same episode shouldn’t be penalized for its range.
The Takeaway: Dandadan S2’s Legacy Is Bigger Than Any Award
At the end of the day, the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 results are what they are: a popularity contest that rewarded popularity. MHA Final Season gets a touching sendoff trophy. Solo Leveling gets to flex its massive fanbase. Demon Slayer adds more hardware to its already crowded shelf. None of these are bad shows — far from it. But none of them took the creative risks that Dandadan season 2 did.
But here’s the thing — nobody is going to forget Dandadan season 2. Five years from now, when anime fans look back at 2025, they won’t be talking about which show won awards. They’ll be talking about the show that made them believe weekly anime could be this electric, this wild, this unwilling to play it safe. The show that changed things.
Science SARU created something that doesn’t need a trophy to prove its worth. The animation speaks for itself. The cultural impact speaks for itself. The fact that we’re still arguing about it speaks for itself. The Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 got this one wrong, but history won’t.
And to every studio watching: please don’t let this make you play it safe. Take the risk. Break the mold. Give us the next Dandadan. The awards might not catch up, but the fans will. We always do.
You Might Also Enjoy
If you’re still heated about the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 results, check out these related deep dives:
• Why Gachiakuta Could Be the Next Big Shonen Anime in 2026
• Chainsaw Man Reze Arc: A Devastating Love Story
• The Best Anime Fight Choreography of All Time
• Frieren Season 2 Review: Still the Best Anime of 2026?
• MHA Vigilantes Season 2 Review: Better Than My Hero Academia