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No Anime Win at 2025 Annie Awards
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Ultraman: Rising was nominated for "Best Feature," but The Wild Robot won the award. The Wild Robot won nine awards, winning every category in which it was nominated (it was nominated twice in the same "Best Voice Acting - Feature" category).
Look Back was nominated for "Best Feature - Independent," but FLOW won the award.
Arcane won seven awards, winning every award it was nominated for.
Ultraman: Rising was also nominated for "Best FX - Feature" (Goncalo Cabaca, Vishal Patel, Zheng Yong Oh, Nicholas Yoon Joo Kuang, Pei-Zhi Huang Huang), but The Wild Robot (Derek Cheung, Michael Losure, David Chow, Nyoung Kim, Steve Avoujageli) won the award.
Ultraman: Rising was additionally nominated for "Best Production Design - Feature" (The Ultraman: Rising Production Design Team), but Raymond Zibach and Ritchie Sacilioc from The Wild Robot won.
Lastly, Ultraman: Rising was nominated for "Best Editorial - Feature" (Bret Marnell, ACE, William Max Steinberg, Nik Siefke, Ryan Sommer, Kaye Speare), but The Wild Robot (Mary Blee, Collin Erker, Orlando Duenas, Lucie Lyon, Brian Parker) won the award.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was nominated for "Best Character Animation - Live Action" (Ludovic Chailloleau, Jonathan Paquin, Craig Penn, Florian Fernandez, Marco Barbati), but Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Christian Kickenweitz, Aidan Martin, Allison Orr, Radiya Alam, Howard Sly) won.
The Transformers One film was nominated for "Best Voice Acting - Feature" for Brian Tyree Henry's character D-16 / Megatron, but Lupita Nyong'o won for her role as Roz in The Wild Robot.
Three episodes from the Secret Level series were nominated for "Best FX - TV/Media": "Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know No Fear," "Dungeons & Dragons: The Queen's Cradle," and "Crossfire: Good Conflict." However, Arcane (Guillaume Degroote, Aurélien Ressencourt, Adam Bachiri, Guillaume Zaouche, Jérôme Dupré) won the award.
The "Best Sponsored" category featured two shorts for the Genshin Impact game: "Natlan Impressions Trailer - 'Blaze to Natlan'" from BUCK and "Moonlit Bamboo Forest" from Passion Paris Production and HoYoFair. However, Passion Pictures Hungry Man's Fuzzy Feelings won the award.
Japanese anime industry professionals honored in the In Memoriam segment included illustrator Mutsumi Inomata, director and manga creator Yōji Kuri, musician Michio Mamiya, voice actor Taiki Matsuno, actor Toshiyuki Nishida, voice actress Noriko Ohara, voice actress Emi Shinohara, artist Keiichi Tanaami, and manga creator Akira Toriyama.
The Annie Awards recognize outstanding achievement in animation. ASIFA-Hollywood added the Best Animated Independent Feature award for the 2016 awards in order to "recognize not only features in wide release, but also the independent animators, international studios, anime and special productions that might not otherwise get the attention they deserve." Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai film won the award in 2019.
Last year, Hayao Miyazaki won the award for Best Storyboarding for a feature film, and animation director Takeshi Honda won the award for Best Character Animation for a feature film, both for The Boy and the Heron. Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi received the prestigious Winsor McCay Award in recognition of lifetime or career contributions.
California-based studio Tonko House's Oni: Thunder God's Tale CGI animated series received awards in 2023 for Best TV/Media – Limited Series and Best Production Design - TV/Media.
No anime won awards in 2022, 2021, or 2020. The 2020 awards presented late director Satoshi Kon with the prestigious Winsor McCay Award.
Sources: Annie Awards' website and livestream
