Since 1979, the Emmy Awards have made area, between the various live-action collection it honors, at hand out some recognition to animated applications by way of its Excellent Animated Program class. However within the almost 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 a minimum of partially by an American firm. Consequently, the uniquely Japanese artwork kind — regardless of its rising reputation within the West — has solely been in a position to compete within the worldwide class for “Greatest Children Animation.”
Six collection 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” received in 2015, thus making it the one anime with an Emmy Award to its title.
Because the medium has risen from a cult curiosity to an enormous trade in america — 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 really managed to crack into the awards dialog. This 12 months, although, anime streaming service Crunchyroll is hoping to vary that, with an Emmys FYC marketing campaign for one in every 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 Photos) and animation studio A-1 Photos, “Solo Leveling” has been submitted by Crunchyroll for consideration within the 2025 Emmys race within the Excellent Animated Sequence class. Ought to it get a nomination, the present — which tells the story of Sung Jin-woo, a no one who acquires unbelievable powers to change into a warrior often called 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 america. “I wouldn’t say it’s the longer term, 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 continues 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 collection “Rating of Kings.” On the time, Crunchyroll needed to foyer for the collection — produced by Aniplex — to qualify for Emmys consideration.
“We didn’t actually know precisely what we have been doing,” Eley mentioned of that first marketing campaign. “We needed to do loads of training with our manufacturing companions on what’s an Emmy marketing campaign, what does it entail. And our Japanese companions don’t love to do loads of 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 12 months, Eley mentioned that the teachings from their previous efforts helped them stage a extra complete and full marketing campaign. “We have been in a position to actually discuss to the producers from Aniplex, from A-1 Photos, and get them excited concerning the risk, and actually get them to understand that voters are actually simply followers who’ve much more weight,” he mentioned. “There are loads of voters on the market who’re followers of anime and followers and solo leveling. So that you’re actually speaking to simply form of a subset of your followers already, and at that time they actually need to discuss to followers. Japanese companions at all times need to get on the market and go to cons and the conventions and premieres, as a result of they needed to see their inventive by way of 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 collection — together with Aniplex’s Sota Furuhashi, A-1 Photos’ Atsushi Kaneko, and Crunchyroll’s Kanako Takahashi — for an April 30 screening on the Tv Academy. Different methods the marketing campaign labored to achieve 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 collection because the one to place their backing behind throughout this awards season, Eley pointed to the present’s reputation and broad world enchantment. Primarily based on an internet novel by Korean creator Chugong, the collection turned a breakout hit when it first premiered in 2024, and solely grew in reputation throughout its second season. Whereas Crunchyroll doesn’t present streaming information, the present notably has extra rankings and critiques on the streamer, beating out collection like “One Piece” which have properly over 1,000 episodes and counting. When Crunchyroll introduced the nominees for its 2025 Anime Awards, the present’s first season was one of the vital acknowledged general, receiving 14 nods.
A part of what made the present such successful are its high-quality struggle scenes, a lot of which have gone viral on-line: Eley described the collection as “dominating” when it comes to engagement on all Crunchyroll social media accounts. That animation takes an infinite quantity of sources on the a part of A-1 Photos. Chatting with IndieWire, Atsushi Kaneko mentioned the common episode had 150 to 200 individuals engaged on manufacturing in some capability. As well as, whereas Kaneko estimates that the common episode of a Japanese animated collection would possibly 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 rely them within the variety of frames that the animators need to create, and I might say 7,000 to eight,000 frames for a single episode is already fairly spectacular. Some particularly action-heavy anime would possibly 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 achieved 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 believe the problem and the form of dynamic that we’ve got as three corporations, it nearly empowered us to say, ‘You understand what, let’s do that.’”
Along with the primary animated collection class, Crunchyroll moreover submitted the present for consideration for Excellent Particular person Achievement in Animation Emmys, that are decided by a jury, moderately than a vote amongst nominees. One nomination was for Character Animation for Yoshihiro Kanno and, the opposite for Character Design for Tomoko Sudo. Eley mentioned that convincing the producers behind the collection to submit for particular person classes proved to take “a bit of little bit of convincing,” due to Japanese tradition’s emphasis on staff effort moderately than particular person achievement. “These two are actually simply leaders of a bigger group, and they’d say the identical factor,” Eley mentioned. “They might humbly take it away, as a result of that’s the one option to get the present extra, you recognize, extra accolades and extra press.”
As a collection 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 gentle novels produced inside the nation. In response to Aniplex producer Sota Furuhashi, the corporate’s aim whereas making the collection was to not cater and alter it for Japanese audiences, however as a substitute to discover a option to serve the worldwide viewers that the unique supply materials had already picked up.
“After all, the comedian had loads of Japanese followers as properly, however I believe bigger than that was the worldwide group and fandom. Excited about how an anime can be acquired by them was actually the main target and the aim 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 loads of the element within the background that form of actually categorical and showcase the world setting,” Furuhashi instructed IndieWire. “There are loads of selections that have been comprised of, how can we serve this to the followers in a method 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, despite that, there hasn’t been loads of 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 training and outreach in direction of voters who aren’t essentially accustomed to anime, and educating them that it isn’t a distinct segment style, however as a substitute a big medium with a variety of tone and a big, rising base who devour it ceaselessly.
“Possibly you’re not watching anime. We will inform you that in all probability any particular person round you who would possibly match inside the 18 or 34 demographic, and even youthful, is watching anime and may be very accustomed to it, and watches it a number of instances a day,” Eley mentioned. “You won’t learn about it, however the individuals round you recognize about it.”
Eley is optimistic for “Solo Leveling” and its possibilities to interrupt into the Emmys subject — at the same time as he jokingly famous that the Animated Sequence 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 received the class in final 12 months’s ceremony, as an indication that that voters at this time 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 mentioned. “It’s nice for individuals seeing animated content material from different areas of the world. To us, that’s a win, and I believe if we will get extra of these, it actually can showcase the facility of anime.”
Each episode of “Solo Leveling” Season 2 is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
