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Apocalypse Hotel Original Anime & Spinoff Manga, Mecha Designer Ikuto Yamashita Win 57th Seiun Awards

The Japan Science Fiction Convention revealed the winners of the 57th Seiun Awards on Monday. CyberAgent and its Cygames Pictures subsidiary's Apocalypse Hotel original television anime won the Best Media award. Additionally, the anime's spinoff manga Apocalypse Hotel Pusupusu (Apocalypse Hotel Sputtering) by Izumi Takemoto won the Best Comic Award. Anime mechanical designer Ikuto Yamashita won the Best Artist Award.

Other award winners this year include:

• Best Japanese Long Story: Rokudo Ningen's Rakuin no Na wa Hito (Labeled Human)
• Best Japanese Short Story: Iori Miyazawa's "Tokitoki Channel Nai Tenki Tsukuttemita" ("Tokitoki Channel: How to Make Nonexistent Weather")
• Best Translated Long Story: Alastair Reynolds' Eversion translated by Naoya Nakahara, and R.F. Kuang's Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution translated by Yoshimichi Furusawa
• Best Translated Short Story: Greg Egan's "After Zero" translated by Makoto Yamagishi
• Best Non-Fiction: Norio Itoh's Norio Itoh's Encyclopedia Fantastica
• Non Category: MYAKU-MYAKU designed by mountain mountain

The Apocalypse Hotel original anime debuted in April 2025. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired.

The anime is set in a solitary hotel in Tokyo's Ginza district in a time when society has collapsed and humanity has disappeared, and nature has begun to reclaim most of the land. Ther anime centers on Yachiyo, a hotel management robot who continues to manage the Ginzarō hotel in Ginza alongside other robots, despite the lack of guests. Together, they continue to maintain the hotel while awaiting the return of its owners and guests.

Kana Shundo (episode director for Saga of Tanya the Evil, Princess Connect! Re:Dive, Luminous Witches) directed the anime at Cygames Pictures. Manga creator Izumi Takemoto (Teke Teke My Heart, Garden Shimai) designed the characters. Natsuki Yokoyama designed the characters for animation. Shigeru Murakoshi (Ninja Kamui, Zombie Land Saga, I Parry Everything) was in charge of the series scripts. Yoshiaki Fujisawa composed the music.

The anime's spinoff manga by the anime's original character designer Takemoto launched on Takeshobo's Storia Dash manga website in April 2025. Takeshobo published a single compiled book volume of the manga in July 2025, and its sequel manga titled Apocalypse Hotel Karikari, will also be released in a single volume on July 7.

Yamashita is the mechanical designer for several films and series in the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise, and the Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX series and Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- film. Yamashita is also the mechanical designer of the 1998 series Kurogane Communication, and he designed Isthar-XII, one of the ancient giant idols in the Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula series.

The 57th Seiun Award ceremony will be held at the July 11-12 64th Japanese Science Fiction Convention (Nihon SF Taikai) in Oita Prefecture.

The nominees were chosen among works that were released between January 1 and December 31, 2025. Those who registered for the 64th Japan Science Fiction Convention could vote online for the winners between March 16-May 15.

"Seiun Shō" literally translates to "nebula awards," but the Japan SF Con's Seiun Awards are more akin to the Hugo Awards, in that the attendees of each respective convention vote on the winners. There is another set of awards, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan's Nihon SF Taishō honors, that are the rough Japanese equivalent of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Awards. Like the Hugo Awards, the Seiun Awards honor all forms of speculative fiction — including but not limited to science fiction — and related materials.

Last year, Haruko Ichikawa's Land of the Lustrous manga won the Best Comic award. Miya Kazuki's Ascendance of a Bookworm (Honzuki no Gekokujō - Shisho ni Naru Tame niwa Shudan o Erandeiramasen) "biblia fantasy" light novel series won the Best Japanese Long Story award. Manga creator Kia Asamiya won the Best Artist award.

Previous winners of the Seiun Awards include: Delicious in Dungeon, Chi: On the Movements of the Earth, Shin Ultraman, Kemono Friends, And Yet the Town Moves, Shin Godzilla, Kochikame, Girls und Panzer, Knights of Sidonia, The World of Narue, Bodacious Space Pirates, Range Murata, Masamune Shirow, Makoto Shinkai, Fullmetal Alchemist, Gundam: The Origin, 20th Century Boys, Summer Wars, Card Captor Sakura, Madoka Magica, Pacific Rim, Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Moyashimon, Astra Lost in Space, How Many Light-Years to Babylon?, Batman Ninja, Studio Nue co-founder Naoyuki Katō, and more.

Sources: Japan Science Fiction Convention, Apocalypse Hotel anime's X/Twitter account