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Crunchyroll, AnimeJapan Partner to Offer New Award to Develop Young Anime Creators
posted on by Adriana Hazra
The competition is open to students in the field of animation, and short films of "about 15 minutes or less" are eligible for entry. The companies will stream the winning entries domestically in Japan on d Anime Store and worldwide through Crunchyroll in over 200 countries and territories.
Participants will be eligible to win one of seven different awards. The Grand Prix winner will win one million yen (about US$6,780), the Crunchyroll Award winner will win a scholarship of one million yen, and the winners of four category awards will win a prize of 300,000 yen (about US$2,030) each in the areas of technical application, direction, character design, and art. The AnimeJapan Special Award winner will get a chance to showcase their short film at domestic and international anime conventions.
Entries are open until January 31, 2026. AnimeJapan will announce the winners on March 28, 2026. The AnimeJapan Executive Committee representing 22 anime companies and one organization will act as the judging panel. The submission website is available in Japanese only here.
AnimeJapan 2025's public days took place at the Tokyo Big Sight venue on March 22-23. The event had 116 booths, the highest in the event's history. The event had a new "White" main stage this year, for a total of four main show stages running 52 stage panels (along with a separate Ambassador Stage). With the Cosplayers World area outside and the Family Anime Festa for children inside, the event expanded its footprint area to its highest ever.
The event reported 152,400 attendees across its two public days. That was a 15% increase from 2024's outing (which itself saw a 32% increase from 2023). This year's number is the highest the event has reported, higher than 2018's number of 152,331.
AnimeJapan reported that 1 in 10 attendees this year came from overseas.
Source: Press release
