The awards record

The Year Demon Slayer Took Over Everything

The 19th Tokyo Anime Award Festival had to judge its entries entirely online as the pandemic shut down the trade fair around it, but the results still landed right on the anime everyone was already talking about.

Tokyo, Japan · Results announced March 31, 2020 · Judged remotely amid COVID-19

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Award Results

Weathering with You & Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

Grand Prix

A Global Pandemic Couldn't Stop the Ceremony, It Just Moved It Online

COVID-19 hit Japan right as awards season arrived in early 2020. AnimeJapan, the massive trade fair that usually surrounds this ceremony, got cancelled outright weeks before it was due to open. The Tokyo Anime Award Festival's own jury didn't follow suit. International judges reviewed every submission through online screenings and video conferences instead, and the results still came out on schedule, announced March 31, 2020.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba took Animation of the Year, Television, and by this point the timing could not have been better. The series had already been a solid hit when it aired the previous year, then exploded into a full cultural phenomenon once word of mouth (and a very good film) pushed it past anime fandom entirely. This award landed right as it was becoming the biggest anime franchise on the planet.

On the film side, Weathering with You took the top prize, Makoto Shinkai's hyped follow-up to Your Name. It didn't quite match its predecessor's numbers, but it was still a major commercial success, and Shinkai picked up Best Director for it here too. Best Screenplay went to Koyoharu Gotoge, Demon Slayer's own manga creator, and Best Art Direction went to Mikiko Watanabe.

Sidebar

Judged From a Distance

With AnimeJapan 2020 cancelled and international travel effectively frozen, the jury reviewed every Competition entry through online screenings and video conferences rather than in person, a first for the festival.

Sidebar

The Anime That Ate 2020

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba went from a well-liked TV series to a merchandising and box office juggernaut within the space of a year, a rise that was already well underway by the time this award was announced.

The haul chart