Japan Crowns Its Best Anime of 2025 in Official Awards (& It’s Not Solo Leveling)
The prestigious annual Newtype Anime Awards for the 2024-2025 season took place in Japan on Sunday, and a surprising winner took home the award for Best Work, with Solo Leveling failing to earn a spot in the top 3, contrary to some fan reports.
Coverage of the event was shared on X (formerly Twitter) by Newtype’s official social media account. When it came to the awards for Best Work (TV Broadcast & Streaming), Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! took home first place, with Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX in second and The Apothecary Diaries (Season 2) rounding out third. Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- was fourth on the list.
Solo Leveling Loses to Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroes at Newtype Anime Awards
The Solo Leveling franchise also failed to win first place in other categories of the awards, including Best Male Character, where Makeine‘s lead Kazuhiko Nukumizu once again beat out Solo Leveling to take home the win. However, Solo Leveling‘s animation studio, A-1 Pictures, secured the win for Best Studio. The full list of awards and winners can be seen on Newtype’s X thread from the event.
As for the rest of the top 10 for Best Work, Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray (Season 1) was fifth on the list, with Medalist (#6), DAN DA DAN (#7), Apocalypse Hotel (#8), Re: ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- (Season 3) (#9) and Oshi no Ko (Season 2) (#10) rounding out the list. Notably, confusion regarding the winners followed soon after a post from Solo Leveling‘s official X account that made it seem like the series had won.
Translated from Japanese, the post reads: “Solo Leveling Season 2 received awards in multiple categories, including Best Work. To everyone who supported us, Thank you so much!” Several social media users replied congratulating the show on its win — seemingly unaware that it actually placed fourth in the Best Work category.
The big winner at the awards was clearly Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!, which made its anime debut in July 2024 and is also animated by Solo Leveling’s A-1 Pictures. Its story revolves around Kazuhiko Nukumizu, a self-proclaimed ‘background character,’ as he witnesses a popular girl in his class being rejected by her childhood friend and labels her a ‘losing heroine.’ A second season of the series has already been announced.
Solo Leveling‘s second season, Arise from the Shadow, aired from January to March 2025 and picked up directly after the events of the first season that skyrocketed the franchise to global acclaim. It chronicles Sung Jinwoo’s rise as he embraces the new powers of the Shadow Monarch he earned in Season 1, highlighting his struggles to keep them a secret from those around him.
Despite its massive worldwide success, a third season of Solo Leveling has yet to be officially announced at this time. However, given its record-breaking status as one of the most viewed anime of all time, it’s only a matter of time before Season 3 will materialize. Fans also have numerous other projects set in Solo Leveling‘s world to look forward to, including a live-action Netflix series starring Byeon Woo-seok, as well as an upcoming video game from Netmarble titled Solo Leveling: Karma.
