Cyberpunk: Edgerunners wins Anime of The Year award its fans couldn't be more proud

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
(Image credit: Netflix)

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has been crowned Anime of the Year by The Anime Awards, and its fans couldn't be prouder. 

Over the weekend, anime streaming platform Crunchyroll hosted its annual The Anime Awards ceremony in Tokyo, and with so many excellent shows out this year, fans were spoiled for choice with which one to vote for. One anime that seemingly stood above all the others though is Cyberpunk 2077 spin-off series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. 

Not only did Cyberpunk: Edgerunners claim the title of Anime of the Year, but it was also nominated for several other categories including Best Character Design, Best Animation, Best New Series, Best Opening Sequence, Best Score, Best Director, Best VA Performance (English) - which it also won thanks to Zach Aguilar as David Martinez - and many more. 

What's even more impressive about this win is that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was up against some pretty heavy hitters from this year including Demon Slayer, Attack on Titan, SPY x FAMILY, and a few others. Edgerunners was produced in collaboration with Japanese animation studio Trigger and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt for Netflix. Despite its popularity though, "there's no such thing" as Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2 right now.

Following the win, the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Twitter account published a tweet that reads: "It's a great honor! We'd like to thank everyone for their support, votes, and for watching our anime." Executive producer and showrunner of the anime, Rafal Jaki, also shared their joy about winning the award by simply tweeting: "Fucking hell we won!!!!"

Fans have also been equally ecstatic by sharing their congratulations to the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners team over on the show's dedicated subreddit. "It's insane how many absolute 10/10 shows dropped last year so it was probably the toughest category to win. Deserved though," one comment below the post linked above reads. "It managed to get more votes than [Attack on Titan] and [Demon Slayer]! That's how much this anime moved a lot of people," another comment adds.

"This was just like Elden Ring snatching GotY out of pretty much everyone's hands," another user explained - referring to Elden Ring's multiple Game of the Year wins last year against other great 2022 releases such as God of War: Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Stray, and more.   

Looking for something new to watch? Take a look at our best anime list to find out what you should be watching in 2023. 

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.