Triumph at the World's Largest Anime Awards with '9 Wins'... Behind It Was This Webtoon

[Financial News] The anime adaptation of Kakao Entertainment's webtoon 'Solo Leveling' (Nahonlyep) achieved 9 wins at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards. 
■ Korea's 'Star IP' Proves Global Competitiveness
According to the industry on the 27th, at the 'Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025' held on the 25th at the Grand Prince Hotel Shin Takanawa in Tokyo, Japan, 'Solo Leveling' swept 9 categories, including the top award 'Anime of the Year', 'Best New Series', and 'Best Action'. The anime, produced from a webtoon IP born in Korea, achieved the most category wins and the top award simultaneously, proving the global competitiveness of K-content at the world's largest anime awards.
Crunchyroll, the world's largest anime streaming platform with over 17 million subscribers, has been holding the awards annually since 2017. This year's ceremony was broadcast live worldwide via Crunchyroll's SNS.
'Nahonlyep' was nominated in 13 out of 23 award categories this year, including 'Anime of the Year', 'Best New Series', 'Best Opening Sequence', 'Best Ending Sequence', 'Best Action', 'Best Animation', 'Best Main Character', 'Best Anime Theme Song', 'Best Music', 'Best Voice Acting (English)', 'Best Voice Acting (Brazilian Portuguese)', 'Best Voice Acting (Spanish)', and 'Best Voice Acting (Hindi)'.
The total nominees were 48, including prominent works like 'One Piece', 'Attack on Titan Final Season', and 'Demon Slayer: Joint Training Arc'. Among them, 6 works, including 'Dandadan' and 'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End', were nominated for 'Anime of the Year'.
'Nahonlyep' won the top award 'Anime of the Year', along with 'Best New Series', 'Best Ending Sequence', 'Best Action', 'Best Main Character', 'Best Music', 'Best Voice Acting (English)', 'Best Voice Acting (Brazilian Portuguese)', and 'Best Voice Acting (Spanish)', achieving honors in a total of 9 categories.
■ Captivating English-speaking, European, Middle Eastern, and North African Regions
The animation 'Nahonlyep' succeeded in global popularity with both seasons 1 and 2, proving its mass appeal and buzz. Season 1, first released in January last year, rose to become Crunchyroll's most popular work of 2024, and season 2, released in January this year, ranked first in all regions of Crunchyroll, including English-speaking, Europe, Middle East, and North Africa, becoming the most popular series of the first quarter. It also recorded numerous first places in local daily rankings on Japan's Amazon and Abema (ABEMA), and achieved first place among January broadcasts in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, where it was aired through Medialink, recording excellent results in major countries and OTT platforms worldwide.

Meanwhile, 'Nahonlyep' is a work that unfolds the story of Sung Jin-Woo, a hunter known as the weakest of mankind, who transforms into the strongest hunter through overwhelming leveling-up abilities, with a grand story and thrilling action. Based on the original web novel, it has expanded into various genres such as webtoon, animation, and games, as a representative K-story IP, surpassing 14.3 billion global cumulative views combined with webtoon and web novel, gaining worldwide popularity. The game 'Solo Leveling: Arise', released by Netmarble last year, was officially launched in 174 countries globally, achieving 'No. 1 Download' in 141 countries, 'No. 1 Revenue' in 21 countries, and 'Top 10 Revenue' in 105 countries, with cumulative users exceeding 60 million, and won the grand prize at the 2024 Korea Game Awards. Furthermore, a drama is currently in the planning and development stage at Kakao Entertainment, raising expectations.

yjjoe@fnnews.com Yoon-Joo Cho Reporter