Wit Studio, the critically acclaimed anime studio behind Spy x Family, Attack on Titan Seasons 1-3 and Netflix’s ambitious anime remake of The One Piece, is taking on Crunchyroll’s annual Anime Awards show with one of its own. Unlike the Anime Awards, Wit Studio’s upcoming award show rival will celebrate Japanese anime titles “by the Japanese people.”
George Wada, a Japanese anime producer at Production I.G and the president of its subsidiary, Wit Studio, officially revealed an award show rival to Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards at Anime Expo 2026, currently taking place in Los Angeles, California. “We want to judge, recognize, and give awards to the anime in Japan, by the Japanese people,” Wada said during the I.G x Wit panel, which took place on Saturday, July 4, 2026.
Wit Studio’s anime award show, Tokyo Anime Next, is currently scheduled for Oct. 30 to Nov.2, 2026. Wada’s description of the company’s award show as one dictated by the Japanese people is a clear jab at Crunchyroll’s annual Anime Awards program, which commonly takes place in Japan but is aimed at Western audiences and offers little representation of Japanese experts from the anime industry.
One Piece Remake Studio Launches Anime Awards ‘By the Japanese, for Japan’
Tokyo Anime Next will take place this fall in the Ikebukuro Area, a district in Toshima, Tokyo. Wada invited all Anime Expo attendees to come to Japan’s version of the Anime Awards, which will be free of Crunchyroll’s involvement.
“Tokyo Anime Next is a one-time special event organized by the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA) in collaboration with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to launch a new annual animation festival that will debut in 2027,” the official description for the anime event reads. “We are looking for compelling features and short films from around the world to be showcased in our program, offering a premier platform to reach Japanese audiences and media.”
For the final day of the event, attendees of this year’s Tokyo Anime Next award show will be treated to “a spectacular grand finale” at the Tokyo Tatemono Brillia Hall. “Blending a live orchestra with cinematic visuals, this gorgeous performance will symbolically showcase the present and future of animation.”
Although Crunchyroll remains the leading streaming service for anime, its position in the anime streaming wars is being challenged by rivals such as Netflix and Prime Video as anime’s popularity rises worldwide. In January, Netflix secured an exclusivity deal with MAPPA, the anime studio behind Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man and more, for new and original anime titles, such as JIMOTO SAIKO!, BEAT & MOTION and Ranma1/2 Season 3.
Notably, Crunchyroll is no longer the exclusive home of new simulcast episodes of One Piece by Toei Animation, as Netflix now streams them following its successful live-action adaptation of the Shonen Jump series. Netflix’s involvement with One Piece (and Shonen Jump, in particular) has grown significantly in recent years, as the streaming service is set to launch an anime remake of the original One Piece series in February 2027.
The One Piece is intended to be an accessible, more faithful adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s manga, to the point that artists at Wit Studio studied Oda’s art style for two months to get it right. However, the main selling point of The One Piece, aside from updated animation, is its promise to adapt the manga at a faster pace than the original, which typically included filler to avoid getting ahead of the source material during its former ongoing production.
“Season 1 adapts the first 50 chapters, following Luffy up to meeting Sanji,” Wit Studio revealed to One Piece fans in May. “7 episodes, ~300 minutes, all at once.”
- Release Date
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October 20, 1999
- Network
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Fuji TV
- Directors
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Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
- Writers
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Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda
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Mayumi Tanaka
Monkey D. Luffy (voice)
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Kazuya Nakai
Roronoa Zoro (voice)
