Within the past decade, Japanese anime has become increasingly mainstream in the U.S., rivaling, if not surpassing, many homegrown productions, both animated and otherwise. In 2025 alone, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle outgrossed every Marvel Studios release at the international box office. And in terms of domestic impact, Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc — a feature film continuation of the manga-turned-anime series — handily outgrossed the star-powered biopic Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.
The medium is equally popular on television with shows like Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, Daemons of the Shadow Realm, and Jujutsu Kaisen all pulling in plenty of views and streams. But just like their big-screen counterparts, these productions have struggled to gain attention from American awards organizations. That begs the question: why do you never see anime series nominated for Best Animated Program at the Emmys?
The simplest answer is the same one that explains why Heated Rivalry hasn’t gotten its hockey puck toward any nominations either — these shows aren’t American-made. The official Emmys Rules and Procedure guidelines lays it out in plainly: “Any production produced in the U.S. in a language other than English is eligible in the Emmy competition. For productions produced outside the U.S. as a co-production between the U.S. and foreign partners, in a language that is substantially (i.e., 50% or more) in a language other than English, they shall have the discretion to enter the production and its individual achievements in any category where they are eligible in the Emmy Awards competition or in the awards competition of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (“International Academy”), but not both.”
Much like the proudly made-in-Canada Heated Rivalry, if an anime series wanted to win a coveted Emmy, it would have to compete at International Emmys, which generally shares the same treatment that second cousins and lower-tier friends receive at weddings. At that ceremony, they would have to be nominated within the confines of the Best Kids: Animation race, as animated shows can’t be submitted for that category and for Comedy and Drama Series simultaneously.
It’s worth noting that some anime series have found success going the International Emmys route. In 2015, Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter became the first — and still the only — anime to win Best Animated Program. Other productions that were nominated include Digimon Xros Wars: The Boy Hunters Who Leapt Through Time in 2012, To Your Eternity in 2022, and Rilakkuma’s Theme Park Adventure in 2023. (Two other series for much younger audiences, Shimajiro’s Wow! and Design Ah!, were nominated in the preschool category.)
It’s worth noting that many Emmy-winning American animated productions have been directly inspired by anime, including Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack and Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai. The latter series was even misdescribed in the press as an anime series despite being a co-production between animation houses in America and France.
And there have been some American productions made by Japanese-based animation studios that have found their way to awards berths. For example, the Cartoon Network TV movie Hellboy: Sword of Storms was animated by the famed Madhouse studio responsible for seminal anime series like Death Note and Paranoia Agent and received a Best Animated Program nod in 2007. Two years later Afro Samurai: Resurrection — a feature-length sequel to of an anime series overseen by the Tokyo-based animation house Gonzo — was nominated in the same category and also received a jury-decided statuette for Best Individual Achievement in Animation.
Nowadays, American-operated studios specializing in anime have a loophole for getting anime into their Emmy Award pushes. Last year, the Sony-owned Crunchyroll campaigned its popular series Solo Leveling for Emmy consideration, but missed out on a nomination.
The current rules speak to a larger industry issue of international television not being able to compete for Emmy rewards at a time when American networks and streamers are increasingly bringing global productions to these shores. On the film side, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been taking concentrated steps to diversifying its voting body and the growing number of nominations for non-English language fare have reflected those efforts. Recent Best Animated Feature winners and nominees like 2024’s Flow and 2021’s Flee — which is the only animated feature in Oscar history to be nominated in the animated, documentary, and international feature categories — point to an increased acceptance of overseas animation.
Maybe the TV Academy can start to take its cue from the Oscars and find a way toward recognizing anime series without having to resort to loopholes.
