The Weeknd has been confirmed as a presenter at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026, where he will hand out the Anime of the Year award at the live ceremony in Tokyo on May 23rd.
The GRAMMY-winning artist used the announcement as an opportunity to open up about the profound influence Japanese animation has had on his music, tracing it back to childhood before pinpointing the exact moment it changed everything.
“When I was first introduced to anime, I was a child”, he said in a statement. “Sailor Moon was one of my first crushes, Goku my first imaginary sparring partner”. But it was Shinichirō Watanabe’s Samurai Champloo, a series fusing hip-hop with samurai storytelling, that, as he put it, “completely reshaped the way I watched film and listened to music”.
The influence of Samurai Champloo‘s soundtrack, created by Tokyo-born producer Nujabes, widely regarded as the godfather of lo-fi hip-hop, ran deep enough to impact The Weeknd’s 2011 debut mixtape ‘House of Balloons’ directly. “That influence stayed with me all the way through the creation of House of Balloons“, The Weeknd explained, citing tracks ‘The Morning’, ‘Glass Table Girls’, and ‘Loft Music’ as having been written over Nujabes instrumentals. “Without Watanabe and Nujabes, ‘House of Balloons’ simply wouldn’t exist”.
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Beyond music, The Weeknd also credited anime for shaping his visual identity, pointing to the works of Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii, and Katsuhiro Otomo as foundational to the look and feel of his artistic world. “So it’s safe to say I wouldn’t be here without anime”, he concluded. “It’s an honour to celebrate the artists behind it and a medium that continues to inspire the world”.
The news follows months of posts featuring Japanese artists and creators on his Instagram account, gene.hackerman. Highlights include photos with Kenshi Yonezu, Creepy Nuts, and Shinichiro Watanabe, a visit to Science SARU, the studio behind DAN DA DAN, tours of SEGA and CAPCOM headquarters, a video call with NieR: Automata creator Yoko Taro, and an endorsement of Riku Oseto’s assassin romance manga Nezumi’s First Love. Most recently, he shouted out Osaka DJ and producer ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U ahead of his Coachella debut later today.
This year’s ceremony will be the 10th annual edition of the Anime Awards. The event will also feature performances from DEAN FUJIOKA, PORNOGRAFFITTI, and ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, with RZA and Hannah Bahng among the other confirmed presenters.
Nominees for the Anime of the Year award are The Apothecary Diaries Season 2, DAN DA DAN Season 2, Gachiakuta, My Hero Academia FINAL SEASON, The Summer Hikaru Died, and Takopi’s Original Sin.
Voting is open until April 15th at 11:59 p.m. PT via the Anime Awards official website, and MyAnimeList.
