The ceremony took place in Los Angeles on Saturday, 15 August, 2026.
2026’s most popular magical anime is finally getting the recognition it deserves! “Witch Hat Atelier” has won the Astra Award in the Best Anime category for 2026. The ceremony took place on Saturday, 15 August, in Los Angeles.
Witch Hat Atelier beat five other nominees to win
The anime adaptation of Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier manga beat five other 2026 anime titles to win the award, including:
- Dandelion
- MAO
- Rooster Fighter
- Sakamoto Days
- STEEL BALL RUN JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
But this was not Witch Hat Atelier's only nomination in the award. Anjali Kunapaneni, who voices Coco in the English dub of the anime was nominated in the Lead Voice-Over Performance category; while Joshua Waters, who voices Qifrey, was nominated for the Supporting Voice-Over Performance category.
The first season of the Witch Hat Atelier anime premiered on 6 April. Crunchyroll currently streams the anime worldwide in both English sub and dub formats. The second season of the anime is already under production.
What is Witch Hat Atelier about?
The Witch Hat Atelier anime is adapted from Kamome Shirahama’s popular manga series which began serialising in Kodansha’s Morning Two magazine in July 2016. The first season of the anime came out in April 2026 and ended in June.
Kodansha also releases the manga in English and describes the story as:
In a world where everyone takes wonders like magic spells and dragons for granted, Coco is a girl with a simple dream: She wants to be a witch. But everybody knows magicians are born, not made, and Coco was not born with a gift for magic. Resigned to her un-magical life, Coco is about to give up on her dream to become a witch…until the day she meets Qifrey, a mysterious, traveling magician. After secretly seeing Qifrey perform magic in a way she’s never seen before, Coco soon learns what everybody “knows” might not be the truth, and discovers that her magical dream may not be as far away as it may seem…