iWorld
Crunchyroll announces celebrity anime fan lineup for 2023 anime awards
Mumbai: Crunchyroll, the ultimate anime destination for fans worldwide, announced today a slate of celebrity presenters set to appear and participate in the seventh annual Crunchyroll Anime Awards, taking place March 4, 2023 in Tokyo, including Robert Rodriguez, Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things, Pinocchio), WWE Superstar Zelina Vega, Juju Smith-Schuster of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, top streaming talent and more.
“I love anime, it’s an art form that has always inspired me. For the creators, it’s unbound creativity and freedom of expression, where they can make truly iconic, creative worlds and characters,” said Robert Rodriguez, award-winning writer and director of such iconic films as Sin City and most recently an episode of The Mandalorian. “Anime is a crucible for new ideas and fresh perspectives in entertainment. So I’m very excited to help celebrate the grand winners being honored at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in Japan.”
The full list of talent includes:
- Aidan Hutchinson, American football defensive end for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League.
- Finn Wolfhard, actor, musician and director (Stranger Things, Pinocchio, Ghostbusters, IT)
- Hunter Schafer, actress and artist (Euphoria and the upcoming The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes)
- Jacob Bertrand, actor (Cobra Kai)
- Juju Smith-Schuster, American football wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League
- Robert Rodriguez, film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician (Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, Alita: Battle Angel)
- Zelina Vega, WWE Superstar
- Sykkuno, one of the largest streamers on YouTube Gaming (9.8M+ followers)
- Valkyrae, one of the biggest female streamers in the world (13M followers) and the co-owner of 100 Thieves
Additional global talent and musical performances will be announced soon.
“I have been a huge anime fan since I was a kid. It has been a part of my whole life, till this day, it has helped me so much. I’m an NFL athlete and I get to represent this anime world. So for me to present an Anime Award to some of the greatest shows in the world, it’s the best,” said Juju Smith-Schuster, NFL wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs, fresh off a Super Bowl win.
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards is the leading yearly awards program honoring the creators, musicians, and performances across streaming and theatrical powering the global love of anime. This year’s nominees represent anime excellence across more than 30 anime studios, eight streaming platforms, over 50 series and films, and celebrating more than 50 voice actors.
The Anime Awards will take place at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo on Saturday, March 4, 2023, with a live ceremony hosted by renowned voice actress Sally Amaki and popular entertainer Jon Kabira that will gather the creators and talent behind the anime community’s favorite series. Fans can watch the Anime Awards livestream on the Crunchyroll channels on YouTube and Twitch. In India, the Anime Awards is exclusively streaming on Sony LIV.
Sony Music Solutions, part of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., will support Crunchyroll in the execution of the event, which will be streamed for global audiences.
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
