It's voting time for the 2025 Ursa Major Awards!
The 2025 Ursa Major Awards are open for voting through Monday March 23! You can go to the voting page to request a voting key.
New this year is the Streamer category, and a temporary Classic Anthro Videogame category for games from before 2001 that had animal protagonists.
The 2025 nominees are...
Motion Picture:
Live-action or animated feature-length movies.
- The Bad Guys 2, DreamWorks (review)
- Zootopia 2, Disney (review)
- Good Boy, indie (Ben Leonberg)
- Dog Man, DreamWorks
- Elio, Disney/Pixar
Dramatic Short Work:
One-shots, advertisements or short videos.
- Snow Bear, by Aaron Blaise
- Talon: An Animated Dinosaur Epic, from Lunar Dragon Entertainment
- Unloved, ad for Intermarché
- Bun Hunting 2.0: You can (not) be Baked, by Piti Yindee
- Lackadaisy: Last Call, based on the work of Tracy Butler, co-produced by Glitch and Iron Circus
Dramatic Series:
TV or YouTube series.
- Belfort & Lupin, created by T.J. Stehly
- The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball, created by Ben Bocquelet
- The Amazing Digital Circus, created by Gooseworx, produced by Glitch
- Hazbin Hotel, created by Vivienne Medrano
- Helluva Boss, created by Vivienne Medrano
Novel:
Written works of 40,000 words or more. Serialized novels qualify only for the year that the final chapter is published.
- Gravitational Pull [18+], by Ty Fox
- Of Late Belonging [18+], by Rob MacWolf
- Relinquished Realms, by Joaquín Baldwin
- Feral Flame, by Joaquin Baldwin
- The Blood of Life [18+], by NightEyes DaySpring
Short Fiction:
Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short written works.
- Coming Ott, by Geo Holms
- Against the Upright Ones, by Utunu
- Salisbury (18+), by Roscoe G. Beetle
- Sanctum Scriptorium, by Galen L.K.
- The Package, by NightEyes DaySpring
- The Young Man who Knew Where he was Going, by Rob MacWolf
General Literary Work:
Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.
- Detective Alice, by Kyky Yang
- Echoes, by Utunu (contains "Against the Upright Ones" from above)
- Sabrina Online: A Trio of Tales, by Eric W. Schwartz
- Tales from the Guild: Blood and Water, edited by J.F.R. Coates
- The Wideness of the World, by the Furry Historical Fiction Society (contains "The Young Man who Knew Where he was Going" from above)
Non-Fiction Work:
- 85 Years of Con Cosplay: From Costume Masquerade to Fursuit Parade, by TransformARTive
- The Wealth Disparity in the Furry Fandom, by Fry_Badger
- Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom, by Dogpatch Press
- Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster, by Dogpatch Press, Theo Love and Jigsaw Productions
- They solved a horrific crime in their community, by Kelsey Weekman, reviewing the above Dogpatch Press nomination
Graphic Story:
Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.
- Pixeas and Henry, by Nekeith Fox
- A Tale of Tails [18+], by Feretta
- Incomplete Control, by Mark Alexander Smith and Daniel Noble
- Projection Edge, by Thomas K. Dye
- Wrath of Con, by TransformARTive (also see Non-Fiction Work category above)
Comic Strip:
Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
- Foxes in Love, by Toivo Kaartinen
- Nine To Nine, by Jan
- Freefall, by Mark Stanley
- Lauren Ipsum, by Charles Brubaker
- Damian Foxx, by Damian Foxx
Magazine:
Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
- Gaming Furever
- The Voice of Dog (also see several links in the Short Story category)
- InFurNation
- Indie Anthro (queer music blog)
- Dogpatch Press (also see several links in the Non-Fiction Work category)
Published Illustration:
General artwork, may include illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, T-shirts, coffee-table portfolios.
- Adventure, by Loafy
- Avian Aerie: 2025 , by Godbird
- Among the Tides, by Kostino
- Deep Sea Fox (X link), by TransformARTive (also see Non-Fiction Work and Graphic Story categories above)
- Furry Fantasy Banner Set, by TransformARTive
- Steampunk Protogen Banner (X link), by TransformARTive
Game:
Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
- Hollow Knight: Silksong, from Team Cherry
- Back to the Dawn, from Metal Head Games & Spiral Up Games (review)
- Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4, from TobyFox
- Donkey Kong Bananza, from Nintendo
- Sunderfolk, from Secret Door & Dreamhaven
- Shape of Dreams, from Lizard Smoothie & NeoWiz
Website:
Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
- Fluffle (reverse image search)
- The Belfry WebComics Index
- FurAffinity [18+]
- FurTrack (fursuit photos)
- E621 [18+]
Fursuit:
Fursuiters and Fursuits galore!
- Gintan 3.0 (X link), maker: Lanze4342; owner: 银碳Gintan
- Bon Pansky, maker: Gentlefur Studio; owner: Bon Pansky
- Bubblegum (X link), maker: Umi Fursuit; owner: MoarCowbell
- Echo the Bat, maker: SewingStuffs; owner: EchoTheBatFurry
- Violet the Mule (Telegram link), maker: Marvel Mischief; owner: Violet the Mule
Music:
Musical works such as singles and albums.
- If I Were to Die, by YonKaGor
- First Step, by Basttie
- Ignition (album), by Patricia Taxxon
- Off the Leash, by Louie Zong
- There's Still Tomorrow (album), by Tdstr
Streamer:
New category for 2025! Furry streamers.
Classic Anthro Videogame:
One-time special category for 2025! Games released before 2001 that had a playable animal character.
- Mappy (1983), from Namco
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992), from Sega
- Rocket Knight Adventures (1993), from Konami
- Sam & Max Hit the Road (1993), from LucasArts
- Crash Bandicoot (1996), from Naughty Dog
- Star Fox 64 (1997), from Nintendo
- PaRappa the Rapper (1997), from NanaOn-Sha
- Spyro the Dragon (1998), from Insomniac Games
- Banjo-Kazooie (1998), from Rare & 4J Studios
- Tail Concerto (1998), from CyberConnect2
Best of luck to all the nominees!
Comments
I'm going to use this comment to point to furry things that didn't make it into the vote! First, I need to get a terrible joke out of my system. I wasn't expecting to see PaRappa the Rapper on the list, but hey, how often do you see an anthropomorphic vegetable like Master Onion? He's such a rap scallion.
(cough) Ok! I didn't dive into all the categories, though I did check out things from the Ursa's Recommended list. For Motion Pictures, I was really hoping for Night of the Zoopocalypse - maybe it didn't get in because technically the initial release was in 2024, instead of the 2025 wider release date. Elio? I haven't watched it, what are there, alien blob characters? (Update: JFC Pixar)
For Dramatic Short Work: personally I liked Butterfly Business, but I don't think it had much of a chance against the other contenders. I watched Two Balloons through a friend's Kanopy account - I thought it came out years ago? Absolutely gorgeous stop-motion animation, but the story felt a bit simplistic.
Dramatic Series: Haven't watched either of the anime series With You our Love Will Make it Through, or season 2 of Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill. Anyone know if they're worth checking out?
Comics and Graphic stories: I have a soft spot for Save State and Out-of-Placers.
Magazine: Soatok's posts to Dhole Moments, and I'm hoping Fang, Feather, & Fin picks up again! Do podcasts go into this category? I forget. Recently I've been enjoying the unboxing of Taral Wayne's old zines by Furry Film Burrow, and occasionally tuning in to the TF Tuesday podcast.
Published Illustration: As the years have gone by in the fandom, I've ended up with a very high bar for what I like in furry art. In the past, I used to browse through FurAffinity going sideways, from one artist's favorites to another, but as many artists no longer rely on that site, I'm finding it harder and harder to find amazing artists without hours and hours of websurfing, hoping to stumble by accident across something I really like. Among those rare and happy (re)discoveries recently have been AlsaresNoLynx, Himmis, Sinto_J, Oaks, and Stasis Delirium. If anyone has better strategies for discovering new and/or high-quality furry art, let me know!
Games: A category I don't keep up to date with, even though our fandom generates a lot of visual novels.
Fursuits and Streamers: It's less than a partial, but ye ghods, the lion head that The Forgotten Imp made for Adam Savage - that's a work of art! And for streamers, some of the audio talks by Cindershadow have really struck a chord with me.
Classic Anthro Videogames: So much that could be added to this list! When I first moved across the country, the local furry fans were all into Bloody Roar (1997+), but the gameplay got old really fast. Inherit the Earth (1994) was a point-and-click adventure made by furry fans, but it fell victim to executive meddling and I'd only recommend it to the curious. Then there's The Lost Vikings 2 (1997), a puzzle-platformer that at first glance doesn't appear furry at all, until later levels when you get to control a little werewolf and a dragon.
In arcades, I naturally gravitated to watching people play Rampage (1986) and Altered Beast (1988). It wasn't until decades later that I realized I'd missed out on an even furrier arcade game: Metamorphic Force (1993)!
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