"Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window," directed by Japan's Shinnosuke Yakuwa, received an award at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France on Saturday.
The Paul Grimault Award, a special award for a feature film, was given to the Japanese work at the film festival's prize ceremony.
The Annecy festival is one of the largest animation film festivals in the world and is said to be most prestigious.
The Totto-Chan movie is based on a best-selling novel with the same title in which Japanese actress Tetsuko Kuroyanagi describes her childhood.
In the movie, Ririana Ono serves as voice actress for Totto-Chan, and actor Koji Yakusho for the principal of the school attended by Totto-Chan.
The movie hit screens in Japan last December.