The 2023 Manga Taisho Awards!
It's here! One of the most prestigious annual prizes has announced its winners!
And yet again: the Taisho trolls western audiences by awarding its Grand Prize to a series that, honestly, wasn’t on mine or anyone I follow’s radar.
Kore Egaite Shine (Draw this and die, これ描いて死ね) by Toyoda Minoru
Toyoda-sensei takes the Grand Prize with his Draw this and Die. Coming out since 2021 on Shogakukan’s Gessan, this is yet another time that the award compliments the meta-narrative of manga about manga (and mangaka!).
Yasumi Ai. She's a first-year high school student living on Izu Ōshima, an island that's part of Tokyo prefecture. She loves to read manga, but a certain event triggered her to start thinking about "creating" manga. She begins to think about "creating" manga. What is the world that awaits her? A manga by Minoru Toyota, a manga artist who loves manga! The pain and joy of creating works of art. No expense is spared in this tale of growing up and manga adventure! (description from MangaUpdates)
Being out of everybody’s radar, it’s, of course, not licensed and hasn’t been picked up by any fan translation groups. It has 2 volumes out in Japan, with the 3rd coming out next month, April 12th. Hope that changes as, at least in the past decade or so, there are few better awards than the Taisho in actually awarding incredible excellence.
Draw this and Die was also nominated for the Next Manga Award, finishing in 16th (out of 50 nominees)
Some of the past winners were: Umezawa Shun’s The Darwin Incident (ダーウィン事変, Dauien Jihen) in 2022, Yamada Kanehito and Abe Tsukasa’s Friend: Beyond End’s Journey (葬送のフリーレン, Sousou no Frieren) in 2021, Yamaguchi Tsubasa’s Blue Period (ブルーピリオド) in 2020 and Shinohara Kenta’s Astra Lost in Space (彼方のアストラ, Kanata no Astra) in 2019.
Other finalists
In 2nd place we had the incredibly excellent Akane-banashi (あかね噺), by Suenaga Yuki and Moue Takamasa, currently running on Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump (and in my most honest and personal opinion: the best ongoing manga on Jump). Marvelous series about a girl determined to follow her dad’s footsteps into the world of rakugo - the Japanese storyteller. It has been coming out since 2022 and currently has 5 volumes out in Japan and is being simulpub’d by VIZ/Shueisha on the MangaPlus app (and for free! New chapters every Sunday!)
3rd place went to Onna no Sono no Hoshi (女の園の星) by Wayama Yama. A fantastically popular slice of life josei, that runs on Shodensha’s Feel Young since 2020, about a language teacher at an all-girls high school. The series, recently, received a short-form original video animation (OVA), directed by Hatakeyama Mamoru and produced by Lapin Track. It currently has 3 volumes out in Japan, but hasn’t been licensed in English yet. It had been briefly picked up by Vioscans, but new chapters haven’t been updated for over a year now.
Fourth place went to You and I are polar opposites (正反対な君と僕, Seihantai na Kimi to Boku) by Asagawa Kocha, running on Shueisha’s Shonen Jump+ and Jump+ app. A cutesy romantic comedy about an extrovert girl and introverted boy, it has 3 volumes out in Japan and is also simulp’d by VIZ/Shueish on their MangaPlus website and app
Two other titles worth mentioning from the 10 finalists are Fujimoto Tatsuki’s Goodbye, Eri (さよなら絵梨, Sayonara Eri), that ran on Shueisha’s Jump+ app, with a single volume released in 2022. Amazing series that has Fujimoto displaying all of his seemingly infinite talent for juggling references, popular culture and telling stories through sequential art. It finished in 6th.
And in 10th we had The Summer Hikaru Died (光が死んだ夏, Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu) by Mokumokuren. An amazing series coming out on Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace Up and recently licensed by YenPress (and in other countries as well, as Brazil by Panini), that couples BL, slice of life and horror, with beautiful art and awe-inspiring panels.
The entirety of the cast winners and finalists is pretty much always a fantastic recommendation list. Check all the finalists and winners here. And a shout-out to Schwinn, author of Hanamonogatari (はなものがたり), for having been nominated in the first selection for the awards! Amazing for a beginner author, but they deserve it! This series is an absolute delight (and will be feature here in my next post).
And if you’d like some more recommendations, check out my previous posts and subscribe for more (including a nice, short one about the best ongoing yuri manga).
