There were many submissions to the manga division again this year. In the Web manga category, we saw many approaches that foreshadow the new era of mobile phones and the Web. We also saw great diversity and high-level, eye-catching presentations in the frame manga/independent category. In the feature manga category, we received more distinctive submissions this year than in previous years that …

For the last couple of years the number of the new manga titles I have read was not many. Screening process this time therefore made me a little dizzy against a heap of more than 100 manga titles. After all, I was not able to even to touch the 25 titles that had passed the screening, due to the hectic of my own deadlines of the works. It was not an easy job to read them, but I must say I had …

The five members of the jury chose five works that they liked from among the many submissions, and discussed the good points. The works that received the nod from a number of judges became the recipients of the excellence awards, and one of them is judged as the Grand Prize winner. Each nominee is selected from among the outstanding entries. However, the discussion was intense as deciding the …

I joined the panel of jury this year. The screenings took place at a turning point of the government's pop-culture policy, and I recently joined the teaching staff of the manga division of a university. These events made me think a lot about manga. There are many amateur manga artists who support today's manga culture. The daily media orientation of the readers is shifting from paper to digital …

Every work that was selected for the final screening is unique and reminds the jury of the depth and breadth of manga expression. I would also like to mention some other works that came up in the discussion. Young and middle-aged artists received many votes in the early stages, and in the end, the 'veterans' yielded to the young. JIN by MURAKAMI Motokazu, MOROHOSHI Daijiro's bio no mokushiroku, …