The Japan International Manga Award allows international manga artists to show their work and compete at the highest level. This could be your opportunity to make a name for yourself in the manga industry.
Did you ever flunk classes because you were too busy drawing booba? Do you have stacks of drawing paper bursting from every drawer and cupboard in your room? Do you wear a trench coat — even in summer — to keep extra pencils and sketchbooks handy? If you answered “yes” to any of the above, then you, my friend, might be a manga artist.
Now that we’ve identified your true nature, we must find a way to tell the world. Fortunately, we’ve identified three easy steps to catapult you to manga stardom:
- Learn to Draw. J-List makes this step easy because we sell plenty of drawing guides.
- Create a Manga. Take those drawings from Step 1, place them in some logical order, and add speech bubbles. Done!
- Enter the Contest. The Japan International Manga Award judging committee is waiting to see your work! Submissions are open from April 12th until July 5th, 2024.
What’s Up for Grabs for Winning Manga Artists?
Fame? Glory? Heaps of money? Buddy, cool those heels. This is a manga award. The Japan International Manga Award offers a trophy and certificates to the first-place gold winner and three silver winners. Bronze goes to the following eleven top manga entries, who get certificates. Although there’s no heap of money, the bragging rights and exposure are nothing to scoff at.
For a manga artist — that means you, and you’ll get back to drawing after reading this post — the awards represent an opportunity, and it’s knocking the door down. As an annual award, it’ll be coming around again in 2025. What are you waiting for? Manga artist fame awaits!
Apply Online
2024 represents the contest’s 18th year. It is hosted by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You can read more about the contest and submission criteria on the Japan International Manga Award website. The cover images above are from past contest winners. You can find the list of last year’s winners and read manga samples on the contest’s blog.
Let’s Chat
Also, be sure to follow J-List on these platforms!
- Twitter/X, where Peter posts anime booba for you
- Bluesky, where we post several times a day
- Facebook, where we share memes and discuss anime
- Instagram, where you can look at sterilized anime memes because it’s Instagram
- Discord, if you want to chat with other J-List customers of culture
Before you get back to drawing himopan, please tell us which manga artist inspires you most and which is your favorite anime about manga or anime production.
Have you heard of fumo supremacy and the blistering internet popularity of Saya from Song of Saya (Saya no Uta)? Have you played the game? We’ve got Song of Saya in stock! And we’ll never run out of copies! And no, I’m not sweating profusely or hyperventilating or anything!
