We received over 1,600 illustration and comic entries from 1,317 participating schools in 90 countries and regions around the world.
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Comments from Judging Panel & Winners
Watch the video for words from the judges on the contest, as well as specific critiques on the winners of the Grand Prize and individual category prizes.
Comic / Manga / Bande Dessinée / Webtoon Categories
Overall Grand Prize
1 winner
US$3,300 cash prize / Wacom Cintiq Pro 16 (DTH167) / Three years of Clip Studio Paint EX for a single device
Comic Category Award
1 winner
US$1,700 cash prize / Wacom One / Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: JAY HuH / 제이 허 (South Korea)
Title: FREESTYLE LIFE (Korean)
Comic Category Runners Up
4 winners
Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: Lenm (Argentina)
Title: ¡Adiós Nonnina! (Spanish)
Artist: GooDMaN Yamada / GooDMaNヤマダ (Japan)
Title: HOPE (English)
Artist: Errecuttì (Italy)
Title: You need shoes! (English)
Artist: TURSH (Singapore)
Title: CASSINI (English)
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Manga Category Award
1 winner
US$1,700 cash prize / Wacom One / Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: theYOUNG (Taiwan)
Title: Kinabalu - Land of the Honorable Dead / 京那巴魯 - 尊貴的死者之地 (Trad. Chinese)
Manga Category: Runners Up
3 winners
Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: Kono / この (Japan)
Title: Welcome to the Galactic Railroad Trip / 銀河鉄道の旅へようこそ (Japanese)
Artist: Suneia (Spain)
Title: Crow of Stone (English)
Artist: Gudang / 구당 (South Korea)
Title: Let's go to earth / 지구로 가자 (Korean)
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Webtoon Category Award
1 winner
US$1,700 cash prize / Wacom One / Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: Lin Yuwen_Gwen / 林煜雯_Gwen (Taiwan)
Title: Sun and Rain / 太陽和雨 (Trad. Chinese)
Webtoon Category: Runners Up
3 winners
Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: bactewia (Philippines)
Title: First Step (English)
Artist: Nakayama / ナカヤマ (Japan)
Title: Bard / 吟遊詩人 (Japanese)
Artist: Red (Indonesia)
Title: My Own Path (English)
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Bande Dessinée Category Award
1 winner
US$1,700 cash prize / Wacom One / Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: Fangfang / 方方 (Taiwan)
Title: THE JOURNEY (English)
Bande Dessinée Category:
Runners Up
4 winners
Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: Tuesday art (Sweden)
Title: Cheers (English)
Artist: Nagoyakanagomi / なごやかなごみ (Japan)
Title: Travelogue of a warm-blooded creature / 変温動物的紀行 (Japanese)
Artist: Sugoha (France)
Title: Rendez-vous under the oldest stars (English)
Artist: Emily Xu (China)
Title: Waltzing in Heaven (English)
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Storyboard Category
Storyboard Category: Grand Prize
1 winner
US$2,200 cash prize / Wacom One / Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Storyboard Category: Runners Up
3 winners
Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint EX
Artist: Koki Ant (Japan)
Title: 宝石と魔法使い (Japanese)
Artist: SXDBXY661 (Spain)
Title: La Joya Y La Maga (Spanish)
Artist: Yunika (United States of America)
Title: An Escape Plan (English)
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Illustration Category
Illustration Category: Grand Prize
1 winner
US$550 cash prize / Wacom One / Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint PRO
Illustration Category: Runners Up
4 winners
Three-year, single-device code for Clip Studio Paint PRO
Artist: 0328epip (South Korea)
Artist: Bealouis (United Kingdom)
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This is a manga, comic and illustration contest open to students worldwide. Winners are eligible for cash prizes, digital creation software, pen tablets, and chances to be featured in media publications!
Contest theme (all categories):
Journey
Comic Category (Color) An original color comic for all ages (8-32 pages, including cover). Manga Category (B&W/Color) An original black-and-white or color manga for all ages (8-32 pages, including cover). Bande Dessinée Category (Color) An original bande dessinée for all ages (8-32 pages, including cover). Webtoon Category (Color) An original webtoon for all ages (sized 800 x 40,000-144,000 pixels or a height ratio of 50 to 180 for an image 800 pixels or less when the width is set to 1). Storyboard Category A 4-16 page manga, comic or webtoon drawn according to the supplied manuscript. Script 1 (courtesy of pixiv) In a world where you can become a mage by paying a heavy price, a mage who regrets this exchange one day encounters a young boy. (Source: "The Jewel and the Mage," winner of the Magic Master Award in the Novel Division of the pixiv SUKI1 October project "Magic Contracts and Their Compensation"/Tohro Hokoma) Script 2 (Courtesy of BookLive) Two childhood friends who don't want to be separated decide to carry out an escape plan... Illustration Category Original color illustration for all ages. There are no size requirements.
FUNGUILDA comic book publisher with a mission to "bring FUN to life through the power of stories,” FUNGUILD plans and edits original comics that resonate with their readership of girls, women, and young men, making them available via various Japanese and worldwide online comic sites.
Solmare Publishing(NTT Solmare Corp.)
NTT Solmare Corp. runs "Comic c'moa," one of the largest e-book websites in Japan, through its e-manga editorial department "Solmare Publishing." As well as adapting a vast number of properties, they provide full support to new artists to help them create smash hit works.
Planeta CómicPlaneta Cómic, part of Grupo Planeta, was created in 1982. It offers a wide range of shonen manga such as Dragon Ball, My Hero Academia, Naruto, One Piece and Haikyu, as well as kodomo, seinen, shojo, yuri and BL manga works. It also has its own successful magazine: Planeta Manga. The Star Wars books and other independent works form part of its North American offering, deserving of special mention. Also noteworthy is its collection of graphic novels, including titles such as “Nada,” “Voces que cuentan” and “From Hell.”
MangatariWe are a Manga Artist Entertainment Production company with a vision to create the stage where the next generation of manga artists can be active and accelerate the evolution of Japanese manga. Working closely with manga artists' careers, we push the envelope on manga as an artform. For companies, we provide services such as the Original Story Advertising Manga "Orist" service, which produces manga for commercials. We also deliver manga to publishers through our Team-based Serialization and Comic Production "Manpro" business.
Amutus CorporationMecha Comic, one of Japan's largest e-book sites, plans and produces with its production partners the original brand "Mecha Comic Original," which is distributed on e-book sites in Japan and abroad. Note: Books are sold under the Amucomi brand in bookstores other than Mecha-Comic.
Tapas MediaThe leading digital publisher of webcomics and novels, Tapas is a pioneer mobile storytelling platform with more than 8.7 billion views to date from more than 9M registered users reading 99,000 series by 64,000 creators.
Collaborators
SHOGAKUKAN is a general publishing company that publishes magazines such as comic magazines, children's magazines, information magazines, women's magazines, books and picture books. The comic magazine genre covers a wide range of readers from boys and girls to adults, such as CoroCoro Comic, Weekly Shonen Sunday, Sho-Comi, and Big Comic. The company also runs the comic app, Manga One, which has been downloaded over 20 million times.
Pocket Comics is a manga/novel app that features a vast collection of vertically scrolling, full-color manga. In addition to the Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese versions, the English version of the app is available in France, Taiwan, the United States, and other English-speaking countries, having been downloaded more than 35 million times worldwide.
Founded in June, 1991, Ever Glory Publishing Co., Ltd. has mainly had educational- and entertainment-oriented children’s books published and distributed. It once gained authorizations from SHOGAKUKAN, Kodansha, SHUEISHA, and Akita Shoten to issue comic in Chinese versions in Taiwan. Moreover, local cartoonists cultivated by the company are widely recognized nowadays and bring the eyes of the world to the international comics market.
One of the biggest international manga competitions, exclusively without dialogue. It is organized by COAMIX Inc., a manga publisher founded by iconic creators such as Tetsuo Hara and Tsukasa Hojo. The competition aims to discover, nurture, and publish the next generation of international manga creators through exclusive opportunities, such as the MasterClass and Kumamoto-based Artists Village projects.
Our goal is to support everyone in creating their own manga while having fun drawing it. We have produced many award-winning and debut artists. In addition to storyboard lessons that cover how to structure a complete 32-page storyboard, we also hold individual consultations and storyboard exchange sessions to answer concerns about the creation of comics.
A creator agency whose mission is to change each and everyone’s world through the power of storytelling. The agency aims to create a world where comics can shine brightly, where excitement is generated from creators and fans connecting directly and building a model for entertainment in the Internet age that goes beyond traditional publishing and distribution.
Fanfan Inc., located in Hangzhou, China, is an all-around IP business that deals in importing international cartoons, fostering domestic Chinese cartooning talent, and selling character merchandise. Since its founding over a decade ago, Fanfan Inc. has grown to a mid-sized company in the Chinese animation industry.
Founded in 1945, Shonengahosha is a publisher with a long history that specializes in manga. The publisher covers a wide range of genres, from magazines aimed at young people such as "Young King," "Ours," and "Young Comic," to convenience store comic titles such as "Neko Punch," and "Omoide Shokudo." In particular, Shonengahosha publishes works with a strong point of view that manga connoisseurs favor. In recent years, they have also garnered a larger audience with the Manga DX+ app.
Supporters
The Japan Cartoonists Association was established in December 1964 as the only nationwide organization of Japan's manga artist at that time and became an Incorporated Association in 1985 before becoming a Public Interest Incorporated Association in 2014. It is engaged in a variety of projects, such as research on comics, efforts in popularizing comics and comics culture, and comics cultural exchange with other countries.
Manga Japan is an organization that aims to promote the development of manga culture and artists, contribute to society through the manga industry, promote international exchange, and improve production environments for manga authors and others involved in the industry.
The Digital Manga Association is an organization of volunteers established to explore creative technologies for the creation of digital manga and comics and research copyright issues caused by digitization.
Contest Partners
Operational Support
Organizer
Participating Schools
Note: The following list only shows schools that provided logos. As of 08/04/2022
The previous contest, held from January 2021 on the theme of Admiration received over 1,554 entries from 1,245 schools in 85 countries around the globe.
The winning entries received detailed critiques from sponsors. Please feel free to reference them when creating your entry.