Action manga Gachiakuta has been named the winner of the 50th Kodansha Manga Awards‘ shonen category. In the shojo and general categories, the winning titles were Re-Living My Life with a Boyfriend Who Doesn’t Remember Me and The Darwin Incident, respectively.
The Kodansha-published Gachiakuta, written and drawn by Kei Urana with graffiti art by Hideyoshi Ando, sees a boy from the slums of an airborne town being framed and cast down to the surface, where he joins a group of monster slayers called the Cleaners. The series began publication in Weekly Shonen Magazine in 2022 and has inspired a TV anime, which has an upcoming second season. The synopsis from Kodansha USA reads:
Rudo lives in the slums of a floating town, where the poor scrape by under the shadow of the rich who live a sumptuous life, simply casting their garbage off the side, into the abyss. Then one day, he’s falsely accused of murder, and his wrongful conviction leads to an unimaginable punishment—exile off the edge, with the rest of the trash. Down on the surface, the cast-off waste of humanity has bred vicious monsters, and if Rudo wants to have any hope of discovering the truth and seeking vengeance against those who cast him into Hell, he will have to master a new power and join a group known as the Cleaners who battle the hulking trash beasts of the Pit!
Re-Living My Life with a Boyfriend Who Doesn’t Remember Me, a KADOKAWA-published adaptation of a fantasy romance light novel series, comes from Gin Shirakawa (Eiko Mutsuhana is the original creator, while Yugiri Aika is the original illustrator). The manga began serialization on ComicWalker in 2022. Seven Seas Entertainment describes the synopsis as such:
Oriana, a seventeen-year-old magic student, suddenly dies alongside her boyfriend, Vincent. However, she returns from death in the body of her seven-year-old self with the memories of her past life intact—except for the knowledge of what killed her. She fantasizes for years about reuniting with her beloved, but when they finally meet, Vincent doesn’t remember her! Can she make Vincent fall in love with her again and avoid the death that started this mysterious time loop?
Finally, The Darwin Incident, a Kodansha title that was a General category finalist in the 47th and 48th Kodansha Manga Awards, revolves around the “humanzee” Charlie — a half-human and half-chimpanzee. The manga by Shun Umezawa started serialized in Monthly Afternoon in June 2020 and inspired a TV anime. Kodansha USA describes the synopsis as such:
The Animal Liberation Alliance, an eco-terrorist organization, rescues a pregnant chimpanzee from an animal testing lab-only for it to give birth to a half-human, half-chimpanzee “humanzee” named Charlie! Fifteen years later, Charlie’s human foster parents are finally ready to send him to a normal high school, where he makes his first friend: a human girl named Lucy. In the meantime, however, the ALA’s stance has become ever more extreme, and now they’re here to drag Charlie into their terrorist plot…
Winner of the prestigious Manga Taisho, as well as an Excellence Award at the Japanese Media Arts Festival, The Darwin Incident is as action-packed as it is socially relevant!
Below are the other finalists of the 50th Kodansha Manga Awards:
Shonen Category
• Utsuranain desu by Ruka Konoshima [Shogakukan]
• The Fragrant Flower Blooms With DIgnity by Saka Mikami [Kodansha]
• Ichi the Witch by Osamu Nishi (author) and Shiro Usazaki (artist0 [Shueisha]
Shojo Category
• In The Clear Moonlit Dusk by Mika Yamamori [Kodansha]
• A Star Brighter Than The Sun by Kazune Kawahara [Shueisha]• Gazing at the Star Next Door by Ammitsu [Kodansha]
General Category
• Spacewalking With You by Inuhiko Doronoda [Kodansha]
• Nezumi’s First Love by Riko Oseto [Kodansha]
• Hesei Hanzaihei ☆ Sumire-chan by U Satomi [Kodansha]
• Mii-chan and Miss Yamada by Nene Azuki [Kodansha]
Source: Kodansha (PDF)
