Manga Taisho Award 2021, also known as Cartoon Grand Prize, announced a manga titled Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe won this year’s award.
What is Manga Taisho Award?
The unique concept of Manga Taisho Award
Manga Taisho Award is an annual Japanese manga award that started in 2008. It has a unique concept of selecting manga titles that judges would recommend to friends most this year. The Judges are selected from manga lovers in various fields, such as musicians, and announcers, bookstore staff.
What titles can nominate the award?
The award is selected from all manga titles published from January 1st to December 31st of the previous year with a maximum of 8 volumes. In case 2021, the candidates are all manga titles published in 2020. E-books with a maximum of 8 volumes also can be candidates.
How is Manga Taisho Award selected?
There are two separate rounds. In the first selection, each judge selects five titles that they would like to recommend to people.
In the second selection, titles with up to 10 votes will be nominated from the first vote’s results.
The judges read all nominations and select the top three. At the end of the day, the results will be aggregated, and the “Manga Award” will be decided.
The past winners
2020: Blue Period by Tsubasa Yamaguchi
2019: Astra Lost in Space by Kenta Shinohara
2018: Beastars by Paru Itagaki
2017: Hibiki: Shōsetsuka ni Naru Hoho by Mitsuharu Yanamoto
2016: Golden Kamuy by Satoru Noda
2015: Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey by Akiko Higashimura
2014: A Bride’s Story by Kaoru Mori
2013: Umimachi Diary by Akimi Yoshida
2012: Silver Spoon by Hiromu Arakawa
2011: March Comes in Like a Lion by Chika Umino
2010: Thermae Romae by Mari Yamazaki
2009: Chihayafuru by Yuki Suetsugu
2008: Gaku: Minna no Yama by Shinichi Ishizuka
About Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
Outline
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End has been serialized in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shōnen Sunday since April 2020, with its chapters collected in four tankōbon volumes as of March 2021. The series is licensed for English release in North America by Viz Media.
Announcement: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vol. 1 releases Fall 2021! For immortal elf Frieren, the adventures are over. Now a new adventure begins: figuring out what to do with the rest of her life! pic.twitter.com/74KyPd4Ngo
— VIZ (@VIZMedia) February 19, 2021
The storyline of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
The adventure is over, but life goes on for an elf mage just beginning to learn what living is all about.
Elf mage Frieren and her courageous fellow adventurers have defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the land. With the great struggle over, they all go their separate ways to live a quiet life. But as an elf, Frieren, nearly immortal, will long outlive the rest of her former party. How will she come to terms with the mortality of her friends? How can she find fulfillment in her own life, and can she learn to understand what life means to the humans around her? Frieren begins a new journey to find the answer.
Frieren, Himmel, Heiter, and Eisen celebrate their victory by watching the Era meteor shower, an event that occurs every 50 years. After casually promising to meet them when it happens again, Frieren leaves to study magic. The years go by and the day comes when Frieren must attend the funeral of one of her comrades, confronting her with her own near immortality. When she realizes she barely knew the man she fought beside for ten years, she sets out to learn more about people, and carry out the last wishes of her friend–to decipher the secret magic of immortality.
