[Critique by work category] Story Manga Critique

We saw many works surpass by far last year's in number and quality, of entries, perhaps because it was the 10th Anniversary of the Festival this year. For the Grand Prize Winner, which is fitting to the milestone of the Festival's 10th year, a great work by an expert--big-boned and spectacular--was chosen by unanimous consent . For the Excellence Prize, there were many works from various genres such as those with a fantastic or "healing" flavor and we saw the richness of presentation, amusingness of ideas and a breadth of scope which was unique to story manga, or graphic novel.
There were many original and dynamic works among those left out of the final screening, including controversial ones where the writers tackled squarely the world of Intersexual or gender identity issues, and we also hold a large expectation for them as a new genre in the future. The distinctive style of story mangas is regarded as a unique feature of the culture of Japan which has been developed since World War II. The tree of story mangas stretches out in many branches from the large trunk of TEZUKA Manga and produces many fruits of manga-artists and it will keep growing and spreading its arms into the sky full of hope with possibilities for the future. It was a shame that there were not so many entries from abroad this year. I hope many wonderful works with the original flavor of each county will enter the Festival in the future to compete with Japanese manga and provide a rich cultural interchange. It is a great pleasure that the number of applications to the Japan Media Arts Festival has grown over time. I hope that we will have many entries of works with unique aspects of story manga next year.