© KAWAGUCHI Kaiji/SHOGAKUKAN

10th Manga Division Grand Prize

Taiyou no Mokushiroku (A Spirit of the Sun)

[Japan]

KAWAGUCHI Kaiji

Outline

August 10th, 2002. A massive earthquake strikes and Mt. Fuji erupts. Natural disasters hit the Japanese Islands one after the other. How do people live in extreme conditions, and how do they get their futures back? KAWAGUCHI Kaiji depicts Japan in the year 2017 through the eyes of a young boy, RYU Genichiro.

Reason for Award

There is only one sky! The cry of the hero, should be heard by everyone in the world. Japan is divided by 3 major earthquakes and ravaged by an inferno. Our current anxieties and fears are represented as if this were an actual event, and one feels as if the evil noise is almost cracking out from the pages. Powerful pictures, precise presentations, the dignity of human beings, corners are never cut in all the details even the work has gone through many volumes, and it makes one feel like bowing to him as the reader senses the author’s great effort. This is a masterpiece which will remain in manga history forever. None of the members of the Jury have any objection to award the Grand Prize to this work.