Cartoon Grand prize – All you need is to get to know this prize to be a cool Manga nerd!

I’m sure this is the coolest manga award in Japan, but I should say up front – it might not be easy to find an English version right now.

The Cartoon Grand Prize was created by bookstore staff, purely out of passion for manga. It’s an award made by manga lovers, for manga lovers – with no commercial interests involved. What began as a small, independent initiative has now become a well-known prize across Japan.

Past winners include Beastars, Golden Kamuy, and Our Little Sister – all of which were later adapted into anime or films. What I’d love to tell non-manga readers is this: manga isn’t just about love, friendship, dreams, or battles between humans and monsters. Manga builds detailed imaginary worlds, yet still gives us stories we can relate to. Sometimes it’s just about something as simple as a summer holiday. The experience is very different from film, theatre, or music.

If you’ve ever read Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina or Richard McGuire’s Here, you’ll know how unforgettable the experience of reading a graphic novel can be.

This year’s prize went to Alice, Even to Space (no English edition yet). It’s by Kiko Urino – and I honestly think she’s a genius. In this work, she introduces the word “semilingual” (someone who can’t speak either of their two languages fluently). Alice, the protagonist, is semilingual, yet she dreams of becoming the first female astronaut in Japanese history.