Kodansha has revealed 13 nominees across shonen, shojo and general categories for the 50th Manga Awards, with Gachiakuta, Ichi the Witch and The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity among the shonen contenders ahead of the May 11 ceremony.
Kodansha has unveiled the full slate of nominees for the 50th Kodansha Manga Awards, with 13 titles spread across the shonen, shojo and general categories. The milestone edition includes Gachiakuta, Ichi the Witch and The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity in the shonen field, with winners set to be announced at a ceremony on May 11, 2026.
The shonen shortlist runs four deep this year and leans heavily on titles that have already broken out with international audiences. Gachiakuta by Kei Urana and Hideyoshi Andou is in the mix after a strong year buoyed by its 2025 anime adaptation, while Ichi the Witch by Osamu Nishi and Shiro Usazaki serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump picks up a first-time nomination on the strength of its debut year. Saka Mikami's The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity and Ruka Konoshima's Utsuranain Desu round out the category, the latter published by Shogakukan.
The cross-publisher lineup is notable for an award administered by Kodansha: two of the four shonen nominees are from rival houses, reinforcing the award's framing as an industry-wide honour rather than a house prize.
The shojo category features four titles: In the Clear Moonlit Dusk by Mika Yamamori, A Star Brighter Than the Sun by Kazune Kawahara, Gazing at the Star Next Door by Ammitsu, and Re-Living My Life with a Boyfriend Who Doesn't Remember Me by Eiko Mutsuhana, Yugiri Aika and Gin Shirakawa. Yamamori and Kawahara are both veteran shojo creators with prior anime adaptations to their name, while Ammitsu's entry reflects the continued pull of slice-of-life romance on the category.
The general category is the deepest field with five nominees: Spacewalking with You by Inuhiko Doronoda, The Darwin Incident by Shun Umezawa, Nezumi's First Love by Riku Oseto, Heisei Haizenhei Sumire-chan by Satomi U, and Mii-chan and Yamada-san by Nene Azuki. The Darwin Incident, a politically charged thriller about a human-chimpanzee hybrid, has drawn particular attention in past award cycles and now returns to the general shortlist.
The Kodansha Manga Awards, first handed out in 1977, are one of the two most-watched manga prizes in Japan alongside the Shogakukan Manga Award. Reaching a 50th edition places the prize in rare company, and the nominee spread mixing long-running serials, recent anime hits and quieter literary titles reads as a deliberate statement on the breadth of the medium in 2026.
For readers in India, several of this year's nominees are already accessible in English: Gachiakuta and The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity are serialized digitally through Kodansha's English platform, while Ichi the Witch is available via Shueisha's MANGA Plus service, which carries a free simulpub of new chapters.
Winners in each of the three categories will be revealed at the award ceremony on May 11, with the shonen race between Gachiakuta and Ichi the Witch shaping up as the headline contest given both titles' anime momentum. The general category, typically the most unpredictable of the three, will offer the clearest read on where Kodansha's judging panel sees the medium heading into its next half-century.
Weekly updates on the latest releases and announcements.
May 21, 2026
May 21, 2026
May 21, 2026