The sci-fi manga written and illustrated by Shun Umezawa is serialized in Kodansha's seinen magazine Monthly Afternoon.
By: Nicole S. Castro on March 28, 2022 at 15:00 PHT
The official website of the Manga Taishō 2022 awards has announced that the winning manga series is Darwin's Incident, written and illustrated by Shun Umezawa.
The awards ceremony took place today, March 28, at the Nippon Broadcasting System's Imagine Studio in Tokyo. The panelists voted from among the top 10 nominees announced in January 2022.
The Manga Taishō (マンガ大賞) is an annual Japanese manga award made up of bookstore staff as its panelists. Their goal is to promote newer titles with eight volumes or fewer. After nominating five, must-recommend manga series, they narrow it down to the top 10 nominees, after which they conduct a second round of voting to determine the winner. The selection process for the award covered manga series with a maximum of eight volumes that were released from Jan. 1, 2021 to Dec. 31, 2021.
Darwin's Incident is a sci-fi manga which has been serialized in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon since June 2020. The chapters have been compiled into three tankobon volumes.
The story centers on Charlie, a half-human, half chimpanzee born from a chimpanzee mother who was rescued from a biological research institute. Charlie is raised by human parents and lives a teenage high school life. At his high school, he meets the socially misunderstood Lucy. While Charlie and Lucy deepen their bond, Charlie finds himself being dragged to war by the terrorist organization known as the Animal Liberation Alliance (ALA), the same organization who held his mother captive.
Below are the top 10 manga series and the number of votes that decided the winner.
1st place: "Darwin's Incident" by Shun Umezawa (74 points)
2nd place: "Look Back" by Tatsuki Fujimoto (68 points)
3rd place: "Hirayasumi" by Keigo Shinzo (66 points)
4th place: "Onna no Sono no Hoshi" by Yama Wayama (63 points)
5th place: "Chi: Chikyū no Undō ni Tsuite" by Uoto (59 points)
6th place: "Trillion Game," written by Riichiro Inagaki and illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami (55 points)
7th place: "Dandadan" by Tatsu Yukinobu (53 points)
8th place: "Oshi no Ko," written by Aka Akasaka and illustrated by Mengo Yokoyari (49 points)
9th place: "Umi ga Hashiru End Roll" by John Tarachine (45 points)
10th place: "Jitenshaya-san no Takahashi-kun" by Arare Matsumushi (32 points)
Congratulations to all these great manga series and their authors and artists!
Source: Manga Taishō official website (with PDF data and comments in Japanese), Comic Natalie
NICOLE S. CASTRO
Author
Nicole is based in the Philippines and works as a freelance Japanese Translator/Interpreter and copywriter (English). She is a JLPT N2 passer who watches anime to "study" for N1. She has a long career history on LinkedIn (with primary focus on media and translation), but her anime watchlist is much, much longer.
