The envelope please…

In the midst of his San Diego manga marathon, Ed Chavez handed out the Yomis, the first-ever manga awards, to the lucky recipients.

And they are (drumroll please):
Best manga series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Best global manga: Dramacon
Best short or one-shot: Sexy Voice and Robo
Best publisher: Viz

Congratulations to the winners! As one of the judges, I have to say that the nominees were so strong that it was difficult to choose a winner. Everyone else must have felt the same, because Ed says the voting was close.

The results are close to a clean sweep for Viz, with Tokyopop bringing in only one title. I think there would be more diversity if there were more categories, however. I really spent a lot of time thinking about whether to vote for Viz or Del Rey for best publisher. Del Rey does a lot of quality work, but they’re still small. When I thought about all the manga I read, and which manga I like the most, it had to be Viz. All four nominees for best manga were Viz titles, because while they do publish their share of mediocre stuff, they also pick up a lot of really good titles.

One more thing: While readers of traditional comics continue to complain about the lack of female creators (there’s some big dust-up on the other side of the blogosphere right now about this Joe Quesada guy), two of the three winning manga series are by female manga-ka. Despite the accusations of sexism in the storylines, it seems that manga really are more egalitarian.

Many thanks to Ed, who put a lot of work into making this happen. I know it wasn’t easy, but I think this is a real milestone for manga in the U.S. What we’re seeing is that the medium here has matured to the point where not only is something like this possible, it’s very, very competitive.

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Comments

  1. I was wrong on all my picks! But I was right that these are all “worth checking out” titles.

    Sexy Voice and Robo are well deserving and Full Metal Alchemist has millions of fans for a reason…

    Viz or Del Rey winning is fine but I think Del Rey has a higher percentage of excellent titles and put more thought into what they do. I notice Viz production has gotten better (especially covers) and it feels more extras are being included in each book. The $8 Shonen titles not so much, but the $9.99 books like Kekkaishi have several extras in the back. In Kekkaishi’s case they hired a designer for the book too (as opposed to in-house or re-formatting the original japanese).

  2. My book actually won?… O___O Wow. I was so sure the “Japan” anthology would take that one!!

    Thank you very much for posting the list, I was dying to find out the results. Yay! Such an honour *^_____^*

  3. Congratulations, Svet!

    I went back and re-read your book when I was doing the judging and I enjoyed it even more the second time around. I can’t wait to see volume 2!

  4. I’ve been off the internet for a little while, but when I came back on and saw Svet won an award for “Dramacon”, I was so, like, “YAY!”.

    Congrats, Svet. You totally deserve it! :D

  5. Brigid: Thank you!! i am so glad that you enjoyed it :D Second voluem is done and off to the printers as of last week, phew! Hopefully it can hold a candle to the first.
    By the way—have we met? At Anime Boston?

    Queenie: *huggles* Thank you!! And welcome back, I’ve been offline for a bit, myself :D Almost missed that I won XD

  6. Svet: No, we haven’t met—I haven’t been to Anime Boston. But I’m going to MangaNEXT—it will be my first con—and I hope you will too!

  7. Unfortunately, no :( I was not invited and there are only so many trips I can afford to make to the States in a year. Also, the con overlaps with an important personal event, d’oh! Maybe next year.

    Your first con—oh man! Good luck :D

Trackbacks

  1. […] Brigid puts together the list of winners of the first ever Yomi awards hosted by Mangacast. […]

  2. […] The Yomis, a new manga-focused online award. (Nominees) In contrast, I agree with three out of four of these. (I would have picked Monster or maybe Nana over Fullmetal Alchemist for Best Series.) I’m also pleased to see a much more balanced slate, gender-wise, in comparison to most other comic awards, as MangaBlog points out. […]