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Inazuma Eleven, Apollon Win Shogakukan Manga Awards

The judging committee of the 57th Shogakukan Manga Awards announced this year's winners on Monday. Each winning title will be honored with a bronze statuette and a prize of 1 million yen (about US$13,000) at a March 2 ceremony at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Although manga from other publishers have won this award in previous years, every winner this year comes from Shogakukan itself.

Children's Category

Inazuma Eleven
Tenya Yabuno
Serialized in Coro Coro Comics (Shogakukan)
Yabuno adapts Level-5's popular soccer role-playing game that also inspired a television anime.

Boys' Category

Nobunaga Concerto
Ayumi Ishii
Serialized in Gessan/Monthly Shonen Sunday (Shogakukan)
A high school boy time-travels to Japan's Sengoku Era and becomes Oda Nobunaga, the famed warlord who helps unite Japan.

Girls' Category

Pin to Kona
Ako Shimaki
Serialized in Cheese! (Shogakukan)
In this romance set in the world of Japanese kabuki theater, a noble's son and a talented novice both fall for the same girl.

General Category

Sakamichi no Apollon
Yuki Kodama
Serialized in Monthly Flowers (Shogakukan)
In this coming-of-age story of "love, friendship, and music," a naive boy and a scruffy boy share a love of jazz in a provincial town in the late 1960s. The manga is being adapted into a television anime on Fuji TV's Noitamina this April.

Shogakukan has been awarding this prize since 1956 (for works published in 1955). Recent winners have included Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata's Hikaru no Go (2000), Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha (2002), Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys (2003), Mine Yoshizaki's Keroro Gunsō (2005), Kotomi Aoki's Boku no Hatsukoi o Kimi ni Sasagu (2008), Kanoko Sakurakoji's Black Bird (2009), and Kenta Shinohara's Sket Dance (2010). Last year's winners included Yumeiro Pâtissière, Ōoku, Ushijima the Loan Shark, and Uchū Kyōdai.

This year's judging committee included Mitsuru Adachi, Akira Oze, author Mitsuyo Kakuta, Kaiji Kawaguchi, Chiho Saitō, Kenshi Hirokane, columnist Bourbon Kobayashi, and Buronson.

Source: Sports Nippon