I was recently perusing some manga news when I noticed an article which mentioned that Junji Ito had won two Eisner Awards at the 2021 Eisner Awards. If you tend to read news websites covering the topics of anime and manga, it’s quite likely that you’ve noticed the occasional news that a manga has received an Eisner Award and you might be wondering what the significance of this particular award is. Therefore, I thought I’d take a look at the Eisner Awards and its history with manga.
Let’s start by discussing the Eisner Awards themselves. The Eisner Awards were established in 1988 to celebrate American comic books and graphic novels and were named after legendary comic artist/writer Will Eisner. These awards are presented each year at San Diego Comic-Con and currently span an impressive 32 categories.
The two Junji Ito manga that won awards at the 2021 Eisner Awards.
You might’ve noticed that I said that the Eisner Awards “celebrate American comic books and graphic novels”. In that case, you might be wondering why manga are present at these awards. In 1998, the Eisner Awards established the category of Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material to honour comic books and graphic novels that were not originally published in the United States. Interestingly, manga dominated this category for years and it wasn’t until 2003 that a non-manga title would win.
Perhaps in response to this, a new category was established in 2007 called Best U.S. Edition of International Material–Japan. Soon after, in 2010, this category was renamed Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia to include graphic novels written in other Asian countries. However, manga continues to dominate the category with only one non-Japanese Asian graphic novel, that being “The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye” which is Singaporean, managing to win the award since its inception.
While these categories are more specific to manga, that doesn’t mean that manga and their mangaka are not represented in other categories as well. It’s worth noting that one of the two Eisner Awards that Junji Ito won in 2021 was for Best Writer/Artist, becoming the first mangaka to win that award. In 2010, Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s semi-autobiographical work “A Drifting Life” won the Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work while “Akira” by Katsuhiro Otomo won the Eisner Awards for Best Archival Collection/Project in 2002 and Best Archival Collection/Project — Comic Books in 2018.
Of course, it’s also worth noting that several mangaka have been inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame. Osamu Tezuka was inducted in 2002, Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima were inducted in 2004, Katsuhiro Otomo in 2012, Hayao Miyazaki in 2014 and Rumiko Takahashi in 2018.
While certainly more focused on American comics and graphic novels, it’s still nice to see manga and their mangaka receive attention and praise whenever they manage to win an Eisner Award. Let me know your thoughts on the Eisner Awards and its history with manga, whether you had heard of the Eisner Awards before, what you think about the manga that have managed to win an Eisner Award and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk and amazon.com for all of your needs!