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Pirates and Hunters For the Win - MangaHelpers Manga Awards 2011 Winners
One of my favorite manga community sites to visit, MangaHelpers, recently had their awards event, the MH Manga Awards 2011, where users voted which manga series, characters, and moments ruled in their eyes. A wide variety of categories were available and there were a lot of good nominees that deserved to win. Without further ado, here were the winners:
Best Seinen: Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura
Best Sci-Fi: Gantz by Hiroya Oku
Best Mystery/Horror: MONSTER by Naoki Urasawa
Best Male Lead: Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece
Best Overall Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa
Best Plot Twist/Epic Moment: (tie) One Piece (Mermaid Princess Shirahoshi being revealed as the ancient weapon, Poseidon) and Naruto (Itachi Uchiha breaking free from Edo Tensei)
Best Artwork: Berserk by Kentaro Miura
Best Artistic Piece: Kokuo no Hito by Yoshiro Nabeda, Jiro Nitta, and Shinichi Sakamoto
Best Fantasy: Berserk by Kentaro Miura
Best Manga of 2011: Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi
Best Action: One Piece by Eiichiro Oda
Best Completed Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa
Best Shoujo: Kimi ni Todoke by Karuho Shiina
Best Slice of Life: Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
Best Female Support: Nico Robin from One Piece
Best Manhwa/Manhua: The Breaker (plus The Breaker: New Waves) by Geuk-jin Jeon and Jin-Hwan Park
Best Josei: 07-Ghost by Yuki Amemiya and Yukino Ichihara
Best Female Lead: Nami from One Piece
Best Comedy: Gintama by Hideaki Sorachi
Best Full Cast: Fullmetal Alchemist
Best Character Design: Guts from Berserk
Best Villain: Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter
Best Fight: BLEACH (Ichigo vs. Aizen)
Best Male Support: Roronoa Zoro from One Piece
Best Death: Hunter x Hunter (Meryem and Komugi’s death)
Funniest Moment: Gintama (Shogun moments)
Best Drama: Great Teacher Onizuka by Toru Fujisawa
Best Shonen: Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi
Best Mangaka: Eiichiro Oda
Best Sports: Slam Dunk by Takehiko Inoue
Yup, it’s clear to me that pirates and hunters truly captured the hearts of manga fans this past year. Do you guys agree with these choices? What would you have voted?
Also, if you want to see what the “STARS” and staff of MH voted for, you can view them below:
Let’s hope for some more manga greatness this year!
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20 Things To Anticipate For The Next/Final Arc of BLEACH →
I normally do not reblog, but this is too good to pass up.
To see much, much more just check out the Repeat and Reboot posts for everything, since this is just pick of some of what is to come!
- The new arc kicks off immediately after the Lost Agent arc and will take place in an ‘Ice Palace’ located underground.
- Grimmjow and Neliel (possibly…
Basically, everything will come full-circle? And we’ll know the full motivations of the whole cast? I do wonder about how “oppressive” the Soul King is. Does he treat souls as just parts that provide some sort of sustenance? Will he be a fancier version of Kyubey (from Puella Magi Madoka Magica)?
Here’s a teaser shot of an interview conducted with Tite Kubo about he final arc:
If the Seireitei is going to be destroyed in a huge way, I wonder how everyone will band together. Big moments of catastrophe often lead to huge changes in character for many people. Certain individuals begin to take initiative for the better. What minor character will begin to shine?
Even though Kubo could still be trolling with the story, the only thing that’s definite is that the psychology of his characters will be even MORE interesting to explore going forward.
Oh, Kubo, WHY CAN’T I QUIT YOU?
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Must-Read: Melinda Beasi’s Thoughts On The Canada Customs Case
Browsing through the Twitterverse, I found a very good & enlightening op-ed by the Manga Bookshelf’s own Melinda Beasi on the state of the case involving a man who was arrested in Canada for bringing over “questionable” manga. Here’s an excerpt from the article that I believe CAN happen given the state of how absurd people can be in this day and age.
“The truth is, my fear may be premature, but it isn’t crazy. We absolutely can’t trust our communities with our lives when it comes to comics, and I’ve seen the proof of that first-hand. It was only a couple of months ago, for instance, that a local commenter at Manga Bookshelf — someone essentially in my community — let me know that she considered an interest in romance comics featuring teen characters to be tantamount to pedophilia.”
For those who haven’t experienced this, like it or not, we will face people who may believe in some crazy extreme logic or have some sort of irrational fear. The problem is how to face those individuals & prejudices. It seems like no matter how much education we provide, not everyone will listen. I, myself, have friends who know about my anime/manga interests. However, I may not tell all of them about certain specific subjects or genres I’m into. This reminds me of what is going on with the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan trying to label anime/manga as child pornography.
The world seems to be trying to make otaku (and general fans of anime/manga) feel ashamed. And for what? So, we can be “outstanding citizens” under their terms? Tch….
Melinda’s article can be read here.
As a reminder to those attending New York Comic-Con, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund will have a panel entitled ““CBLDF: Defending Manga” (7:30pm - 8:30pm) at Room 1A23 next Saturday about the Canada Customs case and how readers can help.
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Two Reads Regarding Manga For The Weekend
CBLDF Forms Coalition to Aid North American Comics Fan Facing Criminal Charges in Canada
Here’s the gist of the story. A male computer programmer from the U.S. was traveling to Canada. During a customs check there, custom officers checked his laptop, iPhone, & iPod. They found that his laptop contained manga. Afterwards, customs officers arrested the man for possession of child pornography & trying to bring it to Canada. However, we don’t know what manga series he has in his laptop. Now, the man is facing a minimum of 1 year in Canadian prison if convicted. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is now going to help this man as best they can.
As someone who has brought manga to read overseas (in book form), this really bugs me and many manga readers out there. Can we blame manga for putting fanservice or can we blame the culture of the countries that don’t understand it? This is an interesting dilemma to think about.
A Former Tokyopop Employee Defends Tokyopop & Stu Levy
Lianne Sentar, a former freelancer for Tokyopop, wrote this very enlightening article about why Tokyopop gets so much hate. She explains that it’s because teenagers were making some major decisions in the manga publishing process. Lianne does say that we shouldn’t be celebrating its demise since the manga industry will fall down even harder.
That tweet made by Stu Levy about him wishing he was in another industry besides book publishing really got me puzzled and I personally that he shouldn’t have said that. I do wish that, as Daniella Gruber said, they had someone who gave a damn about publishing.
