Press Releases

Regarding "Blend Dark and Light" (artist: Chiya, original author: Hua-Ling), which was announced as the winner of the Special Encouragement Award and the Bronze Award of the 17th Japan International MANGA Award on December 26, 2023, the Secretariat of the Executive Committee was contacted by the original author after the award winner announcement to confirm that the artist had not obtained the original author's consent to submit the work to the Japan International MANGA Award. In addition, it was revealed that the parties had not reached an agreement on the contract to protect the rights of both the artist and the original author regarding the work.

The Japan International MANGA Award states in its application guidelines that "The applicant declares and warrants that the submitted work does not infringe on the intellectual property rights of any third party, that the applicant has the copyright and other legitimate rights of the submitted work, and that the applicant has the legitimate authority to grant the Executive Committee of Japan International MANGA Award the right to use the submitted work.” The Japan International MANGA Award Executive Committee has found that the artist of "Blend Dark and Light" had violated this requirement and has decided to revoke the Special Encouragement Award and the Bronze Award.

The Executive Committee has long considered copyright protection to be an extremely important issue and regrets that this situation has arisen. To protect copyright, the Executive Committee will work to prevent a recurrence of this situation by further promoting awareness of the application process to ensure that all applicants comply with the application guidelines.