After the conclusion of the My Hero Academia manga earlier this month, it has been revealed that Kohei Horikoshi and other mangaka will be taking on new responsibilities within Shueisha beyond their roles as authors. In an announcement made on August 19, Horikoshi, along with Gege Akutami, Tite Kubo, and Yuki Tabata, the creators of Jujutsu Kaisen, Bleach, and Black Clover respectively, will serve as judges for a special one-time award.
The My Hero Academia author and his team will be responsible for evaluating the submissions for the “Jump Next Generation Battle Manga Award,” which aims to discover the next generation of battle manga for Weekly Shonen Jump and other publications. Winners will have the chance to be featured in Shueisha’s diverse magazines and also receive monetary prizes.
March 2025: Manga Creators Determine the Future of Shueisha
The upcoming competition, which will be judged by the creator of My Hero Academia and three others, will run from October 1, 2024 to January 20, 2025. Both professionals and amateurs are invited to submit their entries, which will be personally evaluated by Horikoshi, Kubo, Akutami, and Tabata.
Along with this announcement, a special artwork was unveiled showcasing the main characters from each judge’s respective series. Ichigo Kurosaki from Kubo’s work, Asta from Tabata’s series, Yuji Itadori from Akutami’s creation, and Horikoshi’s very own Izuku “Deku”Midoriya are all featured in the illustration, which was personally drawn by Horikoshi.
The three highest scoring participants in the competition will have their submissions featured in the digital edition of Weekly Shonen Jump. Additionally, the top two winners will have the opportunity to be included in a special GIGA magazine edition. The first place winner will have the added bonus of having their work published in both the physical and digital versions of Jump, as well as the GIGA issue.
Additionally, the competition offers first, second, and third place winners cash prizes of 1 million yen (approximately $6,900 USD), 500,000 yen (approximately $3,400 USD), and 300,000 yen (approximately $2,000 USD) respectively. Notably, the published works of the winners will also receive recommendations from one of the four judges. However, it appears that the fourth judge will offer support to the honorable mention winners instead of recommending a winner’s series, although the details on this are not entirely clear.
The announcement of the results, which comes as a relief after the news about Jujutsu Kaisen today, will be made in the late March 2025 issue of Weekly Shonen Jump. Although many fans believed the manga would continue until at least 2025, author Akutami has officially confirmed that the series will conclude by September 2024.
The participation of Horikoshi, Akutami, and Tabata in the contest holds even greater significance. By the time the contest begins, the former two’s series will have already ended, while the latter’s is expected to conclude around the time the results are announced in March 2025. Essentially, the trio are selecting potential successors to fill the void left by their own mangas.
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