National High School Manga Championship Links the World 

By Kana

Every August, teams of high school students from across Japan and overseas gather at Kochi’s convention center to complete in a Manga tournament. The teams spend two days working to create two B2-size sheets of one comic strip. 

 They are called Penjis, which means a student who has a pen. With a break in between, they continue to draw Manga on the theme for five hours, concentrating on the subject matter.  

“Just a little more,” one of the Penjis says, and writes the details of Manga with a serious look on their face until they are just under the time limit.

The announcement calls the finish of the time; they put down the pen on the table with a look of accomplishment on their faces. The fruits of their effort will be critiqued and awarded by judges.  

This is the Manga Championship. This event aims to promote interaction among communities and generations and support the cultural activities of high school students by gathering students in this event.  

This event started in Kochi, and until recently, only Asian countries were invited to participate but to increase the number of Japanese and international participants and gain recognition from outside the Asian region, participants are now invited from high schools all over the world. 

  The Manga Championship in Kochi is the main competition, and to participate in this competition, they must pass the online qualifying contest. Only 33 schools can qualify, and they can compete in the main competition held in Kochi every August. In 2014, a Korean high school participated in the Manga championship, the first year that participation from outside Japan was accepted. Since then, some Asian countries have been able to participate in this championship. Furthermore, in 2022, the tournament began taking Manga from all over the world. 

“This championship was the event for only Japanese high school students.” Nakahira and Nishimura, who are members of the Culture and International Division, which is managed the Manga championship, said. This championship started in 1992. In Kochi, many famous manga designers like Yanase Takashi, who drew Anpanman, who is a well-known character in Japan, and Yokoyama Ryuichi, who wrote Fukuchan, which is a popular Manga that appeared in the newspaper from 1956 to 1971. That is why Manga is considered a valuable cultural resource in Kochi.  

This event was held to familiarize citizens with cartoons in Japan. However, the impact of manga culture has recently spread wider than in Japan.

“The first country to join this championship is Korea. Then we started to recruit Manga from Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore,” Nishimura said. 

The quota for participation from overseas high schools has increased in response to the spread of Japanese manga culture overseas and the important role of the Manga championship as a tourism resource. In 2022, the competition was put online by Corona, which found no functional problems in accepting applications online from all over the world, so the management of this event decided to take applications from all over the world.  

Despite the hurdles of cultural and language barriers, overseas schools also have produced works demonstrating excellent drawing skills and ideas, such as the Grand Prize won by the Chonnam National High School of Arts in Korea at the 26th competition in 2017 and the 31st competition in 2022. 

 As the Manga championship becomes more and more international, the management also provides a lot of support to eliminate the anxiety and worry of participants from overseas. The first step was creating three implementation briefs written in English, Chinese, and Korean. In addition, each team was assigned an interpreter for each country’s language, who provided support such as meals and local information from arrival in Kochi until the end of this event. For this support, Participants from overseas can come to Kochi and compete in peace. 

 And also, the common topic about manga support students to interact with each other even if they don’t speak the same language. They draw their favorite Manga character and picture on their T-shirt and the board in their space. These provide opportunities for students to shake off language anxiety and converse with each other. At the end of this event, about 150 high school student volunteers in Kochi hold a cultural exchange event in which participants dance Yosakoi and take a quiz about Manga. It is an excellent opportunity for high school students to interact with each other, both domestically and internationally, under the auspices of high school students. 

This year, the Manga champion will be the 32nd competition. “Although most of the participants are from Asia, we also would like to connect with countries far away from Japan through Manga.” Hana strongly said. The management of the Manga championship stated that it is essential to gain more international participation and recognition. The Manga championship is open to high school students and the public. Contestants in the finals and general participants can receive professional critiques and advice on their Manga, which they draw. Lectures and workshops by manga artists are also held. So even non-high school students can enjoy this event. In addition, the competition will be broadcast live on a streaming website, so you can enjoy the event even if you cannot go to the event directory. With the popularity of Manga overseas, the Manga championship will increasingly develop internationally. 

Official homepage of manga champion ship