Kodansha announced the winners of its 50th annual Manga Awards on May 11, 2026, with Kei Urana’s Gachiakuta taking home the Best Shonen Manga Award. The series features graffiti art by Hideyoshi Andou.
The manga came on top, beating competition from popular new gen hits like Ichi the Witch, The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity, and Utsuranain Desu.
The author expressed her immense joy at winning the award, adding that she won’t let herself become complacent moving forward.
“Gachiakuta has won the 50th Kodansha Manga Award (Shonen Category)! I never thought my manga would receive an award like this, so I’m incredibly happy! I won’t let myself get complacent, and I’ll keep going full throttle from here on out,” Urana shared in a post on X.
As the winner, Gachiakuta will receive prize money of 2 million yen (approximately USD12,600 USD), along with a certificate and a bronze statue.
The manga follows Rudo, who was wrongly framed for murder and exiled to pit, a wasteland that spawns monsters from trash. To seek vengeance against the people that discarded him and killed his father figure, Rudo joins the Cleaners to find out more about his new world he found himself in.
Previous winners in this category include Versus, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Shangri-La Frontier, Blue Lock, and others.
Kodansha also announced the winners for the Best Shojo Manga and Best General Manga categories for this year.
Gin Shirakawa’s Re-Living My Life with a Boyfriend Who Doesn’t Remember Me, the manga adaptation of Eiko Mutsuhana’s light novel Return from Death (featuring illustrations by Yugiri Aika), won the award in the Best Shojo category.
Meanwhile, Shun Umezawa’s Darwin Incident took home the award in the Best General category.
Fairy Tail author Hiro Mashima served as a judge for this year’s manga awards, alongside Hikaru Nakamura (Arakawa Under the Bridge), Hidekichi Matsumoto (Ikimonogatari), Seimaru Amagi (Akechi Keibu no Jikenbo), Natsumi Ando (Something’s Wrong With Us), Yuzo Takada (Blue Seed), and Kaoru Hayamine (Mirage Queen novels).
Source: Kodansha’s official website
