Shonen Jump puts Top 6 of its International Manga Competition to public vote

Earlier this year, Weekly Shonen Jump revealed that they were hosting a global manga competition – where entrants from across the globe could submit their works in either English, Japanese or Chinese for them to be judged by JUMP editors in Japan, North America, China and Taiwan. A selection of those entrants would then be put up for a public vote, with the most popular in each of the three language audiences (English, Japanese and Chinese) receiving a prize of 500,000 yen (£2,950) and publication in JUMP or one of its sister or foreign magazines, with the overall grand prize winner receiving another 500,000 yen.

Shonen Jump have now revealed the six contendors for the grand prize, which you can read online (in English, Japanese or Chinese) and vote for. The six finalists are:

• BOOM by Docurro (China)
• El Viento Del Norte by Niu Zai (Taiwan)
• Golden Rabbit by Nick Kanoza (USA)
• Morning Star by Aitor Holgado (Spain)
• Sweatman by Fei ZiXuan (Taiwan)
• The Team Before Daybreak by Yu YanShu (China)

Voting is open worldwide until 5th January, 2014. Comments from JUMP‘s editors will be made public on 20th January with a list of semi-finalist works that didn’t make the final cut being revealed sometime next month.

Personally, I voted for El Viento Del Norte because despite it feeling very similar (gave me a lot of Trigun vibes), the art and the flow of its narrative was simply superior to the rest. BOOM was a close second for me, but I felt that the pages were far too crowded and it seemed to lack focus overall. Maybe with a few tweaks, BOOM could be a hit series?