The MangaHelpers Manga Awards Discussion Thread

[benelori]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

Thanks for the ideas...we will definitely keep them, and remember them when time will come...
So maybe if other people have ideas, please suggest...

 

[M3J]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

For the next Mangahelpers Manga Awards, I hope the moderators will add some categories. Some ideas ... (not all mine ...)

Best Mangaka : Inoue, Urasawa, Tezuka, Toriyama ...
Best Villain Organization: Akatsuki, Espada, Genei Ryodan (HxH), Demon card (RAVE), Homonculii (FMA) ...
Best Sports Manga: Hajime No Ippo, Eyeshield 21, Prince of tennis, Real, Slam Dunk, ...
Most Disturbing Manga: Koroshiya ichi, Homonculus, Gantz, Berserk, Elfen Lied, Shamo ...
Best Death:

Spoiler: Character deaths (One Piece, Naruto)

Ace, Jiraya, Sandaime, ...

Best manga from last century: Violinist of Hameln, Ranma 1/2, city hunter, Slam Dunk, Dragon ball, YuYu Hakusho, Akira, Gunnm, Saint Seiya, ...

IMO, all those categories are more interesting than Best Hairstyling

More plz. I'm liking all those so far. If this thread remains, feel free to suggest categories! And thanks for giving us ideas! <3

 

[saladesu]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

As benelori and M3J have said, we are grateful for the ideas and feedback. This community exists because all of you are here contributing, after all! As was explained before in some post pages ago, the reason we didn't have more categories this time was because this being the first round of awards, we wanted a more manageable number we were sure we could handle

We also thought "Best Hairstyling" would be a more fun one, where people could nominate manga with really out of whack hairstyles etc, but I guess it didn't quite work out Anyway, judging from the response, I'm pretty sure we will have another round of these awards in the future, and we will definitely take the response and feedback into account and remove or add more categories

Keep the suggestions coming~

 

[Riku]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

Then how about these;

Best comedy/gag manga (Kochikame, Angel Densetsu, Great Teacher Onizuka ...)
Best signature move/superpower (Gomu Gomu no Anything, Rasengan, Getsuga Tenshou, Hadoken...)
Best mecha (Okay, this more anime driven these days so not a very good category)

Then maybe something like a special award. One could nominate almost anything, but it would be more about talking people to support your cause to get it through the nominations. Could be a very fun category. Example nominations; Whitebeards epic moustache, Special Zawa zawa award for Nobuyki Fukumoto, Kubo the King of Trolls or such. Could get out of hand easily though.

 

[zelllogan]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

As benelori and M3J have said, we are grateful for the ideas and feedback. This community exists because all of you are here contributing, after all! As was explained before in some post pages ago, the reason we didn't have more categories this time was because this being the first round of awards, we wanted a more manageable number we were sure we could handle

We also thought "Best Hairstyling" would be a more fun one, where people could nominate manga with really out of whack hairstyles etc, but I guess it didn't quite work out Anyway, judging from the response, I'm pretty sure we will have another round of these awards in the future, and we will definitely take the response and feedback into account and remove or add more categories

Keep the suggestions coming~

You can't always predict a reaction to a category. Best Hairstyling didn't work out but you can not know without trying . For example, Best mangaka could become a boring clone of "best manga" with all nominations for the mangaka who wrote people's fav manga. (IMO, I would give my vote to a mangaka who did several good mangas & not only one).

For a funny category, I propose the following:
Weirdest theme for a manga:
Some mangaka have done mangas about extremely odd subjects.
Some examples:
- Hikaru no go and the theme "board game go"
- Yakitake Japan and the theme "bread cooking"
- Addicted to Curry and the theme "cooking with curry"

Honestly, if you had to write a story, would you write about those themes ? :S.

NB: I Know it's a lot of work for moderators. So, of course, I understand the limitation of categories.

 

[ashher]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

I believe these categories are must: 1. Best Finished 2.Best Ongoing 3. Best Manwha 4. The Best (Manga/Manwha). It'll also be better imo if its name is changed to manga and manwha award and takes manwha into consideration in all general categories like ongoing, finished, shonen, seinen, artwork etc.

 

[zelllogan]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

Best manwha ... Shin angyo onshi would simply rampage that poll . I have nothing again veritas, the breaker, Ares,... but in terms of quality, SAO for the win.
Best Ongoing / Finished ... If we begin to do best ongoing shounen, best ongoing seinen , best finished ... IMO, there would be too much categories.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

Best Ongoing / Finished ... If we begin to do best ongoing shounen, best ongoing seinen , best finished ... IMO, there would be too much categories.

That could be reduced to only dividing the Best Manga Overall category into ongoing and finished, while the demographics (Shonen, Seinen, Shojo, Josei) may contain both types.

 

[saladesu]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

I believe these categories are must: 1. Best Finished 2.Best Ongoing 3. Best Manwha 4. The Best (Manga/Manwha). It'll also be better imo if its name is changed to manga and manwha award and takes manwha into consideration in all general categories like ongoing, finished, shonen, seinen, artwork etc.

Well technically we did include manhwa, such as The Breaker New Waves I can't remember if any other manhwa were up for any awards.

Best Manhwa on its own may be a good category though, since manhwa gets a lot less appreciation than manga, and it'd be a good avenue to pimp good manhwa

That aside, I'd still rather call it MH Manga Awards, simply because it's shorter

What would everyone think of something similar to these awards, but for anime? I know we are MangaHelpers, and some people are manga purists and only read manga and don't care for anime, so I'm just wondering if there would be an audience big enough to *possibly* warrant an anime awards in the future (I'm just throwing this out here)

 

[Mr. Prince]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

As for other suggestions for categories for future awards:
Genre-wise I wouldn't go into too much detail. I do support the suggestion of Best Gag Manga though because it is seen as the counterpart to Story Manga. Looking at the series from our finals I can't spot a single Gag Manga, which is a real shame IMO.

Other categories I kinda missed this time around or think would work greatly:
Best Classic [series should be at least 20 years old]
Being a longtime Manga fan and lover of classic titles I always believe it's a bit of a shame seeing how certain titles manage to gather huge crowds of readers whereas some of the greatest series of all time are disregarded for the simple reason of being to old and therefore not appearing on the media and such.

Best Catchphrase
C'mon, this one is a must have! Just thinking of certain phrases from certain titles makes your heart explode of passion! xD
Some random examples coming to my mind: Ken's legendary "Omae wa mou shindeiru" (You're already dead) [HnK], Sakuragi's "Tensai desu kara..." ('Cause I'm a genius...) [SD], or even newer stuff like Neuro's "Kono nazo wa mou wagahai no shita no ue da" (This mystery is already at the tip of my tongue) [MTNN] and Sebastian's "Aku made shitsuji da/Akuma de shitsuji da" (I'm but a butler to the core/I'm a demon and a butler) [Kuroshitsuji].

Best Indi/Cult Manga
Though probably hard to decide where to draw the line the general gist should be clear. Less mainstream, more variety in titles, more attention to the less known diamonds we have out there.

Best Fighting Technique/Move
Seconding Ustegius' idea. But darn would that be hard... ZA WARUDO (JoJo's), Hokuto Shinken (HnK), Kamehame-ha (DB) being the first three eternal moves of awesomeness popping to my mind.

Best Fanservice Moment
Readers could decide what sort of fanservice they choose, be it Ecchi or GAR or Bishounen or whatnot...

 

[ashher]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

@roflkopter that's exactly what i meant. Though i think there should be the best manga overall category as well which takes all of them into consideration. And i personally think best chapter is an impossible category. Its like what it would've been if oscar had a category like 'best ten minutes in a movie' lol. Best hairstyling is also not a very necessary category.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

It was stated already that best hairstyling was rather a fun choice

Best chapter is a valid category imo, even though it indeed is hard to name a specific best chapter of a work. Personally, I was not very exited by the picks this time, while I myself did not nominate one - I planned to search for one, but couldn't find the time before the nomination phase ended unfortunately.
There definitly are chapters worthy to be highlighted in many mangas.

 

[ashher]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

^sure, as there are many ten minutes worth highlighting in many movies lol. The reason why such categories don't usually exist is because there is no way to judge such things. What should i look for in just one single chapter to call it best? Much better categories would be 'best ending' or 'best dialogue writing' or 'best weakly' or 'best monthly'...at least we've a general idea about how to judge them.

---

Also, even though the best plot twist proved to be a successful category, a more general 'best plot' is more deserving as a category for an award imo.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

Many regularely serialized manga care a lot about the contents of each chapter, they don't just start and end at totally random points. Most chapters have their own dramaturgy independendly of the overall story.
The last time I realised that once more in a most severe way was just yesterday in the newest Nononono chapter:

Spoiler: Nononono Chapter 88

First, a shock: The upcoming ski jumping competition for Nono (protagonist) is going to be harder than expected, as she comes to know in a meeting with her ski club. This is very important to her, she devoted all of her life to win a gold medal in ski jumping and has to win it within the next olympic games in two years, as she would grow too feminine to participate acting like a man (women are not allowed in the ski jumping competition - that's why she spends all of her life acting as a boy with her dead twin brother's identy) four years later. If she cannot win against the super tough competition, she won't make it into the All Japan team and her dream would end just like that.

Then, a moment promising good times, as her new friends unexpectedly decide to give a surprise birthday party to her. After all she gave up all of her previous life and now, seemingly, finally is going to have a very good time in personal life: Her friends made a lot of effort and got her great presents.

Followed by a climax and super shocking moment: Right before Nono arrives at her party of which she doesn't know, a villain who knows about her secret blackmails her: He would uncover her identity as a girl if she doesn't follow him. His plans seem to be to have her as a sex slave, he's all exited about beeing able to do what he wants with a 15yr old girl in the future...

Massive dramaturgy in the run of a single chapter. And it's not like that would be too special, many chapters of many works follow similar patterns.

I think that is enough to justify a "Best Chapter" category by far. However, the choice of nominees might have to be worked out better next time, I'm not very exited by the ones in this contest - although that again might be a personal stand point.
That Slam Dunk chapter has been praised though, it might be a true highlight.

A personal critic: We have two nominees from the same manga in the category, perhaps this should be limited to one nomination per manga (not for the nominations itself, but for the final five candidates)

 

[ashher]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

I am next to illiterate when it comes to drama analysis. I only read a few for pleasure and didn't read anything about structural grammer. Still i am pretty much confident that no critic have/will ever attempt to judge 'best act' or 'best scene' of all dramas. One may try to judge such a thing within the confine of one single drama...but to do that universally is impossible. I've never seen any attempt from any critic to judge 'the best chapter' of all the novels that he/she has read...even though chapters of novels are certainly not arranged randomly and most certainly their build up involve structural grammer. To tell the truth, a most average, ordinary chapter can be a grammatically model one with no flaw. There could be thousands of 'best' chapter like that. And if we take its effect on the overall plot into consideration, then credit should go more to the overall plot build up than that one particular chapter. For example, the example you've given in your post had very little effect on me as the build up of the rest of the manga is unknown to me. The little effect that it had is because of the recap that you did at first. This same chapter would also have very different effects of variable intensity on the readers varying on the quality of the build up of the rest of the manga. It may feel very tragic if the rest is well portrayed, it may feel erotic if the rest is done that way, it may be even hardly worth noticing. So the credit goes to the plot mostly.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

I think you are underrating the fact that manga are not released as full stories at once, not even exclusively volume by volume, but usually serialized in a episodesque format of chapters.
Movies and novels -which your comparison is aiming at- are released in a single effort, splitting it up over several novels or movies is not the normal case, and stories exceeding a trilogy are even more rare.
For TV series on the other hand, which also are serialized in episodes, it's quite ordinary to rate single episodes besides the overall quality.

At my example: Obviously it had no impact on you, and you are right with your reasoning that it did not because you haven't read Nononono.
But, can you rate a Protagonist, Full cast, Plot twist, WTF-Moment, Couple/Pairing, Kiss, New series, Shonen/Seinen/Shojo/Josei Manga, Fight or Best Manga Overall properly without having read it??

Obviously a chapter depends on the grace of the story and the context. Yet a chapter as itself can be good or bad. A chapter drives a story forwards, from a point which is (often, or even usually, but not always) defined by the context, to a different point (at least in most cases). Some chapters do this in a sensational way, some are just mediocre. Of course it depends on the point of the story if there are sensational things to happen or not, but that doesn't matter. A chapter for itself is still rateable.

A different way of phrasing it: Of course every manga does have stronger and weaker chapters, but that does not prohibit rating them. A vote of five nominees would contain five highlight chapters which are especially good for their specific mangas, and there is nothing wrong in comparing them.

 

[ashher]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

^Not that i agree, but i give up i suppose lol. And i saw that logic about not being able to judge other categories either without reading the manga coming. that's why i tried to specifically point out that in case of judging best of a chapter, we are actually judging the factors which should be credited to the rest of the plot and not that 'best' chapter...something which you cannot say about the other categories...but whatever. Do try to include 'best plot','best dialogue writing','best weekly','best monthly' and 'best ending' plz.
<hr noshade size="1">
Just curious...do they award the best episode among all the TV series of a month/year? The weekly ratings are nothing different from weekly reviews of a manga which often gives marks to the chapter, which is basically the same as to what i said about its being possible to judge an act within that very drama.

 

[saladesu]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

Just a gentle reminder, please provide reasons for your choice when you post in the individual category threads. Don't just post one-liners saying "I voted for ____". We would love to know why you voted for what you did Thank you~

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

This has been almost mentioned already as "best catchphrase", but it's slightly different:

Best Quotes

I'd really enjoy this being a category for future Awards, as there's a lot of manga with really good stories, and very powerful and/or ethical and/or famous andor/or whatever quotes/lines from them!

it's like an appreciation to the writers of the mangas for coming up with really good quotes/lines/sayings

such as many from Claymore

Spoiler

~"A girl half my size taught me that tears can flow from even silver eyes"

~"I don't want nice shoes. I don't want nice clothes! I just want to be with Teresa forever!"

~"Let me explain this to you. Whether I abide by the Ironclad rule and let-watch you rape/kill this little girl and I myself live on or if I move this short sword of yours into your throat and out the back of your neck getting executed by my own kind for killing you, is my own DAMNED FREEDOM OF CHOICE!"

~"Ahh... I didn't know this would feel so goooood. Why'd I ever hold back?! I want to eat human guts! I want to rip open your stomachs, plunge my head inside and savor every organ. I want to clean every last scrap of meat from your bones!"

~"DAMNIT Clare, you said your accuracy has improved! You F'N cut some of my hair off, you B'h! Sorry, Galatea, I didn't know you cared so much about your hair, I'll not cut your hair this time. WTF, happened to my arm, it's severed now! I got Galatea hostage and am about to kill her again, and you two are talking about cutting her hair! I said that now that I'm here, no one else is going to die! Agatha is killed by Clare!"

etc.

 

[M3J]

Re: The MangaHelpers Manga Awards

Just a gentle reminder, please provide reasons for your choice when you post in the individual category threads. Don't just post one-liners saying "I voted for ____". We would love to know why you voted for what you did Thank you~

Exactly. We don't care who you voted for, as long as you voted. We would like to know why, so explain please.

However, this is not necessary, but it is most welcome. But please avoid a wall of text (not a mod suggestion, just my own as a participant).