Kadokawa Announces Wordless World Manga Contest

Kadokawa announced on Friday the new "Wordless World Manga Contest," a competition seeking manga without speech bubbles or lettering. The contest is open to entrants worldwide, and the "wordless" approach is intended to allow all applicants regardless of language. Winners may get the chance to have a manga serialized in Japan.

Applicants can enter from Friday until February 28 at 11:59 p.m. JST. Results will be announced in April 2025. Manga artists Ranmaru Kotone (your name.), Minoji Kurata (The Apothecary Diaries), and Isuna Hasekura (Spice and Wolf) will review the winning works.

There are two categories. The first is a Themed Manga Award that asks entrants to create a story about fictional character Don Quixote. The work can feature an original story and setting, as long as it is related to Don Quixote. The second is an Original Manga Award category for any story and genre. Works can be either monochrome or in color and can have between 8-60 pages.

Manga editors will support winners from both categories to work on manga creation at Kadokawa. In addition, Kadokawa's KadoComi website will publish winning works. Winners will also be invited to an award ceremony and editorial department tour. For each category, there will be a first place prize of US$10,000. There is also a US$5,000 reward for second place and US$3,000 for third place.

Source: Email correspondence

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.