The was an annual award established in 1955 and given out by Bungeishunjū

Bungeishunju

, established in 1923, is a Japanese publishing company known for its leading monthly magazine Bungeishunjū. It also grants the annual Akutagawa Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in Japan, as well as the annual Naoki Prize for popular novelists. It also grants the annual...

 in Japan for gag, yonkoma

Yonkoma

thumb|right|150px|Traditional Yonkoma layout, a comic-strip format, generally consists of gag comic strips within four panels of equal size ordered from top to bottom...

, one-panel, and satirical

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

. The award was also given out for works considered the magnum opus

Masterpiece

Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

 of manga creators

Mangaka

is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...

.

Past winners of the award include Jōji Yamafuji, Makoto Wada

Makoto Wada

is a Japanese illustrator, essayist and film director.After graduating Tama Art University, he established himself as a graphic designer. As an illustrator, he drew many cartoons and caricatures for Shinichi Hoshi and Haruki Murakami....

, illustrations by Taku Furukawa, a picture book

Picture book

A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil.Two of the earliest books with something like the format picture books still retain now...

 by Shinto Chō, and parodies

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 by Mad Amano. While the award was given out for illustration

Illustration

An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...

, picture books, parodies, and other similar works, the proliferation of the modern manga culture led to more manga artists receiving the awards in recent years.

Bungeishunjū stopped giving out the award in 2002.

Award winners

#	Year	Artist	Work
1	1955	Rokurō Taniuchi
2	1956	Yukio Sugiura	for his post-war Post-war A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...  satirical manga
3	1957	Yoshirō Katō
4	1958	Yōji Kuri
5	1959	Shinta Chō
6	1960	Kenji Ogiwara Kenji Ogiwara is a former Japanese Nordic combined skier who won several medals at the Winter Olympics, the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, and the Holmenkollen ski festival....	for his historical Jidaigeki is a genre of film, television, and theatre in Japan. The name means "period drama" and is usually the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—Portrait of Hell, for example, is set during the late Heian period—and the early Meiji era is also a popular...  manga
7	1961	Fuyuhiko Okabe

} and
|-
! 8
| 1962 || Machiko Hasegawa

Machiko Hasegawa

, January 30, 1920 – May 27, 1992, in Taku, Saga Prefecture) was one of the first female manga artists.She started her own comic strip, Sazae-san, in 1946. It reached national circulation via the Asahi Shimbun in 1949, and ran daily until Hasegawa decided to retire in February 1974...

 || Sazae-san

Sazae-san

is a Japanese comic strip created by Machiko Hasegawa. It was first published in Hasegawa's local paper, the , on April 22, 1946. When the wished to have Hasegawa draw the comic strip for their paper, she moved to Tokyo in 1949 with the explanation that the main characters had moved from Kyūshū to...

|-
! 9
| 1963 || Mitsuo Mutsuura || for reportage on copper-plate engraving

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

|-
! 10
| 1964 || Hidetoshi Umeda || (series)
|-
! 11
| 1965 || Yōsuke Inoue || for his nonsense manga
|-
! rowspan="2" |12
| rowspan="2" | 1966 || Sanpei Satō || and
|-
| Kazu Kuroiwa || Eye for Eye
|-
! 13
| 1967 || Keiichi Makino ||
|-
! 14
| 1968 || Kō Kojima

Ko Kojima

is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for penning Sennin Buraku , the longest running comic by a single artist...

 || and 7-8=1
|-
! rowspan="2" | 15
| rowspan="2" | 1969 || Makoto Wada

Makoto Wada

is a Japanese illustrator, essayist and film director.After graduating Tama Art University, he established himself as a graphic designer. As an illustrator, he drew many cartoons and caricatures for Shinichi Hoshi and Haruki Murakami....

 || for his illustrative likenesses
|-
| Yoshiji Suzuki || for his period manga and adult manga
|-
! 16
| 1970 || Sadao Shōji || and
|-
! rowspan="2" | 17
| rowspan="2" | 1971 || Shōji Yamafuji || , , and
|-
| Shigehisa Sunagawa || , , and
|-
! rowspan="2" | 18
| rowspan="2" | 1972 || Fujio Akatsuka

Fujio Akatsuka

was a pioneer Japanese artist of comical manga known as the Gag Manga King. His name at birth is 赤塚 藤雄, whose Japanese pronunciation is the same as 赤塚 不二夫....

 ||
|-
| Kunihiko Hisa ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 19
| rowspan="2" | 1973 || Noboru Baba || and
|-
| Haruo Kobayashi ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 20
| rowspan="2" | 1974 || Yū Takita || and others
|-
| Tokū Ogura ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 21
| rowspan="2" | 1975 || Osamu Tezuka

Osamu Tezuka

was a Japanese cartoonist, manga artist, animator, producer, activist and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Black Jack...

 || and
|-
| Ryūzan Aki || and
|-
! rowspan="2" | 22
| rowspan="2" | 1976 || Shunji Sonoyama || and others
|-
| Hideo Takeda ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 23
| rowspan="2" | 1977 || Shigeo Fukuda

Shigeo Fukuda

was a sculptor, graphic artist and poster designer who created optical illusions. His art pieces usually portray deception, such as Lunch With a Helmet On, a sculpture created entirely from forks, knives, and spoons, that casts a detailed shadow of a motorcycle....

 || for humor manga derived from home life and toys
|-
| Takao Kusahara || and others
|-
! rowspan="2" | 24
| rowspan="2" | 1978 || Mad Amano || for his parody works combining photos with drawings
|-
| Masahiro Nikaidō || and others
|-
! rowspan="3" | 25
| rowspan="3" | 1979 || Taku Furukawa ||
|-
| Akiyoshi Shimazoe ||
|-
| Gajin Tokuno ||
|-
! 26
| 1980 || Shinsuke Maekawa ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 27
| rowspan="2" | 1981 || Ajin Noda ||
|-
| Tsunemi Kudō ||
|-
! rowspan="3" | 28
| rowspan="3" | 1982 || Shin Yamada || for his political cartoons and other works
|-
| Yamato Suzuki ||
|-
| Masashi Ueda

Masashi Ueda

is a comic book artist who wrote Kobo, the Li'l Rascal .Ueda began drawing comic book strips when he worked in his brother's cram school. Ueda began producing Furiten-kun, a comic book strip about a mahjong player, in 1979. In 1982 Ueda won the Bungeishunjū Manga Award. During that year he began...

 || Furiten-kun

Furiten-kun

is a yonkoma manga series by Masashi Ueda which has been serialized in several magazine. In the early 1980s, the manga was published simultaneously in Takeshobo's Kindai Mahjong, Kindai Mahjong Original, and Gamble Punch. It was then published in Manga Life magazine from November 1984 to 1994...

, , and
|-
! rowspan="2" | 29
| rowspan="2" | 1983 || Yasuji Tanioka || for his nonsense and gag manga
|-
| Iwao Hashimoto ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 30
| rowspan="2" | 1984 || Haruo Takahashi || and
|-
| Tokutarō Chiba || and
|-
! rowspan="2" | 31
| rowspan="2" | 1985 || Hisaichi Ishii

Hisaichi Ishii

is a Japanese manga artist born on 2 September 1951 in Tamano, Okayama Prefecture, Japan. He is best known outside of Japan for his manga series Nono-chan, which was made into the Studio Ghibli anime film My Neighbors the Yamadas. Topics covered by Ishii's manga include baseball , politics,...

 || for his nonsense manga
|-
| Sō Nishimura ||
|-
! 32
| 1986 || colspan="2" style="text-align:center" | No award given
|-
! rowspan="2" | 33
| rowspan="2" | 1987 || Seizō Watase

Seizō Watase

is a Japanese manga artist and illustrator born 15 February 1945 in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Outside of being an illustrator for numerous posters, books, and other works, he is most well known for his dramatic romance manga Heart Cocktail, which had sold over 5 million copies .He won the 1974...

 ||
|-
| Shigeki Andō ||
|-
! 34
| 1988 || Hinako Sugiura

Hinako Sugiura

was a manga artist and researcher in the lifestyles and customs of Japan's Edo period. Born Junko Suzuki in Minato, Tokyo, into a tradition-steeped family of kimono merchants, she studied design and took an increasing interest in old Japan. She attended Nihon University, but gave up her formal...

 ||
|-
! 35
| 1989 || Katsuhiko Hotta || Obatarian

Obatarian

is a yonkoma manga series by Katsuhiko Hotta which was published by Takeshobo in Manga Life from 1988 through 1998. An anime series was adapted from the manga in 1990 by Sunrise, which aired on TV Asahi. The title Obatarian is a Japanese buzzword from 1988 meaning "Battalion of Middle-age Women"....

|-
! rowspan="2" | 36
| rowspan="2" | 1990 || Satoshi Kozuki ||
|-
| Kojirō

Kojiro

Kojiro may refer to:* Fūma no Kojirō, a Japanese manga and anime series and its title character* James , a member of Team Rocket from the Pokémon anime* Kojiro Hyuga, a character from Captain Tsubasa anime...

 ||
|-
! 37
| 1991 || Sensha Yoshida ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 38
| rowspan="2" | 1992 || Hisashi Eguchi

Hisashi Eguchi

is a Japanese manga artist. He made his professional manga debut with Susume!! Pirates in the manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1977. Other notable works include Stop! Hibari-kun and, more recently, the gag series Charamono. Eguchi married Japanese idol Mizutani Mari in 1990.-External links:...

 ||
|-
| Tatsuya Nakazaki ||
|-
! 39
| 1993 || colspan="2" style="text-align:center" | No award given
|-
! 40
| 1994 || Keisuke Yamashina || and
|-
! 41
| 1995 || Miki Tori

Miki Tori

, also known as Micky Bird or Mickey Bird, is a Japanese manga artist, character designer, essayist, and screenplay writer. Tori has won multiple awards for his work, including two Seiun Awards and one Bungeishunjū Manga Award...

 ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 42
| rowspan="2" | 1996 || Eiko Kera || Atashin'chi

Atashin'chi

is a comedy manga by Eiko Kera, and an anime adaptation that was produced from 2002 to 2009. It is an episode-based animated sitcom of the daily experiences of a family of four .-The Tachibanas:*Father...

|-
| Mitsuru Yaku || and
|-
! rowspan="2" | 43
| rowspan="2" | 1997 || Hiroshi Kurogane ||
|-
| Rieko Saibara ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 44
| rowspan="2" | 1998 || Sunao Hari

Sunao Hari

, real name , is a Japanese manga artist and illustrator, martial artist born 15 March 1933 in Saga, Saga Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from Saga Prefectural Saga High School ....

 || for his illustrative likenesses
|-
| Tsuyoshi Ōhashi

Tsuyoshi Ohashi

is a Japanese manga artist, born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. He is best known for his manga series Kaishain no Melody, which won the 1998 Bungeishunjū Manga Award...

 || Kaishain no Melody

Kaishain no Melody

is a Japanese manga series by Tsuyoshi Ōhashi which was serialized in Manga Club in Japan. The series won the 1998 Bungeishunjū Manga Award....

|-
! rowspan="2" | 45
| rowspan="2" | 1999 || Yoshihiro Koizumi ||
|-
| Q.B.B. ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 46
| rowspan="2" | 2000 || Kotobuki Shiriagari

Kotobuki Shiriagari

is a Japanese manga artist and actor from Shizuoka, Japan, known for dark humor and his social criticism. In early 1981, after graduating from Tama Art University, he began to work in the field of advertising as an illustrator at Kirin Brewery Company. He maintained his regular day job along with...

 || and
|-
| Nawoki Karasawa ||
|-
! rowspan="2" | 47
| rowspan="2" | 2001 || Dragon Odawara ||
|-
| Akihiro Kikuchi ||
|}

Sources: