Last Friday, Kodansha announced the nominations for the 40th iteration of their annual Kodansha Manga Award. 14 titles was honored in three categories this year: Best Shonen (young males) Manga, Best Shojo (young female) Manga, and Best General Manga—there used to be a Best Children Manga category introduced in 2003, but it has been integrated to the current three since last year.  As per usual, the winner for each category will be announced on May 12. Before that, read on to see the list of nominees!

Best Shonen Manga:

1. Owari no Seraph by Takaya Kagami (story), Yamato Yamamoto (art), and Daisuke Furuya (storyboards) in Jump SQ (Shueisha)
2. DAYS by Tsuyoshi Yasuda in Weekly Shonen Magazine (Kodansha)
3. Noragami by Adachitoka in Monthly Shonen Magazine (Kodansha)
4. Boku no Hero Academia in Weekly Shonen Jump (Shueisha)

Best Shojo Manga:

1. Kurosaki-kun no Iinari ni Nante Naranai by Makino in Bessatsu Friend (Kodansha)
2. Say “I Love You” by Kanae Hazuki in Dessert (Kodansha)
3. Nijiiro Days by Manami Mizuno in Bessatsu Margaret (Shueisha)
4. First Love Monster by Akira Hiyoshimaru in ARIA (Kodansha)
5. Kiss Him, not Me by Junko in Bessatsu Friend (Kodansha)

Best General Manga:

1. Ajin – Demi Human by Gamon Sakurai in good! Afternoon (Kodansha)
2. Konodori by Yu Suzunoki in Morning (Kodansha)
3. Golden Kamuy  by Satoru Noda in Young Jump (Shueisha)
4. Tokyo Tarareba Musume by Akiko Higashimura in Kiss (Kodansha)
5. Boku Dake ga Inai Machi by Kei Sanbe in Young Ace (Kadokawa)

The Kodansha Manga Award is an annual award sponsored by Kodansha (one of the biggest publishing company in Japan) to honor serialized manga published in the previous year. The first iteration happened on 1977, with only two initial categories (Shonen and Shojo). Seeing that it’s sponsored by Kodansha, the results sometimes looked quite biased to works published by the company, but titles from rival companies still wins from time to time.

Which of the nominees are you rooting for Arama! readers? Let us know in the comment section!

(via AnimeNewsNetwork)