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On Thursday, January 4, 2024, author and illustrator Shuhei Miyazaki’s original Me & Roboco manga series was selected as the grand prize winner for 2023’s Mando Kobayashi Manga Award. It was also announced that a broadcast for the award will be held on Fuji TV ONE starting at 11 pm JST on Saturday, January 27, 2024.
The broadcast will be the “almost” first television appearance for the Me & Roboco mangaka, who has previously stepped into the public limelight in varying capacities. Miyazaki is also partially seen in photos announcing his manga’s selection for the award, with the mangaka adorning a mask, sunglasses, and hat in the photo to maintain his anonymity.
The Mando Kobayashi Manga Award was established in 2013 and is held on the Mando Kobayashi variety show, where Kendo Kobayashi serves as the emcee. Kobayashi chooses the award each year based on his own readings, opinions, and bias, speaking to how much the Japanese comedian and actor enjoyed Me & Roboco’s publications throughout the year.
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Me & Roboco mangaka set to make one of the first television appearances on Saturday, January 27, 2023
It has been revealed that the aforementioned broadcast on Saturday, January 27, will thoroughly dig into the secret story of the manga’s creation as well as the process of making each chapter.
In addition to the Mando Kobayashi Manga Award, several other awards will be given out on the broadcast. This includes the “Finally Completed,” “Best Supporting Actor,” and “Most Expected New Series” awards. It is presumed that, like the Mando Kobayashi Manga Award, the other award winners will be selected by Kobayashi himself rather than a committee.
Previous winners of the Mando Kobayashi Manga Award include author and illustrator Gege Akutami’s original Jujutsu Kaisen manga series, which won the award for the 2020 year. Author and illustrator Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia manga series also previously won in 2015, as did author Kaiu Shirai and illustrator Posuka Demizu’s The Promised Neverland in 2017.
Kendo Kobayashi is likely best known as a Japanese comedian and actor rather than for his awards, having begun his career in the respective fields in 1992. His real and former stage name is Tomoharu Kobayashi, but he also goes by Ken Koba, Koba, and Mr. Yaritai Hodai. He is represented by the Yoshimoto Creative Agency of Yoshimoto Kogyo, located in Tokyo.
Miyazaki’s Me & Roboco manga series first began serialization in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in July 2020, where it is still serialized regularly today. A television anime adaptation of the series was produced by Gallop Studios and ran from December 2022 through June 2023. An anime film adaptation for the franchise has also been announced, with no word yet on a second season’s production or release.
Be sure to keep up with all anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2024 progresses.
