[Editor's Picks] Predicting the Next Manga Award 2025

The results of the Next Manga Award 2025 will be announced on September 18 at 7:00 p.m. JST, exactly 24 hours after this article goes live. Last year, in my review of Girl Meets Rock! (JP: ふつうの軽音部), I predicted that Kagurabachi would win in the Comics category and Girl Meets Rock! in the Web Manga category, and both guesses turned out to be spot on. That success gave me a sense of obligation to make predictions again this year, although I only managed to write this column the day before the announcement.

To state my conclusions up front:

■Comics(Print Manga) Category
Ichi the Witch (Japanese: 魔男のイチ)

■Web Manga category
Dokagui Daisuki! Mochizuki-san (JP: ドカ食い大好き望月さん)

I am fairly confident about the print category, but the web manga category is truly difficult to predict. It is a wide-open field.

What is the Next Manga Award?

The Next Manga Award (JP: 次に来るマンガ大賞, Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Taisho) was created in 2014 by Da Vinci magazine and Niconico Manga. It is an award that recognizes manga created by the fans. Unlike awards that honor popular series, this award spotlights manga that are likely to become the next big hit. The most important thing about this award is that the winner is chosen by reader votes.

Trends in Award Winners

First, let us take a look back at past winners.

As you can see, the Comics category has a lot of mainstream titles. The 2023 winners in both categories were a bit unusual, but overall, works published by Shueisha, especially Weekly Shonen Jump, have been strong contenders in the Comics division.

The Web Manga category, on the other hand, is way more diverse.

The results show what reader voting is like. Since there's no professional jury, fan popularity directly translates into votes. This means that buzz on social media and online discourse can have a big impact on rankings. Magazines like Weekly Shonen Jump and Jump+ (Manga Plus outside of Japan) have tons of readers, which makes it easier for them to get votes.

Another important thing to consider is how they see themselves as "up and coming." If readers feel a work is already too popular or past its prime to be called "next," it may have a hard time getting traction in the polls. On the other hand, works that aren't well known yet but have a good chance of becoming hits often get a lot of support.

There have also been cases where a manga ranked in one year goes on to win the award the following year, like with Medalist. But rankings can also drop, so just being popular for a while isn't enough. You need to keep building momentum and going up.

Predictions for the Comics (Print Manga) Category

I'm thinking Ichi the Witch will be my top pick this year. I'm pretty sure it'll come in first.

The manga's sales are off the charts. According to ORICON's official manga sales ranking, the momentum is clear. SAKAMOTO DAYS volume 22, which has already been adapted into an anime, sold 68,000 copies, while Ichi the Witch volume 5 sold 48,000. For a manga that isn't also an anime, these sales are really something else.

The series has an all-star creative team: Shiro Usazaki is the art director, known for Act-Age, and Osamu Nishi is the story director, the guy behind Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun. From the beginning to the end, the quality has stayed high. The art style is vibrant and easy to read, and sales reflect that. Being a Jump title also ensures a massive reader base. This is clearly one of the works poised to carry Jump into the next generation.

To sum it up, I think it's pretty much a sure thing that it's going to win.

For the rest of my predictions:
2nd place: Gokurakugai (Jump SQ)
3rd place: Albus Changes the World (Weekly Shonen Sunday)

Predictions for the Web Manga Category

To be honest, this year is impossible to predict. Will the votes split evenly, or will one work dominate? I am extremely curious to see the outcome.

With that said, my top prediction is Dokagui Daisuki! Mochizuki-san (Young Animal Web)

I think this is the only series that can stand out from all the Jump+ shows out there. I'm personally captivated by Mochizuki-san.

She's a cute office worker with a huge appetite, but as the story goes on, her eating habits become more and more horrifying, dropping readers into a kind of "culinary horror." It feels like a whole new genre: gourmet horror manga.

Let me give you a quick rundown of the content. The story is all about Mochizuki-san's extreme eating habits and bizarre behavior.

For example...
・She uses concentrated noodle soup stock without diluting it, and she consumes dangerously high levels of salt.
・She makes an omelet rice dish with 1.5 times the recommended daily calorie intake for a man.
・Before a medical checkup, she can't help but eat, essentially putting herself under "self-imposed house arrest."
・She even invents a "curry" made with nothing but water and tea.

Her actions are so outrageous that they border on madness. Unsurprisingly, this has gone viral across Japanese social media. Even those who do not follow the series closely may be inclined to vote for it. Despite having only two collected volumes so far, it has already spawned multiple collaborations with companies, keeping it constantly in the spotlight.

Meanwhile, Jump+ has several strong contenders. Centuria, which ranked last year, is a dark fantasy about Julian who gets the lives of 100 people, and it's been pretty popular. Drama Queen, which is also published on the same day of the week, is excellent. Every character except the two main characters seems to be hiding something, which makes the story unpredictable, and the pacing is strong. MAD, which I reviewed before, remains entertaining, but it does not seem likely to win the Next Manga Award this year.

Another interesting case is GALAXIAS, which shifted from print serialization in Shonen Magazine to Magazine Pocket. Last year, Ruri Dragon made a similar shift and got second place, so it'll be interesting to see how votes for GALAXIAS add up.

Here are my final Web Manga predictions:
1st place: Dokagui Daisuki! Mochizuki-san (Young Animal Web)
2nd place: Drama Queen (Manga Plus)
3rd place: Centuria (Manga Plus)

Mochizuki-san is probably going to take a commanding lead, while the second and third places are still up for grabs.

Closing Thoughts

Popular manga often become anime, which can spark cultural movements. Japanese manga platforms are growing a lot overseas, so I encourage everyone to check out these titles.

What will the results be? Stay tuned for the live updates!

Looking ahead a year, here are my early predictions for the 2026 awards:
Print Manga category: Shinobigoto (Weekly Shonen Jump)
Web Manga category: Tenbo Daikaku (Jump Plus)

Source : Next Manga Award 2025