Taiwanese manga artist receives top prize at Japan manga awards

Tokyo, March 6 (CNA) Taiwanese manga artist Jason Chien's (簡嘉誠) "Wind Chaser Under the Blue Sky" (青空下的追風少年) received a Gold Award at the Japan International Manga Awards ceremony in Tokyo on Tuesday.

A total of 587 entries participated in the competition, with Chien winning the Gold Award and three other manga artists from Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Spain receiving silver prizes.

The results were announced last December, and the ceremony to honor the winners was held Tuesday.

Chien's award-winning work was inspired by historical documents on Taiwan's railway archived by the National Archives Administration.

Set near the end of World War II, it highlights the connection between Taiwan and Japan through a story of Taiwanese and Japanese teenagers who dream of setting sprinting records by running against trains.

Describing the award as one of the most important of his career, Chien said he learned a lot of history that he never knew while creating the story, and found that the people of Taiwan and Japan shared a lot in common, including their love for their homelands and family.

"Even though we speak different languages and come from different cultures, we are all human beings after all and we are able to understand each other emotionally," Chien said.

Machiko Satonaka, chairperson of the award's selection committee, said Chien was unanimously approved by the judges to be the top artist, which was unprecedented.

Meanwhile, Yoko Kamikawa, Japan's foreign minister and chairperson of the award's Executive Committee, said Japanese comics are widely popular across the globe because they deliver delicate strokes and tell stories from the creator's perspective, incorporating aspects of history and life within the works.

Because of that, Kamikawa said, Japan has the responsibility to continue delivering the charm of comics, and to preserve the culture while enabling it to thrive.

After the award ceremony, Chien told reporters that "Wind Chaser Under the Blue Sky" was his third comic about railways, and before he accepted the challenge, he was quite hesitant because he knew that creating a manga about railways could be very difficult.

Chien said in a recent interview with CNA that "there are so many parts of a train -- wheels, bogies, coal-fired steam boiler -- just so many details," adding that there are many railway enthusiasts in Taiwan who pay close attention to these details.

Chien said Tuesday that he was glad he completed the project and that he hoped Taiwan's comics would thrive as much as Japanese ones.

Also at this year's manga awards, Taiwanese manga artists Lin I-chen (林奕辰) and Shimizu (清水) won Bronze Prizes with their works "207th Bone" (二零七之骨) and "Tomoe's Memories of Koumeya vol. 2" (友繪的小梅屋記事簿2).

The International MANGA Award was established by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2007 with the aim of promoting international exchange and mutual understanding through the widely accepted culture of manga around the world.