Japanese Literary Awards

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Dengeki Novel Grand Prize でんげきしょうせつたいしょう

Edition 19 (2012)

Light novelNewcomer literary award

Winners

4 people
安生正 grand prize

Set around a neglected flower bed in a corner of a high school, this story follows troubled students and their teacher, Taji, as they confront their own uncertainties. As they grow asparagus together, the characters look for ways to move forward even when their problems offer no quick answers.

Asparagus growing in a flower bed at the edge of the school quietly connects a teacher and students carrying private worries.

338 pages
school lifeteachers and studentsconfronting worriesgrowthrenewal
新藤卓広 gold prize

Sakamoto Akizuki, isolated at school because of his intimidating face, gives up half his lifespan to save a girl named Hikaru Yumemae after a traffic accident. Hikaru's personality then inhabits his body every other day, leaving the two to share a noisy yet heartfelt life through an exchange diary.

A lonely boy and an irrepressible girl, able to meet only in an exchange diary, share a single body and their youth.

328 pages
shared identityexchange diaryloneliness and belongingyouthlife and death
柊サナカ silver prize

In Tohkyo, a city where soul wizards gather to work miracles through magic, Issho Kurono forms a pact with the magical dog Brunhilde and sets out for the summit of the gods. This fantasy follows a wizard carrying grief as encounters with a girl-shaped homunculus and a maid-in-training make him confront his own wishes.

A soul wizard makes a pact with a magical dog and seeks the summit of the gods.

360 pages
magic and pactsloss and renewalfamiliarsurban fantasywishes
あいま祐樹 encouragement award

Tenji Ono, once called a prodigy and the grandson of a revered kendo master, can no longer hold a bamboo sword after his grandfather's death. At high school he meets Rika Hayama, a forceful and sunny classmate, and enters the world of sodo, an invented martial art, where he searches for a path chosen by his own will alongside new friends.

A boy who laid down his sword takes up a spear and steps into a new summer.

290 pages
coming of agestarting over after lossinvented martial artgrowth with friendsself-determination