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 25 (2018)

Light novelNewcomer literary award

Winners

8 people
渋谷瑞也 gold prize

Yu Mitsurugi, a high school student once regarded as the strongest in kendo, gave up the sword. Encounters with his kendo-club teammates and Fubuki, known as the Sword Princess, draw him back to the sport. As his past with Kaisei, the strongest competitor in high-school kendo, comes to a head, the students face one another with their own convictions at stake.

A coming-of-age kendo novel about a boy returning to the sport with new teammates and confronting a long-standing rival.

376 pages
kendohigh schoolcoming of ageteamworkrivalry
Misaki Nagi silver prize

In a world that has emerged from a war with vampires, Minazuki, the sixth Sandalwood automaton built to fight them, awakens after ten years. Confronted with a reality in which his siblings are remembered as murderous machines, he meets the inventor's daughter Kanon and the vampire princess Rita, and searches for his reason to exist and a place in a new everyday life.

A mechanical knight raises the banner of rebellion to save a lonely princess and resist a false world.

312 pages
automatavampiresidentitypostwar societyrebellion
冬月いろり silver prize

At the Library at World's End, on the northern edge of the world, the amnesiac librarian Wallace lives with Lili, a maid without emotions. After meeting Lucia, a girl from the Town of Beginnings, through a mirror, he lends his knowledge to her effort to help the hero defeat the Demon King, only to learn that his own lost memories hold the key to the final battle.

A tender, bittersweet fantasy about the people who supported the hero and the Demon King's final battle from the shadows.

328 pages
librariesmemoryfriendshiphero and demon kingself-discovery
村谷由香里 Media Works Bunko Award

Miyama-so, the aging boarding house where university student Kota Nanase lives, includes dinner and has a reputation as a haunted spot. As strange occurrences mount, its residents welcome even a ghost carrying a sorrowful past to their table and face an unforgettable final meal.

A delicious and bittersweet story of a final supper.

304 pages
ghostscommunal livingshared mealsloss and farewellcompassion
青海野灰 encouragement award

After receiving a heart transplant at thirteen, Ikuto Hozumi begins to dream that he is a girl. Believing the dreams to be memories of Aika Suzushiro, the donor, he falls for her bright way of living, although the two can never meet in reality. This coming-of-age novel follows a boy who comes to know her through memory and confronts an unreachable love and his wish to save her.

A poignant coming-of-age novel about a boy whose heart transplant brings him into contact with another person's memories and love.

256 pages
heart transplantationmemoryromancelife and deathcoming of age
成瀬唯 encouragement award

In a world where people begin hearing others' thoughts after their first love and continue to do so until adolescence ends, high-school student Makoto Hisaka has vowed never to fall in love again after an early failure. Yet he becomes interested in his classmate Yuka Someya, who has never experienced love and cannot understand other people's feelings. Hiding his true thoughts, Makoto tries to grow closer to her as a friend.

A coming-of-age novel in which a boy afraid of love and a girl unfamiliar with it draw closer in a world where thoughts can be heard.

coming of ageromanceinner thoughtssecretshigh school
Yuu Nomiya encouragement award

In Igdadd, a city where crime is tolerated, bounty hunter Ralph and his partner Liza take a job to bring back a runaway girl named Siena. An attack by a Silver User turns the assignment into a deranged kidnapping plot, drawing them into the schemes of a city steeped in blood and gun smoke.

A kidnapping plot surrounding one girl begins in the world's worst crime-ridden city.

376 pages
crime citybounty hunterskidnappingsupernatural powerscrime action
木田寒朗 Dengeki Bunko Magazine Award

Set in the distant future, this science-fiction story follows Sada Godai, a boy who develops Senbazuru, a system intended to save his sister Nozo from the brink of death. It turns the calculations required for drug discovery into digital origami that others can fold, and in a society governed by the artificial intelligence Ayatori no Hime, the system's reliance on kindness and curiosity leads the siblings toward a harsh fate.

Calculations and human hopes entrusted to folded cranes set the fate of two siblings fighting illness in motion.

artificial intelligencedistributed computingmedicine and drug discoverysiblingskindness and curiosity