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 27 (2020)

Light novelNewcomer literary award

Winners

7 people
Kikuishi Mareho grand prize

In a near future where the brain-implant information terminal Your Forma, born from a viral encephalitis crisis, has become part of daily life, gifted electronic investigator Echika enters people's memories to solve crimes. After sending partner after partner to the hospital because of the gap in their abilities, she is assigned Harold, a humanoid robot known as an Amicus. Together they confront electronic crimes involving recorded memories in this science-fiction crime drama.

A solitary electronic investigator and a robot who insists on closing the distance trace memories engraved in the brain and move toward the heart of a case.

296 pages
near-future science fictionelectronic crimememory and emotionhumans and robotspartnership
Kosaka Mato gold prize

Alina became a guild receptionist for the promise of a safe, stable desk job, only to be buried in overtime because a dungeon cannot be cleared. To protect her evenings, she secretly becomes the formidable adventurer known as the Executioner and slays bosses herself, until an encounter with the guild's strongest defender, Jade, puts her secret at risk.

To clock out on time, the strongest receptionist takes on another boss while keeping her identity hidden.

312 pages
overtime workguild receptionistsecret identitydungeon conquestfantasy comedy
土屋瀧 silver prize

In a world where repeated wars have left most of the earth under the sea, humanity lives in Lean, a paradise of forgetting that controls and conceals weapons, science, and faith. The boy Arum is entrusted with Fluorite, a girl carrying the old world's poison, Arsenon, and must confront the secrets and schemes surrounding them.

In a utopia built on forgetting, young people encounter the secret of the old world.

408 pages
managed peacememory and forgettingthe legacy of the old worldcoming of age
Shunma Kyo silver prize

High-school student Mayuki Nakamura, who streams as the popular cross-dressing creator Kamimura Mayu, becomes the target of stalking enabled through social media. Sociologist Reika Shirasagi and her assistant Himari Anezaki confront the incident threatening Mayuki by tracing both online networks and human relationships.

A female professor, a college student, and a cross-dressing teenage boy take on incidents that begin on the internet.

344 pages
social mediastalkingstreaming cultureinformation societyhuman relationships
Nao Kawasaki Media Works Bunko Award
国仲シンジ Media Works Bunko Award

Kai, who is preparing for art-school entrance exams, travels to Shikarajima in Okinawa to break free from his inability to paint with feeling. There he meets Funo Izena, a girl who sings beneath the moon, and as his feelings for her grow, he confronts the sad fate awaiting them in this summer romance.

I will paint the first summer you gave me onto this canvas.

336 pages
an Okinawan islandartistic creationfirst lovefateone summer
Nao Kawasaki encouragement award

After high-school student Sakuraku Tagoe loses his sister in a sudden accident, he encounters a so-called god at the ruins of a church on the day of her funeral. He makes a pact with a grim reaper who demands years of life in exchange for restoring the dead, then faces a changed everyday life and the consequences of his choice in the little time he has left.

The price of wishing a dead person back to life is the time left in one's own life.

288 pages
losslife span and wishessiblingsgrim reaperyouth horror