Japanese public broadcaster the NHK reported today the Reiwa 3 (2021) recipients of the Order of Culture award and the Persons of Cultural Merit honor, which will both be given out in a ceremony at a hotel in Tokyo on November 4.
Among the 9 people awarded the Order of Culture, including former professional basketballer Shigeo Nagashima, and Syukuro Manabe, a meteorologist and climatologist who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in using computers to model climate change, and the 21 Persons of Cultural Merit honor, was Moblie Suit Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, and Wata no Kuni Hoshi manga creator Yumiko Oshima.
The Persons of Cultural Merit honor was set up in 1951 to give honorees a pension, which as of 1985 is 3.5 million yen (US$30,700) per year, after the then-new Constitution of Japan disallowed any government-sponsored awards to have benefits attached. The Order of Culture chooses to award recipients from the previous years Persons of Cultural Merit honor. Both are chosen by the Japanese Prime Minister of the day to people who have contributed to the advancement and development of Japanese culture in various differing areas.
Mobile Suit Gundam (Image via Netflix Japan)
Yoshiyuki Tomino was given the Persons of Cultural Merit honor as a pioneer of anime, especially the creation of the "real-robot" subgenre of the mecha genre with Mobile Suit Gundam. The footprints of the series can be seen across the world today in new anime series, Hollywood films, and even life-sized recreations of Gundam that move. Tomino is highly regarded as one of the most influential anime directors of his time and continues to work on the franchise to this day.
Yumiko Oshima is best known for the manga series Wata no Kuni Hoshi (also known as The Star of Cottonland), which won her the 1978 Kodansha Manga Shojo Award. Oshima is regarded as a pioneer of shojo manga, as well as popularizing the catgirl character type with Chibi-neko in Wata no Kuni Hoshi, which was published from 1978 to 1987 in Hakusensha's LaLa magazine. She is known to be part of the Year 24 Group, a collection of shojo manga creators who transformed the shojo scene from simple stories to complex, enriching tales that blended politics, sexuality, and womanhood – which was banned in manga for girls pre-WWII. Oshima continues to create the ongoing Gu-Gu Datte Neko de Aru short stories manga series.
Wata no Kuni Hoshi's first volume cover
Congratulations to all the recipients of both the Order of Culture award and the Persons of Cultural Merit honor.
Source: NHK
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Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.
Source: Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!
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