Tokyo Taraeba Girls, Junji Ito’s Frankenstein Win At 2019 Eisner Awards

This year’s awards ceremony for the Eisners continued the tradition of honoring the best and brightest in the comic book and manga industry with the recognition of “creative achievement in American comic books”. The Eisner Awards have been a tradition in the comic book world since their inception in 1988, and its no surprise that Junji Ito’s Frankenstein and the manga series of Tokyo Taraeba Girls was also included on the list of winners for this year. If you haven’t had a chance to read either of these yet, we got you covered.

Anime News Network dropped the bombshell that both creative manga series had taken home Eisners, adding them to the prestigious list of creative endeavors that won the awards both this year and decades prior:

To start, Tokyo Tareaba Girls is a “slice of life comedy” manga series which follows a young woman named Rinko and her friends as they drink their way through their problems, specifically not being able to find love in their 30s. When a handsome blond haired man walks into their lives and states that their problems are coming from their longing for the past, Rinko swears to herself and her friends that she will find someone by 2020 when the Summer Olympic Games take place in Japan. Created in 2014, the series won the award for “Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Asia” and has also spawned a short running television series released in 2017 with ten episodes.

Junji Ito is considered by many to be the “master of horror” when it comes to comic books and manga. Creating images that worm their way into your brain, Ito has created more manga short stories than we can count. In the mid-90s, Ito attempted to reinterpret the terrifying tale of Victor Frankenstein and his monster into a manga series where Junji’s unique art style gave the creature’s tale brand new life. Winning “Best Adaptation From Another Medium”, Frankenstein may have come out years prior, but still managed to take home the gold.

The Eisner Awards were originally created, as stated above, in 1988, and were named after the legendary comic artist, Will Eisner, who created such masterpieces as The Spirit and A Contract With God And Other Tenement Stories. The awards themselves are voted on by a handful of jurists and then opened up to a panel of comic industry professionals for a final choice. The Eisner Awards have, and will certainly continue to be, one of the most notable awards to be found in the industry.

What did you think of Tokyo Tareaba Girls and Junji Ito’s Frankenstein? What other Eisner winners were you excited to see? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the Eisners!