Tezuka Award

The Tezuka Award (Japanese: 手塚賞, Hepburn: Tezuka Shō) is a semi-annual manga award offered by the Japanese publisher Shueisha since 1971, under the auspices of its Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. It awarded new manga artists in the Story Manga category. Its counterpart award, Akatsuka Award, awards new manga artists in the Comedic Manga category. The award is named after the manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka and is designed to cultivate new artists. The prize for a top Selected Work is two million Japanese yen and for a lesser but still worthy work, a million yen. The award also has third place honorable mentions for contestants deemed worthy, that includes half a million yen. These cash prizes may not be awarded (as is often the case) if the judges decide that none of the candidates are worthy.

From the Wikipedia article “Tezuka Award”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Check the official rules of the Tezuka Award for the current eligibility window, accepted formats, residency or language requirements and any entry fee. For most established prizes the publisher submits on the author's behalf, often with a limit on entries per imprint.

If you are self-published, look for an explicit statement that independently published books are accepted, and budget for entry fees and copies for judges.