Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki’s Billy Bat has won this year’s Harvey Award for Best Manga. The Harvey Awards, which honor work in comics and sequential art, announced the winners on Friday at New York Comic Con. Abrams ComicArts released the manga through its Kana imprint, and Kristi Iwashiro translates it.
The award puts Billy Bat in a category that has been dominated by a handful of high-profile titles over the past several years. It is also a win for a manga that has built its reputation on the strength of its two creators rather than on an anime adaptation.
A category manga have grown into
The Harvey Awards added Best Manga as its own category in 2018. Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness took the first award that year. Kōhei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia won in 2019, and Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier won in 2020.
From there, Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man won three years running, in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Ryōko Kui’s Delicious in Dungeon took the award in 2024, and Witch Hat Atelier won again last year.
Before the category existed, manga were nominated alongside other comics in the “Best American Edition of Foreign Material” bracket. The last manga to win there was Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan in 2014. One-Punch Man and Showa: A History of Japan were nominated in 2016 but did not win. That bracket no longer exists.
How the Harveys differ from other awards
The Harvey Awards are voted on by comic book professionals themselves, which separates them from the Eisner Awards and other North American industry prizes decided by juries or broader voting bodies. That detail matters for a manga win, because it reflects what people working in the medium are reading rather than what a single panel decided.
Billy Bat’s win also stands out because it is not tied to a film or a show the way several of the other books in the category have been. Urasawa is a known name in the West for Monster, 20th Century Boys and Pluto, and the manga’s release through Abrams ComicArts gave English readers a way to follow it.
Why it matters
Manga have become a regular presence in North American comics awards, and the Best Manga category is now one of the more competitive slots at the Harveys. A win for Billy Bat adds to a run of awards that has alternated between blockbuster shonen titles and quieter critical favorites.
For readers who came to the Harveys through chainsaw-and-demons series like Chainsaw Man, the Billy Bat result is a good nudge toward something slower. It is a historical thriller with a mystery at its core, and it rewards patience. If the award does one useful thing, it is pointing a few more people toward Urasawa’s backlist.
For another recent manga honor, see our report on the International Emmy nominations for Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26.
Source: Anime News Network, citing the Harvey Awards’ X/Twitter account
Featured image: Cover art for Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki’s Billy Bat, via Anime News Network.
