The inaugural volume of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tokyo These Days manga series received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Graphic Novel/Comics category last weekend. The 45th annual awards ceremony took place at the University of Southern California’s Bovard Auditorium.
Tokyo These Days was among five titles nominated in the Graphic Novel/Comics category. Matsumoto’s 2000 manga GoGo Monster was previously nominated for the same award in 2009.
Here we go! The Book Prize for Graphic Novel/Comics is awarded to… 📓🏆
“Tokyo These Days, Vol. 1” by Taiyo Matsumoto!
Congratulations @VIZMedia! #bookprizes pic.twitter.com/6P2Ki9dwH2
— LA Times Festival of Books (@latimesfob) April 26, 2025
VIZ Media shared a celebratory message and a drawing from Matsumoto himself on its Twitter/X account this week. Matsumoto expressed his astonishment at winning the award and thanked readers outside Japan for enjoying his work. He continued by saying that creating the manga was an “enjoyable and wonderful experience” and expressed gratitude to the LA Times Book Prize, VIZ, Shogakukan, his editors, and the manga’s English translator, director Michael Arias.
VIZ congratulates Matsumoto Sensei on receiving the @latimes Book Prizes award for Tokyo These Days, Vol. 1 in Graphic Novel/Comics!
Sensei shared a drawing and short note to accept the honor which we are happy to share with you. pic.twitter.com/dykisSvUts
— VIZ Media (@VIZMedia) April 29, 2025
Other manga titles that were nominated as finalists for the award include Rokudenashiko’s What Is Obscenity: The Story of a Good for Nothing Artist and Her Pussy in 2016, Kaito’s Blue Flag (Volumes 1-4) in 2020, and Yamada Murasaki’s Talk to My Back in 2022.
- Used Book in Good Condition
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- Ken Fukuyama, Yuki Fukuyama (Author)
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- 246 Pages - 10/11/2022 (Publication Date) - Independently published (Publisher)
- Used Book in Good Condition
- Sumiko Uo (Author)
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- 6 Pages - 01/01/2005 (Publication Date) - BarCharts Publishing Inc. (Publisher)
Matsumoto serialized Tokyo These Days in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original Zokan from June 12, 2019 to June 12, 2023. A total of three tankobon volumes were released.
The manga was also nominated for the 27th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2023 and again in 2024 for the 28th edition of the prize.
