Kodansha Ltd. today announced the final results of its reader poll campaign. The poll followed the August 2025 release of a special edition for the U.S. market, “YOUNGMAGAZINE US.”
“Young Magazine,” first published in 1980, is one of Kodansha’s flagship brands, known as a weekly seinen (young men’s) manga magazine that has produced numerous hits focusing on social commentary, violence, and realistic human drama. Titles like AKIRA, Ghost in the Shell, Kaiji, Initial D, and Dragon Head have been adapted into numerous anime and films, establishing the magazine as a worldwide icon of the seinen manga genre.
This special issue was planned and edited from the ground up entirely in English for the American
readership, featuring 19 brand-new serialized works themed around depicting the unvarnished reality of human experience across diverse genres, including sci-fi, dark horror, and cyberpunk.
The magazine conducted a reader-participation voting campaign, with 16 out of the 19 new works
eligible for the poll. The top five most supported works, determined by reader votes, will be selected for serialization in Japan via Young Magazine and in the US via Kodansha’s manga app, “K MANGA” at the same time.
Voting was conducted both on a special website (one vote per user per day) and on the official X (formerly Twitter) account, where “likes” and reposts were directly counted as votes.
Voting Results
The reader poll, conducted from August 21 to November 10, concluded with a final count of 281,461
votes, far exceeding expectations.
Claiming the top spot in the final ranking is Still You, a work centered on LGBTQ high school students. It gained significant popularity by delicately depicting their conflicts and heartaches. The 2nd place work, Godmother, is a horror-themed piece. Its acceptance in the U.S., despite being set in the Japanese city of Yokohama, is particularly noteworthy. Other ranked works include those focusing on themes such as religious war and the afterlife, suggesting the wide diversity of themes embraced by the U.S. comics market.
Regarding the voting results, Mr. Shiraki, Editor-in-Chief of the Young Magazine Special Issue, stated:
“Thank you very much for the overwhelming participation in this voting campaign.
We received a total of over 280,000 votes! The entire editorial department was genuinely astonished by the massive response, which far exceeded our initial expectations.
The sincere adolescence depicted in Still You, the exotic horror of Godmother, the epic drama surrounding the religious war in The Knight of Blasphemy, and the stories of the legendary magician who lost her powers and seeks ‘ordinary happiness’ in The Journey of a Dark Elf with Fading Powers, and the woman called ‘The Woman Who Carried the Forest’ raising a young girl in Fasciation—in every single one of these works, the diverse and stimulating sensibilities unique to the U.S. shone brightly.
Due to this tremendous support from all of you, we have urgently decided to select four additional works for serialization. To all the readers in the U.S. who voted, truly, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We sincerely look forward to these new talents born from Yanmaga US reaching readers around the globe.
There are no borders in storytelling.
Following this immense response, we are already moving forward with preparations for the 2nd Yanmaga US project. We believe that no matter where you are in the world, the forms of conflict and hope are likely similar. And we trust that depicting these emotions directly gives manga its ‘power that transcends language.'”
Future Serialization and Additional Selections
The top five titles will be serialized in both Japan and the US. They will be published on “K MANGA” in
the U.S. and on platforms like “Yanmaga Web” and “Monthly Young Magazine” in Japan.
The start dates for the serialization of the winning titles will be announced on the official Young Magazine X (formerly Twitter) account.
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1637040002
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kodansha.kmanga
Young Magazine X Official account / @YANMAGA_USA
As an additional announcement, the five newly serialized winners will be celebrated with exclusive,
special gift campaigns. Further details regarding these highly anticipated giveaways will be revealed soon on our official X account.
Furthermore, in response to the overwhelming feedback received from the U.S. market, the Young
Magazine editorial team has decided to place importance not only on the poll results but also on the
“brilliance of the talent” and “lingering impact” of the works. Consequently, additional selections have
been made from works that did not quite make the TOP 5. Information regarding these additional works will also be released on X (formerly Twitter) and the official website.
Source: Press Release
