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Fullmetal Alchemist Manga Wins at Japan Sci-Fi Con

The 50th Japan Science Fiction Convention (Nihon SF Taikai or Japan SF Con/Donbura Con L) announced on Sunday that it will give a Seiun Award in the Comic category to the manga Fullmetal Alchemist. Hiromu Arakawa just ended the manga last year, and an original movie called Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos opened last weekend after the second television anime series ended last year.

Studio Nue illustrator Naoyuki Katō (Starship Troopers, Legend of the Galactic Heroes) won in the Art category again this year. Kato earned the first of his five awards in the Art category in 1979, and he has now won the award for four straight years.

"Seiun Shō" literally translates to "nebula awards," but the Japan SF Con's Seiun Awards are more akin to Worldcon's Hugo Awards, in that the attendees of each respective convention vote on the winners. There is another set of awards, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan's Nihon SF Taishō honors, that are the rough Japanese equivalent of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Awards. Like the Hugo Awards, the Seiun Awards honor all forms of speculative fiction — including but not limited to science fiction — and related materials.This year's awards ceremony will be take place at Donbura Con L in Shizuoka on September 3.

Guin Saga, Summer Wars, and Pluto won Seiun Awards last year, while Macross Frontier, Trigun Maximum, and Rocket Girls' Housuke Nojiri received awards in 2009.

Japanese Long Fiction

Kyonen wa Ii Nen ni Naru Darō (Last Year Was Probably a Good Year)
Hiroshi Yamamoto
PHP Kenkyūsha

Japanese Short Fiction

"Arisuma-Ō no Ai Shita Mamono" (King Arisuma's Beloved Demon)
Issui Ogawa (The Lord of the Sands of Time, The Next Continent)
Hayakawa Publishing (in SF Magazine February 2011)

Translated Long Fiction

Eifelheim
Micheal Flynn
Translated by Yōichi Shimada
Tokyo Sogensha
Released in North America by Tor Books

Translated Short Fiction

"Carry the Moon in My Pocket"
James Lovegrove
Translated by Tōru Nakamura
Hayakawa Publishing
Published in North America by Daw Books in Moon Shots

Media

District 9
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Executive Producers: Ken Kamins, Bill Block
Producers: Peter Jackson, Carolynne Cunningham
Released in North America by TriStar Pictures

Comic

Fullmetal Alchemist

Hiromu Arakawa
Square Enix
Released in North America by Viz Media

Art

Naoyuki Katō

Nonfiction

Sa wa Science no Sa
by Tsukasa Shikano
Hayakawa Publishing

Free Entry

Hayabusa space probe's return to Earth
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)



Source: animeanime.jp