[caption id="attachment_13868" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Verachai Duangpla (Thailand): Silver Prize - 4th International Manga Awards"][/caption]

Call for applications to the 5th International MANGA Award, established to share Japanese pop culture and help promote understanding of Japan.

Deadline: 31 August 2011

■1：The 5th International MANGA Award Executive Committee invites entries. Guidelines for application and entry forms are available on the website.

■2：The International MANGA Award was established to share Japanese pop culture and to help promote understanding of Japan. If was created to honour MANGA artists who have contributed to the promotion of MANGA overseas.

■3：The Golden Prize of the 5th International MANGA Award will be given to the best MANGA from all the entries and about three distinguished works will receive the Silver Prize. In addition, the Japan Foundation will invite the prize winners to Japan to attend the award ceremony. They will also meet with Japanese MANGA artists and visit publishing companies, etc., in Japan.

Read about the Award Winners of 4th International Manga Competition including artists from Belgium, France, Spain and Thailand. The contest received 189 entries from 39 countries.

Comics, Anime and Games are now a globally popular form of entertainment from Japan. A recent programme on NHK World explored the popularity of manga and anime in Thailand and the success of the industry there. The programme reported from the 3-day Thai-Japan Anime & Music Festival held in Bangkok at the end of July.