Best Award Winning Manga of 2000

Nana Komatsu is a naive, unmotivated girl who spends her high school days chasing one crush after the other. Despite continually facing failure in her quest for love, her spirits have never dampened. At the age of 20, she finds herself on a train to Tokyo with hopes of reuniting with her current boyfriend. Nana Osaki, on the other hand, is feisty and prideful. After joining a local band during her high school days, she falls in love with music and one of the band members. However, when faced with the choice between her relationship and her musical career, she chooses the latter and separates from her boyfriend. On her 20th birthday, she boards the same train to Tokyo, like her namesake, where she aims to become a top vocalist. The two girls with the same name but very different aspirations find themselves sitting together on their journey to the city, and, as fate would have it, eventually share the same apartment. A deep and unique bond is then forged, where they will support each other in this saga of love, music, friendship, and heartbreak.

Yukio "Koyuki" Tanaka wasted away his middle school days listening to Japanese pop music and apathetically trudging through life—until a casual run-in with the enigmatic guitarist Ryuusuke "Ray" Minami. Through this encounter, Koyuki realizes what he has been missing all this time as Ray introduces him to western rock music and jumpstarts his desire to play guitar. Although various struggles plague his path to rock fame, Koyuki refuses to abandon the passion that gave his life purpose, balancing it together with school, work, and friends. Beck tells the story of the love and trial that accompanies pursuing a professional career in music as Koyuki and Ray work toward realizing the guitarist's dream of the ultimate band.

Takemoto lives in a run down student apartment, where his greatest worry is when he'll next be able to afford to eat meat and whether he'll get to class on time. Although he's away from home and living on his own, Takemoto is far from finished growing up. Along with his crazy cast of friends, Morita, Mayama, Yamada, and Hagumi, Takemoto sets out to discover life and his true self.Included one-shots: Volume 10: Sora no Kotori, Hoshi no Opera

Fed-up with a life of being under-appreciated and disrespected, Sumire Iwaya decides to change things when she picks up a young boy off the street and brings him into her house. Despite being total opposites, the two seem to complement one another as they try to carve out an ordinary life for themselves.

In 1924, mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine attempted a daring challenge: to be the first to scale Mount Everest. However, they disappeared during the final stages of their trek, leading to one of mountaineering's greatest mysteries—did the pair ever make it to the summit? 1993, Kathmandu. Japanese photographer Makoto Fukamachi discovers a vintage camera in an antique store, which he believes might have belonged to Mallory. However, the camera falls into the possession of "Bikha Sanp," a burly Japanese man who Fukamachi realizes may very well be Jouji Habu, a legendary Japanese mountaineer who disappeared from the scene several years ago. Unfortunately for Fukamachi however, Bikha Sanp refuses to talk to him and leaves with the camera in tow. With the trail gone cold, Fukamachi has only one course left to pursue: to delve into Habu's past and see just what may have brought the former climber to Nepal. For the sake of rewriting mountaineering history, Fukamachi begins his investigation, a task that will bring him to the greatest height in the world—the summit of the gods.

Welcome to Cromartie High—a melting pot of underachievers and overzealous bullies, where the fist rules and the student body has the combined I.Q. of a rusty nail. After a whole lot of bad judgment and a little bad luck, Takashi Kamiyama is now attending this academy of dunces. Here, his only homework will be defending himself against the foul-mouthed robots, semi-intelligent apes and masked villains that roam the halls of Cromartie High School!

As a result of a strange encounter with a mysterious carcinogenic fetus he found inside a patient's skull, brain surgeon Minakata Jin has slipped back through time. Equipped with modern medical knowledge, he faces various fatal diseases and injuries. Then, he meets the ordinary people of Edo as well as illustrious figures, and his surgical knife carves out a new history and story of life.

Born during the sunrise—an auspicious beginning—the Azumas' newborn son is named Hikaru, which means "light." But during one play date, his mother notices that her son is slightly different from the other children. In this alternately heartwarming and bittersweet tale, a young mother tries to cope with both the overwhelming discovery of her child's autism and the trials of raising him while keeping her family together. This is a story that resonates not only for those whose families have been affected by autism, but also for all past, present, and future parents.Included one-shots: Volume 15: Thank You Sensei!, Haru no Manazashi

Shanaou Yoshitsune is an alternative story to the popular historical figure Minamoto no Yoshitsune along with his servants, including the renown Benkei who lived in the Heian Era. In this version, Yoshitsune was actually a weak, sickly boy who met an exact body replica in Hyouta, a traveling orphan who earn his living on the street. Being physically stronger, Hyouta was led to become a replacement for Yoshitsune, eventually claiming the name as his own. This manga is a fictional story (albeit with many historical references) of his journey to restore the honor of Genji (Minamoto) Clan.