I started reading Oooku out of curiosity when it won a special prize from the Sense of Gender Awards, which are like Japan’s Tiptree/Otherwise Awards for science fiction. Then I read everything else I could get my hands on from artist Yoshinaga Fumi.

Is silent manga awards count mmm...~?
There are a lot of great silent manga oneshots every year mmm...

Winning awards sure helps with discovering new titles. I always see manga I've never even heard of when I check a list of award-winners. I have discovered and read some of the titles I really liked thanks to them winning some award. I still do pick stuff that interest me, and not any award-winning manga though. I see those awards as strong recommendations.

Award winning doesn't really sway me because I tend to not fall into the "average" demographic enough I guess, for lack of a better way to phrase it. I tend to not like what the critics/professionals all like and praise, guess I just like "bad" manga lol.

Though I have read a few award winning series, either with or without the knowledge its award winning in the first place, that I truly enjoyed.

Not at all. I don't care about awards, ratings, or popularity. I pick things to read and watch entirely based on my own tastes and initial judgment depending on official synopses and trailers. Critical acclaim and/or a huge fanbase means nothing to me. If something I like wins an award or gains a strong following, of course I'm really happy for the story and the author, but it doesn't sway my personal feelings one bit.

I'm more likely to read/watch/play something with bad reviews and ratings that looks interesting rather than something that has great reviews and has gotten awards but looks boring to me. The distict lack of oscar-winners in my bluray collection is a good indicator of this...

I don't look at series descriptions before I read... Lol I just judge based on the volume cover and the first couple chapters. XD

But maybe the series was picked up because of the awardee status? And that helps expand the reach? Which indirectly influenced it to get onto my radar?

Overall though, no I don't read series just because it won an award. But if I read a series, like it, then look at the description and see it has an award I feel cultured lolol

I don't specifically seek out award winners but yeah, I'm more likely to try something if I notice that it's won an award. It's just another layer of vetting that indicates that the work should be good on a technical level, just like I would be more likely to read something picked up by a publishing house than something self-published.

For me "Winner of X award" means a panel of people who like something that isn't what I prefer. Why? Because I have weird, somewhat contradictory tastes.

For example, I like Bleach (as deeply flawed as it became) and Inuyasha. I also liked Durarara and Darker than Black. Gintama was awesome. Pumpkin Scissors was good. I thought K-ON was fun. I watched every episode of Dragonball, Z and GT (even though I don't remember much about it anymore). Eureka 7 and Your Name were stories I enjoyed (also, am I the only person who thought the person who wrote Your Name watched Memories of Nobody and wanted a happier ending?)

But Jojo's Bizzare Adventure, Attack on Titan, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, and so many others you'd think I like (and are well loved), I just couldn't get into no matter how hard I tried.

Awards for competitions are worse. They are more of a way to discover stories that are great for the short term but don't have a lot of staying power.

It makes me happy when a manga I've been enjoying wins an award, but I've never started reading a manga based solely on the fact that it won an award.

Not entirely? I have become interested in some manga because I saw it win an award, but if the premise didn't interest me to begin with, I'm not going to read it. More often, I check out a manga that seems interesting and it winning an award is just a bonus that might bump it up my list of priorities

Yes, though it's rare.

Usually I found a great manga that I like, and turns out this great manga actually won awards. 😅

awards encourage the writer to keep making more
those luminaries that have churned out stuff since the 70's;
they won their awards 40 years ago, and none since then
but their stuff is still nice, not as genre-defining like their earliest works

although moderns awards are a little watered down given that there are dozens of magazines giving their own awards in addition to the industry's

What I read depends more on what's translated, catches my eyes or it the case of series I've dropped recommendations. Unless the series comes from a famous publisher and gets an up to date translation, Asian awards aren't the best indicator of what works ''overseas'' . Also, most have a strong start (otherwise they wouldn't be published) so it's difficult to gauge an ongoing series.

From my experience the bunch of series I started because of a recent award (they caught my eye for being awarded after their competition) disappointed me (most were similar to Oyasumi Punpun).

I personally think that the series getting adapted to a different format and the merchandise usually have a greater impact to the hype and the amount of people re/reading a series. Since after the hype passes most get forgotten I think the best indicator is seeing the recommended complete series of years prior and looking at the ones that haven't fallen to oblivion.

It's a "no" for me if we're talking about manga... I'm guessing many of us are in the same boat and devour whatever scanlations we can get ahold of, so awards wouldn't be the first thing to usually tip us off to a new series (haha).

I don't suppose novels were included in this poll, though? I'm sure we've all had to read books in high school and earlier that won Caldecott medals and such!

I have found a few good one because I was searching through award lists, especially older series. Sometimes I check the lists just because I ' m curious about what won recently.

I like checking out Manga Taisho award winners and nominees yearly. I wished Delicious in Dungeon won atleast once.

Whoops, missed out on voting on this one, but I have done this once, for one series.

I remember reading Blue Giant because it won an award (actually, it was the reason I pitched it to the scanlation group I was working with at the time).
Of course, that wasn't the only reason, but it was a contributing factor, and it was also how I initially discovered it.