Submissions for the East Asian High School Illustration Contest 2021 are now open, and the competition is starting to heat up over on the submission website – Pixiv.

Since it is difficult to travel internationally at the moment, the International East Asian High School Illustration Contest, which is being held jointly this year by Pixiv and Kyoto University of Art and Design has been revived digitally.

The event is an international contest aimed at high school students living in Japan, South Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau who want to connect with the world.
It has been previously held 6 times, and has accepted more than 16,000 entries from young artists over the past few years, helping artists of the next generation kick start their dreams.

Submissions are now open and applicants are able to submit work via Pixiv up until 23:59 (Japan time) on Sunday 14 March 2021.

The aim of the contest is to help develop and further interactions on an international scale within the younger generations of East Asia, where making international connections can sometimes be difficult.
It is open to students from the final year of junior high school to the final year of senior high school (as of February 2021).

The contest will be conducted through the illustration sharing website ‘Pixiv’, which has more than 60 million registered users. Pixiv is particularly popular amongst high school students due to art universities around Asia promoting the site for network building before entering onto courses.

Japanese illustrations are popular all over the world, and have set a standard in the global art industry; even developing into a unique culture of their own. Pixiv hopes that this contest will create a stronger network and begin relationships between artists of the same generation living in separate regions through Asia.

The contest will be judged by a mixed panel from Kyoto University of Art and Design and Pixiv. The panel will also be joined this year by guest judge Yoshida Seiji; a renowned figure in the art world who teaches part time at Kyoto Seika University and will be joining Kyoto University Art and Design as a visiting professor from April 2021.

Awards will be announced on the website on Friday 9th April 2021.

Awards

Grand Prize (1 available): 100,000 yen & handwritten message from guest judge
Runners up (2 available): Amazon gift voucher worth 30,000 yen
Excellency Prize (6 available): Amazon gift voucher worth 10,000 yen
* 30 additional pieces will be chosen as award winners of the event, and will be featured alongside the top judged pieces at the Kyoto University Art and Design Open Campus 2021, which will be held on April 24th and 25th 2021.

Contest Outline

Theme Illustrations drawn under the theme of ‘My Life’
Eligibility As of February 2021, Must be living in Japan, South Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau and between the 3rd year of junior high school to the 3rd year of senior high school.
Submission Method: Upload your submissions publicly via Pixiv and tag it with 東アジア高校生イラストコンテスト2021 on the Pixiv contest page.