Bandai has announced the official opening of the Digimon Novel Competition in Japan with up to 500,000 yen up for grabs.

The grand prize winner will win 500,000 yen in cash and have their work published in the “Digimon Comics” web magazine which is scheduled to release sometime in summer.

The second and third place winners will also receive cash prizes of 300,000 yen and 100,000 yen respectively but will not have their works published by Bandai.

An official statement released by Bandai states that the Digimon Novel Competition aims to express the charm and the world view of Digimon through the written medium of novels.

First announced in Digimon Con in March 2024, prospective writers can submit their original entries from 5 April 2024 until 7 August 2024 via application form. Applicants are limited to people with a Japanese address and are currently residing in Japan.

Entries submitted must be written in Japanese and have a maximum file size of 10MB. In addition, original Digimon, human characters from the Digimon anime series and AI generated works are strictly prohibited from being submitted to the competition.

First introduced in 1997 as virtual pets similar to Tamagotchi, Digimon has now grown to encompass a wide range of media including manga, anime, and video and card games.