In April 2007, volume 14 earned Viz the Manga Trade Paperback of the Year Gem Award from Diamond Comic Distributors. The manga was nominated for Favorite Manga Series in "Nickelodeon Magazine"s 2009 Comics Awards. In February 2015, "Asahi Shimbun" announced that "Naruto" was one of nine nominees for the nineteenth annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, and the following month Kishimoto was the winner of Rookie of the Year for the series in the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs 2014 Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology Fine Arts Recommendation Awards. Responding to "Naruto" success, Kishimoto said in "Naruto Collector Winter 2007/2008" that he was "very glad that the American audience has accepted and understood ninja. It shows that the American audience has good taste [...] because it means they can accept something previously unfamiliar to them."