The Morisawa foundry has posted the entries to their competition on their website for people's choice award. (Disclosure: I entered, but am not participating in the people's choice category.)
Latin:
http://competition.morisawa.co.jp/en/fans/lati/Kanji:
http://competition.morisawa.co.jp/en/fans/Perhaps it's because of my latin-exclusive eye, but the kanji entries seem to be much more consistently refined, both in concept and execution. In comparison, and disappointingly, the Latin stuff just doesn't seem up to par.
I'm not sure how well publicized the competition was outside of Japan. Maybe the idea of a competition is appealing to a different spectrum of designers (students or amateurs) in the latin-type world… I can imagine that the complexity of Japanese type design might also raise the bar significantly, and limit the entrants to "professionals", from the start.
Comments
That said, I saw Cyrus Highsmith's tweet about leaving for Japan today. He is one of the Latin Judges along with Carter and Soskolne… they'll be able to sort through the fodder :-)
Edit: Actually if I recall correctly I don't think that a whole family has ever received a prize, just single weights/styles.
But, yeah, there are a few really nice things in amongst the DaFont rejects.
Jack, I'm pretty sure Morisawa has awarded families and even superfamilies. For example, Roy Preston's Prentis, peace to its ashes.