Manga piracy—in other words, the illegal downloading without any connection to creators or publishers—has hurt manga companies and makers in both Japan and America. How to fix this has been a matter of debate over the years, and the Japanese Diet has come up with …Read more »
It’s always disappointing to read about people who threaten creators, regardless of the reasons behind it. This happened again recently, when a 21-year-old Kyoto man named Fukuta Kishimoto was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill Kemono Friends anime director Tatsuki. According to the NHK report, …Read more »
Back in October of last year, a Chinese site administrator was arrested in Shanghai for running a site that had been hosting illegally-uploaded manga from Shueisha and other publishers—including Shonen Jump titles—since 2013. These chapters typically went online before Jump hit stands, but now Shueisha …Read more »
Wan Piao, a man who owns an import toy store located in El Monte, California, has been busted for making and selling a bunch of counterfeit goods. Piao was arrested on November 1 under charges of manufacturing and possessing what amounts to over US$1.4 million …Read more »
There was a time during which anime studio Gainax was really on top, producing classics ranging from Gunbuster to Neon Genesis Evangelion and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Now the company’s current president, Tomohiro Maki, has been arrested on alleged “semi-forced” indecent assault charges against a woman in her late teens. …Read more »
If you’ve ever collected cards of any kind, you know it can be a pretty pricy hobby. This definitely applies to some of the rarer Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, and a 27-year-old university student in Fukui, Japan decided to take advantage of this by selling fake cards at a …Read more »
Everyone is still understandably on edge following the July 18 arson attack on Kyoto Animation, so all threats have to be handled with the utmost care. The latest came from a 35-year-old Okayama resident, who has been arrested for making death threats to Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno’s Studio Khara. …Read more »
It’s been a couple months since Japan’s most notorious manga pirate, Romi Hoshino, was arrested in the Philippines. There have been plenty of developments in the story since, and the latest has Hoshino back in Japan as a result of a forcible repatriation flight from Manilla …Read more »
We recently posted about a Lupin fan in Japan who took it too far and eventually got busted for robbing a convenience store with a replica of Lupin III’s gun of choice. It seems there’s something in the water with a few of the 40-somethings out there, because another …Read more »
We recently posted about the status of injured victims who survived the July 18 arson attack on Kyoto Animation’s Studio 1. Of the 34 injured, 7 remained in the hospital and three were in critical condition at the time. According to the latest update, though, all 34 injured victims …Read more »
If you have the license for a particular property, it’s perfectly fine to use said license to produce huggable and extremely popular body pillow covers—AKA dakimakura—based on various characters from the series. This applies to the Love Live! franchise, as well, but there’s no way in hell …Read more »
It’s one thing to admire the weaponry of your favorite manga and anime characters; it’s another entirely to use them to commit crimes of your own. That’s what one Lupin III fan did in Japan when he allegedly attempted to rob a convenience store using Lupin’s iconic …Read more »
Considering all of the awful words spewed out on the Internet on a second-by-second basis, comparing someone to a nerdy character like Doraemon protagonist Nobita seems about as harmless as it gets. That turned out not to be the case for YouTuber AuronPlay, who referred to Josep …Read more »
A 25-year-old man has been arrested for threatening to set fire to the offices of Visual Arts, a visual novel publisher based in Osaka. His alleged plan shares details with the arson attack on Kyoto Animation July 18 which killed 35 of that studio’s employees. In fact, …Read more »
After a month of stories following the tragic July 18 arson attack on Kyoto Animation’s Studio 1, just 10 of the 35 deceased employee’s names have been disclosed to the public. Among them are Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid director Yasuhiro Takemoto and Free! chief animation director Futoshi Nishiya. This is in …Read more »
Danica Davidson
Joseph Luster
Matt Schley