Interest
Potentially Stolen Ai & Makoto Manga Material Appears on Auction Site
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Kodansha is asking bidders to keep their wallets closed after color artwork from Ikki Kajiwara (Ashita no Joe, Kyojin no Hoshi, Tiger Mask) and Takumi Nagayasu's (Mibu Gishiden, The Legend of Mother Sarah) masterpiece manga Ai & Makoto appeared on the Mandarake Auction website. The publisher stated that the artwork from the 1970s manga is stolen.
According to Kodansha, Nagayasu has held on to materials from the series and never sold or transferred the art to a third party. However, while the work was being serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine, the editorial department did lend some of the artwork out and not all of the artwork was returned. There are a few original drawings still missing from the 1970s, including the artwork seen in the above auction.
The Mandarake auction listing went up on April 20 with a starting bid of 80,000 yen (US$730). Bids reached 4,000,000 yen (US$36,500) before the auction closed on May 6. According to IT Media News, Kodansha did not stop the sale, instead issuing the statement that may prevent such sales in the future.
Kodansha asked that individuals report any original artwork from Ai & Makoto discovered in specialty shops and auction listings to the editorial department.
Ikki Kajiwara wrote the original romance manga with illustrations by Takumi Nagayasu for Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1973 to 1976. The manga inspired a live-action television adaptation in 1974 as well as three live-action films in 1974, 1975 and 1976. A new film directed by Takashi Miike with a script by Takayuki Takuma premiered in Japan in 2011.
Source: IT Media News
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