This Week in Anime
The Failings of Industry

by Coop Bicknell & Sylvia Jones,

Sylvia and Coop break down recent unfortunate developments in the manga industry.

CONTENT WARNING: This edition of This Week in Anime features discussion of real-life sexual abuse involving minors. Reader discretion is advised.

The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

@RiderStrike @BWProwl @LucasDeRuyter @vestenet

Coop
You know, Sylvia, I was gone for a week, and yet it feels like we've just lived through a month's worth of news in the manga industry. Between Shogakukan's knowing employment of abusers, the wider backlash against their actions, and a couple of stateside corporate shake-ups, it's been a doozy, to put it lightly... And most of that was reported on last Monday.
Sylvia
In a rare move for this column, I am, for just a moment, going to switch to a live feed so you can all see my reaction to the past week of manga news.
sylvia01
© ヤマシタトモコ・祥伝社／アニメ「違国日記」製作委員会
Seriously, what the hell.
In another case of "to put it lightly," my blood was boiling while reading these stories. Starting with the most upsetting news of this bunch, Shogakukan got caught publishing the works of not one, but two authors convicted of sex crimes involving minors. And this wasn't just a "we didn't know" deal; the publisher's Manga ONE editorial team was fully aware of this and had the writers working under pen names. So, here's where it started. As ANN News Boss Crystalyn Hodgkins has thoroughly covered, Shōichi Yamamoto had been writing under a pen name on the series Jōjin Kamen without the artist's knowledge. When word of this started spreading, artists began pulling their titles from the Manga ONE platform—including Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and the works of Rumiko Takahashi. Not to mention all the creatives with series currently running in the publication who chose to halt their work. Both Crystalyn and Aftermath's Isaiah Colbert have provided detailed timelines of the situation if you'd like to see the details for yourself, but fair warning, it's intense.
Big time warning, for sure. In addition, very quickly after that news dropped, Manga ONE communicated that it had been publishing another sex offender under a pen name. And to make matters worse, this guy was already a publicly known quantity. Tatsuya Matsuki, you may recall, was the writer of act-age before he got arrested and subsequently indicted for an "indecent act" with a middle schooler. You can read the details for yourself if you want. act-age was canceled, but unfortunately, Matsuki was not.

And if you were confused by all of this, don't worry, because I was too. Everything seemed to come out so feverishly, and I did not realize people were talking about two separate writers at first. Like, it sounds insane. How could a single publisher let this happen twice, and let it happen concurrently? I mean, I know the answer, but it makes me see red.

No kidding. In last week's ANN After Show, Executive Editor Lynzee Loveridge and our go-to GoHands Reviewer, James Beckett, shared their thoughts on the situation with particular focus on the circumstances around Matsuki. Apparently, he'd been working with a therapist and remained on the level with everyone onboard the project, but I agree with James that he shouldn't have been allowed to hide behind the shield of a pen name. Then again, convicted offenders such as Nobuhiro Watsuki and Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro haven't been held accountable, even when using their real names. It's less about name shielding the person in these cases, and more the industry itself. Which does make it heartening to see so many artists and readers speaking up.
If there's a silver lining, it's that. The aforementioned Aftermath article has a good collection of the mangaka who spoke out about the scandal. And of course, I believe most people working in manga are decent, sympathetic human beings who would naturally recoil and try to help in the wake of awful revelations like these. We can't forget that. Still, though, these big publishing houses like Shogakukan wield a lot of power, and where there is power, there is corruption. Or, on a more basic level, I think a lot of these guys just believe they can get away with anything. And you know the type of guy I'm talking about. Just turn on cable news.
Especially if you're buddies with a guy like Eiichiro Oda, like Watsuki and Shimabukuro are.
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© Netflix
I know many, many people who love One Piece, some of them would even say it changed their lives... But even with a season of the Netflix show under my belt, I've long been uncomfortable with interacting with the series. If Oda's going to use his status to raise convicted sex offenders who haven't once taken their crimes on the chin, I'm not crazy about interacting with his work any more than I professionally have to. It doesn't matter if they were all friends while coming up in the industry together; it's simply unacceptable. Similarly, when the news around Watsuki came out, a close friend of mine tossed all of his Kenshin volumes. Maybe a love was there, but if Watsuki could be using that money to commit further crimes (he was allegedly found with enough CSAM to be suspected of distribution), why give the man any mindshare or money aside from nailing him to the wall?

But to loop back around to another silver lining, I'm thrilled to see that Shiro Usazaki has moved on to bigger and better things since act-age's cancellation.

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© 2024 by Osamu Nishi, Shiro Usazaki/SHUEISHA Inc.
As far as current shonen manga goes, it is Ichi the Witch's world, and we are all living in it. Usazaki has already won, and the inevitable anime adaptation hasn't even aired yet.

But more to your point about Watsuki and Oda, I think the important thing to keep in mind here is that none of this is new. Watsuki was charged almost a decade ago, and Oda was already working with him again back in 2020. This is the reality of "cancel culture." This is the legacy of Me Too. Society at large simply does not give a shit about the abuse of women and children. Worse still, any victim who comes forward puts themselves in the line of fire, and the shooters are relentless. The woman who filed against Yamamoto just today felt the need to put out some fires that were being attributed to her alleged statements to the press. Under no circumstances should an assault victim be pressured to go to bat for a multi-million dollar corporation, yet here we are. It legit makes me sick.

This is unfortunately true. You just have to look to your nearest head of state these days. There's simply no accountability—no one is willing to take their lumps and deal with the consequences. It's beating a dead horse, honestly, but it shouldn't be.
It's disheartening! The constant dismissal and lack of legal/social retribution accumulate in our collective understanding of "justice." Eventually, we all turn into cynics. As much as I appreciate the silver linings we mentioned, there's that voice in my head whispering my deepest pessimisms. Shogakukan will conduct its "investigation." They will draft nominally corrective actions and communicate them in a press release. Maybe a handful of editors will be fired. Maybe only demoted. The mangaka boycotting the Manga ONE service will return to the platform. Readers will move on and forget. Then this will happen again. And Shogakukan (or whatever publisher gets caught next), wide-eyed and mouth agape, will apologize and do the same song and dance all over again. Rinse and repeat. So it goes.
Speaking of demoralizing song and dances (but AI), how about that Media Do purchase of Seven Seas? As someone in the Light Novels side of this business, I have many feelings about this, Sylvia.
I feel like sailing as many seas as it takes to get away from the bloated specter of capitalism.
Same, honestly.
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© Seven Seas Entertainment, Inc.
coop-4
© MEDIA DO Co., Ltd.
Media Do has previously made it clear that they're all in on AI to produce more product faster, even if said product is digitally hallucinated toilet paper. While Seven Sea's new owner has said they have "absolutely no plans" to use AI in their work, I simply do not trust them at this point. Translators and editors across the industry are already worried about having to clean up the garbage this tech craps out if they want to keep their jobs. In fact, Lucas and I talked a bit about this last year. To reiterate a previous point, this AI nonsense only serves to cut out the human touch needed to make light novels, manga, and other translated material shine their brightest in a new language. These folks should be paid more, actually, but a suit who simply goes "it's cheaper if this bullshit does it" will simply cut people instead. Additionally, I'm not sure of the recent relationship between Seven Seas and its union, but part of this sale almost felt like a knife twist to me.
To be clear, I am vehemently and morally opposed to the global economy's current obsession with "AI." Irrespective of that, though, I just do not understand the logic behind integrating it into the localization sphere. Any knucklehead with access to the chatbot du jour is going to have the ability to run Japanese text through an LLM garbage disposal. Why would they pay a middleman to do so? The slop is plentiful and on demand.

Of course, I know the real reason is that executives want to entirely erode any remaining wisps of dependence on the employees and (more often) freelancers whom they already pay peanuts. Petty tyranny is all capitalism has left for its adherents. But the fact is that this AI approach is doomed to make everyone else's lives shittier.

If companies like Media Do really want to flood the market with toilet paper, they should probably look back to the circumstances surrounding the late aughts manga crash and the fall of Borders. We were lucky to get a good handful of all-time classics (shoujo titles especially) back then, but those titles were just small dollops of cream that rose to the top. With that in mind, I could honestly see something similar happening again. Which also reminds me that we're in a golden age of physical manga releases—both new and classic. If you want Nana, Ashita no Joe, Trigun, or a cult favorite like Teppu on your shelf, get it ASAP.
My totally-not-informed take is that manga companies, especially Japanese ones, are beginning to panic. The manga industry had been enjoying steady growth for a while, particularly overseas. However, within Japan, the market actually shrank in 2025. It's a marginal drop, mind you, but it's probably enough to put the fear of God into a cadre of CEOs and shareholders. And when those guys get scared, the wheels on their vehicle begin to veer every which way before falling off. But don't worry! They'll just call it more aerodynamic.
Not to mention that we're in the age of media contraction. Everyone, from games to movies, was overextended because they only saw dollar signs instead of realizing that people wouldn't be bored in their homes forever. Over the last couple of years, the workers on the ground have been paying the price for that blindness.
Tell me about it. Even my boring day job has been similarly affected and made significantly worse by the company's lack of foresight during the pandemic. I don't think anybody with a C-suite title possesses object permanence. Which might explain why they're so obsessed with playing peek-a-boo with a predictive text generator.
I get particularly worked up about this because I've collaborated alongside and gotten to know some of the folks in these trenches. I'm a small fish in this pond, but I care about the well-being of my industry friends and colleagues—it's obviously personal for me. But on a less personal note, I do wonder how Seven Seas' Manhua and Danmei licenses will be affected by this purchase. Given that Media Do is a Japanese company and these are Chinese titles, the current ongoing tensions between both countries came to mind right away.
It's a fair question. It also upsets me because this is supposed to be my Happy Place. I'm passionate about anime and manga. I know and appreciate so many amazing and talented people in the industry. I want nothing more than for them to do what they love and support themselves by making this industry a better and more diverse place. And at every turn, corporate interests are determined to be anathema to all of that.

More and more, it feels like we're all on borrowed time.

That sentiment even applies to industry stalwarts like Dark Horse. The company was embraced (bought by the Embracer Group for those who don't keep up with the games writing lingo) a while back and had still been under the lead of its founder, Mike Richardson. Well, until last week, that is. I'm not familiar with the company's state of affairs outside of their manga offerings, but its early work with the folks of Studio Proteus and the first big crop of localization pros is worth jotting down in the history books.

Regardless of the specifics of this situation, I'd be lying if I wasn't thinking a little of Shawne Kleckner's exit from Right Stuf and the corporate gutting that took place after that.

It's a narrative we see again and again, industry to industry. Companies and organizations are founded by people with a genuine passion for what they do, and those places grow until one day, they grab the attention of the bigger fish, who proceed to gobble them up without any care, finesse, or actual understanding of the products. All they know is "numbers go up." That's it. Anything else is expendable. People. Processes. Quality. Safety. Not important; only the number matters.
To take us back around to how this column opened, I will say that it's been heartening to see more people—from industry professionals to fans—speaking up against all of this nonsense. I'd like to think that most people want to enjoy their favorite media without worrying if it was spat out by a computer or having to drop a serious warning about the creator who made it.
I knew I was going to be surly for this column based on the topic we chose, but I did not expect quite this level of negativity to soak into my keyboard. There's a lot in here that warrants such an attitude, to be fair to myself, but the truth is, I make an effort not to dwell too much in my day-to-day existence online. Because it stresses me out without improving any of the causes of that stress. Instead, I believe you're right, and that's what I try to focus on. We peons at the bottom of the food chain—at least the ones I keep in contact with—know the score. Reading what my friends write. Doing this column with you, Chris, and Lucas. Finding gonzo visual novels on itch.io. These things keep me sane despite the darkness.
I feel you. It's rough to just exist at all right now, but we're all doing the best we can to get by and help others out in the small ways only we can. My mood hasn't been particularly great either, but I regularly think of something a close friend has said to me more than a few times: "The only way out is through." It's not bad to take the small comforts along the way, either. Also, if y'all need to take a break and do something just for you, do it!
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© VICE PRODUCTIONS (THE BAND) INC 2016
Like cooking up a scheme to book a show at the Rivoli!
Together, we gotta keep being loud, ornery, and righteous. There are always gonna be shortsighted corporate bozos. There are always going to be boys' clubs that run businesses like frat houses. There are always going to be vermin who prey on the weak. There are always going to be leeches soaking up all the clout and regurgitating all the controversy they can. But the simple fact is: there are more of us than there are of them. We are on the right side of history. Much like the holy mission of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie the Reference.

Look, I know that sounds like a non sequitur, but seriously, if you want to immediately feel better about the state of the world, I can't think of a more potent healing potion than Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. It's probably out of theaters by now, but I beg each of you to watch it when you can. Good things are possible, even if Matt and Jay playing at the Rivoli is not.

Honestly, just watching through Nirvanna the Band the Show has been a wonderful salve for these times. Who couldn't go for a genderless burger experience when faced with the horrors? But to quote another Canadian, all this to say look out for the small pleasures passing by—even when things might be looking grim out there. I, for one, could go for that burger.
I will take my burger with extra gender. And pickles. Thank you.
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