News
Illustrator Arrested for Allegedly Obscene Manga Sales
posted on by Egan Loo
39-year-old Masaya Miyashita was arrested on August 23 in the southern Japanese city of Matsuyama for selling allegedly obscene manga on consignment. According to the local Ehime Shimbun paper, the suspect printed a total of 11,145 copies for five works at a printing company in the nearby prefecture of Okayama. He then distributed them to five book retailers between April 2005 and this year in Tokyo and other locations. These companies are suspected of storing 6,600 copies of two of the manga works, which have since been confiscated. The investigation began when authorities became aware of sales of the manga on the Internet this past May.
A video of the suspect and the confiscated manga is available at the newspaper's website. The arrest comes after an organization of dōjinshi printers posted new guidelines in July. The guidelines require adult material to be labeled and printed with the creators' contact information before the companies will publish them.
Source: Ultimatum
