The victim involved in manga creator Shōichi Yamamoto’s sex crime case has stepped forward with a statement through the Tokyo-Kyodo Law Office, as both parties in the case move to appeal the civil ruling. The unnamed victim, a woman in her 20s, is filing a civil suit against Yamamoto, the teaching staff, and the educational corporation that operates Hokkaidō Geijutsu Kōkō Sapporo Satellite Campus, the distance-learning high school she attended at the time.
In her statement, she wrote her intention was to prevent further victims from suffering the same kind of abuse under the hands of educational staff. She noted that during the initial settlement discussion, she requested that the publisher provide a transparent explanation for the break when Yamamoto’s manga series returned from hiatus. The publisher refused the condition, and the parties could not reach a settlement.
The victim stated she was unaware Yamamoto continued to work with the publisher under a different pen name. She also denied the headline Japanese weekly tabloid Shūkan Bunshun wrote for her interview claiming she “could never forgive Shogakukan.”
The statement noted that the publisher contacted her in private to apologize for the incident, and she reiterated her goal of exposing the truth of the situation. Shogakukan corroborated this story in a new statement on Monday and also expressed plans to establish a third-party committee to review the incident and recommend changes to prevent future cases.
The victim wished no further harm to Shogakukan, nor for further series to be removed from a platform as she is a fan of many of them. She concluded her statement calling on the public to refrain from escalating criticism of Shogakukan and Shūkan Bunshun.
The victim’s lawyer added that the victim is appealing the court’s initial ruling in the criminal conviction as it did not acknowledge the school’s wrongdoing in the case. There may also be further victims, according to the statement.
On February 20, the Sapporo District Court handed down a ruling in a civil case ordering a man to pay 11 million yen (about US$71,000) in damages to a woman in her 20s, who claimed that Yamamoto repeatedly sexually abused and raped her while she was in a distance-learning high school in Sapporo and while he was a teacher at her school. The woman originally filed the civil suit in July 2022.
According to the Okayama-based economic media outlet “Ashita no Keizai Shimbun” (Tomorrow’s Economic Newspaper) on February 25, the defendant, named Shōichi Yamamoto, is the same as the manga creator of the manga series Daten Sakusen.
Other news outlets reported that in February 2020 a summary court convicted Yamamoto of violating the Child Prostitution and Pornography Prohibition Act and he was ordered to pay a penalty of 300,000 yen (about US$1,900).
Yamamoto began serializing Daten Sakusen on Manga ONE in February 2015. The manga went on hiatus in February 2020, and was removed from Manga ONE in October 2022.
However, in 2022, Manga ONE started serialization on writer “Hajime Ichiro” and artist Eri Tsuruyoshi’s Jōjin Kamen manga, even though “Hajime Ichiro” and Shōichi Yamamoto were the same person. Manga ONE announced on February 27 it has halted digital distribution of the Jōjin Kamen manga, and also halted shipments of the physical compiled volumes of the manga. Shogakukan stated it should not have hired “Hajime Ichiro” as the original writer of the manga.
Shogakukan also noted that during the civil case that ended on February 20, a manga editor participated in the settlement negotiations, advising that the parties hire a lawyer to prepare notarized documents for the settlement. Other news outlets reported the manga editor advised the notarized documents include the condition the female victim could not disclose the matter, and also proposed that Yamamoto pay 1.5 million yen (about US$9,700) as settlement.
Manga ONE and Shogakukan both apologized to readers and other creators who contribute to Manga ONE, stating it will set up an investigative committee that will include lawyers to clarify the facts of the situation, particularly to understand how the manga serialization began and the involvement of an editor in the settlement negotiations.
After Manga ONE published its statement on Friday, and after Shogakukan published its statement on Saturday, many manga creators took to social media to criticize the statements and Shogakukan in general, and many stated they would pull their manga from the Manga ONE platform.
As of press time, several high-profile manga works such as Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, and several works by Rumiko Takahashi such as Maison Ikkoku and Ranma 1/2, are not currently available on Manga ONE. It is currently unclear if the manga becoming unavailable on the service is related to the recent scandal, and ANN cannot verify if the manga were inaccessible before Manga ONE’s initial statement on Friday.
The Kyodo news agency reported on March 1 that Shogakukan has postponed the ceremony for the winners of the 71st Shogakukan Manga Awards, which was scheduled to be held on March 3.
The previous scandal prompted Shogakukan to undergo an internal investigation.
Shogakukan announced on March 2 that the Manga ONE editorial department needed to investigate the process and verification system for hiring the original creator of the Seisō no Shinri-shi (The Counselor Through the Years and Stars) manga, which is currently serialized on the Manga ONE service. Miki Yatsunami, the manga’s original creator, is the pen name of act-age manga writer Tatsuya Matsuki, who was arrested and indicted on the charge of committing a coerced indecent act on a female middle school student in 2020.
The Manga ONE editorial department also explained, with Yatsunami’s consent, the editor reached out to the writer in August 2024 and the two corresponded over his new work. The editor confirmed the sentence had been finalized and his suspended sentence had expired, that he had remorse for the incident and his efforts to prevent a recurrence, and the status of his support from experts for his reintegration into society.
Shogakukan stated the Miki Yatsunami pen name was initially chosen out of consideration for the victims so they would not be re-victimized.
The editor reported the meeting’s contents to the then editor-in-chief, and after their approval, Yatsunami and the editor began communicating with the goal of publishing his work on Manga ONE. Only a small number of people in the editorial department were aware of the facts about Yatsunami.
The manga’s artist, Kaoru Yukihira. Yukihira was also made aware of the risks of what could happen if the truth were to become public, and Yukihira still decided to take on the job of drawing the manga. Yukihira also was consulted before the announcement.
While Shogakukan insisted its decision to have Matsuki use a pen name for the new work was always intended to be at the best interest of the victims, the company admits that the Manga ONE editorial staff should have given more consideration as to whether this decision was truly in consideration of the victims.
Shogakukan temporarily suspended updates for Seisō no Shinri-shi.
Sources: Shūkan Bunshun, Tokyo-Kyodo Law Office via @Wsstalkback, Shogakukan via Hachima Kikō
