The manga
industry has just touched one of its darkest and most reprehensible
depths. Shogakukan, one of Japan's largest publishers, is at the
center of a massive scandal after it was discovered that not only did they
rehire an author convicted of abusing a minor, but that their own publishers
tried to cover up the crime. As a result, the publication of the Joujin
Kamen manga has been suspended indefinitely on the Manga ONE app.
Aberrant
crimes and a corporate bribe
The
nightmare revolves around mangaka Shoichi Yamamoto (author
of Daten Sakusen). In 2020, Yamamoto was arrested for sexually
abusing a 15-year-old student he was tutoring in Hokkaido. The details revealed
in the court documents are sickening: the author subjected the minor to extreme
acts of degradation, forcing her to ingest and be smeared with feces, in
addition to recording her and taking explicit photographs. For all this, the
Japanese justice system only imposed a ridiculous fine of 300,000 yen (about
$2,000) for violations of the child pornography law.
Following
the arrest, Shogakukan paused his work Daten Sakusen. However, what
happened the following year demonstrates the rottenness of the corporate
system: In 2021, a Shogakukan editor tried to broker an off-the-record
settlement, offering the victim 1.5 million yen (about $9,600) in
exchange for his silence. The young woman refused the bribe.
The
cheeky return under a pseudonym
Despite
knowing Yamamoto's monstrous track record perfectly, Shogakukan decided to hire
him again in 2022. To evade public scrutiny, he was given the pseudonym Ichiro
Hajime and assigned the story of a new manga: Joujin Kamen.
The same publisher who tried to buy the victim's silence was in charge of this
relaunch.
The farce
collapsed on February 20, 2026. The victim, now in her twenties, took the case
to a civil court in Sapporo and won. The judge ordered Yamamoto to pay 11
million yen in damages (about $70,000), acknowledging the severe
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) it caused the young woman. It was after
this verdict that the community connected the dots and discovered that
"Ichiro Hajime" was actually Shoichi Yamamoto.
Cornered,
on February 27 Shogakukan issued an official apology confirming the author's
identity, admitting "flaws in its verification system" and suspending
the digital and physical distribution of Joujin Kamen. However, the
apology was published exclusively within the Manga ONE app, which unleashed the
fury of readers, who are already uninstalling the application en masse. Even
several artists affiliated with the publisher have announced their departure
from the platform for ethical reasons.
This case
leaves an indelible stain on Shogakukan.
