The darker and more toxic side of the community once
again claimed a new victim. Ikka Matsuki, the acclaimed creator of
the manga Nippon Sangoku (Japan: Three Kingdoms),
decided to cut it short and permanently deleted his official social
media account. What should be a stage of celebration after the
successful end of the animated adaptation of this authentic
literary gem, ended up becoming a real psychological nightmare for
the author thanks to a rather misfit sector of his own fandom.
Before disappearing from the internet, Matsuki
left a very crude last message where he expressed his deep pain for the way
some followers were "overplaying" his protagonists. The mangaka
confessed that he felt how his own creations were having their minds replaced
to turn them into something completely alien to his original vision. The main
problem lies in the relationships that fans try to force between characters
like Aoteru and Tsune, blatantly ignoring that both men have wives fully
established within the canon of the story.
Although the author acknowledged that followers
were probably not doing so with malicious intent, he had to publicly beg them
to stop sending him material of a sexual nature or with explicit connotations
directly to his personal accounts. This constant digital harassment was the
straw that broke the camel's back for a creative who had already been dragging
a strong physical wear and tear, remembering that only in June of this year he
had to pause his work due to severe health problems generated by a steroid
withdrawal syndrome.
Knowing that the barrier of respect between
readers and original creators is getting thinner and thinner on the internet
