The manga series Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan – Hokkaido-hen started in September with Nobuhiro Watsuki returning to the property but Jump SQ serialized work went on hiatus in November as Watsuki was charged with violating Child Prostitution and Pornography Law due to his having various DVDs that had young teenagers that were nude in it.
With a 200,000 yen fine applied, Watsuki stuck to the hiatus in order to “reflect” on things but in the end, money comes out ahead and the manga is being continued out of a sense of “duty” to the fans. It’ll be up to individual fans, of course, to decide on whether to continue to support Watsuki’s work and it’ll be interesting to see how Viz Media handles it domestically in whether they’ll continue the relationship. The business decision isn’t too much of a surprise and there’s all sorts of ways of looking at it, including the reality that he was charged, he did pay “a” price, and is now moving on. It’s up to fans to decide whether to accept his view on having reflected and atoned for it.
As mentioned last fall, there are a lot of things that are a bit wonky in some ways with how Japan has handled this over the years as, and I am certainly not a lawyer, some of this material wasn’t made illegal under the law until 2014. But Watsuki was under investigation for a different matter and the search of his office resulted in this discovery which made its way through the legal system.
This’ll naturally have an impact on the image of the publisher and his works as well, from past projects being brought out again anytime soon or any new projects as many were hoping that the Kenshin manga would get a new anime adaptation/continuation.
[Source: ANN]
