Masakazu Katsura, one of many manga creators who helped form Weekly Shonen Bounce’s golden period, has revealed that the unique manuscript of his cult basic Video Woman Ai was stolen throughout a studio relocation and later discovered being bought via an internet public sale platform.
The manuscripts, estimated to be price a number of million {dollars}, have been taken final October.
In response to Katsura, roughly 2,500 pages masking all 15 volumes of Video Woman Ai disappeared, whereas different authentic works, reminiscent of one-shots and supplies from Wing-man, remained untouched.
The stolen supplies started showing on Yahoo Auctions Japan, with particular person sheets promoting for 100,000 to a number of hundred thousand yen, and a few surpassing 1 million yen. At an estimated 300,000 yen per web page, the whole loss reaches roughly 750 million yen (about USD 5 million).
“It’s completely unattainable that I ‘by accident disposed’ of the Video Woman Ai originals that I poured my life into,” the creator acknowledged.
He defined that the manuscripts had been saved securely in sealed envelopes inside a locked studio locker earlier than the transfer. Katsura stated he personally monitored the dealing with of his belongings: he checked each merchandise bought to secondhand patrons, instructed disposal firms to not throw away any paintings or valuables, and instructed shifting employees to move the unique pages on to a delegated space for storing.
He emphasised that unintentional disposal was unattainable beneath these situations.
After discovering concerning the lacking manuscripts, Katsura’s crew started investigating potential suspects. Info collected by his representatives, together with an lawyer, factors to a shifting firm concerned within the relocation and a secondhand vendor suspected of itemizing the stolen pages on-line.
“We additionally recognized what appears to be an confederate, a secondhand items vendor linked to that firm. Moreover, after we filed an info disclosure request via the bar affiliation, one of many accounts that had listed the stolen originals for public sale turned out to have been created by that very vendor,” the lawyer acknowledged.
Though the police initially declined to simply accept a proper report, Katsura confirmed that he’s making ready to file a felony grievance with the authorities and plans to supply all gathered proof, together with the suspected hyperlink between the mover and the vendor.
Video Woman Ai, serialized in Weekly Shonen Bounce from 1989 to 1992, is considered a landmark romantic sci-fi sequence a couple of highschool boy who encounters a mysterious woman rising from a VHS tape.
By 2018, the manga had over 14 million copies in print.
The manga first obtained a live-action movie in 1991, adopted by a six-episode OVA produced by Manufacturing IG and launched in 1992 by Bounce Video. TV Tokyo later broadcast two drama variations: Den’ei Shojo: Video Woman Ai 2018 in 2018 and Den’ei Shojo: Video Woman Mai 2019 in 2019.
Supply: Day by day Shincho
