Recently, Rurouni Kenshin mangaka, Nobuhiro Watsuki, has gotten embroiled with a huge child pornography scandal. Tokyo police arrested him last October, while the Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office filed a summary indictment against him. Now, the Tokyo Summary Court has found him guilty of his charges, and ordered him to pay a fine of 200,000 yen.
Apparently, he stored these child pornography DVDs as early as October. Also, in his deposition, Watsuki allegedly said that he likes “late elementary school girls and late middle school students”.
In Japan, the law considers child pornography to be a crime. In fact, the guilty can expect jail time of about a year, as well as a fine of about 1 million yen. This would certainly hurt Watsuki, who has been planning his return to writing a new series for Rurouni Kenshin.
The mangaka recently returned to do the manga’s Hokkaido Arc, and his arrest doesn’t bode well for the franchise. However, Shueisha, which publishes Rurouni Kenshin, has announced that they are suspending the series indefinitely. It also hurts the chances of any further live-action or anime adaptations in the future.
