Rumic World Profile Timeline Articles Interviews Encyclopedia Contact Messageboard

Ranma's Day in Court - Rumiko Takahashi's 1994 Libel Lawsuit

By Harley Acres



The Rumored Truth, April 1994
The Rumored Truth (噂の眞相/Uwasa no Shinshou), April 1994. It was in this issue of the publication that the libelous statement regarding the authorship of Ranma 1/2 was made.


In the largely anonymous world of working as an assistant to a mangaka, what qualifies as authorship? For originality? What is the reader’s expectation for the work made by the credited author versus the work done by an assistant? There is no universal standard to the way manga studios work, and in 1994 a Japanese tabloid published a lie- that, in their words, Rumiko Takahashi had a “kagemusha” (影武者), literally a "shadow warrior", a ghost writer, that was responsible for drawing Ranma 1/2. This claim would lead to a lawsuit in an attempt to fight back against the story and set the record straight, that Takahashi is the sole artist and writer behind the series.

The Rumored Truth (噂の眞相/Uwasa no Shinshou) was founded in 1979 as a magazine designed to speak truth to power, often publishing stories that more mainstream publications thought were too salacious or dubious. The magazine criticized politicians from across the ideological spectrum and reported on celebrity gossip, calling themselves a “magazine without taboos”. They became known for their frequent stories on Japanese music manager Johnny Kitagawa’s sexual abuse of his young, male up-and-coming musical idols, a topic that the mainstream Japanese press was hesitant to publish until after Kitagawa’s death decades later. [1] Each issue also included an illustration of a character or actor involved in some type of sexual scandal as the frontispiece which may help to give a sense of the provocative nature of the publication.

The Rumored Truth, April 1994
The Rumored Truth (噂の眞相/Uwasa no Shinshou), April 1994. This is an example of the typical opening illustration of the magazine depicting Ken Shimada as his famous lord character in a scene that would not typically be shown on TV. Illustration by Sana Adachi (足立三愛).


In the April 1994 issue of The Rumored Truth, the magazine published a wedding announcement for an unnamed assistant to Rumiko Takahashi. The few brief sentences appeared among a litany of blind items related to the manga industy. The statement read:
"In January, a beautiful assistant on a shonen manga magazine published by Shogakukan held her wedding ceremony, and rumor has it that she is Rumiko Takahashi's chief assistant (who did most of the drawing and writing for Ranma 1/2 and is said to be Rumiko's shadow warrior). She and mangaka Takashi Shiina, creator of the hit manga GS Mikami Gokuraku Daisakusen, have tied the knot. At any rate, it is a time of celebration for all." [2]
Though the assistant was not named in the actual publication, The Rumored Truth admitted during course of the lawsuit that the individual in question was Aya Shimizu (清水彩), who was marrying mangaka Takashi Shiina　(椎名高志). At the time Shiina was publishing Ghost Sweeper Mikami (GS美神 極楽大作戦!!/ Gosuto Suiipaa Mikami Gokuraku Daisakusen!!) in Shonen Sunday and would go on to have hits with Zettai Karen Children (絶対可憐チルドレン) and the manga adaptation of Yashahime, the spin-off of Takahashi’s own Inuyasha. To be clear, no one at the magazine interviewed Takahashi, Shimizu, or anyone on Takahashi's staff, a fact that they attest to in the court briefs. [3]

Aya Shimizu's Illustrations
Illustrations of Urusei Yatsura characters drawn by Aya Shimizu from 1983 during her first year of high school.


To help set the stage, let's take a look at some of Aya Shimizu's artwork. These illustrations were made during Shimizu's first year of high school. She states that these were made in 1983 after the release of the first Urusei Yatsura film, Only You, and before Beautiful Dreamer was released in February 1984. [4] While it is difficult to state precisely when Shimizu began her work as Takahashi's assistant, she did begin working with Takahashi before Urusei Yatsura ended in 1987. [5] Though these drawings by Shimizu were not a part of the legal discussion, they are included here to help fans understand the context of why such an accusation is one Takahashi would wish to vehemently refute through legal avenues. Shimizu, as Takahashi's longtime assistant, can draw very similarly. The original context in which these drawings were made and sold is difficult to discern, one Twitter user states they bought a copy of one of the drawings at an Animate store in Fukuoka. I bought my copy at auction and it is a loose illustration, not a page from a larger dojinshi or illustration collection. [6] As stated above, Shimizu has said on Twitter that she made the drawings when she was in high school in the early 1980s. It is difficult to say if that is before or during her time as an assistant to Takahashi which would have been sometime in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s (she is not mentioned in the credits of Inuyasha, meaning she departed before that series began in 1996. She may have left Takahashi's studio when she got married in 1994).

Immediately following The Rumored Truth's allegation in 1994, Takahashi filed suit against the corporation naming the publisher, Yasudori Okodome (岡留安則), and the writer of the article, Mikito Kawabata (川端幹人) [also known as Kyoji Yamazaki (山崎京次)], for slandering her reputation by suggesting that Shimizu, her “chief assistant” in the terms of the magazine, was responsible for most of the work on Ranma 1/2. In the legal brief Takahashi’s attorneys clarify that there is no such thing as a “chief assistant” in Takahashi’s studio and outline the work Takahashi does, which includes writing the story and drawing the main characters, sub-characters, crowds and onomatopoeia before directing her assistants on drawing the backgrounds and other crowd elements that had not already been drawn by Takahashi herself. Takahashi's attorneys argued, "In addition to the fun and charm of the manga itself, manga has an aspect that is established by the reader's feelings for the manga artist herself. Because of the nature of the article, which denies the plaintiff's sincere manga production activities, the article undermines the readers' trust in the plaintiff, and seriously damages the plaintiff's reputation." [7]

The attorneys for the defense had little in the way to counter Takahashi's legal argument. They stated, "this article does not deny the fact that the plaintiff is doing the majority of the original work on the manga’s production, such as deciding on the story and creating storyboards, by herself, and this is not joint work performed with an assistant." [8] By arguing that they never said she doesn't create the storyboards, The Rumored Truth believed they would be ameliorated of her other accusations: that Shimizu was Takahashi's "chief assistant" and that Shimizu wrote and illustrated Ranma 1/2.

After examining the presented evidence Judge Takahiro Sumi (裁判官角隆博) made his ruling:
The plaintiff's manga production work is generally as follows. In other words, the plaintiff decides upon the story with the editor, creates a storyboard that includes the panel layout, dialogue, and a rough sketch, and based on that storyboard, the staff copies the frame layout and dialogue onto the manuscript paper. Next, the plaintiff drafted the main characters, sub-characters, crowds, and other people and onomatopoeia with a pencil, and after that creates a manuscript while inking with a pen. Then, she instructed the staff on how to depict the backgrounds and crowds (excluding the portions drawn by the plaintiff). Finally, the plaintiff checks the overall balance, and the staff members make corrections under the plaintiff's direction.

The defendants admit that the person named as the chief assistant in this article refers to Aya Shimizu (清水彩), and the plaintiff has never entrusted Shimizu with the drawing and penning of the main and sub characters of Ranma 1/2 during her tenure at the plaintiff's production company, but has entrusted her with the drawing and penning of the crowd of some importance on a few occasions. Furthermore, neither the plaintiff nor any of the staff members were ever interviewed by the defendants regarding this case. [9]
The final outcome saw the judge siding with Rumiko Takahashi, acknowledging her reputation was damaged by the false allegations. Takahashi's attorneys asked for 10,000,000 yen and the judge ruled that the defendants would pay 300,000 yen (it is unclear if this is 300,000 yen each or a total of 300,000 yen split between each of the three defendants- the writer, the publisher and the magazine corporation itself). Additionally Takahashi's side had asked for a correction to be printed. The Rumored Truth countered that some clarification had been printed in a roundtable discussion where one of their writers balked at Takahashi taking legal action. The judge seemed to find this was satisfactory and no further clarification of wrong-doing was needed on the part of the magazine.

Postscript


In the years since the 1994 Takahashi lawsuit The Rumored Truth ultimately ceased publication. They had planned to close their doors in 2000 around the time editor-in-chief Okadome and Kawabata were injured in an attack on the magazine's offices by right-wing group Nihon Seinensha (日本青年社/Japan Youth Society) who took offense at an article about Princess Masako when she was referred to without honorifics. [10] [11] However, pending lawsuits and legal obligations saw the magazine continue until 2004 when they settled their remaining legal challenges and went out of business. Okadome passed away in 2019. [12]

Aya Shimizu is still married to Takashi Shiina as of the writing of this article in 2023. She serves as his assistant on his manga projects. Shiina is currently publishing his adaptation of Yashahime which is based on Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha.

Rumiko Takahashi went on to create Inuyasha two years after the lawsuit. Following Inuyasha she has published Kyokai no RINNE and MAO and continues to publish her work weekly in Shonen Sunday her home publication since her debut in 1978.

Below you will find a complete translation of the court's summary brief detailing the facts, arguments and verdict of the trial.



Tokyo District Court 1994 (Wa) 10595 Judgment
Plaintiff - Rumiko Takahashi (高橋留美子)
Attorney for the Aforementioned - Shihei Yamazaki (山﨑司平), Kazuyoshi Takagi (髙木一嘉), Hirofumi Suganuma (菅沼博文)

Defendant - Mikito Kawabata (川端幹人) also known as Kyoji Yamazaki (山崎京次), The Rumored Truth Corporation (株式会社噂の真相)

Representative Director for the Aforementioned - Yasunori Okadome (岡留安則)

Defendant - Yasunori Okadome (岡留安則)

Attorneys Representing the Three Aforementioned Litigants - Katsuhiko Yoshinaga (芳永克彦), Takashi Naito (内藤隆), Masatoshi Uchida (内田雅敏)

Main Text

  1. The defendants shall pay the plaintiff 300,000 yen each, at a rate equal to 50% annually from March 10, 1994 until the payment is completed.
  2. Dismiss the plaintiff's remaining claims.
  3. The litigation costs shall be divided into 10ths, one of which shall be borne by the defendants, and the rest shall be borne by the plaintiff.
  4. Paragraph 1 of this judgment may be provisionally enforced.

Facts and Reasons

First: Request
  1. The defendants shall jointly and severally pay the plaintiff 10,000,000 yen, and from March 10, 1994 until the payment has been completed, the amount of money shall be paid at a rate of 50% annually.
  2. The defendants shall jointly and severally publish the apology advertisement described in Attachment 1 under the conditions described in Attachment 2 in the monthly magazine The Rumored Truth published by the Defendant Co., Ltd. The Rumored Truth Corporation.
Second: Case Overview

In this case, the plaintiff was defamed by an article published in the monthly magazine The Rumored Truth published by the defendant company (hereinafter referred to as the "Defendant Company"). This is a case of asking for an apology advertisement.
  1. Undisputed facts, etc. (the parties do not dispute any of the following facts for which evidence is not presented);

    1. The plaintiff has been active as a mangaka since around 1978 and has hit works such as Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, and Ranma 1/2.
    2. The defendant company is a joint-stock company established in December 1978 for the purpose of publishing, planning, and editing work incidental to publications, and publishes the monthly magazine The Rumored Truth. Defendant Yasunori Okadome (hereinafter referred to as "Defendant Okadome") is the representative director of the defendant company and the editor and publisher of the monthly magazine Rumored. Defendant Mikito Kawabata (hereinafter referred to as "Defendant Kawabata") is a director of the defendant company (the entire purpose of the argument) and is the person who wrote the following article under the pseudonym Kyoji Yamazaki.
    3. The defendant company stated on page 115 of the April 1994 issue of the monthly magazine The Rumored Truth (hereinafter referred to as "the magazine") that was released on March 10, 1994, that the defendant Kawabata wrote an article titled "Rumiko Takahashi's Chief Assistant (Ranma 1/2's drawing and inking work is said to be Rumiko's body double)" (hereinafter referred to as "the article") was published.


  2. Points of dispute

    1. Does the content of the article defame the plaintiff?

        (Plaintiff's claim)

      1. The article gives the reader the impression that the manga published under the plaintiff's name is not actually created by the plaintiff but is created using a body double.

        However, the plaintiff did the main parts of the manga production, such as deciding the story, creating storyboards, and drawing the work by herself, and the staff was only in charge of correction work under the plaintiff's instructions. Also, the plaintiff's production does not have a chief assistant system. Therefore, the point in this article that "the plaintiff's chief assistant is in charge of drawing and inking" is a falsehood without any basis.

        In addition to the fun and charm of the manga itself, manga has an aspect that is established by the reader's feelings for the manga artist herself. Because of the nature of the article, which denies the plaintiff's sincere manga production activities, the article undermines the readers' trust in the plaintiff, and seriously damages the plaintiff's reputation.

      2. Defendant Kawabata, a director of the defendant company, is tortiously liable for writing this article without conducting sufficient interviews.

        Defendant Okadome, who is the representative director of the defendant company, is responsible for the publication of the monthly magazine The Rumored Truth, and generally supervises the series of activities until the completion of the magazine. In addition to overseeing editing, he was in a position to supervise articles, such as revising the content of published articles and deciding whether or not to publish them. Therefore, defendant Okadome will take measures such as fully confirming the authenticity of the article when there is a risk of damaging the reputation of a specific person as in the article and will ensure the authenticity of the article. If there is no objective material sufficient for this, even though there is an obligation to stop the publication, he neglected to do so, and he was responsible for the tortious act of posting the article in this magazine carelessly. He must take responsibility.

        As described below, Defendant Kawabata, a director of the defendant company, wrote this article as an act of executing business, and Defendant Okadome, a representative director of the defendant company, edited and published the article as part of their duties. Tort liability under Article 44, Paragraph 1 or Article 715 of the Civil Code.

        (Defendants' Allegations)

        This article is intended to celebrate the marriage of the plaintiff's chief assistant, and has no intention, purpose or effect to defame the plaintiff.

        In addition, this article does not deny the fact that the plaintiff is doing the most original part of the manga’s production, such as deciding on the story and creating storyboards, by herself, and this is not joint work performed with an assistant. In so much as it does, the article points out the truth, so it does not lower the social perception of the plaintiff.

    2. Damage

    • (Plaintiff's claim)
      The plaintiff suffered a great deal of mental distress due to this article, which was equivalent to denying her identity as a manga artist. In addition to requesting the payment of yen, based on Article 723 of the Civil Code, the plaintiff requests the posting of an apology advertisement as described in 1.2 above.

    • (Defendants' allegations)
      Plaintiff's allegations are contested.
      In addition, the defendants wrote, "April 1994 Ms. Rumiko Takahashi pointed out that the article in this column of the issue may be perceived as not being drawn or inked by Ms. Takahashi. The plaintiff's reputation has been sufficiently restored by the corrected article, and the plaintiff is not harmed.
Third: Judgment on Issues
  • Issue 1

    1. According to the evidence (A-1, B-1), this article was published in the column "Behind the Media Frontlines" column on page 115 of this magazine in the format described in Attachment 3. By the way, many readers are aware that many popular mangaka such as the plaintiff do not work entirely on their own, but have their assistants share some of the work. If a mangaka leaves the work to her assistants and hardly draws any manga at all, it is clear that readers will be disappointed and her reputation as a mangaka will decline.

      However, the article gives the reader the impression that the plaintiff has a double, and that the double is actually drawing the manga credited to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff herself has hardly drawn it. Therefore, it is recognized that the plaintiff's reputation as a mangaka has suffered, and the plaintiff's reputation is defamed.

    2. Although the defendants do not argue that truthfulness is a ground for prohibiting illegality, this article does not deny the fact that the plaintiff is doing the majority of the original work on the manga’s production, such as deciding on the story and creating storyboards, and otherwise made the most original part of the manga by herself. It does not deny the fact that the plaintiff is doing this, but points out the truth that there is a part of the work that is a collaboration with the assistant, so it is argued that it does not lower the social evaluation of the plaintiff, the right point is considered to affect the degree of illegality, so the following judgment is made.

      1. According to the evidence (Ko 3, 4, 13, plaintiff), the following facts are recognized.

        The plaintiff's manga production work is generally as follows. In other words, the plaintiff decides upon the story with the editor, creates a storyboard that includes the panel layout, dialogue, and a rough sketch, and based on that storyboard, the staff copies the frame layout and dialogue onto the manuscript paper. Next, the plaintiff drafted the main characters, sub-characters, crowds, and other people and onomatopoeia with a pencil, and after that creates a manuscript while inking with a pen. Then, she instructed the staff on how to depict the backgrounds and crowds (excluding the portions drawn by the plaintiff). Finally, the plaintiff checks the overall balance, and the staff members make corrections under the plaintiff's direction.

        The defendants admit that the person named as the chief assistant in this article refers to Aya Shimizu (清水彩), and the plaintiff has never entrusted Shimizu with the drawing and penning of the main and sub characters of Ranma 1/2 during her tenure at the plaintiff's production company, but has entrusted her with the drawing and penning of the crowd of some importance on a few occasions. Furthermore, neither the plaintiff nor any of the staff members were ever interviewed by the defendants regarding this case.

      2. According to the above certified facts, regardless of whether it is correct to call Shimizu the chief assistant, she is said to be Rumiko's body double, at least in charge of most of the drawings and inking for Ranma 1/2. It should be said that the part of the article that states this, cannot be recognized as true.

    3. According to the above, defendant Kawabata, who wrote the article, neglected his duty to take care not to damage the reputation of others in writing the article. Defendant Okadome is the representative director of the defendant company and the editor and publisher of the monthly magazine The Rumored Truth. Both of the defendants mentioned above have an obligation to be careful not to damage the reputation of others by posting and distributing these documents, but they neglected to do so. Articles 9 and 710 should be said to jointly bear tort liability.

      In addition, it is clear that the article was written, published, and distributed by Defendant Okadome, who is the representative director of the defendant company, in performing his duties, and by Defendant Kawabata, who is a director of the defendant company, in executing the business, the defendant company is not exempt from tort liability pursuant to Article 261, Paragraph 3, Article 78, Paragraph 2 of the Commercial Code, Article 44, Paragraph 1, or Article 715 of the Civil Code.

      In response, the defendants allege that the purpose of this article is to celebrate the marriage of the plaintiff's chief assistant, and that it does not have the intention, purpose, or effect of defaming the plaintiff. Indeed, when reading the article before and after, the main point of the article is to introduce that the plaintiff's assistant got married as a point of information in the manga world, and it does not directly refer to the plaintiff. Furthermore, although it cannot be recognized that there was a positive intention to defame the plaintiff's reputation, since positive malice is not necessary for the establishment of defamation, it cannot affect the degree of illegality. Regardless of the existence of defamation, it does not affect the establishment of defamation.

  • Issue 2

    "According to the evidence (Ko 3, 13, plaintiff), the plaintiff likes to draw manga and believes that she has been accepted by readers by drawing and inking her work herself. It is acknowledged that the article denying it caused mental distress.

    On the other hand, the defendants published a corrected article on the defendants' allegations (Otsu 7). However, according to Ko 10, the issue in which the corrected article was published contains the remarks of a young staff consisting of an anonymous roundtable in The Rumored Truth. “The April 1994 issue of ‘Behind the Media Frontlines’ had only two lines, and it was a problem that we mentioned the auspicious event of her assistant's marriage. I presented a counterargument to the article, and even though we responded properly, she filed a complaint. What the hell is this?” As mentioned above, the main purpose of this article was to introduce the marriage of the plaintiff's assistant, and the coverage of the article was not very large. Considering that there was no indication that the plaintiff was harmed, the amount of compensation that the defendants should pay jointly and severally should be 300,000 yen. In light of the above circumstances, we acknowledge that there is no need for an apology advertisement.

  • Conclusion

    Based on the above, the plaintiff's claim in this lawsuit is to each defendant the sum of 300,000 yen and from March 10, 1994, the date of the tort against this, until the payment is completed, at a rate of 50% per year prescribed by the Civil Code To the extent that there are grounds for demanding the payment of damages for delay, the request will be accepted, and the rest will be dismissed because there are no grounds, and the judgment will be made in accordance with the main text.
(Judge Takahiro Sumi) (裁判官角隆博)
Attachment Omitted [13]








Footnotes

Harley Acres is an art history professor at Pikes Peak State College in Colorado Springs. He has previously written about mangaka Makoto Raiku's lawsuit against Shogakukan editors for the loss of his artwork.

 

Cover

Rumic World
Published: June 1, 2023
Author: Harley Acres
Translated by: Harley Acres
ISBN/Web Address: https://www.furinkan.com/ features/articles/lawsuit.html
Page numbers: ---