Japanese police have arrested 40-year-old manga creator Kenya Suzuki on suspicion of importing child pornography, violating the country’s laws about importing banned goods.
Suzuki’s most famous manga Please Tell Me! Galko-chan debuted in 2014 and followed the adventures of a gyaru schoolgirl. With director Keiichiro Kawaguchi at the helm, Studio Feel adapted the manga into an 12-episode anime in 2016 (pictured above), which Crunchyroll released in North America. An original video anime was also created for the manga.
Asahi News and Nikkan Sports report that in September and October 2020, Suzuki allegedly imported a total of six illicit photo books from Germany through international registered mail. This July, authorities searched Suzuki’s residence in Funabashi, Chiba prefecture on a separate matter and discovered the previously mentioned six books, as well as another forty books featuring child pornography.
According to Asahi, the books were apparently not for re-sale in Japan, but in Suzuki’s personal collection.
“I couldn’t get my hands on nude photo books of foreign children and I wanted them no matter what,” Suzuki is quoted as saying in an affidavit. “I couldn’t control myself.” He is currently being investigated on suspicion of violating Japan’s Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the Protection of Children. (You can read an English translation of the law right here.)
In 2017, Rurouni Kenshin creator Nobuhiro Watsuki was charged with possession of child pornography. “I liked girls from the upper grades of elementary school to around the second year of junior high school,” Watsuki was quoted as telling authorities. The manga was placed on hiatus, but resumed serialization in June the following year.
The Please Tell Me! Galko-chan manga is serialized by Comic Walker in Japan.