A Japanese court has declared that Please Tell Me, Galko-chan creator Kenya Suzuki is guilty of importing child pornography.
As reported by Sankei News and translated by Crunchyroll, the Nagoya District Court’s Okazaki Branch convicted Suzuki today. The judge in the case stated that the manga author's crimes were "a malicious act that promotes the sexual exploitation of children and is detrimental to the health of society," and sentenced Suzuki to a one-year and two-month prison sentence, which will be suspended for three years. Under Japanese law, that sentence basically means that Suzuki will be released but will be on probation for three years; if he is found guilty of another offense during that time, he will have to serve out his full prison sentence.
Regarding the recent arrest, indictment and trial (English version) pic.twitter.com/J2QPcZUhv1
— 鈴木健也 (@suzuki_kenya) March 29, 2022
Charges were first brought against Suzuki in December, after authorities caught the manga author attempting to import books filled with illicit material from Germany into Japan. Authorities searched Suzuki's residence, where they reportedly found over forty other books and magazines containing child pornography. Following his arrest, Suzuki reportedly told authorities that "I couldn’t get my hands on nude photo books of foreign children and I wanted them no matter what...I couldn’t control myself."
The court stated that, despite the nature of Suzuki's offenses, he was being given a suspended sentence due to the "social ramifications" of the crime that he has already been faced with, namely the suspension of his work and the removal of his titles from Japan's Comic Walker, one of the biggest digital manga platforms in the region. In a statement posted to his personal Twitter account, Suzuki stated "I am deeply ashamed of my own lack of awareness and shallow behavior... I am truly sorry."
Suzuki ended his statement by saying that the future of Please Tell Me, Galko-chan and his other works remain undecided. Publication of the series was suspended last June. A 12-episode anime adaptation of the series was produced in 2016.
The incident has drawn comparisons to a similar case involving Rurouni Kenshin creator Nobuhiro Watsuki. Watsuki was convicted of possessing a large volume of child pornography in 2017, and the author publicly stated that he "Liked girls from the upper grades of elementary school to around the second year of junior high school." Watsuki also received a light sentence, being fined the equivalent of $2000 USD for his crimes. Shueisha, the publisher behind Weekly Shonen Jump, controversially resumed its dealings with Watsuki and the publication of Rurouni Kenshin just months after the author was convicted.
Source: Sankei News, Crunchyroll, Twitter
