Recently I started reading a manga called Toriko created and illustrated by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. I became addicted to it. I find it very amazing and entertaining. When I started looking for info on Toriko manga, I saw some interesting info on wikipedia. Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro, the one who created Toriko was was arrested and convicted of violating child prostitution laws in 2002, including paying a 16-year-old girl ¥80,000 to have sex. He was sentenced to two years in prison. Only two years? However, the sentence was suspended, so I do not think he went to prison. He should have been banned from working in the manga industry again, but the publisher allowed him to work on a new manga called "Ring" in 2004, two years after his arrest and conviction. his previous manga Seikimatsu Leader Den Takeshi! was cancelled for a short time as a result of his conviction but resumed publication in 2005.
Shimabukuro also returned to work for Weekly Shōnen Jump in 2008 with Toriko. It became one of the magazine's top sellers, with over 25 million copies in circulation, and was nominated for the 2nd Manga Taishō award in 2009. Toriko was adapted into an anime television series by Toei Animation that aired from 2011–2014 before the manga ended in November 2016. The manga was released in North America by Viz Media and the anime by Funimation. I wonder if the American fans knew of his crimes?
Even though everyone was aware of his crime and conviction, the publisher still employed him, the public still bought his manga. and several manga artists including Eiichiro Oda, the author of One Piece, did not sever ties with him. In 2011, Oda and Shimabukuro created the Toriko and One Piece crossover one-shot Taste of the Devil Fruit.
when Jared Fogle was convicted of doing the same thing as the manga artist did, the Subway fired him, his wife divorced him and he got a much longer sentence than the manga artist who only got a senence of only two years in prison which was suspended .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsutoshi_Shimabukuro
There is another manga artist who committed a similar crime. His name was Nobuhiro Watsuki. He was the one who created Rurouni Kenshin. He was arrested and convicted of child pornography but was fined ¥200,000 on February 2018. Only a fine and no jail time for the guy who possessed illegal porn? The serialization of Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc was put on hiatus after the details of Watsuki's charges were made public. But the Hokkaido Arc resumed serialization in June 2018, only four months after his conviction. Are the people still buying his manga even after his crime was made public?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuhi...graphy_charges