The manga Act-Age has been canceled by publisher Shueisha after its author, Tatsuya Matsumoto a.k.a Tatsuya Matsuki, was arrested late last week. He has been charged with two separate incidents of groping a junior high school student. At least one of the incidents was caught by security camera footage and Matsumoto’s identity was confirmed by police.
While charges have yet to be filed, Act-Age’s publisher Shueisha released this statement in response to the author’s arrest:
On August 8th, Tatsuya Matsuki, the original creator of Act-Age, was arrested.
Our managing editorial department recognizes the severity of what transpired, has confirmed the details of the incident that led to the arrest, and discussed the situation with Act-Age artist Shiro Usazaki. Following this, we have judged that it is not possible to continue serializing Act-Age.
As of the August 11th combined Volume 26/37 of Weekly Shonen Jump, we will be ending Act-Age’s serialization.
We deeply regret that a series that has been enjoyed and supported by so many fans will be ending in this manner. However, we have arrived at this decision in earnest consideration of the social responsibility of Weekly Shonen Jump.
We wish to sincerely apologize for the anguish and distress that has been caused.
This decision is especially painful for Usazaki, but we will be working hard to support her in creating new works in the future.
In addition, we will be discussing what to do regarding currently printed collected volumes of Act-Age and associated events with individual counterpart organizations, and announcing those decisions at a later date.
This is a surprising turn of events for Shueisha, as their response to Matsumoto’s arrest is a complete 180 from when Rurouni Kenshin author Nobuhiro Watsuki was arrested for heinous crimes involving children in 2018. Instead of canceling the serialization of Rurouni Kenshin in the works at that time, the project was suspended for seven months, and then resumed shortly after. Watsuki also did not face jail time and was instead fined 200,000 yen or 1,900 dollars for violating Japan’s Anti-Child Prostitution and Pornography Ordinance.
Hopefully, Usazaki and everyone else involved with Act-Age will successfully move on to other projects, and out from under the shadow of the author’s crimes.
Source: Japan Today, Sora News 24
