A man has been accused of altering and selling character figures from the popular anime without permission Kimetsu no Yaiba (demon slayer). For example, a figure of the popular character Nezuko Kamado it was altered for sale, replacing the body with that of a completely different figure.
The police have brought this physiotherapist from Wakayama Prefecture, suspected of infringing the Intellectual Property Law, for creating four such figures without authorization and selling them at an Internet auction for a total of 32,400 yen (about 240 US dollars).
It is believed that the man has repeatedly made similar modifications since 2017, selling more than 550 such items and making a total profit of more than 4.5 million yen. (more than 33 thousand dollars). After being cornered, the man admitted to the charges, mentioning: “My wife told me to throw away the figurines I collected as a hobby, so I altered them and put them on display on the Internet, where they ended up being sold. So I kept doing it to earn extra money».
Of course, the news Kimetsu no Yaiba hit comment boards in Japan, inspiring opinions like:
- «How strange do those figures look?».
- «The sale of counterfeit or remodeled figures is prohibited, and I hope that people who do so will continue to be arrested.».
- «In Mercari you usually see these types of altered products, I hope they catch them all, because they pass them off as official».
- «Is this type of thing approved in other types of products? like model trains».
- «Many times there are people who want the replacement of only a part of their figure, and not the entire model».
- «Altered figure sales are not good for anyone. I wonder if it would be a copyright violation if I made my own Gundam model?».
- «What is the problem? Either the person says “I didn’t know you can’t make and sell 3D copyrighted character objects without permission”, or they did know, but interpreted it to mean “if it’s a mod, it’s okay, right?”».
- «Do they seriously make arrests for this kind of thing?».
Fountain: otakomu
The entry Kimetsu no Yaiba: Subject arrested for ‘desecrating’ Nezuko figures was first published on Kudasai.
