Following Galko creator’s child pornography arrest, publisher suspends manga, removes back issues

Series hasn’t entirely disappeared from Kadokawa’s websites, though.

In the fall of 2020, manga artist Kenya Suzuki received two shipments from Germany. Within those shipments were six photo albums containing photos of nude children, and last week Suzuki was placed under arrest on charges of importing child pornography. He made no effort to feign ignorance regarding the books’ contents, telling investigators “No matter what, I wanted photos of nude children from overseas, which you can’t get in Japan,” and a subsequent search of his home found an additional 46 books of child pornography.

The 40-year-old Suzuki is the artist and author of high school girl comedy Please Tell Me! Galko-chan, and his arrest came during the then-ongoing serialization of the series on the ComicWalker manga-reading app. On December 24, though, ComicWalker, which is owned by publishing giant Kadokawa, announced that the series will be going on indefinite hiatus and, in addition, all previously published chapters would be removed from the app.

The statement reads:

“We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who has been reading and enjoying Please Tell Me! Galko-chan.

We have recently received a series of reports regarding the series’ author, Kenya Suzuki, and will be suspending serialization of the series and, as of today, December 24, 2021, halting availability of pages of the series which have been published on ComicWalker.

We deeply apologize to everyone who had been looking forward to reading the series.”

Sure enough, while Please Tell Me! Galko-chan was still available on the day that Suzuki’s arrest became public knowledge, the series is no longer anywhere to be found on the ComicWalker website.

▼ Even running a search for Please Tell Me! Galko-chan (「おしえて！ ギャル子ちゃん」 in Japanese text) on ComicWalker now brings back zero results (検索結果:0件).

Japanese media companies, in most cases, respond to arrests of performers or creators they work with by quickly distancing themselves, at the very least in the short term. Though professional manga artists generally work with a team of assistants and an editor from the publisher, it’s the original creator’s name that’s associated most strongly, and sometimes even exclusively, with the series, so Kadokawa’s response is one many observers were expecting.

However, Kadokawa’s central website does still have Galko-chan among its titles, complete with multi-page samples for the series’ five collected volumes, and the collected volumes’ physical (paper) versions also still have listings on the Kadokawa Store online shop.

All of the volumes’ individual listings, though, include the notice “no copies in stock.” It’s unclear if that status is because all printed copies were already sold out before Suzuki’s arrest, or if it’s simply the Kadokawa Store’s way of saying they won’t be selling any remaining inventory in light of what’s happened.

Source: ComicWalker via Otakomu, ComicWalker (2), Kadokawa, Kadokawa Store (1, 2)
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Insert images: ComicWalker, Kadokawa Store
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