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The story
Manga artist Masami Kurumada, known for Saint Seiya and Ring ni Kakero, reportedly filed suit at the Tokyo District Court on September 2, 2026, against a former manager who handled his accounting, claiming roughly ¥4.6 billion in damages from unauthorized money transfers. On the thread, posters were less shocked by the sheer size of the damages than by how much royalty income a long-running franchise can pile up, with many comparing the case to the embezzlement scandal involving Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter. Others compared it to pachinko and trading-card licensing revenue from franchises like Fist of the North Star and Yu-Gi-Oh!, sparking discussion about just how massive embezzlement targeting a popular manga artist’s assets can get.
Popular Saint Seiya and Ring ni Kakero manga artist Masami Kurumada claims roughly ¥4.6 billion in damages from unauthorized transfers, sues former accounting manager — Tokyo District Court | TBS NEWS DIG
Wednesday, September 2, 2026, 12:05
Domestic
Source: newsdig.tbs.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
That's some serious earning. Manga artists really can live the dream!
Top-tier manga artists are basically part of the privileged elite ("jōkyū kokumin" — Japanese internet slang for the untouchable upper class).
They probably end up thinking about tax avoidance every single day.
Sure, if you sell at a one-in-a-thousand — no, one-in-ten-thousand — level.
Well, Bandai's selling the toys worldwide, and there's pachinko licensing on top of that.
There are a few different fates for manga artists who were huge in the '80s and are now in their 60s:
Type 1: still publishing steadily today, with royalties from old works still rolling in.
Type 2: got an anime adaptation back then, is barely seen anywhere now, but is set for life on royalties.
Type 3: sold well back then but never got much of an anime push, so income-wise they still have to keep drawing today — until an editor tells them they'd rather bring in a younger artist, and they run out of places to work.
Same thought here.
So does that mean Magnum ends up being the strongest attack after all?
They were explaining how Zeus and Apollo rank Magnum above Therios…
Isn't it Phantom?
Phantom's the one who actually clashed with the Rainbow attack.
Saint Seiya can still bring in that kind of money?
Wasn't there a Saint Seiya spin-off in Champion magazine starring the Silver Saints?
That's a bank balance, so it's probably savings built up over time, not just recent income.
The games and toys are selling well too.
And besides Saint Seiya, he's also got Ring ni Kakero, Fūma no Kojirō, and B't X — four hits in total.
Same here.
I got totally hooked on the Holy Sword Wars arc.
Rumor has it his pachinko licensing income blew past his manga royalties long ago.
Neko Oikawa (the lyricist) also said her pachinko licensing fees were her biggest source of income.
Makes sense, since the unit price per machine is so high.
At least Ippei Mizuhara had the guts to actually blow through the money he stole.
Is it actually true that the Yu-Gi-Oh! creator is the top earner of them all?
I've heard that if a trading card game hits big, it's basically like printing your own money.
That's just the portion she hadn't spent yet, though.
…this endless slope of embezzlement… (a parody of Saint Seiya's famous line about the 'staircase to the heavens')
No.
But there are over 20 Saint Seiya spin-off works.
It's at a level where Saint Seiya alone could fill a whole weekly magazine.
So it's turned into something like Crows or Worst? (referring to the sprawling delinquent-manga spin-off universes)
She did pay back ¥1.8 billion, though.
Fist of the North Star is on a whole different order of magnitude.
Evangelion practically funded a whole string of movies off its pachinko licensing money.
If you hit it big, you make way more than novelists do.
Saint Seiya sells worldwide, so he's probably the most surprised person of all by his own earnings.
By that logic, does Kurumada only have Ring ni Kakero and Saint Seiya?
B't X did get an anime adaptation, though.
Background and Key Points on This Topic
Masami Kurumada is known for works like Ring ni Kakero and Saint Seiya, long-running franchises whose anime adaptations, pachinko machines, and toy and game merchandise continue both in Japan and abroad to this day. This lawsuit is a civil suit filed with the Tokyo District Court; at this stage only the plaintiff’s claims have been presented, and the court has not yet ruled on the amount of damages or where responsibility lies. Many thread posters compared the case to the embezzlement scandal involving Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, but Mizuhara’s case was a criminal prosecution in the United States that ended in a guilty plea, whereas this is a civil damages claim against a former manager — a different kind of proceeding. Readers who overlook that distinction risk treating one side’s still-contested claims in an ongoing case as if they were established fact.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Popular Saint Seiya and Ring ni Kakero manga artist Masami Kurumada claims approx. ¥4.6 billion in damages, sues former accounting manager — Tokyo District Court.”
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