{"id":62773,"date":"2026-03-12T12:50:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T03:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=62773"},"modified":"2026-03-12T13:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T04:00:29","slug":"manga-publisher-shogakukan-once-again-under-fire-after-another-case-of-sexual-exploitation-by-former-employee-surfaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/manga-publisher-shogakukan-once-again-under-fire-after-another-case-of-sexual-exploitation-by-former-employee-surfaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Manga publisher\u00a0Shogakukan\u00a0once again under fire after\u00a0another case of\u00a0sexual exploitation by former employee surfaces\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Major manga publisher\u00a0<strong>Shogakukan<\/strong>\u00a0published a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shogakukan.co.jp\/news\/477346\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statement<\/a>\u00a0on March 11 addressing reports of\u00a0a\u00a0former employee using workplace authority to sexually exploit a business partner. While the company acknowledged that abuse happened\u00a0on two occasions, it denied allegations of\u00a0attempting\u00a0to\u00a0cover up\u00a0the issue.\u00a0This comes amidst ongoing public outrage about\u00a0Shogakukan\u2019s\u00a0<strong>Manga One<\/strong>\u00a0editorial department\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.asahi.com\/ajw\/articles\/16403350\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">knowingly re-hiring an author<\/a>\u00a0found liable for sexually assaulting a former student\u00a0and\u00a0allowing him to publish new work under a\u00a0pseudonym.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the new statement,&nbsp;Shogakukan&nbsp;addresses&nbsp;a report&nbsp;published by influential Japanese tabloid Shukan&nbsp;Bunshun. The&nbsp;company&nbsp;explains that in 2018,&nbsp;one of its employees sexually exploited&nbsp;a&nbsp;client company&#8217;s employee by taking advantage of&nbsp;their \u201cadvantageous position\u201d in the business relationship. In 2020, the victim filed criminal charges against the employee, but the case was dismissed with&nbsp;Shogakukan\u2019s&nbsp;side apologizing and \u201ctaking internal disciplinary action\u201d against the perpetrator.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"730\" height=\"442\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20260312-62773-001r.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62777\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20260312-62773-001r.jpg 730w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20260312-62773-001r-380x230.jpg 380w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>However, in 2025, the same employee was once again found to be engaging in&nbsp;misconduct. After this was discovered, the employee \u201cadmitted responsibility and resigned.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Up to this point, the facts line up with Shukan&nbsp;Bunshun\u2019s&nbsp;claims, but&nbsp;regarding&nbsp;the dismissal of the 2018 case, Shukan&nbsp;Bunshun&nbsp;alleged that&nbsp;Shogakukan&nbsp;decided to publish a&nbsp;photo&nbsp;book&nbsp;and offer related funds to the business partner in question. The implication is that the publisher made a bargain&nbsp;to deal with the dispute quietly. However,&nbsp;Shogakukan&nbsp;vehemently&nbsp;denies this,&nbsp;claiming that \u201cthe publication of the photo book was proposed by the company that had commissioned the victim&#8217;s work.\u201d&nbsp;The publisher insists it did not&nbsp;attempt&nbsp;to cover up the case.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nonetheless, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/livedoornews\/status\/2031716771103690784\/quotes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">news has been met with criticism<\/a>, with Japanese commenters expressing disbelief&nbsp;at&nbsp;Shogakukan\u2019s&nbsp;failure to&nbsp;fire the employee after their first sexual offense.&nbsp;It&nbsp;doesn\u2019t&nbsp;help that the incident was made public&nbsp;right after the case of&nbsp;manga artist and&nbsp;sex offender Yamamoto&nbsp;Sh\u014dichi, which cast severe doubts about&nbsp;Shogakukan\u2019s&nbsp;integrity and even resulted in prominent manga authors walking out on the publisher.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shogakukan is being criticized for failing to dismiss a former employee after they were charged for sexually exploiting a business partner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":62776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,65],"tags":[73,17],"class_list":["post-62773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-nongaming-news","tag-anime","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Manga publisher\u00a0Shogakukan\u00a0once again under fire after\u00a0another case of\u00a0sexual exploitation by former employee surfaces\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shogakukan is being criticized for failing to dismiss a former employee after they were charged for sexually exploiting a business partner.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/manga-publisher-shogakukan-once-again-under-fire-after-another-case-of-sexual-exploitation-by-former-employee-surfaces\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Manga publisher\u00a0Shogakukan\u00a0once again under fire after\u00a0another case of\u00a0sexual exploitation by former employee surfaces\u00a0 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62773"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62780,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62773\/revisions\/62780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}