{"id":68982,"date":"2026-06-30T15:42:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T06:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=68982"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:42:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T06:42:04","slug":"cells-at-work-manga-author-says-ongoing-legal-threats-from-perpetrators-forced-her-to-go-public-about-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/cells-at-work-manga-author-says-ongoing-legal-threats-from-perpetrators-forced-her-to-go-public-about-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Cells at Work! manga author says \u201congoing legal threats\u201d from\u00a0perpetrators\u00a0forced her to go public about abuse\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the past month, Akane Shimizu, the Japanese manga&nbsp;author&nbsp;behind hit&nbsp;series&nbsp;<strong>Cells at&nbsp;Work!,<\/strong>&nbsp;has been&nbsp;going public&nbsp;about&nbsp;abuse she suffered following her&nbsp;successful&nbsp;manga&nbsp;debut&nbsp;through a series of posts on X. In the latest such&nbsp;post, dated&nbsp;June 27, she apologized for&nbsp;worrying&nbsp;fans&nbsp;and explained that&nbsp;the&nbsp;reason&nbsp;why&nbsp;she&nbsp;decided&nbsp;to&nbsp;expose the details of what happened&nbsp;publicly&nbsp;was&nbsp;because she&nbsp;continues to face&nbsp;legal threats from the perpetrators\u2019 side.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To give some background, back on June 15, Shimizu&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/yellow_flame_\/status\/2066433950877352269?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">confessed<\/a>&nbsp;to being diagnosed with depression,&nbsp;trichotillomania, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)&nbsp;during the serialization of Cells at Work! During this period&nbsp;(between 2015 and 2021), she said she suffered&nbsp;financial&nbsp;abuse&nbsp;from a family member(s), sexual abuse,&nbsp;as well as&nbsp;secondary victimization by&nbsp;her&nbsp;family.&nbsp;Ultimately, she&nbsp;cut ties with her sister, who had inspired her to draw manga in the first place, and said she was left with deep emotional&nbsp;scars from the ordeal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-x wp-block-embed-x\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u3054\u5fc3\u914d\u3092\u304a\u304b\u3051\u3057\u3066\u304a\u308a\u307e\u3059\u3002<br><br>\u306a\u305c\u6700\u8fd1\u3053\u3046\u3057\u305f\u6295\u7a3f\u3092\u3057\u3066\u3044\u308b\u306e\u304b\u3068\u3044\u3046\u3068\u3001\u534a\u5e74\u307b\u3069\u524d\u304b\u3089\u3001\u52a0\u5bb3\u8005\u5074\u304b\u3089\u4f5c\u54c1\u3078\u306e\u5f71\u97ff\u3092\u4ec4\u3081\u304b\u3055\u308c\u308b\u3088\u3046\u306a\u5f62\u3067\u6cd5\u7684\u63aa\u7f6e\u3092\u793a\u3055\u308c\u308b\u72b6\u6cc1\u304c\u7d9a\u3044\u3066\u3044\u308b\u305f\u3081\u3067\u3059\u3002\u2026<\/p>&mdash; \u6e05\u6c34\u831c|\u30a4\u30a8\u30ed\u30fc\u30d5\u30ec\u30a4\u30e0 (@yellow_flame_) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/yellow_flame_\/status\/2070741436333789399?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 27, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This&nbsp;revelation about the author\u2019s past came as a big shock to fans, but concerningly, Shimizu&nbsp;now&nbsp;claims to still face issues&nbsp;related to her abusers. In the new post, she says that&nbsp;for about the past six months,&nbsp;she\u2019s&nbsp;continued to face legal threats from the perpetrator&#8217;s side, with implications that&nbsp;her&nbsp;work&nbsp;as a manga artist&nbsp;could be&nbsp;negatively&nbsp;affected.&nbsp;&#8220;Even regarding the sexual abuse, the perpetrator&#8217;s side filed for mediation,&nbsp;against my wishes,\u201d she writes.&nbsp;\u201cFurthermore, they made a claim stating, \u2018We want a no-contact order imposed on the victim so that they cannot contact the perpetrator,\u2019 seeking to&nbsp;disadvantage me.&nbsp;Even in a situation like that, I was told that considering the impact on&nbsp;my&nbsp;work,&nbsp;I&nbsp;shouldn&#8217;t&nbsp;let the case escalate to&nbsp;litigation, leaving me with no choice but to suffer in silence.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The wording in Shimizu\u2019s post suggests that she is\u00a0likely\u00a0involved\u00a0in disputes with multiple individuals. She explains that\u00a0she\u2019s been\u00a0sharing all this information\u00a0in order to\u00a0document the course of events and avoid any misunderstandings or\u00a0unforeseen circumstances should things escalate in the future.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Akane Shimizu has made another update regarding the abuse she suffered during the serialization of the Cells at Work! manga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":68984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[{"did":"did:plc:uzrrhkfyjrfdsynj2voztcf2","date":"2026-06-30T06:42:10+00:00","uri":"at:\/\/did:plc:uzrrhkfyjrfdsynj2voztcf2\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3mpifjxal4m2j","response":"{\"uri\":\"at:\/\/did:plc:uzrrhkfyjrfdsynj2voztcf2\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3mpifjxal4m2j\",\"cid\":\"bafyreibnq3fxhrjwxxttbdouabqr3msvas2kvpetr4nvpr6yykidrkshqa\",\"commit\":{\"cid\":\"bafyreib73saw6j5vgg6s3nohgacuwmh32gquoq3nqhsnphsyk6wh6wn55u\",\"rev\":\"3mpifjxaozm2j\"},\"validationStatus\":\"valid\"}"}],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,65],"tags":[73,17],"class_list":["post-68982","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 v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cells at Work! manga author says \u201congoing legal threats\u201d from\u00a0perpetrators\u00a0forced her to go public about abuse\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Akane Shimizu has made another update regarding the abuse she suffered during the serialization of the Cells at Work! manga.\" \/>\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\/cells-at-work-manga-author-says-ongoing-legal-threats-from-perpetrators-forced-her-to-go-public-about-abuse\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cells at Work! manga author says \u201congoing legal threats\u201d from\u00a0perpetrators\u00a0forced her to go public about abuse\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Akane Shimizu has made another update regarding the abuse she suffered during the serialization of the Cells at Work! 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