Masami Kurumada walked into a Tokyo press conference on September 2 and put a number on a fight he has been circling for two years. Three companies he heads, including copyright shop Kurumada Production, filed a damages suit in Tokyo District Court the same day. They want about 2.8 billion yen, roughly $18 million, from a former manager and a group of people and firms tied to him.
The claim behind that figure is larger. Kurumada's side says about 4.6 billion yen, roughly $29 million, left the companies without permission between around 2018 and 2024. About 1.8 billion yen, roughly $11 million, has already come back. The lawsuit is for the rest.
The former director was also Kurumada's manager. He ran accounting and outside talks for the three firms, helped set up Kurumada Production, and had been in the artist's orbit for more than 15 years. Some Japanese reports put the relationship closer to 25 years and say it started when the man was a magazine editor. Kurumada is 72. He told reporters he handed the man every incoming and outgoing yen so the drawing board could stay full.
"I trusted this man with all of our monetary inflows and outflows. But he had been embezzling from the firms for over a decade," Kurumada said. "You hear about these types of embezzlement crimes in the news. Yet I myself, in my over-50-year career, have never encountered a bad man like this in the world of anime and comic books. I couldn't believe it. I was like, 'Why?'"
The complaint describes two main routes. Company money moved from Kurumada accounts to accounts the manager controlled. License fees that should have hit Kurumada Production were pointed at companies under other names, including a firm set up to look like an affiliate. One account of the filing says a company with a name close to Kurumada's NEXT WING sat in that path. Relatives and acquaintances are named among the defendants. Some recaps count 11 people and corporations in the dock.
Part of the money, the plaintiffs say, went into crypto. That is also how some of the 1.8 billion yen came back. After the scheme surfaced, recovered assets included positions that had risen in value. The former manager has admitted to Kurumada that company funds were diverted. He has also said the moves were meant to help Kurumada and that he meant no harm. That is his account, sitting next to the filing.
The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau is what cracked it open. Around February 2024, a tax review flagged the books. Kurumada's lawyers say the manager even tried to keep the artist away from that investigation. By the time the accounts were in the open, Kurumada Production was short. Kurumada said there was not enough on hand to cover a serious tax bill. He told the room the company could have gone under, and that he could have been finished as a manga artist with it.
"When I found out, I simply couldn't believe it. Rather than anger, I had gone beyond that point and just felt empty," he said. He talked about nearly losing faith in people, then pointed the rest of the statement back at the page. He wants to keep drawing for readers who still show up for Saint Seiya and the rest of the catalog.
That catalog is why the license fees were worth stealing. Kurumada ran the original Saint Seiya manga from 1986 to 1990. The book has 35 million copies in print in the figure ANN uses, and other tallies put worldwide circulation higher. Toei's TV anime, OVAs, films, and later spinoff manga kept the Bronze Saints in circulation. Viz printed the manga in English as Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac. ADV, then others, moved the anime. Netflix launched a CG remake in 2019 and followed it with Battle for Sanctuary. A live-action Knights of the Zodiac film opened in 2023. Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, the Hades sequel, started in 2006 and ended in July 2024. Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen, The Heavens Arc, started in Weekly Shonen Champion on May 14.
Ring ni Kakero and B'tX sit in the same office. Merch, foreign editions, and adaptation deals all run through the companies now in court. Redirecting those license wires is how a manager turns a long-running hit into a private pipeline.
The 2024 exhibition cancel makes more sense with this timeline. Kurumada had announced a major original-art show for June 2024, planned for Roppongi Hills. In March 2024 the site killed it "due to various circumstances." At the September 2 briefing he tied that cancellation to the discovery and apologized to fans. He said he wants to try again in Ikebukuro in spring 2027 and asked people to come if that date holds.
None of this is a verdict. It is a civil claim filed after two years of private recovery. The former manager is not a convicted defendant in the coverage that landed Wednesday. He has paid back a large piece and offered an explanation that the plaintiffs do not accept. Tokyo District Court now has the remainder.
Kurumada kept returning to the work. He said manga is not a casual job, that his head stays on the manuscript, and that the desk work was supposed to be someone else's. For a quarter century that someone else was the man across the table. The artist described the feeling after the tax office call as emptiness more than heat. Then he talked about Tenkai-hen and the readers still waiting on the next chapter.
The 2.8 billion yen suit is the part that can be counted. The 4.6 billion yen allegation is the part his lawyers say they can document. The 1.8 billion yen already returned is the part that kept the company from dropping in 2024. What a judge does with those three numbers is the next date on the calendar.
Do you want Kurumada to keep the focus on Tenkai-hen and that 2027 exhibition, or should the court case stay in front until the rest of the money is accounted for? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.