"I've never seen a bad person in the world of anime and manga." That was the 72-year-old artist speaking about the man he trusted for 25 years, who is now accused of draining 4.686 billion yen from his companies. On September 2, 2026, Saint Seiya creator Masami Kurumada sued his former manager in Tokyo District Court. What came out at the press conference, though, was less about the size of the number than about how it was done.

What the press conference revealed

Kurumada, 72, appeared alongside his lawyers at a press conference in Tokyo on September 2 and announced that three companies he heads, Kurumada Production, NEXT WING and K-PROJECT, had been embezzled by a former manager and his associates. According to Bengoshi JP News, the total taken came to 4.686 billion yen (about $29.3 million). Roughly 1.8 billion yen (about $11.3 million) has already been recovered, and the companies filed suit the same day at Tokyo District Court seeking the remaining 2.897 billion yen (about $18.1 million).

The defendants number 11 in all: the former manager, his brother and acquaintances (seven individuals) plus four companies the manager effectively controlled. Anime News Network, citing the complaint, reports the embezzlement ran from around 2018 to 2024.

Kurumada told reporters that when the news reached him he simply couldn't believe it. Rather than anger, he said, he felt something past that, a kind of emptiness. For a while, he admitted, he nearly lost his faith in people altogether.

A former editor who became the only door in

The relationship goes back about 25 years. According to Bengoshi JP News, the man was originally Kurumada's editor, working as a contract employee at Shueisha. When the magazine he handled folded, he moved over to work for Kurumada directly. He suggested setting up companies, helped launch the three firms that manage Kurumada's copyrights, and ended up in charge of all accounting and all external negotiations.

Attorney Akihiro Nozaki said the man told business partners and industry contacts that Kurumada was an artist who hated people and wouldn't meet anyone, and that any message for the creator had to go through him alone. For years, that story kept outsiders from ever reaching Kurumada himself. Attorney Hiroyuki Kawai described it as turning Kurumada into something like a deity: too difficult to approach, so talk to me instead.

The artist's own wish to focus on drawing became the cover story.

Three schemes, as the lawyers described them

Bengoshi JP News reports the lawyers laid out three main methods.

First, skimming license fees. The man set up a separate company with a name nearly identical to NEXT WING, the firm that manages Kurumada's rights, and had overseas partners send license payments meant for NEXT WING to the look-alike instead. Jiji Press likewise reports that a company posing as an affiliate was quietly established to receive payments from business partners.

Second, straightforward unauthorized transfers: company money sent, with no business reason, to firms he controlled and to personal accounts belonging to his brother and acquaintances.

Third, a reinsurance scheme routed overseas. Premiums paid by Kurumada's companies to an insurer were passed along through reinsurance and re-reinsurance across multiple foreign insurers, ending up in an overseas entity the manager controlled.

The money went into cryptocurrency, according to Jiji Press. Bengoshi JP News reports that because those assets were still there, lawyers were able to claw back the 1.8 billion yen.

A tax audit blew it open

The scheme surfaced around February 2024, after the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau flagged it, Jiji Press reports.

Even then, the man reportedly hid the fact that an audit was underway. When the tax office sent a written inquiry addressed to Kurumada personally, Bengoshi JP News reports, the manager submitted a forged response, imitating Kurumada's signature and stamping it with a seal normally used for signing fan autograph boards.

According to Jiji Press, the man admitted to Kurumada that funds had been improperly diverted, but claimed he had done it for Kurumada's sake. As of this writing (September 3, 2026), none of the reports mention whether a criminal complaint has been filed.

"I might have been finished as a manga artist"

AUTOMATON, citing the press conference, reports that by the time the embezzlement came to light, Kurumada Production's accounts had almost nothing left in them, not even enough to pay outstanding taxes. In the worst case, Kurumada said, the company could have gone bankrupt and he might have been finished as a manga artist. The two and a half years since, he said, have been a stretch of anxiety and despair.

The fallout reached his fans, too. According to Nikkei, an exhibition of Kurumada's original artwork planned for Roppongi Hills in 2024 had to be canceled because of the discovery. Bengoshi JP News explains why: one of the companies involved in the event turned out to be under the manager's control, and going ahead would have enriched him. Kurumada apologized to fans around the world and said he intends to hold the exhibition in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, in spring 2027 (the plan as of September 2026).

He hasn't put down the pen. Kurumada launched Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen in Weekly Shonen Champion on May 14, 2026. At the press conference he said he wants to keep working hard and drawing for readers around the world who love his manga.

How Japan reacted

The story spread fast across Japanese social media. Voice actress Megumi Ogata posted on X on September 2 that she had met Kurumada many times during production of the B'T-X anime and remembered him as a man of real integrity, adding that she hoped the day would come soon when his mind could rest.

On message boards and news comment sections, the sheer size of the figure dominated. Some users lined up Kurumada's losses against other celebrities who have gone public with embezzlement cases. Others were simply stunned that Saint Seiya generates that kind of money.

Another thread of reaction pointed at the structure itself: a creator handing his companies' finances entirely to one person with nobody checking. Japan has seen a run of manager embezzlement cases involving entertainers and athletes, but it is rare for one to surface around a manga artist.

Talent and bookkeeping are different jobs

Masami Kurumada was born in 1953, debuted in 1974 with Sukeban Arashi, and after Ring ni Kakero found worldwide fame with Saint Seiya, which began in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1985. Worldwide sales of the series exceed 50 million copies, and in Latin America and Europe it remains part of a generation's childhood.

The man who created all of that spent years drawing without knowing how much money was actually in his own company's account. Delegating the office work so you can create is reasonable. Delegating it to someone nobody else can audit is a risk in its own right.

Every time a case like this surfaces in Japan, the same phrase comes up: "But I trusted him." How are artists and authors in your country protected from the people managing their money?

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