Art pieces, especially autographed ones by famous artists such as Hayao Miyazaki would be considered to many fans as an item of high regard. However, with how much an autographed piece could go for, there is always a chance of a knock off ending up fooling a devoted fan. In fact someone has been doing this since the previous year and only now they have been caught.
On May 10, an announcement was made by the Okayama Prefectural Police that they had arrested a man for selling fake colored papers with fake autographs of famous anime/manga artists such as the man behind the films “Spirited Away” and “My Neighbor Totoro”, Hayao Miyazaki and the artist of the latest big hit film in Japan “Your name”, Makoto Shinkai, on internet auctions.
The name of the culprit is yet to be released but what is known is that the culprit is a male 32-year-old unemployed resident of Hino-city, Tokyo. It was between October and November of last year that investigators noted the culprits operations to have begun. For a total of 7,750 yen, a “Miyazaki” paper was sold to a 23-year-old man in Aichi Prefecture and to a 34-year-old man in
Okayama Prefecture he sold a “Shinkai” paper for 17,000 yen.
The main reason that this culprit had garnered attention and was captured by the authorities was through an inquiry that was sent via twitter by a fan pointing out the piece for auction to Shinkai and he confirming that it was indeed a fake.
More than the two illustrattions, there are other pieces that the culprite has done. During investigation, there were 3 more fake autographed papers at the suspect’s house and 279 items that have been put up with his ID on auction sites found. When questioned about reason behind his act, the culprit simply replied “I drew them by myself to get my living and amusement expenses.”
An additional point to note is that Miyazaki and Shinkai where not the only artist being noted by the culprit. There was also Masashi Kishimoto, the artist behind the long-running and still popular anime “Naruto”
No other details has been made in regards to the address, any other details on the story can be found at the source:Crunchyroll News