The report

Regarding the matter that I was pointed out by Ms. Satol Yuiga that I traced her drawing, I could not explain the situation till now and I caused you so many concerns.
The other day, the outcome was made at the Tokyo District Court, and we are confirmed to have won the case without their appealing.
I am relieved that groundlessness and emotional distress were admitted at the court.
 
Firstly, I explain how this case was developed.
 
This started around the year 2015.
 
Around that time, I worked on original drawing of “Collar×Malice”, Otome game for women from OTOMATE brand.
(This was released on 18th August 2016 and sold by IDEA FACTORY Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "IF") and developed by DESIGN FACTORY Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "DF")
 
I originally belonged to DF and left the company in September 2013. Since then I worked independently, I had been involved in their work till September 2016 as a contract illustrator exclusive to DF.
 
Regarding the standing drawing of multiple characters unveiled at the game’s official website, around the end of 2015, DF received Ms. Yuiga’s pointing out through IF that Ms. Yuiga’s rough face drawing of characters for “Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk”(released on 29th September 2016 and sold and developed by IF) was traced by me. Ms. Yuiga was in charge of original drawing of “Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk”.
 
I received consultation from DF, and I heard that the illustration considered to be traced from is seen for the first time and has not been released before. Therefore, I was surprised and told them that this is a misunderstanding.
Following my response, IF and DF confirmed the production day of both illustrations. Then they found that my drawing was produced more than six months earlier than her one. And I received a report from DF that they communicated that to Ms. Yuiga and resolved the issue.
I told them that this accusation is very serious and I need an apology from Ms. Yuiga. However, I ended up receiving an apology from IF only.
I could not strongly claim more than that and continued to have a feeling of anxiety. But the situation seemed to calm down.
(At that time, I had no direct contact with Ms. Yuiga and indirect communication was made through IF and DF.)
 
However, she visited IF and my other clients with her lawyer in April 2019 and brought over an enormous number of images for tracing verifications and demanded them to acknowledge tracing. But all the companies concluded that tracing was not found and did not accept Ms. Yuiga’s demand.
 
In June, Ms. Yuiga directly contacted me and told me that a tracing verification image would be made public if I do not accept tracing. She tried to force me to acknowledge my tracing.
I felt strong resentment toward this but more than anything else, I wanted to avoid the situation getting more serious. Therefore, with a faint glimmer of hope to clear up misunderstanding, I responded to their requests about demonstration and direct discussion. I dealt with as much sincerity as possible.
However, unfortunately, I could not obtain their understanding and we ended in disagreement.
 
Since that time, Ms. Yuiga often mentioned on her own blog and X (formerly twitter) that she continued to receive harassment(tracing) from someone. In March 2020, she posted implying that the person is me and the post received serious backlash.
 
Ms. Yuiga did not disclose her own “tracing verification image” on the website. But on her post at the X (formerly Twitter), she wrote that during discussion “I declared that I continue to use an alleged traced icon if tracing and processing of the icon was not accused by people around me”.
 
The content of the post might have caused people to think that I do not have morals and even intentionally repeated tracing. I listened to the recording of our discussion many times, but I did not make such a statement at all. (I consistently claimed that I did not trace.)
And on her own blog, she implied that I trace the works of illustrators other than Ms. Yuiga, saying that I changed the target to other illustrators using the same method (condition and situation) and drawing method.
 
Due to this, misunderstanding that I was involved in tracing act without thinking it is bad and I trace works of illustrators other than Ms. Yuiga, has spread. Therefore, unspecified people started to find my “other offense” regardless of whether it is in or out of the country. Ms. Yuiga and other irrelevant illustrators’ work were placed on top of my illustration as tracing verification images. I was exposed to unjustified accusations being told that these images were “evidence.”
 
This developed a situation where the illustration work which I already received was suddenly cancelled. In addition to that, that made me mentally distressed and could not develop illustrations. I finally determined that I cannot overlook this. Then in April 2020, I officially made an announcement that tracing accusations were not based on fact, and I was considering judicial actions through my lawyer. I also announced my actions against defamatory.
 
◆Regarding the lawsuit
 
Later, in October 2020, I filed a lawsuit for defamation against Ms. Yuiga and finally judgement was made the other day.
 
Regarding the details of the lawsuit, my lawyer, Mr. Komoto’s announcement is more specific so I would like you to see that too. But I would like to add a few points.
→　【Representative lawyer’s release 】
 
Ms. Yuiga submitted hundreds of tracing verification images to the court. After careful examination, many of my illustrations obviously predated hers. Among these, there were my illustrations which were released three years earlier than hers. Through this I realized that tracing accusation was made based on careless verification.
 
Showing some case samples will make it easier for you to understand which resolution Ms. Yuiga used for her “verification.” Next two images for her verification were extracts from the documents brought to my clients by Ms. Yuiga as evidence for tracing. When she brought the documents, she said she will publish this document if I do not acknowledge tracing. There was no doubt that this document was submitted to the court.

※In the both above mentioned tracing verification images, it is identified that my illustrations predated hers. Therefore, in fact, tracing cannot happen.

These verification images were produced to show “overlapping of drawing lines”. However, there are only a few images in which both illustrations are overlapped as they are. Instead, many illustrations which they accuse as tracing were overlapped after being transformed including scaling, rotation, change of aspect ratio or deleting facial parts (eyes and etc.) and reversing. Therefore, I felt that the images were forced to be overlapped.
In addition, tracing after continuous transformation and cut-and-paste requires quite a lot of work. So, I thought that drawing style is very unrealistic.
 
According to the lectures of art universities who provided written opinions at the court, in the verification images, there are extremely few lines which overlap, and this fact proves that the illustration is not traced.
Thus, even from the viewpoint of professionals, it was obvious that images were not traced.
 
At the court, this case was examined from various angles. As a result, the court made a judgement that all of my drawings are not created by tracing.
 
◆Regarding “hug pillow-style illustration project” from “AMNESIA：Memories”
 
Now I will explain about the game “AMNESIA：Memories”’s plagiarism scandal which Ms. Yuiga cited as “the previous offense”.
This is the issue that one piece of illustration out of six was created by tracing in “huggable pillow style illustration segment” which was the project of a bonus booklet from limited edition of “AMNESIA：Memories” (released in August 2011). I was not involved in this tracing.
 
In this project, I and a few graphic artists in DF shared the illustration work of characters and each person freely drew characters with our own style.
I was in charge of illustrations of characters “Shin” and “Waka”.
 
After the release, it was found that there was a plagiarism regarding the character “Toma”
The illustration was created by one graphic artist and the person was fired. At that time, the person visited the company with guarantors(parents) and admitted plagiarism and apologized. Full responsibility was admitted in writing.
 
There was no fact that I was involved in tracing in this case too, and I clearly deny this accusation.
 
◆ Regarding the illustration of Genshin Impact
When there was a tracing scandal regarding my illustration for celebration of birthday of Genshin Impact
which resulted from this suspicion, I was extremely confused.
It was very important period for the lawsuit, and I could not make a direct statement about this after considering its influence on the lawsuit. However, during that tough time, some people voiced that these are false accusations regarding tracing. These voices really helped me.
Since the case regarding Ms. Yuiga started, I records screens as my self-defense. However, I even needed courage to show the evidence, so I felt I received supportive push.
 
◆ At the conclusion
 
I cannot express enough gratitude to the people who continue to support me, my clients and people who I worked with. Thank you very much.
 
This lawsuit took a long time and I had very challenging time until judgement was made.
There were many days when I could not even face drawing work. But I feel like I kept myself in control somehow by continuing working and drawing.
This law case was concluded, and I hope that I may draw in stable environment from now on.
 
 
 
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