Comic Mega Store manga magazine, Nyan 2 Club photo magazine implicated

Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department and Tomisaka Station arrested Akira Ōta, the 55-year-old head of the editorial department at the publisher Core Magazine , and two others for allegedly distributing obscene images on Thursday. The suspects are accused of carrying and selling magazines with manga and photos of sex scenes and other content with insufficient censoring.

According to Tomisaka Station, Ōta and one other suspect denied the charges, saying, "We didn't think they were obscene." The third suspect reportedly admitted to the charges.

The three suspects are accused of selling about 24,500 copies of the manga magazine Comic Mega Store with sex scenes between males and females this past March. They are also accused of selling about 36,000 copies of Nyan 2 Club , a magazine for reader-submitted adult photographs. Both magazines were marked with the 18+ label.

Both magazines makes minimal use of mosaic censoring over certain areas, but the Tomisaka Station said it verbally warned the magazines' staff that there is a possibility that these magazines could still be labeled as "obscene." Jiji Press reports that Core Magazine garnered a total of 17 million yen (about US$170,000) in monthly sales.

Core Magazine said it could not comment on the arrest since it is now looking into the matter.

Adult video director and erotic novel writer Jin Toriyama reported in April that Comic Mega Store would be suspended indefinitely due to a police investigation. According to Toriyama, Nyan 2 Club was also under investigation.

Source: Jiji Press