Watsuki allegedly owned DVDs with footage of girls in early teens

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police has charged 47-year-old manga creator Nobuhiro Watsuki (real name Nobuhiro Nishiwaki) with simple possession of child pornography on Tuesday. According to the authorities, Watsuki possessed numerous DVDs with nude footage of young girls in their early teens, and stored them at an office in Tokyo at least as recently as October.

In his deposition, Watsuki allegedly said that he "liked girls in late elementary school to around the second year of middle school."

Authorities searched Watsuki's home as part of a different investigation, which linked him to the purchase of DVDs with child pornography.

The charge against Watsuki alleges that he possessed the pornographic videos from July 2015. Possession of child pornography entails imprisonment for up to one year and a fine of up to 1 million yen (about US$8,800), if found guilty.

Watsuki is best known as the creator of the Rurouni Kenshin manga. The manga ran from 1994 to 1999 in Shueisha 's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, and Shueisha published over 60 million copies of the manga's compiled book volumes. The manga inspired an anime series that ran from 1996 to 1998, as well as films and original video anime projects.

The manga also inspired a live-action film trilogy from 2012 to 2014, with a new film reportedly in the works. A new arc of the manga by Watsuki and his novelist wife Kaoru Kurosaki debuted in September, and Viz is simultaneously publishing it in English.

Sources: Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi, Sankei News via Hachima Kikō