Plagiarism?

[Adrian_Alexander]

Hendra Wahjudi has been accused of plagiarizing Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal in Tokyopop Rising Star entry Samurai Zombie. Samurai Zombie is currently one of 20 finalists for Tokyopop's People's Choice Award, in which the top 7 will be published in Rising Stars of Manga volume 6.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/image.php?im=images/misc/news.2006-03-17.rising.jpg
(From: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=8571)

[Libby]

The artist is still definitely very talented... I don't know why he'd do something so stupid as to plagarize BoI in a manga called "Zombie Samurai"! As much as I like his style in general, I can't in good conscience vote for a comic so unoriginal. :(

[Adrian_Alexander]

He should be cast from the top twenty immediatly! I wonder if he will get sued...

[Aratos]

Yeah, so they look similar. That's how things work. You copy an idea from someone, it's plagarism. Copy lots of ideas it's research.

[Adrian_Alexander]

They look like edits of the original pictures. They don't just "look similar".

[thePatches]

Yes. The pages should be consiered plagerism because part of the point of drawing your own manga is to get your OWN STUFF in there, not someone else's. It should be pulled from the running for this.

Besides, when you limit yourself to the poses of others, you really limit your story too.

Also, when you send your submission to Rising Stars, you sign a form saying that the submission you are sending is is completely YOUR OWN WORK! It's one thing to copy poses from Posefile or photographs, but to rip them off of another manga artist is a whole new ballgame.

And if it's not taken out, it's going to make people lose faith in Tokyopop and American manga in general I think.

[Adrian_Alexander]

Exactly. Patches you hit it on the mark.

[Ambrose_Ring]

I didn't think that the story was good anyway. Actually, it kind of sucked...

[Ashton_Anchors]

Its fine to look at a picture for a quick reference (like how to position an eye in a certain pose or how an arm would look maybe take an arm pose from somewhere and attach it to something else from something else) I do that all the time with pictures, but when you take the whole picture and copy it.... *shakes head* And they submited that to TP Rising stars contest?? Sheesh!

[ailanthus]

There's no denying that the artist is very talented, even if it he takes the exact same image and tweaks it... so it's a shame that things turned out this way. (Well, the entry itself was rather weak, seemed that the writer didn't have knowledge of any punctuation other than the exclamation mark...) I'm surprised the people in charge of the contest didn't catch it, though. I hope they move up the next entry to fill the slot.

Reference pics, I can understand... but the exact same folds in the clothing, and the same tufts of hair? That's just not on.

[Parfait]

Quite frankly, I'm pissed at this jerk who calls himself an artist. I'm sorry, but the similarities are way too much alike. I can understand the adaption of a story and artwork. But when you copy/trace actual pictures themselves, claim them as your own and attempt to publish them, it's an entirely different story. Who the hell would just blatently copy another person's artwork and then enter it in a contest for his own personal gain and popularity? That's just sad. And it's not what art is about.

But what really irks me is that this entry could have gone to an artist with an original piece of work - someone who actually deserves to be better known. Not only is it illegal, but it's disrespectful to other unknown artists who actually deserve the spotlight. I'm not going to feel a single ounce of pity for a person who does this kind of thing.

[earthboundwish]

This really makes me sad... I mean, if you're going to take the time to make an entry, you want to make sure that you put all of your heart into it. :(

[silentfae]

This really makes me sad... I mean, if you're going to take the time to make an entry, you want to make sure that you put all of your heart into it. :(
I muchly agree with that statement it really makes me sad ;_;

[Holy Dragon Sword]

Wow, talk about flagrant disrespect.

[thePatches]

Just knowing it's still in the running makes me not want to ever try joining this contest. If people can cheat and become a finalist...that's not saying much about the contest itself. It's just not very prestigious anymore ya know?

Anyway, yeah. Now I'm going to think in the future, about people who do make it to the finals, "Meh, you can cheat and make it that far, they'd never notice or do anything about it."

[MikeyS]

Maybe the dude isn't getting any votes so they are just letting it be...

(Still wrong though...)

[thePatches]

He shouldn't be allowed to get votes. That's the thing. That spot belongs to someone more deserving and talanted.

[Parfait]

Just knowing it's still in the running makes me not want to ever try joining this contest. If people can cheat and become a finalist...that's not saying much about the contest itself. It's just not very prestigious anymore ya know?

I couldn't agree more. When they get to the top 20 finalists, they should check for these things and it's ridiculous they didn't. Especially considering that if Samurai Zombie did in fact get published and someone found out about the plagiarism, they'd probably be in some deep legal trouble and be sued. On top of that, with the entry and Blade of the Immortal being so similiar (I noticed this right away and I don't even read the manga), I'm surprised they didn't look through the original for plargiarism.

Or maybe making money off of good stolen artwork is more important to them than fairly decent original works. Because in the world of art, prettier things sell. Yeah, Tokyopop, you heard me.

I'm really curious to know what Tokyopop is going to do about this. Probably at least half of their readers know about this now, and we're all waiting for an answer. Personally I think both Tokyopop and the artist himself owes us apologies, but that's just me. :/

[Jei-Chan]

He shouldn't be allowed to get votes. That's the thing. That spot belongs to someone more deserving and talanted.


That is a really good point! Pladgerizing is the most annoying thing on earth to me. Can't you just be original? It's sad. Really sad... /_\;

[thePatches]

I couldn't agree more. When they get to the top 20 finalists, they should check for these things and it's ridiculous they didn't. Especially considering that if Samurai Zombie did in fact get published and someone found out about the plagiarism, they'd probably be in some deep legal trouble and be sued. On top of that, with the entry and Blade of the Immortal being so similiar (I noticed this right away and I don't even read the manga), I'm surprised they didn't look through the original for plargiarism.


I wouldn't even expect the judges to read every manga out there to compare, but Blade is like, one of the most popular manga in the world! People who don't even read manga read it. I woder what Dark Horse (don't they publish Blade?) would think if they knew TP was letting this go right under their noses.

I also wonder why none of the editors have responded anywhere in this post? They respond to other posts on the board and in thie forum, why not this one? They might just be waiting for the whole thing to be over, the votes tallied and the controversy to pass. Then again, they might get in trouble from their superiors if they do >.>

[Ambrose_Ring]

I've never read Blade, and I consider myself a big manga fan. (And I've never once heard anyone mention it at the anime club that I go to, and there are usually 40+ people there.)

But, while I still disagree with the plagiarism, I can't really blame Tokyopop for it--after all, we're all quite falliable. And, really, how much would someone have to look to realize that those images were probably plariarized? If you ask me, it's pretty abstract and it would have been easy to overlook.

Everybody makes mistakes--and you all know that if Tokyopop had actually realized that it was plagiarized, they would never have let it into the top twenty. It's simply a matter of whether you've read Blade enough times to get a sense of deja-vu.

Although, on note that the story sucked, I can be annoyed at Tokyopop because the plot, plain and simple, wasn't good enough for it to be let into the top twenty. *brood*

[thePatches]

But now that it's been pointed out, you'd think something would be done about it? Then again, perhals they are investigating it themselves....

I've never read Blade, either, not my style of comic, but I know many people that do...

And yeah, I can undersand wy it was not caught, but the evidence now is amazing, I think most people just want to know what it going to be done about it.

[Parfait]

I wouldn't even expect the judges to read every manga out there to compare, but Blade is like, one of the most popular manga in the world! People who don't even read manga read it. I woder what Dark Horse (don't they publish Blade?) would think if they knew TP was letting this go right under their noses.

I also wonder why none of the editors have responded anywhere in this post? They respond to other posts on the board and in thie forum, why not this one? They might just be waiting for the whole thing to be over, the votes tallied and the controversy to pass. Then again, they might get in trouble from their superiors if they do >.>

Looking at the Dark Horse site yesterday, they didn't comment about it. I'm guessing they either don't care, or are amused at the amount of publicity this is giving them without them having to do a single thing. Or! What if Hendra (the plagiarist) works for DH and did this for the publicity? :0 But that's thinking too much.

I'm guessing they're trying to figure out how to deal with it. They have a lot of problems they're going to have to deal with. Will RSoM be continued when there's now clearly a possibility that cheaters can win? How are they going to handle future problems like this? What will they say/do to assure future entrients (if RSoM continues) that this won't happen again? Will they replace Samurai Zombie with another unannounced entry and have the voting process be repeated again? There's a lot of decisions to make, so they probably can't decide everything in a few days. I give them til Monday or Tuesday. They still have some serious 'splainin to do. D<

[MikeyS]

Yes but what if this also makes RSoM stronger? By having a plagiarist get this far they could get more into it and make sure and check every entry... But that takes too much work so I doubt it...

(Has gone to the Darkhorse site and wants Blade soooo bad!)

[Parfait]

Yes but what if this also makes RSoM stronger? By having a plagiarist get this far they could get more into it and make sure and check every entry... But that takes too much work so I doubt it...

They might try to up their security by looking out for plagiarism, but they've also got to think about the negative impact this is going to have on the public. People don't want to enter contests where their entry might lose to a cheater.

[MikeyS]

Think of what would have happened if this was not discovered! Think if this person made it into first place! Tokyopop would be done. But the whole thing was caught sooner but rather late. This is just so weird and abnormal for a manga company. Shouldn't they have information on the other manga titles out there?

[PeterAhlstrom]

I also wonder why none of the editors have responded anywhere in this post? They respond to other posts on the board and in thie forum, why not this one? They might just be waiting for the whole thing to be over, the votes tallied and the controversy to pass. Then again, they might get in trouble from their superiors if they do >.>

I don't know why no one has responded. I'm not involved with Rising Stars myself, so I was waiting for someone involved to say something. I think it is safe for me to say that we know about it, that this entry was not one of the ones chosen for the book by the editors, but was considered good enough to make the top 20, that at least one of the editors said "this guy reads too much Blade of the Immortal" during the judging process. But the natural good-faith assumption was that they just admired it and took inspiration from it. Anyway, I'm glad it got caught this early, though in this particular case it wasn't on track to make the book anyway. I myself got burned by a plagiarist once before when I worked at a magazine, and it's extremely embarrassing.

As for replacing this entry with another deserving artist, it's not that simple. There is no set person whose entry was #21. The initial judges go through and pick the top 20; the in-book winners are selected from those top 20. There would be a few titles that were just out of the top 20, but they'd have to go through and pick one of those to replace it with, and it's not likely that person would win anyway--we would like to assume that the People would choose one of the ones we chose for the book already anyway, though that didn't happen with volume 5.

[MikeyS]

Yeah but you don't know his original intentions. Hendra could have been thinking "Hey since Blade is so popular maybe if I usee a bit of its flavor I may just have a better chance at getting in." But Hendra used way to much and knew it but purposely sent it in...

But as I said we don't know.

[Ambrose_Ring]

They might try to up their security by looking out for plagiarism, but they've also got to think about the negative impact this is going to have on the public. People don't want to enter contests where their entry might lose to a cheater.

Well, if it were me, I'd just try to make my entry even better so that there was no way that a plagiarist could beat mine out.

[MikeyS]

But THINK about it. If you were someone trying to break into a certain scene and someone beat you with plagiarised work and you were set on that company would it not turn you away if that company chose that plagiarised work over your original?

[Parfait]

Hendra could have been thinking "Hey since Blade is so popular maybe if I usee a bit of its flavor I may just have a better chance at getting in."

If by using a bit of it's flavor, he meant stealing actual artwork directly from it, then I'd have to agree with that. I don't see anything wrong at all with having a similiar style to someone. My own is typical of a lot of shoujo style art, so I'd be a hypocrite if I said it was wrong. But he copied the actual pictures, even down to the small details like shading and backgrounds. So I think that the thing on his mind was more of "maybe if I steal this artwork without anyone noticing, I may just have a better chance of getting in".

Well, if it were me, I'd just try to make my entry even better so that there was no way that a plagiarist could beat mine out.

Ok. Except it doesn't matter if the quality of the plagiarist's art is proffesionally done. Which was what happened in this case.

[thePatches]

that at least one of the editors said "this guy reads too much Blade of the Immortal" during the judging process. But the natural good-faith assumption was that they just admired it and took inspiration from it. Anyway, I'm glad it got caught this early, though in this particular case it wasn't on track to make the book anyway. I myself got burned by a plagiarist once before when I worked at a magazine, and it's extremely embarrassing.



Thanks Peter ^^ That helps out a bit in knowing that TP is at least noticing. lol, "this guy reads too much BofI"

lmao

okay, so I still <3 Tokyopop.

[Ambrose_Ring]

...Um.

The reason why I said that I'd try to make my entry better was to show that not everyone didn't want to enter the contest because of this--some might get an even stronger incentive to do so (as I did...).

But I still say that if you're good enough to be noticed, then the company shouldn't let you be beat out by a (professional-level) plagiarist (because shouldn't you also be professional-level--or something close?). And even if you did get beat, if getting noticed was your dream, then you should be willing to try for it over and over again.

And besides, it seems to me that people who are low enough to plagiarize something are plagiarists because they're trying to make up for something--and usually, even when they copy, that fault (or maybe even a different one) still shows through.

Yes, I'd be pissed off, but I'd keep trying--and I'd acknowledge that if something like that was picked over my entry, then there must have been a reason why they didn't like mine as much.

[Parfait]

The reason why I said that I'd try to make my entry better was to show that not everyone didn't want to enter the contest because of this--some might get an even stronger incentive to do so (as I did...).

Alright. I'm sure that you're a talented artist so I want you to know that this isn't directed at you. But having a strong incentive about something doesn't make your art magically better. If it did, there would be a lot more published comic artists right now. It is a necessary ingredient to doing good art in my opinion, but it doesn't effect the quality of your art in the way that practice and studying does. To want something and to have the ability to do it aren't exactly the same thing.

Plagiarism won't effect the outcome of RSoM in a positive way ever. Period.

[Ambrose_Ring]

To want something and to have the ability to do it aren't exactly the same thing.

That's what I was trying to say (in much more indirect manner). (And, yes, I definitely know that having a strong incentive won't improve your art--if I don't know this, being an artist, then I'm already screwed for life.)

Plagiarism won't effect the outcome of RSoM in a positive way ever. Period.

Of course it won't--I don't think it would ever effect anything positively. But it doesn't seem likely that it will happen again--I mean, this was first time in the starting six contents of RSoM that it happened, and I bet that now, the judges will be even more watchful of these kinds of things.

[Parfait]

Hm. Ok then. oO; That sounds that the opposite of you what you were trying to say before, but alright. Sorry, I got confused.

[Ambrose_Ring]

Well, I might have worded it wrong, but that's what I meant to say. ^_^;

[Izlude]

What I find amusing is, when a fan makes an amature comic with a great deal of influence/refrence or "plagiarism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarizing)", everyone gets mad. Yet when a manga series that has been going on for years supposedly is guilty of plagiarism, not many people care. Yeah, I'm talking about Ikkitousen/Battle Vixen's plagiarism of Tenjou Tenge. But if Tokyopop is going to publish another series by Ikkitousen's creator, it must be doing pretty well then, disregard the plagiarism accusations.

Although I find it disturbing that a title would get canceled over some basketball scenes (Which were "plagiarized" from Slam Dunk), while another title gets away with it, if it is really considered to be plagiarism.

[Pig Head]

I was wondering if the Tokyopop editors intentionally put in this entry in order to generate some dialogue on the issue of "inspiration" in manga art?

How many submissions do you think the editors get that are totally bootlegged off of something else.

Brings up a couple of good issues--we need a doujinshi market here. This artist should forget about "samurai zombie" and just do BOI fanbooks.

[thePatches]

I was wondering if the Tokyopop editors intentionally put in this entry in order to generate some dialogue on the issue of "inspiration" in manga art?

How many submissions do you think the editors get that are totally bootlegged off of something else.

Brings up a couple of good issues--we need a doujinshi market here. This artist should forget about "samurai zombie" and just do BOI fanbooks.

We will never have a doujin market here. The closest you can get is selling them in artists alley at conventions.

[Parfait]

I was wondering if the Tokyopop editors intentionally put in this entry in order to generate some dialogue on the issue of "inspiration" in manga art?

How many submissions do you think the editors get that are totally bootlegged off of something else.

I actually thought about that. But haven't come to any conclusions on it, so I don't want to say much.

[Izlude]

Now that I think about it, I don't think I've seen one straight up shonen action title in RSoT, or at least from what I've seen. I've been expecting to see like a million big adventure of a lifetime titles like DragonBall and One Piece. XD

[PeNCILz]

Maybe that is because Tokyopop only liscenses new mang-kas three volumes and large scale adventures are hard to do in just three...

[Alexis]

No, it's because the people who submit those kinds of stories aren't good enough yet.

[Izlude]

Maybe that is because Tokyopop only liscenses new mang-kas three volumes and large scale adventures are hard to do in just three...

.hack//Legend of the Twlight Bracelet was quite an adventure for 3 volumes if it counts. But then again, if someone made more manga like that, we'd never seen the end of MMORPG's spawning like mad.

[gynocrat]

I think it is safe for me to say that we know about it, that this entry was not one of the ones chosen for the book by the editors, but was considered good enough to make the top 20, that at least one of the editors said "this guy reads too much Blade of the Immortal" during the judging process.

Actually no, it went like this:

LillianDP Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
Heh. The whole Samurai Zombie being selected thing can entirely be attributed to the fact that none of the three editors who decided on the top 20 entries (including myself) have read Blade of the Immortal (for shame!).

-source/ Love Manga


And I find the doujinshi comment here very interesting:

What I find amusing is, when a fan makes an amature comic with a great deal of influence/refrence or "plagiarism", everyone gets mad. Yet when a manga series that has been going on for years supposedly is guilty of plagiarism, not many people care.

I think it's the nature of those making fan comics. Ripping whole panels and scene and plot ideas is a major no no because fan comics are an artists way of paying homage or 'cosplaying' their favorite creator so when someone rips that from them there is a hella outcry.

I think the entry will likely be removed quietly in order to maintain the integrity of the competition, because RSOM is still an excellent springboard for English language creators...unfortunately this punch on the chin might leave a bruise.

[Rem Akimichi]

*shakes head* The thought that someone with that much artistic talent would stoop to such a low thing is very disheartening. I understand being stuck for ideas on how to do a panel or so (believe me, I've been tearing my hair out over a sequence of panels that I'm thumbnailing for my own RSoM entry) but that doesn't mean you should just go and copy someone else to get past that. Its sad, and pathetic.

I think the reason that the entry is still up, however, is because Tokyopop can't just take it down on hearsay. Yes, they are simular, and yes, theres a lot of proof against them, but the company needs to do their own investagating before yanking it out of the running. It's just the way things work. I don't think it would have won anyways, plaugerism accusations or no. The art is lovely, but the way they tell the story isn't as good as it could be. Too stiff and the dialouge is very stilted, in my opinion.

[KaYoKitten]

^^; Silly me, I waited long enough to read about five pages into that one before deciding it was way too underdone and cliched to get my attention. Blade isn't one of my favorite manga, but it definitely has a little spot on my shelf as a firstie--the manga that I buy the first volumes of only to figure out if I like it or not. I unfortunately see this panel and art ripping a little too often on deviantart, but at least they give credit where it is due.

I entered this past time, too, and to see this one up there in the top twenty breaks my heart. Copying something line for line takes half the time, and the stilted dialogue and crammed story are byproducts of the fact that they were hunting down things that would look good on the page instead of thinking for themselves. Tokyopop didn't notice right away and they got the slot that may have been for another more worthy candidate.

I know my entry wasn't good enough--just looking at the other entries tells me that. I wish they could pull the entry, but I know how things work in a bureaucracy. In two days, voting will be over and we will have the top entry. It probably won't be that one, we can only hope. To think, in college you can get completely kicked out of any institution for plagiarizing. And in the real world, someone may have almost gotten published. A sad state of affairs.

[Joshua Elder]

There's a fine line between homage and plagiarism. I know that I've walked it many times myself. The entire five page opening sequence is pretty much word for word (though there only five lines of dialog) taken from Transformers: The Movie. Even some the panels are inspired by shots from the movie. Still, I don't consider it plagairism. The sequence is transparently designed to make people think of Transformers when they read it. It's the equivalent of a hip-hop producer using a well-known rock riff as a bass line. Or the "cripple fight" sequence in South Park that was taken shot for shot from John Carpenter's They Live. Or the endless pastiches of the Mona Lisa or the Last Supper that have permeated the art world for hundreds of years.

Plagairism is a different animal. It's taking the work of other people and trying to pass it off as your own. In this case it's an artist copying -- if not outright tracing -- someone else's work in perfect detail and then using it to tell his own story. And while it is possible that the work was intended as an homage, the fact that the artwork was copied so exactly and without even the vaguest hint of irony would seem to indicate otherwise.

[yukineko]

So sad =S, I hope in RSOM7 this won't happen again X_X, because I'll be for the RSOM 7 =3 (hopefully in the 20 finalist xD)

[Klawzie]

Well, plagerized works are automatically disqualified anyway, so if someone is ridiculous enough to try it, it won't get them anywhere!