New manga caught copying Death Note & other manga

[The Xenos]

According to Kodansha, the manga Megabaka by Naka Gomura was flagged after its release by readers. Those readers noticed that the manga included some images similar to those found in popular manga such as Death Note, Air Gear, and MPD-Psycho. After Kodansha representatives ruled that a large portion of Megabaka contained plagiarized images, Gomura admitted to the acts, and an apology was issued.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-12-22/shonen-magazine-editors-apologize-for-death-note-plagiarism

There's also a link to some examples. Here's a few of them. Here's the Japanese site that posted them (http://guideline.livedoor.biz/archives/51013089.html). One image is of thumbnails of the pages and how much of the new manga it was copied art.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/5633/f7576455en9.th.jpg (http://img256.imageshack.us/my.php?image=f7576455en9.jpg) http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/9029/18ba41f2eu6.th.jpg (http://img256.imageshack.us/my.php?image=18ba41f2eu6.jpg)

[Young Avenger]

I see that Greg Land has a new alias.

[Armless Penguin]

Seriously? DEATH NOTE? Why don't these people ever try copying from mangas no one has ever heard of and not the hyper-successful ones?

[Legato]

Seriously? DEATH NOTE? Why don't these people ever try copying from mangas no one has ever heard of and not the hyper-successful ones?

Either that or just come up with original material by themselves.

[Kage Kisaragi]

if i were gonna do something like this, I'd at least use the first rule of cinema "always keep the camera moving." in the sense that I would have done it from a different angle, and/or positioned the characters in a different way..

Lets face it there is nothing new in terms of character positioning, however it doesn't mean we can at least try to do something a little different. I mean staring at you right hand and speaking is nothing new in any media, but he could have done the same scene from a worms eye view and it would have been even more dynamic or emotional.

[Inkthinker]

if i were gonna do something like this, I'd at least use the first rule of cinema "always keep the camera moving." in the sense that I would have done it from a different angle, and/or positioned the characters in a different way..

Lets face it there is nothing new in terms of character positioning, however it doesn't mean we can at least try to do something a little different. I mean staring at you right hand and speaking is nothing new in any media, but he could have done the same scene from a worms eye view and it would have been even more dynamic or emotional.

I think you're missing the point... if he could have drawn it from a different angle, he wouldn't have needed to trace it from Obata and others. This isn't about composition or camera... it's about direct swiping via (I assume) lightbox.

[Kage Kisaragi]

if he was straight tracing then it would look exactly like the other guys, thats the whole point of tracing, but what he was doing was borrowing directly from this guys idea, the images are different enough that you can see he didn't trace it, but they are similiar enough that you can see he copied the idea exactly.

[CrossoverManiac]

He wasn't plagiarizing. He was 'researching' :p

Edit: *points out old joke about the difference between plagiarism (only one source) and research (multiple sources)*

[Laughing Mask]

whoa! that's some serious legal trouble for them right there!

[Inkthinker]

if he was straight tracing then it would look exactly like the other guys, thats the whole point of tracing, but what he was doing was borrowing directly from this guys idea, the images are different enough that you can see he didn't trace it, but they are similiar enough that you can see he copied the idea exactly.

Man, this is an almost textbook example of "swiping". I'm willing to bet that if I superimpose those two faces in the first example, they're going to line up nearly exactly. Changing up the hairstyle and the clothing doesn't make it any less of a swipe.

If you trace the face, you're swiping. If you trace the hands, you're swiping. Speaking as a guy who draws for a living, I'm less harsh on the technique of tracing a photograph to create a good illustration... hell, I've traced a car or a gun to save time and trouble, I've traced a building when I needed it to be a specific building, I've traced a face when I needed it to be a specific person... but if you swipe art to art then that's about as close to the definition of "cheating" as we can get in this business. It's one of the only ironclad rules: You do not trace another man's lines.

If you do trace, even with photos, you gotta at least be straight up about it. You won't get no respect, but at least you're not lying about your own skills.

[MartinRedmond]

You mean there's more than one artist drawing Japanese comics and anime?

[AnimeAvatar]

Either that or just come up with original material by themselves.

I have a feeling that, much like American movies as of late, they are running out of ideas for anything new.