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Masakazu Katsura, one of the manga creators who helped shape Weekly Shonen Jump’s golden era, has revealed that the original manuscript of his cult classic Video Girl Ai was stolen during a studio relocation and later found being sold through an online auction platform.
The manuscripts, estimated to be worth several million dollars, were taken last October.
According to Katsura, roughly 2,500 pages covering all 15 volumes of Video Girl Ai disappeared, while other original works, such as one-shots and materials from Wing-man, remained untouched.
The stolen materials began appearing on Yahoo Auctions Japan, with individual sheets selling for 100,000 to several hundred thousand yen, and some surpassing 1 million yen. At an estimated 300,000 yen per page, the total loss reaches approximately 750 million yen (about USD 5 million).
“It is absolutely impossible that I ‘accidentally disposed’ of the Video Girl Ai originals that I poured my life into,” the author stated.
He explained that the manuscripts had been stored securely in sealed envelopes inside a locked studio locker before the move. Katsura said he personally monitored the handling of his belongings: he checked every item sold to secondhand buyers, instructed disposal companies not to throw away any artwork or valuables, and told moving staff to transport the original pages directly to a designated storage space.
He emphasized that accidental disposal was impossible under these conditions.
After discovering about the missing manuscripts, Katsura’s team began investigating potential suspects. Information collected by his representatives, including an attorney, points to a moving company involved in the relocation and a secondhand dealer suspected of listing the stolen pages online.
“We also identified what seems to be an accomplice, a secondhand goods dealer linked to that company. Furthermore, when we filed an information disclosure request through the bar association, one of the accounts that had listed the stolen originals for auction turned out to have been created by that very dealer,” the attorney stated.
Although the police initially declined to accept a formal report, Katsura confirmed that he is preparing to file a criminal complaint with the authorities and plans to provide all gathered evidence, including the suspected link between the mover and the dealer.
Video Girl Ai, serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1989 to 1992, is regarded as a landmark romantic sci-fi series about a high school boy who encounters a mysterious girl emerging from a VHS tape.
By 2018, the manga had over 14 million copies in print.
The manga first received a live-action film in 1991, followed by a six-episode OVA produced by Production IG and released in 1992 by Jump Video. TV Tokyo later broadcast two drama adaptations: Den’ei Shojo: Video Girl Ai 2018 in 2018 and Den’ei Shojo: Video Girl Mai 2019 in 2019.
Source: Daily Shincho
