Takeshi Obata, the talented artist who brought Yumi Hotta’s story Hikaru no Go to life, has been arrested for weapons possession. He was apparently pulled over for driving without his headlights on, and police found he had a knife in his car.
Shueisha Inc., the publisher of Obata’s works, has said it will not withdraw Obata’s manga from the market, at least until they “get to the bottom of the incident”. Pata at Irresponsible Pictures has already weighed in on how ludicrous this sounds (at least to Americans).
Obata reportedly stated that he kept the knife in his car for camping.
Obata also illustrated Tsugumi Ohba’s Death Note series, which ended in May. It is apparently highly popular, having spawned two movies. Wikipedia has an interesting story about some “teasing” in Chinese schools based on the plot of the manga.