Chihayafuru is the title of a manga created by Yuki Suetsugu.
It is a surprise hit based on a traditional Japanese card game that almost no one outside Japan had heard of and it even has a hit
anime series. Now, doing her bid for charity, Suetsugu recently hosted an auction that
gave the winning bidder the right to appear in the Chihayafuru manga.
The winner of the auction could even decide if they want to be a
rival, a classmate etc, of the main characters and Suetsugu say she is also open to requests to which
character the winner wants to appear with. All profits from
the auction will go to helping those affected by the 2011 earthquake and
tsunami disaster.
In a show of how popular the manga is, the start bid for the
auction was 5,000 yen (about US$52), but it quickly rose to 100,000 yen (about
US$1,050). Now I am all for artists and writers doing their bid for
charity. However, I am also together against artists and writers selling scene
time for money.
The fact that the money will be used for a good cause is an
altogether different matter. Even if it’s for a good cause, selling scene time
in comics is something I’m against. This may be a one-off, but this is a slippery slope and something I hope will never happen again.
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