When someone shows you who they really are, believe them—the first time, the second time, and especially when they try to scrub the evidence afterward.
If you thought the old “apologise publicly, then quietly delete the post once everyone’s moved on” routine was the preserve of disgraced TikTok personalities and politicians, think again. Japan’s manga establishment has just delivered a masterclass in audacity.
Hisashi Eguchi, a veteran illustrator, evidently decided that accountability is something other people worry about.
What Actually Happened
Towards the tail end of 2025, Eguchi was commissioned to produce a promotional illustration for the Chuo Line Cultural Festival. The resulting image featured a striking young woman—but the striking part was just how strikingly familiar she looked.
She looked exactly like a photograph of a real person that Eguchi had found on social media and traced without so much as a courtesy enquiry.
Rather than seeking permission before publication, Eguchi apparently thought the optimal strategy was to ask after the work had already been displayed publicly. The organisers, to their credit, removed the image the same day.
Faced with mounting criticism, Eguchi posted a lengthy apology on , noting that a legal settlement had been reached with the young woman’s representatives.
The Non-Apology
The apology itself was a curious document. Eguchi defended tracing—placing a photograph underneath and drawing directly over it—as a “normal technique,” claiming that equating it with theft was “simple-minded.”
He did eventually concede, with what one might charitably call reluctance, that using someone’s face and body without permission could make them feel “uncomfortable.”
Ground-breaking stuff.
Then It Vanished
This week: the apology vanished. Completely scrubbed from his official accounts. No explanation. No follow-up statement. Just a suspicious absence where accountability used to be.
Eguchi hasn’t addressed the deletion, leaving observers to wonder whether genuine remorse ever existed or whether he simply tired of the negative commentary clustering beneath his posts.
The Double Standard
The Japanese forums, predictably, have had thoughts. There’s a palpable frustration brewing:
- Emerging artists who cut corners are shown the door immediately, their careers incinerated for the slightest transgression.
- Established figures appear to operate under different rules—one set for the plebeians, another for those with decades of clout.
What This Is Really About
What we’re watching isn’t really about tracing technique or artistic process. It’s about power.
Specifically: who holds enough of it to take someone else’s image, monetise it, issue a defensive non-apology, and then retrospectively delete the record of having apologised at all. Most people don’t get that latitude.
The Question the Industry Must Confront
The broader question isn’t whether tracing constitutes a valid artistic method—reasonable people can disagree on technique. The real issue is:
Should longevity and status purchase immunity from the consequences that younger, less powerful artists face routinely?
The silence from industry leadership speaks volumes about where they land on that question.
Something to Chew On
When public figures retroactively curate their mistakes out of existence:
- Are they banking on collective amnesia?
- Or simply demonstrating that they never intended accountability in the first place?
And perhaps more pressingly—if the consequences for artistic misconduct depend entirely on your position in the hierarchy, what message does that send to the next generation of creators watching from the margins?
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