Anime & Manga News

Art Author of Muv Luv Alternative: TE Gets Fired

by dtshyk
Jun 11, 2012 8:43 PM | 83 Comments
Anime production studio Ixtl has announced on their official website that they fired illustrator Miyata So, the art author of Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse novel. Miyata is one of the key illustrators of adult game developer age and the original character designer of Total Eclipse series. There has been a suspicion of plagiarism in Miyaha's official illustration published on Animage magazine July issue.

Comparison between Miyata's illustration in question and the plagiarized ones
Comparison between Total Eclipse official hug pillow with Miyata's illustration and another hug pillow of Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica

The contours of the characters in Miyata's illustration seem to be copied from other works of Ikkitousen, IS: Infinite Stratos and To LOVE-Ru.

Source: Announcement by Ixtl (PDF file)

20 of 83 Comments Recent Comments

Ale1212 said:

JUMP isn't a company, Shueisha is.

Opss silly me..sorry..

its Shueisha and Viz Media XD LOL
Gambate Miyata ! !


Apr 17, 2013 8:01 PM by Busujima_Saeko

Busujima_Saeko said:
they just jealous at Miyata art that become popular in short of time. Well miyata should just work with JUMP just like Gintama.. he just need big company like JUMP to support his art.

keep on going Miyata.. i really hope we will see another Season Muv Luv Alternative : Total Eclipse

JUMP isn't a company, Shueisha is.

Apr 17, 2013 2:49 PM by Ale1212

they just jealous at Miyata art that become popular in short of time. Well miyata should just work with JUMP just like Gintama.. he just need big company like JUMP to support his art.

keep on going Miyata.. i really hope we will see another Season Muv Luv Alternative : Total Eclipse

Apr 15, 2013 1:51 AM by Busujima_Saeko

outlaw98 said:
Lol. From what I can tell, every manga and anime has plagiarized something in one way or another.


Agreed there. I love them.... but I still agree with that comment.

Nov 12, 2012 11:39 AM by windeen-windy

Lol. From what I can tell, every manga and anime has plagiarized something in one way or another.

Nov 10, 2012 11:39 PM by outlaw98

Pitiful..

His artworks look fairly good.. I kind of like it!

Nov 9, 2012 8:29 AM by removed-user

this is kinda sad... since I love this series and so is the vn >.<

Oct 29, 2012 7:57 PM by shi0nmaku

Hahaha, thats cookie cutter style of nowadays, who cares, everything looks the damn same, so generic.

Oct 21, 2012 6:52 PM by 9988

These are pretty generic/basic poses... Even if the lines match so closely, Don't know if you really can just accuse him of plagiarism.

Oct 21, 2012 2:57 PM by Ochimusha

twonline said:
He only plagiarized poses (character designs are not plagiarized), and only for a poster. Why fire him?


Technically, if a piece of art is changed at least 75% - 85% then it can't be considered a infringe on a copyright OR Plagiarism as far as I know (In America anyway). That's speaking from the place of being a Fine Artist in America though, It may be completely different for Manga and Anime Artists in Japan though I suppose.
That being said, He could have been a bit more creative and a bit more thoughtful, and careful when he got the first warning. They shouldn't have needed to give him a second warning, and he also could have done it differently-Example:
He could have taken an arm pose and a leg pose that fit with a body pose from something else (In other words- wouldn't look anything other than a normal pose- I mean if they didn't fit it would look like they were mangled by BETA... >_>... minus the blood and gore though.... I assume that would also negate the "Sexiness" that they were trying for).

Quite often artists will do that, when they are unable to get live models for their project. It's not considered bad (In American fine artist circles anyway), There are also thousands of stock images on the net that are free from royalty, licensing or copyrights or with limited ones (3 that I know of off of the top of my head are Deviant-Art's Stock Image section (where permission of the content being used is requested in most cases- People dress up in outfits from wedding dresses to mid-evil attire and also take photos of hand, Head & feet and leg poses As well as facial expressions and other things, for reference material), The Art Morgue (Just as it says, it's a sort of morgue of reference and stock images of people places and things, It, like Deviant-Art also have landscapes, animals as well as human poses) and I stock also).
He had plenty of other options open when he got the first warning, and I'm sure they were not unknown to him. He may have also been able to afford human models (Though I don't know if the studio would have allowed it).


I do think that firing him was a bit harsh, given that, from what I can tell is that he just used the pose alone, They were changed at least 75%.... also you need to take into account if the characters who he copied from came from the same anime, or were in a picture together. Of the examples shown, I've only seen Ikkitousen & Polyphonica... so I don't know the other girls in the group image that he snatched the poses from. But their not even from the same anime or in a picture together, That in itself changes the image by about 30 - 50% IMO.... If they were in those poses together it would have been more cut and dry.
However I also can understand where their coming from, if someone decided to sue over it it would be the discretion of an outside party and that would leave it up to the perspective of how that person or persons saw it. And they couldn't afford that possibility- therefore he became a liability.
Bottom Line is, he should have known better and used a different method.... That way they could not have fired him for it.
Also, I should add, that while what I said above is not seen as bad, tracing in those situations is obviously shunned.... by most professional circles I am involved in.
Using references is sometimes unavoidable, especial artists who were taught in the way of "Draw what you see" cannot avoid this, when their trained like that it can put restrictions on them and they NEED to look at something to be able to focus. However most of the artists in the Anime/Manga industry seem to not have been taught in that matter so they are not restricted like that. Or shouldn't be anyway.

Oct 14, 2012 2:13 AM by windeen-windy

This explains why the cover of the BD/DVD volume 1 looks more like a cover for Saki than Total Eclipse...

Sep 14, 2012 3:38 AM by symbv

I find it funny that a pose being copied is considered plagiarism. I could see it if it was a direct copy of the character including face and clothes but a simple pose or gesture...come on now. I'm cracking up even more from the fact that one artist got in trouble for copying real life people's poses. You've gotta be kidding me. There's only so many poses you can make in a beach scene for a poster.

Sep 13, 2012 8:50 PM by DeathfireD

That's stupid, those poses are fairly common in anime lol, it's impossible to be completely original when drawing, people always gets influenced by things (im not saying he didn't copy the poses though)

Jul 31, 2012 11:00 AM by skualninja

I can say from an artists' perspective that if I ever made money off of my artwork and someone traced over it and got money for it as well, I'd want them fired as well.

You're acting like it's easy for someone to make those kind of poses and drawings. Yeah, it's not at all. I get that there are similar poses, but none of them can look so identical to each other like those have. Every artist has some type of variety in an original art piece, and there's obviously none there.

Good riddance.

Jul 29, 2012 6:46 AM by ihateeveryone

First of all, he must be a hell of a tracer cause every time I try to trace something the lines come out worse than if I had just eyeballed it.

Second of all, I can see the point that everyone is making about tracing being so much more serious than just eyeballing and copying but if he had just copied, wouldn't the picture still have, good balance, attractive lines, and an image that engages the viewer?

Looking at a picture for reference is fine. Whether copying or tracing, taking the image lines verbatim and claiming them for your own is wrong. Traced or not, he never should have copied.

Jul 4, 2012 12:17 PM by sisngood

Tracing is the same as copying and pasting a snippet of someone else's novel and changing a few words here and there. It's the same as looking over to your friend's desk and copying their answers on their test except changing a few words here and there to make it sound like your own answer.

Although I agree that it takes effort to come up with new clothes and hair, the hardest thing for an artist (a friggin PAID one, by a company who also hire other artists, who pride themselves on their individual skills and talents) is to come up with a picture with GOOD BALANCE, ATTRACTIVE LINES, and one that ENGAGES THE VIEWER. Copying someone else's contours is stealing their efforts to create that balance. These artists pride themselves on coming up with those poses (even if that means using something as reference, which, MY GOD, is not the same as tracing and those who say, "but they could have eyeballed it real well" needs to just.. UGH!). I think a lot of you guys do not understand that doing something like this is a HUGE slap in the face to his other colleagues as well as his company, and being pressured to take a shortcut doesn't justify his wrongdoing. 2ch recognized this and outed him.

I say this as an artist who, even in a million years, will NEVER draw as well as this fired artist, as I'm sure SOME of his work is purely his own creation. He is a great artist, and although it seems as a waste to me, I understand why his company fired him. I only wonder how he will find work in the same field again since his culture is really into company image and all that. Wish him the best.

Jul 3, 2012 10:05 AM by rohiga

jmal said:
SnakeBeater said:
I read this a while back and I understand that he was warned and fired, but if he was convicted because of his drawings, then where's Muv Luv Alternative to be headed now? I mean character drawings are still going to remain the same, or are they going to change? Or are the visual novels going to be cancelled, or redrawn? Does anyone know anything beyond that?

This is completely different. It's not that the character designs are ripoffs. They aren't. This specific piece of art was a ripoff in terms of being clearly traced from existing artwork.

This won't have any impact on the Muv Luv franchise.


Great! Good to know, thanks.

Jun 21, 2012 3:07 PM by SnakeBeater

I read this a while back and I understand that he was warned and fired, but if he was convicted because of his drawings, then where's Muv Luv Alternative to be headed now? I mean character drawings are still going to remain the same, or are they going to change? Or are the visual novels going to be cancelled, or redrawn? Does anyone know anything beyond that?

Jun 21, 2012 2:54 PM by SnakeBeater

What else can be said, he traced it, if people think it's okay, then by those rules, anyone could be an artist. Why even bother drawing it yourself when you can just trace? Oh, right, I think he may be getting paid to produce original artwork...hm. Do I care as a viewer of said art? Nah, I would never notice that at all. Do I care as someone who does not approve of taking someone else's work, tracing it, and adding different clothes to try and hide the fact that they stole it? Yes. You have to fire the guy. I'd be pissed if someone was profiting off my hard work and passing it off as their own, whether it's art or not. This is black and white. He was warned - twice, apparently. That's enough. Learn your lesson and move on.

Jun 14, 2012 10:28 AM by SANstorm

^
And I should thank to him for choosing mine but not the others.

And I really think that Leonardo da Vinci is really happy that the world is "copy and paste"-ing his Mona Lisa everywhere.

Jun 14, 2012 8:38 AM by Siva

It’s time to ditch the text file.
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