In the early 1990s, Keiko Nagita, the author of Candy Candy who wrote the story under the pen name Kyoko Mizuki, brought a lawsuit against Yumiko Igarashi, the manga artist for Candy Candy for copyrights infringement. The lawsuit lasted almost the entire decade, with the court in Japan ruling that Nagita was the sole author who owned the copyrights to the Candy Candy story. The court further ruled that Nagita and Igarashi has co-ownership of the copyright to the manga illustration of Candy Candy.

Nagita initiated the lawsuit when Igarashi began creating new Candy Candy goods and products without Nagita’s consent. After the ruling, Igarashi and the companies that worked with her to sell and distribute Candy Candy merchandises were ordered to pay Nagita ¥29,500,000 or 3% of their sales.

The unfortunate event and the breakdown of the relationship between Nagita and Igarashi is the reason why Candy Candy stopped airing on broadcast TV, and all Candy Candy related goods including manga reprints had ceased.

In his book, Mystery of the Sealed Work (published by Tankobon), author Kenji Ando investigated and chronicled in details of what happened in this conflict behind the scene of Candy Candy. Below, we provide a rough translation of his book for any fan interested knowing more about the fall out and copyright lawsuit between the author and the manga artist.

Here are also some articles on what happened:

• The Candy Candy Nightmare, Sep 13th 2003, Anime New Network
• Candy Candy: why the famous Japanese cartoon would be banned on television, March 3, 2022, americapost.

About Kenji Ando: Born 1976 in Saitama, Saitama Prefecture. After graduating from Waseda University, Faculty of Letters I, he joined the Sankei Shimbun at its Tokyo head office, where he worked in the Digital Media Department and the Saitama General Bureau. Since leaving the newspaper in 2004, he has been active as a non-fiction writer. He has mainly published reportage exposing the underbelly of subcultures. His best-known works are the Sealed Works series, including Mystery of Sealed Works (Ota Publishing). In this series, he pursues the mysteries of masterpieces such as Candy Candy, which are no longer published.