Otomate Art Tracing Scandal?

I just found out about this issue when I happened to see this tweet thread, which gives a summary of what's been going on regarding Yuiga Satoru, the artist for the Psychedelica series.

So I was told that there was a scandal in the otome game world again and when I looked into it with my informant:
Basically in December last year Yuiga Satoru (Psychedelica series) put up a blog post detailing their art being traced/pulled apart/being used as base by someone, "H"

— 雪菜 (@yukicchuu) March 21, 2020

Yuiga's blog post mentioned is here. (Titled 【平成のけじめ】). Her post discusses a timeline of events, including the drawing demonstration with a lawyer. She has also mentioned a bit of it on her Twitter:

[x]

Apparently Yuiga is compiling examples of traced art and supposedly has 300 so far. For a concise explanation about the lawyer and drawing demonstration, check out this thread.

Many believe "H" mentioned above is Hanamura Mai (Collar x Malice artist), especially since Yuiga tweeted the day after Collar x Malice released for Switch on March 12th.

Below is a comparison between Hanamura's Amnesia and CxM styles:

Amnesia vs CxM; click to enlarge

Of course, there is a 5 year difference between the series and it's totally plausible for style changes during that time! As an artist myself, I definitely know my drawings from 5 years were pretty different. Although normally you would see something that carries over, like lining, coloring etc. (I like to think that some of my defining traits are eyes and how I color, even though they may change throughout the years). A mainstream example would be comparing early Sebastian vs current Sebastian from Toboso's Black Butler; it's changed but you can tell it's the same person and style.

But the art is so drastically different that I actually didn't know they were by the same person until I looked into this issue. There are also comments about how the style for CxM has been a little inconsistent as of late...


While the thread by yukicchuu has a visual example in the thread, here's another example done similarly.

同じオトメイト作品で絵師やった漫画家からパクるレイター、そんな絵師を社内で囲ってトレパク絵でも売れればいいメーカー。神経が理解できない。 pic.twitter.com/jY9c3INBA2

— 鉢植え (@nafuruhatua) March 19, 2020

Another point made in the blog was that Hanamura needed to reference her own art, and that even with reference the art ended up drastically different. As an artist myself I definitely understand referencing my own art because sometimes I just space on how my characters look exactly. But the style turning out completely different and unrecognizable...???

According to some, Hanamura traces from different sources and combine them to create a full image? I don't know if that's true but if so I mean... tracing a partial or full image really is unacceptable at a professional level, especially for something commercially sold. It's okay to reference for learning purposes, but not for any kind of published works; That's just illustration 101.

I'm not sure how this will all end up. Otomate doesn't have the best history with taking care of their artists, evident with how they treated Hakuouki's artist Kazuki Yone. (Here's one of many posts about how Otomate severed ties with her to replace her with a copy-cat artist and the treatment they gave her afterwards)

Nothing official, but I've seen some comments saying H may be copying Piofore's art now as well which is... still just as concerning if true.

Of course, everything is speculation for now. Hopefully I'll be able to update as more things come to light, especially if Yuiga releases more information. Otome is already such a niche genre that it's a big blow when something like this happens. I don't want to think that something like this is true but.. 🤷

If it does turn out to be true, then a lot of faith in Otomate and Collar x Malice may be lost. (ﾟｰﾟ; )

Until next time folks.


Edit: I just discovered a blog post by yukicchuu, which also provides more details such as background information regarding the struggles Yuiga Satoru has had before her latest blog post, a translation of important parts of said blog post, more possible examples of traced work, and other community comments. You can give it a read here.