Cells At Work! Creator Akane Shimizu Details Years Of Editorial Mistreatment At Kodansha
Shimizu's public account, supported by documents, directly implicates Kodansha's editorial practices in the deterioration of a creator's mental health during the run of one of its most commercially successful manga series.
Reporting from 1 sources: Animehunch.
Akane Shimizu, creator of Cells at Work!, posted a series of allegations on X on July 1 and 2 detailing what she describes as years of editorial mistreatment during the manga's serialization. She claims Kodansha failed to provide promised medical supervision, dismissed her requests for professional assistants, and subjected her to personal criticism that contributed to severe mental health struggles, including suicidal thoughts.
Akane Shimizu, the creator of the manga Cells at Work!, has publicly alleged years of editorial mistreatment at Kodansha during the series' serialization. In a series of posts on X on July 1 and 2, Shimizu said the issues began in 2014 around the manga's launch, when her editor, identified only as "Mr. A," told her the manga would receive medical supervision. She said she proceeded with that understanding, but the first collected volume was released in 2015 without a medical supervisor listed and containing numerous medical inaccuracies. When she asked the editorial department to improve the supervision system, she alleges her editor dismissed the request, saying, "It's just a manga, so being rough/inaccurate is fine."
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.