Manga artist Atsushi Ohkubo is someone who is familiar with success. The creator stuck it big with his work Soul Eater years ago, and his reign continued once his series Fire Force was released. However, it seems not all is well with Ohkubo these days.
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After all, the artist made a comment recently insinuating his idea for a story was stolen, and fans were quick to connect some controversial dots.
Recently, Kodansha put out a new commend in the most recent issue of Weekly Shonen Magazine (via ANN). It was there Ohkubo said, he is “going to stop talking about the contents of my manga before they get serialized, even to people I know. I don’t know where my work could be stolen from.”
While Ohkubo made sure not to name any names, fans were quick to make a few connections. After all, the artists on-going series Fire Force bears some eerily similar points with the film Promare by Studio Trigger. The film, which opened last month, became a hit with fans but the growing hype behind Fire Force has forced fans to confront all the similarities between the two anime.
In both Fire Force and Promare, the series take place in a world where supernatural fires have broken out around the world. As people begin to turn into fire demons, each series follows its own group of elite Fire Fighters specially equipped to defeat the monsters. It then falls to these heroes to learn why these fiery demons have appeared and to stop their planned apocalypse.
While the heroes do differ, it is hard to ignore the striking ties connecting Fire Force and Promare. Now, fans are wondering if this latest comment from Ohkubo is meant to slight one of the team members who pitched Promare.
So, what do you make of this recent controversy? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!
Fire Force was first created by Atsushi Okubo for Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine in 2015, and has since been collected into several volumes. Kodansha USA has licensed the series for an English language release, and they describe Fire Force as such:
“Terror has paralyzed the clockwork metropolis of Tokyo! Possessed by demons, people have begun to burst into flame, leading to the establishment of a special firefighting team: the Fire Force, ready to roll on a moment’s notice to fight spontaneous combustion anywhere it might break out. The team is about to get a very unique addition: Shinra, a boy who possesses the unique power to run at the speed of a rocket, leaving behind the famous “devil’s footprints” (and destroying his shoes in the process). Can the Fire Force discover the source of this strange phenomenon and put a stop to it? Or will the city burn to ashes first?”
