by On the 28th, the Aichi Prefectural Police said that they sold a product with a design reminiscent of the popular anime “Devil’s Blade,” and on the 28th, the president of the product wholesale company “Red Spice” (Naka-Ku, Yokohama), Yuki Saito (52) and other men and women 4 A person was arrested on suspicion of violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Law (an act of causing confusion).
By Terushi Yamazaki, a photographer in Aichi Prefecture. Saito and his colleagues are suspected of importing products that resemble the patterns of the characters’ costumes that appear in Kimetsu no Yaiba and selling them to game centers worldwide.
There have been a series of cases of violations of copyright law regarding copy products of Kimetsu no Yaiba. Still, it seems that the Unfair Competition Prevention Law has been applied for the first time in Japan. The word “Kimetsu no Yaiba” is registered as a trademark. Still, Red’s similar products are confused by combining the patterns and letters of the haori of characters that are not registered as a trademark, so the law was applied.
The company’s products include haori, bath towels, and rucksacks. It features the haori pattern of characters such as the checkered pattern of Kamado Sumijiro, the anime’s main character, and the characters “Oni extermination” and “Destruction.” In addition to the prizes for crane games, they were also sold online. In March, the Consumer Affairs Agency said to the company that “the virus can be removed just by wearing it” without any grounds for the portable product to be worn around the neck, and requested the company to prevent recurrence due to a violation of the prize labeling law (reasonable misunderstanding). I am issuing an order. Kimetsu no Yaiba is based on the manga serialized in “Weekly Shonen Jump” (Shueisha).
The cumulative circulation of books (including digital) is over 150 million. The anime was aired in 2019, and the movie released last year is the number one box office revenue in Japan. (Ayami Taka)
