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Mother Ordered to Return Late Manga Creator's Remains
posted on by Egan Loo
In a real-life judgement of Solomon too bizarre for fiction, the Yokohama District Court ordered the mother of the late manga creator Yutsuko Chusonji to return half of her remains to her husband on May 9. Judge Tadashi Kobayashi said, "It is not unnatural for the husband, as the chief mourner, to obtain most of the remains."
After Yutsuko Chusonji passed away in January of 2005 at the age of 42, her husband and mother agreed to divide her remains into two before the funeral service the following month. The mother then claimed that the husband's mother said the division was unnecessary, and so the mother kept all of Chusonji's remains.
The judge also ordered the mother to pay the husband 4.2 million yen (US$35,000) for Chusonji's hospitalization costs. The mother had no comment on the ruling, but her lawyer plans to appeal the case to the Tokyo Superior Court. Chusonji was popular in the 1990s for her "oyaji gal" manga about working women who enjoyed what was once considered men's pastimes.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun
