Kadokawa’s Young Ace editorial department has issued a public apology after it was revealed that the manga adaptation of Pitch-Black Infatuation used character designs from Ieri Komen without permission. The editorial team took full responsibility for the mistake, clearing both the original novelist and the manga artist of any blame.
Pitch-Black Infatuation (Credits: Our Insane Blogs)
How The Unauthorized Use Happened
According to the statement released by the Young Ace editors, the incident dates back to the pre-production phase of the manga, which began in August 2025. Artist Kei Natsumi was tasked with adapting Rokakoen’s horror novel Shikkoku no Bojo (Pitch-Black Infatuation) for Young Ace magazine. Since the novel is set in the same world as Rokakoen’s earlier work, Festival of Heresies, the editors wanted to reuse character designs from Komen’s manga adaptation of that earlier series.
The Young Ace editorial team asked the Kadokawa Horror Bunko department — which publishes both novels — for permission to use Komen’s designs for two characters, Rumi Sasaki and Yukiyoshi Aoyama, who appear in both stories. The response they received was frustratingly vague: the Horror Bunko side reportedly said it was “probably also fine to use original character designs.” Working from that unclear reply, the Young Ace team moved forward with using Komen’s designs as reference — all without ever obtaining permission from Komen himself.
More Unauthorized Designs Discovered
The problem turned out to be bigger than first thought. After Kadokawa published the first compiled book volume of the Pitch-Black Infatuation manga, Ieri Komen himself reached out to the Young Ace editorial department. On closer examination, the team discovered that two additional character designs — Ishigami and Emi Shimamoto — had also been lifted from Komen’s work, along with at least one background location.
In its apology, the Young Ace editorial department stressed that normally, all such permissions are secured before a manga’s serialization even begins. The team admitted this standard process was not followed and accepted complete responsibility. Neither the original novelist Rokakoen nor the manga artist Kei Natsumi bears any responsibility for the error, the statement emphasized, and the editors also apologized directly to Komen.
A Shared Horror Universe
The mix-up is rooted in the unusual creative overlap between the two properties. Rokakoen published the Festival of Heresies novel in May 2021 and Pitch-Black Infatuation in February 2022, both under the Kadokawa Horror Bunko label. Both novels were released in English by Yen Press, in November 2024 and August 2025 respectively.
Komen launched the manga adaptation of Festival of Heresies on Kadokawa’s Comic Walker website in July 2023, ending it with a second volume in November 2025. Meanwhile, Natsumi’s adaptation of Pitch-Black Infatuation began serialization in Young Ace on March 4, with its first volume hitting shelves on August 4. Because the two stories share characters and a setting, the editorial team saw the design crossover as a natural fit — they just failed to do the paperwork.
The apology is a reminder that even within the same publishing giant, creators’ rights can’t be treated casually. For now, the story serves as a cautionary tale about what happens when editorial shortcuts collide with artistic ownership.
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Source: Anime News Network — read the full story there.