I Live Alone has been criticized for exposing a publisher that reinstated a child sex offender manga artist under a pseudonym on a terrestrial broadcast.
In the MBC I Live Alone episode aired on the 13th, Kian84 and Kangnam were shown heading to Japan to meet Junji Ito, the Japanese manga artist who inspired Kian84's dream of becoming a cartoonist.
Dressed in a suit and tie, Kian84 set out with Kangnam to meet Ito Junji. Kian84 surprised viewers by revealing the behind-the-scenes story that Kangnam had shown up unannounced at the company to keep the promise and arranged the meeting. Code Kunst also said it was a meeting Kangnam put together by contacting people himself until dawn. When Ito Junji finally opened the door and entered, Kian84 jumped to his feet and could not close his mouth. The scene of Kian84 and Ito Junji's first meeting became the best minute of the show, recording a peak minute rating of 6.4 percent.
However, after the broadcast, criticism grew because Shogakukan was exposed on terrestrial television during the process of Kian84 and Kangnam going to meet Ito Junji. Shogakukan is an emblematic Japanese publisher that presents various manga magazines including Weekly Shonen Sunday, famous for Inuyasha, Doraemon, and Detective Conan, as well as Monthly CoroCoro Comic, Gessan, Big Comic Spirits, Big Comic, Ciao, Betsucomi, and Petit Comic.
Because Shogakukan was on the route to Kian84's meeting with his idol, it appeared on the broadcast, but some viewers criticized I Live Alone for being ignorant of the recent Shogakukan incident.
The Shogakukan incident erupted after it was revealed that the major Japanese publisher Shogakukan reinstated a manga artist with a history of child sex crimes under a pseudonym and that in the process an editor pressured the victim to cover up the incident.
The incident began with sexual crimes by Yamamoto Shoiki, the author of Tachengakusen (real name Kurita Kazuyaki); Yamamoto carried out ongoing sexual abuse against a student who was 15 at the time from 2016 for four years and was arrested in 2020 on charges of violating the child pornography prohibition law. Instead of expelling the author, Shogakukan gave him a new pen name, Ichiro Hajime, in 2022 and abruptly reinstated him as the story writer for the new work Merchant Mask. According to what emerged during the civil trial, Shogakukan's editor in charge attended the settlement meeting with the victim and offered a settlement of 1.5 million yen (about 13 million won), making confidentiality about the crime and the author's resumption of serialization conditions.
When the case became known, the Japanese manga world was thrown into turmoil. In particular, Shogakukan's ethics sank to rock bottom after it was revealed that author Matsuki Tatsuya, who caused controversy over sexual harassment, also tried to return under a pseudonym. Online, photos of withdrawals from Shogakukan's webtoon platform Manga One and a boycott movement against all works from the publisher spread, and Shogakukan posted an apology saying "there was a lack of human rights awareness," but public criticism that it acted as an accomplice to sex offenders has not easily subsided.
Although Shogakukan is a symbolic place in the Japanese publishing world and was on Kian84's way to meet his idol, critics argue that exposing a publisher that attempted to reinstate authors who committed child sex crimes and sexual harassment under pseudonyms was inappropriate. However, some say it is not a big problem because I Live Alone did not intend to introduce Shogakukan but merely showed it as part of Kian84's journey to meet his idol.
Meanwhile, according to Nielsen Korea on the 14th, I Live Alone recorded a household viewership rating of 5.6 percent in the Seoul metropolitan area, ranking first among Friday variety programs. The 20-54 rating, a core indicator of channel competitiveness reflecting changes in media consumption, was 3.3 percent, ranking first among all programs on Friday.
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