Kazuichi Hanawa is a Japanese manga (comic books) creator and a former modelgun collector.
In 1994 he was arrested for illegal weapon possession and sentenced to 3 years in prison. He wrote a manga "Before the prison" about what happened, and "In the prison" about his experience there.
What is interesting is that from interview it seems that he was charged for having an illegal modelgun, made by Rokken. If someone could add more information about what exactly happened, it would be great!
I found an interview (in French) with him at his French publisher site.
http://www.ego-comme-x.com/spip.php?article513Not sure about translation/interview right, so I will just put some interesting points here:
- Kazuichi Hanawa had a passion for firearms since he was a child,
- he drew guns already in his first manga,
- while still a kid (twelve at the time) he bought an air gun by mail order, as it was still legal, and passed tests (psychological) to get a permit.
- every year he had to visit Police who took measurements of it to make sure it was not illegaly modified.
- when he was 20 he renounced the permit.
- he liked real guns, after he saw that a friend of him has one.
- when he was staying with his 5 friends in a hotel to ski and to make an amateur 8mm movie, they have played (?) with modelguns,
- Police was called by other hotel guests who were afraid it might be a group of extremists (one of his friends looked just like portrait of a real extremist shown in newspapers by Police). They were also all dressed in Self-Defense Force coats.
- he later destroyed all replicas of guns that he had, as they were illegal (?) and could not be legally transferred to another person. (unclear if these were real guns, or modelguns deemed illegal).
- apparently it would cost about 10 million yen to acquire now collection of replicas that he had.
- he mentiones one that was made by "company named Rokken, by a person named Mutobe who is considered a god in his business. He is the person who created history of Japanese modelguns, he produces them now himself, hand-made".
- selling these replicas is illegal (???)
- it was a "Government" model, made from brass, highly sought by collectors, considered to be a Rolls-Royce of modelguns.
- he disassembled and threw away this model, as he lost interest in guns.
- author does not want to have anything to do with models now, as he does not want to prison again.
Sat Jan 09, 2010 11:37 am
