After Kentaro Miura’s passing, who owns the rights to “Berserk”?

[King Reccared]

I have no clue whatsoever on Japanese copyright practices nor do I know their inheritance laws, so I hope someone here can clarify those for me if possible.

That being said, I know that we don’t have a ton of information regarding Miura’s will, or lack thereof, which would be essential in order to find an answer “as close to reality as possible” (if that makes any sense). That is why I would implore you to treat this as a mere thought exercise with the information we have at our disposal as of now.

Thank you in advance!

PS: I hope that this topic hasn’t been already covered anywhere else or that I am posting it in the appropriate category. Please do not hesitate to correct me if that turns out to be the case. Thank you again!

 

[Aazealh]

My understanding is that the intellectual property would be shared between Miura's family and Hakusensha. Why do you want to know?

 

[King Reccared]

My understanding is that the intellectual property would be shared between Miura's family and Hakusensha. Why do you want to know?

Thank you for your quick replay Aazellah!

Mostly curiosity on my part. I’m a lawyer IRL and, after Miura’s passing, I saw lots of posts on the issue of “Manga IP rights” on other forums that I felt where more a way for people to come to terms with the author’s death’s than genuine attempts to answer the question at hand. To be fair, I also contributed to the “speculation machine” at the moment, but after some time professional deformation won out .

For what I could gather it would seem it’s as you said (a shared property of both author and publishing company), but as I have no knowledge in Japanese law nor do I speak the language, I thought maybe someone here had prior knowledge on the matter.

Hope that answers your question!