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Ok, now this is just hilarious. The creator of Hikaru no Go and Death Note, Obata Takeshi, got arrested yesterday for having an 8.6cm (amazing how these details stay intact) knife in his car. As you may or may not know, the Japanese take weapon possession very seriously, so even though Obata claimed to have the knife for camping purposes (sure, makes sense.), he was arrested on the spot. But that's not even my favorite part. Do you know why he got pulled over in the first place? Wait for it… he was driving his car around at 1AM without the lights on. Haha. What the hell is that? I mean, I guess there are a few explanations, but when you put the whole story together, it's just hilarious. I mean, a guy has a knife in his car for "camping" but is driving around at 1AM with his lights off. Oh, and he wrote a manga about people dying after seeing a note. That doesn't look so good when you're carrying a knife around. But it's not really a big deal. I mean, come on. It's just a knife.
Update: Ok, I did a bit more digging. Apparently Mainichi is about as worthless at reporting as Mainichi… wait… Anyway, it looks like Obata had a headlight out, not his lights off. His knife was a folding army knife with an 8.6cm blade, and the law states that you can't possess a blade in excess of 6cm. The mangaka stands to face up to a 30,000 yen fine or up to a year in prison. I'll assume it'll be the first one at the worst.