Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2010

Dough-faced cartoon character Anpanman may be über-popular with the preschool set, but the one thing you don’t want to do is piss him off. Or rather, show him looking pissed off without permission. The employees of downtown Osaka clothing boutique King learned this the hard way when they created a line of “original” T-shirts bearing the character’s less-than-pleased face and started selling them for ¥4,800 a pop. Police who searched the store reportedly discovered a cache of approximately 70 of the long-sleeved tees. King’s 28-year-old manager was promptly arrested, along with one of his full-time employees and four teenage part-timers. The manager admitted he knew what they were doing was copyright infringement.

Source: The Yomiuri Shimbun