Re-broadcast of Seto no Hanayome Episode 17 Canceled

The official Seto no Hanayome homepage has announced that the AT-X satellite television network broadcast of episode 17, scheduled for this Thursday, has been canceled. Apparently Seto no Hanayome episode 17 includes an appearance by a character bearing such a resemblance to another unspecified character that charges of copyright infringement were made against the program after the July 29th broadcast of the episode on the TV Tokyo network. A resolution between the TV series production staff and the un-named party making the copyright infringement accusation could not be reached, resulting in the episode being pulled from re-broadcast.

The Ganjitsu Thread Guide blog theorizes that the “copyright infringement” was a villain team appearing in the episode that bears a striking similarity to characters from an earlier live action “tokusatsu” program.

Note that Japanese copyright law has no general “fair use” provision to legally allow unauthorized parody.