A logo designer for the Japanese word-processing software "Ichitaro" has sought a provisional injunction at the Tokyo District Court, demanding that a Niigata tourist association stop using an illustration she says resembles one of her works...Yoko Shindo, who is known as a top calligrapher, has been arguing that her work has been plagiarized. The illustration in question appears on pamphlets...that the Niigata prefectural tourist association is using...Shindo claims that the shape and brushstrokes of the character, and the use of colors -- red for the radical at the top, bluish purple for the bottom left part, and green and red for the bottom right part -- bears an extreme resemblance to a work she produced in 2002....The advertising agency reportedly responded, "The designer who produced it said it just happened to match, and there has been no copyright violation"...more...
Marxy over at Neomarxisme maintains that the earlier reaction to Wada's plagiarism "knock(s) out the final leg on the myth that 'there is no sin in Japan against copying other artists' works.'" and attributes the increase in accusations to the availability of better information on the net. This thread covers some recent examples of anime and manga plagiarism