,Show time!’ is a fan magazine about Persona 5 and by fans of the Japanese RPG. It has now been revealed that the creator squandered over €20,000 in pre-order money for private purposes, including gambling on Genshin Impact.
Persona 5 lovers wanted to launch a so-called ‘fanzine’ (a fan magazine) about their beloved Japanese role-playing game. With beautiful drawings and popular characters, the fanzine ‘Showtime!’ Billed itself as a “fan anthology focusing on the rivalry between the Joker and Crow from Persona 5 and featuring illustrations, comics and fan fiction.”
This was well received by the community, and the fanzine was able to collect a lot of money in advance through pre-orders. But now it’s been revealed that Showtime’s creator and host Teresa “Ree” Dube spent over €20,000 of leftover funds on her own causes. These include rent, stuffed animals, and prayers in Genshin Impact.
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“She lied to the moderation team”
What was the money stolen for? Ree is said to have spent pre-order monies from her own fanzine totaling CA$27,625.10. That corresponds to around 20,420 euros.
In an official statement, the other contributors to the fanzine say the following:
She lied to the moderation team, going as far as assuring individual mods that nothing had been stolen and providing misleading and outdated banking screenshots to suggest that all funds were available. Ree only confessed to spending the money on personal use when she had completely depleted the funds and was no longer able to meet the other presenters’ requests for postage funds.
The official statement from ‘Showtime!’
Ree admitted to GamesRadar that she did what she was accused of. She says she spent some of the funds on Genshin Impact, as well as on food, rent, and other “frivolous items” like stuffed animals and other fanzines. Showtime stated that Ree returned $3,000 Canadian dollars of the money. She had to take out a loan for that.
Those responsible for the fanzine said, “It goes without saying that Ree has been removed from the project and will have no further connection to Showtime.”
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Fanzine launches fundraiser after fraud
What are the consequences for the magazine? How much money the fanzine was able to earn before Ree spent over €20,000 himself is unclear. However, the official statement states that 850 pre-orders were placed, and 763 could not be produced immediately after the funds were stolen. This suggests that the stolen €20,000 is about half of the money raised.
To get the remaining fanzines to the buyers, the Showtime team is holding a fundraiser. They want to use this money to sell the remaining pre-orders for the fanzine.
Apparently, that worked: another 750 zine orders were received, and enough donations for the group to pay for more contributors to help ship the orders.
By the way: After the great success of Genshin Impact, the developers are working on a new gacha game with a beautiful anime look. You can see what their new action RPG looks like in motion in the impressive trailer.