After a long standoff, the seated Kannon Bodhisattva statue is returning to Tsushima from Korea for the first time in 13 years, scheduled for delivery on the 10th.

The Buddhist statue "Kanzeon Bodhisattva Seated Statue" that was stolen from Kannonji Temple in Tsushima City, Nagasaki Prefecture and brought to Korea will be returned to the temple on the 10th of this month.
The statue will finally be returned to Japan. The temple is planning a memorial service to mark the return. The statue, a seated Kannon Bodhisattva statue designated as a tangible cultural property by Nagasaki Prefecture, was stolen by a Korean thief in October 2012.
It was stolen by a group of thieves and brought to South Korea. The following year, in 2013, the group of thieves was arrested by the South Korean police and the statue was confiscated, but in Seosan, Chungcheongnam-do, central South Korea,
The temple claims that the statue was plundered by Japanese pirates during the Middle Ages. In 2016, it filed a lawsuit against the Korean government, demanding that the statue be prevented from being returned to Japan.
The lawsuit against the temple came as a complete surprise to the Korean government, which had planned to return the statue to Japan in 1945.
Based on records from the Koryo-sa (History of Goryeo) that state that Japanese pirates invaded the Seosan area multiple times, the court determined that the statue was taken from Buseoksa through plunder or other means.
The court ordered the statue to be handed over to the temple, stating that the statue "can be assumed to be a tribute to the Japanese people." This ruling caused a backlash from Japan, and became one of the factors that worsened Japan-Korea relations.
After the first trial, the Korean government said that the relationship between the statue and the temple had not been sufficiently proven.
The case was appealed, and the second hearing was held at the Daejeon High Court in Daejeon, central Korea. In February 2023, the Daejeon High Court overturned the first-instance ruling and recognized the ownership of Kannonji Temple.
The high court ruled that "it is possible to acknowledge that Usekiji Temple produced the statue in 1330, and there is also evidence that it was plundered and illegally taken away by Japanese pirates," but
"It cannot be proven that the Buseok Temple at that time was the same religious organization as the current Buseok Temple," he said.
The court ruled that the "prescription of acquisition" had been established, and that the current ownership belonged to Kannonji Temple. Ukisekiji Temple was not satisfied with this ruling and appealed to the Supreme Court.
In October 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit filed by the temple and ruled that the ownership of the statue belongs to Kannonji Temple.
The Supreme Court recognized that the current Buseok Temple is the same as the "Seju Buseok Temple," which produced the Buddha statue in the 14th century, but upheld the ruling of the second instance that the "prescription of acquisition" under the Civil Code had been established.
This issue, along with the former forced labor lawsuit issue, has been one of the causes of the deterioration of Japan-Korea relations, and it was expected that the process of returning the Buddha statue to Japan would proceed following the Supreme Court ruling.
For some time after that, no significant movement towards the return of the statue was seen. The statue had been kept at a facility of the Korean government, but Buseoksa Temple temporarily moved the statue from the facility to Buseoksa Temple.
The group expressed their intention to return the statue to Kannonji Temple after holding a 100-day memorial service to pray for the statue's peace, and sent a letter to Kannonji Temple in June last year outlining these intentions.
The two temples exchanged letters in December last year, with Kannonji Temple agreeing to hold the ceremony on the condition that the statue be returned immediately after the ceremony.
He cited the proverb "rain makes the ground firm" and promised to resolve the issue amicably. In January of this year, the statue's ownership was transferred to the facility in South Korea where it is kept. However, as mentioned above,
It was decided that the statue would be returned to Tsushima after a memorial service was held at Ukiseki Temple, and so along with the procedures for transferring ownership of the statue, procedures were also carried out to temporarily "loan" the statue to the Korean side.
The memorial service has been held since January 25th. A ceremony to send off the statue is scheduled for the 10th of this month at Ukishiji Temple, after which the statue will finally return to Japan.
The statue will be delivered to Tsushima by air and sea on the 12th. According to NHK and other media, the former head priest of Kannonji Temple, Setsuko Tanaka, said, "My 13-year-long wish has finally come true.
"I'm grateful that this is the result of cooperation between sensible people in Japan and Korea. I want to return the statue to the Kannonji temple as soon as possible and inform the local people that Kannon has returned," he said.
After the statue arrives on Tsushima, a memorial service will be held at Kannonji Temple for its parishioners. After that, it will be kept at the Tsushima Museum in the city for security reasons.
According to the news, the temple has made two replicas of the statue, one for research purposes, and has asked the Japanese side for cooperation in 3D scanning the other to recreate its original appearance.
However, the Japanese side is said to be reluctant due to copyright issues. According to Yonhap, the temple's chief priest said, "In the big picture, we need to maximize the value of the Buddha statues, which are a global cultural heritage.
I would like the Japanese side to cooperate so that this can be achieved."