The latest work from veteran manga artist Chikae Ide follows her common theme of romance and relationships, but “Poison Love” is quite different than her previous pieces.

First of all, it is based on a true story about a lovestruck woman in an international romance who gets swindled out of 75 million yen ($523,200).

And secondly, the protagonists are Ide herself and a man she believed was Mark Ruffalo, the Hollywood actor who plays the Bruce Banner-Hulk character in the “Avengers” films.

Ide, 74, is known as “the queen of ladies’ comics” for her dozens of works targeting women.

She says she hopes her latest work, a confession of sorts, will help others avoid being scammed in online international romances.

FLATTERY ON FACEBOOK

It was February 2018 when Ide found a message written in English on her Facebook account sent by someone claiming to be Ruffalo.

Ide only half-believed that the award-winning actor would be contacting her, but she responded.

Using a translation function on her personal computer, she introduced herself in English as a 70-year-old comic artist and attached a picture of herself.

“You look pretty cool with your job,” the poster replied.

Ide was flattered by the enthusiastic praise.

When she was in her 30s, Ide married a violent man who led a life of debauchery.

She was the breadwinner in the family, and she also raised their three children practically by herself before she divorced him.

Ide described her past to “Mark,” who was listed as 20 years younger than the artist.

He expressed anger toward her ex-husband and told her, “I will never make you feel sad.”

He also said that he was distressed by the death of his younger brother, and that secret negotiations were under way with his wife for a divorce.

VIDEO CALL ELIMINATES DOUBT

One of Ide’s friends who lives in the United States warned her that the poster could be a poser, noting that the person claiming to be Ruffalo writes “like somebody who has not learned English.”

(The real Ruffalo was born in the English-speaking U.S. state of Wisconsin, according to the IMDb website.)

But a 30-second video call cleared Ide’s suspicions.

“I’m sure it was Mark himself who was behind the screen chatting with me,” Ide said.

She did not realize at the time that it was a “deepfake” video, and her romantic feelings toward the imposter intensified.

“He respected my work, and he said that I, this old lady, am beautiful,” Ide recalled. “He also said the age difference is no problem for him, and he wants to make me happy.”

She added that his words “gripped my heart, and I felt tears in my eyes.”

In September that year, they were unofficially married online.

‘HULK’ NEEDS MONEY

After the union, the actor was suddenly dogged by money problems.

Just a month into the marriage, he asked Ide to wire him $1,100 for a plane ticket.

“I missed a flight from New York to the west coast because of my divorce case,” he told her.

He instructed her to send the money to a bank account under someone else’s name, saying his own account was being monitored by the court.

Ide traveled from her home in Kyoto to an overseas remittance agency in Osaka.

That “favor” was only the beginning.

He later asked Ide to send him $4,000 because he was having trouble cashing his performance fees.

Another time, he said he had injured his foot and a standby actor who replaced him was robbed. He asked her for $3,000.

Each time, he promised to pay her back. But Ide never received even a penny in return. And she eventually used up all her savings.

He continued asking her for money: “I am begging you, my wife.”

To cover his persistent monetary requests, Ide sold her jewelry. She delayed paying wages to her assistant and fell in arrears on her utility bills.

She even tapped into her oldest son’s savings and made him take out maximum amounts in consumer loans.

Ide wired her “husband” more than 10 million yen in a month.

But he still did not stop.

BLACK NOTES AND POISON OIL

In an apparent attempt to conceal the con, he asked her to take care of his hidden fortune of $12 million in cash. He told her that she could take about 200 million yen from the total.

Soon, two men delivered a bag to her home. Inside the bag, Ide saw a stack of black papers dusted with white powder.

She placed a few of these papers in a liquid that the deliverymen called “oil.” They said the liquid revealed that the papers were authentic $100 notes.

The men left her home with a warning, “Do not touch the oil because it is poison.”

Ide wanted to turn these black notes into cash to get her money back--and to continue supporting her lover and their relationship.

She rushed around to raise money to buy more oil and cover her loved one’s travel expenses when he asked her to do so.

She had a sponsorship contract with luxury brand Gucci worth 35 million yen at the time. She gave him most of that money.

She even sold her original drawings for money to cover his needs.

His messages in English, even after being translated into Japanese, often did not make any sense to her. So she interpreted them in her own way.

During all of this time, she never met her husband in person.

Still, he asked her to wire money to different bank accounts on different days. His messages also included the supposed names of an embassy official and a customs official.

At one point, he started referring to the black notes as “cocaine.”

Then he told her he had leukemia.

Ide confidently believed that she was being given “tests that she must pass for a future with her lover.”

FAMILY INTERVENES

In spring 2021, Ide’s oldest daughter who lived nearby found a distraint warrant sent by a housing loan company to the manga artist’s home.

The mother then told her daughter about the “marriage” to Mark Ruffalo.

“If your husband is a millionaire celebrity, then why are you so badly in need of money?” the daughter asked.

Ide still refused to listen to logic.

“I can’t afford to give it up now,” Ide said.

The daughter gave Ide an ultimatum. She lent Ide 200,000 yen and said, “If you don’t get this money back from him, then you must admit that this is a scam.”

Ide did not get the money back.

Yet it still took three months and help from her children for Ide to escape the mind-control exerted by her online husband.

She wrote up a rough outline of the 3 1/2-year ordeal that cost her 75 million yen. She brought the document as well as the black notes to a nearby police station in June 2021.

So far, police have been unable to locate the person posing as Mark Ruffalo.

Cross-border Consumer Center Japan, an organization that deals with problems concerning foreign business operators, said it conducted only two consultations in fiscal 2018 regarding “romance investment fraud.”

But the figure jumped to 192 in fiscal 2021.

“More people, regardless of age and gender, are feeling isolated in the COVID-19 pandemic. They seek romantic encounters on the internet, and are becoming victims,” a representative of the center said.

Ide looked back and said: “As I got older, I grew more worried about my health and losing my job. The swindler found a way to fill the void in my heart.”

Ide recently published her “Poison Love” novel based on her ordeal, as well as a comic with the same title, which is a more fictionalized account.

“It was such a stupid experience,” Ide said. “But I hope people take it as a lesson. I apologize to my friends and acquaintances who lent money to me while I refused to listen to them. And I swear I will continue to draw manga until I die to pay them back.”