The court condemned a Japanese man to death after he acknowledged causing a fire at the famed Kyoto Animation studio in 2019, which killed 36 people, according to local media. Shinji Aoba, 45, is said to have broken into the studio, splashed fuel around the ground floor, and set fire to it before saying “Drop dead”. The Kyoto District Court judged Aoba guilty of setting fire to the three-story structure and determined that he was “neither insane nor suffering from diminished mental capacity at the time of the crime”.
Aoba nearly died in the incident, with serious burns covering 90% of his body, including his face, torso, and limbs
Notably, Aoba claimed that the anime studio stole his ideas after rejecting his novels in the company’s annual prize ceremony. However, there is currently no indication that the studio plagiarized his work. Japan is one of the few affluent countries that still executes convicts, most of whom are involved in murders with many victims. As of December last year, there were at least 107 prisoners on death row. In 2018, the country hanged 13 people, including the leader of a doomsday group blamed for the 1995 sarin attacks on Tokyo’s subway.
Notably, Aoba nearly died in the incident, with serious burns covering 90% of his body, including his face, torso, and limbs. As a result, he was comatose for weeks and spent ten months at a burns hospital, where he underwent many skin transplant surgeries, according to Japanese media. In terms of the beloved studio, also known as KyoAni, which is known for producing high-quality graphic books and films, justice may have been served. Some of the studio’s popular animation productions include K-On! and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Following the incident, Apple CEO Tim Cook blogged about the studio and how KyoAni’s artists “spread joy all over the world and across generations.”