Shinji Aoba, the man who set fire to Kyoto Animation studio in 2019, which led to the death of 36 people, has been sentenced to death for mass murder. Aoba was charged with murder and arson after telling people that his work had been plagiarized and used gasoline to start the fire. He was found guilty by the Kyoto District Court on Thursday.
Presiding Judge Keisuke Masuda called Aoba’s crime “truly atrocious and inhumane. The horror and pain of the victims who died in Studio 1, which turned into a hell in an instant, or who died afterward, is beyond description,” he noted.
According to the police, Aoba had unspecified mental health issues. Last September, he pleaded not guilty at the trial, and his defense lawyers said he had a mental disorder and wasn’t criminally responsible. In turn, the prosecution called for the death penalty, arguing that Aoba was fully competent.
The fire was the worst mass killing in Japan since a 2001 arson attack on a building in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district, which killed 44 people. The Kyoto attack left fans worldwide grieving the loss of life and a studio that claimed to put its employees first and was a major force in the industry.
Kytoto Animation was founded in 1981 by husband and wife team Yoko and Hideaki Hatta. It was known for producing mystical titles such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-On!, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid and Violet Evergarden, which streamed on Netflix in 2018.
Sources: CNN, Deadline
