#Death Penalty for Kyoto Animation Arsonist

The Kyoto District Court has issued the death penalty to the man behind the 2019 Kyoto Animation arson attack.

The trial of the defendant, 45-year-old Shinji Aoba, began in September 2023, with its focus being on Aoba’s mental competence at the time of the arson. The defense team requested an acquittal or reduced sentence on the argument that he was not mentally competent during the attack. In December, the prosecution demanded the death penalty.

The trial’s Presiding Judge Keisuke Masuda, as reported by The Japan Times, said that the defendant was neither mentally incompetent or in a diminished state when he carried out the attack. The defendant, who has admitted to his role in the arson, was motivated by the belief that his submission for Kyoto Animation’s novel competition was plagiarized.

Aoba was indicted in December 2020 after being arrested in May of that year. The arrest was delayed due to his months-long treatment for serious burns. A mental evaluation preceded the indictment. According to Kyodo News, another evaluation was carried out at the request of the defense team and concluded in March of 2022. 

The arson was carried out with the aid of gasoline on Kyoto Animation’s Studio 1 building in July 2019, resulting in 36 killed and 32 injured. It is one of the worst mass murders in Japan. The building was demolished in April 2020. 

In August 2020, it was announced that the studio’s novel competition, the Kyoto Animation Awards, would be suspended. 

Kyoto Animation enlisted mental health services in the aftermath of the arson, with the special thanks credits of September 2020’s Violet Evergarden: The Movie including the name of a staff of the Happiness Ai Center (since renamed to M3 Health Design). Sakuga Blog’s Kvin, who spotted the credit, noted last December that the person in question was now listed among Kyoto Animation’s in-house staff.

Kyoto Animation has held annual memorial ceremonies in the years since. Aside from the first memorial in 2019, these are private events, with video streaming for non-attendees.