Japan Sentences Kyoto Animation Arsonist To Death For Mass Murder
deadline.comA man who deliberately set fire to a three-story animation studio in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 2019, killing 36 people, has been sentenced to death for mass murder.
The guilty man, Shinji Aoba, is reported to have held a grudge against Kyoto Animation, which is also known as KyoAni, in the belief it had stolen ideas from novels he submitted to a competition run by the company.
The court found no evidence backing up Aoba’s claims that KyoAni had plagiarized his work. The 35-year-old studio, created by husband and wife team Yoko and Hideaki Hatta, was known for works such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid and Violet Evergarden.
On July 18, 2019, Aoba entered the studio and started throwing gasoline around the premises, while screaming at the employees.
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