In a verdict delivered on Thursday, a 45-year-old man was handed the death penalty for the deadly arson attack at Kyoto Animation. The attack resulted in the loss of 36 lives, marking one of Japan’s most tragic mass killings. The Kyoto District Court found Shinji Aoba guilty of igniting the three-story building due to animosity towards Kyoto Animation. He alleged that the studio had appropriated his ideas, following the rejection of his novels in an annual competition hosted by the studio. However, there is no evidence to support his claim of plagiarism. Aoba himself suffered severe burns across the majority of his body.
