A Japanese man has been sentenced to death for an arson attack at a Kyoto animation studio in 2019 which killed 36 people and injured dozens more.
The incident, one of Japan’s deadliest in recent decades, killed mostly young artists and shocked the anime world.
Shinji Aoba, 45, pleaded guilty to the attack but his lawyers had sought a lighter sentence on grounds of “mental incompetence”.
Judges rejected this however, ruling that Aoba knew what he was doing.
“I have determined that the defendant was not mentally insane or weak at the time of the crime,” Chief Judge Masuda said on Thursday at Kyoto District Court.
Shortening that to “Anime Fire” in the title was an awful choice by the BBC.
I think they just forgot to capitalize the A. Whoops.
In all seriousness, they could’ve just said “studio fire”.
To be fair, BBC is also an awful choice of shortening in time of the adult internet ;)
Though the BBWs are pretty fond of getting their news there.
Japanese stans are next level crazy. Like the stories of idols being murdered and shit by crazed stalkers, I don’t get what breeds this level of extreme response to media.
The incels in western society are just as unhinged and bizarre imo. I’m not sure how prevalent they are in Europe, but they’re very much a problem here in the US and Canada.
In Japan a lot of idols aren’t allowed to be seen as being in relationships… it’s really fucking skeevy.
In Japan a lot of idols aren’t allowed to be seen as being in relationships
Not just Japan, is all Asia. One member of a female korean group said something to the effect of the fans want them sexy and unavaliable.
I don’t think he was a fan per se, he accused the studio of plagiarism.
From the article:
Aoba himself suffered burns to over 90% of his body in the fire,
and
Those convicted typically remain on death row for years, or even decades. The death penalty is conducted by hanging.
That’s going to be an agonizing wait for the hangman.
They usually do hangings, right?
They apprehended him in May 2020 and he pled guilty in September 2023, maybe it took so long because of the burns?
He supposedly accused the studio for plagiarizing his work for the creation of Sound! Euphonium 響け! ユーフォニアム which is surprising to me because I expected something a lot more personal than that. The poor standards of living and working conditions for anime production leaves a lot to be desired, I expected him to just be a disgruntled employee.
Huh, I swear I was always told that America was the only modern Democratic country to still use the death sentence. It’s a “fact” that people bring up whenever there is a high-profile death-row case, like right now.
To be honest, I am genuinely surprised Japan has a death penalty.
That was the point of my comment as well.
The only modern *Western country
I hate anime as much as the next person that hates anime…. But that’s a bit unreasonable.
… there is no person next to you, is there? :P
There is. And they hate anime as much as I do.
Oh, then your og post checks out.
