Man Who Burned Down Kyoto Animation Studio Killing 36 People Gets DEATH Sentence!

I don’t do “news” these days but this is important enough to mention because:

Anime Motivation originally covered it back in 2019.
And Followed through from the beginning.

Plus it got a lot of attention.

So it only makes sense to finish what was started.

As you’ll remember back In July 2019, Kyoto Animations’s studio was set on fire, killing 36 people in total, with others injured.

No one knew what the F was going on during the time, and I personally remember waking up after 8 AM and seeing the drama unfold on social media.

Well, after confirmation it was an arson attack because Shinji Aoba, a Japanese man claimed Kyoani stole his material. So the arson attack was an act of revenge.

Whether the latter was true or false is irrelevant here given the consequences of Shinji Aoba’s actions and the eventual memorial that was held in honor of the deaths from July 18th 2019.

A potential death sentence, 5 years later

As pointed out by various news sources like CBSNews, Guardian, among other mainstream outlets, Shinji Aoba may face a death sentence.

“A Japanese court sentenced a man to death after finding him guilty of murder and other crimes Thursday for carrying out a shocking arson attack on an anime studio in Kyoto, Japan, that killed 36 people.
The Kyoto District Court said it found the defendant, Shinji Aoba, mentally capable to face punishment for the crimes and announced his capital punishment after a recess in a two-part session on Thursday.”

The reasoning is simple: they’ve determined he’s mentally stable, capable, and able at the time of the crime, and wasn’t mentally ill. If the latter had been true then the outcome would be different.

But based on their own evaluations of Shinji Aoba, they’ve determined he wasn’t having an episode, or in a mental state that would warrant him getting a lesser penalty, leading to the potential death sentence if they go through with it.

A Japanese court on Thursday announced the death sentence for Aoba Shinji, the man who burned down the Kyoto Anime studio in 2019 and killed 36 people. https://t.co/0sI95Ix57N
— Variety (@Variety) January 25, 2024

Prosecutors said Shinji Aoba was seeking revenge after thinking the Kyoto Animation had stolen novels he submitted for a company contest.https://t.co/nayOY8sp9q
— TribLIVE.com (@TribLIVE) January 25, 2024

Story updated: Shinji Aoba, the man who killed 36 people in an arson attack on a studio of Kyoto Animation Co., or KyoAni, in July 2019, has been sentenced to deathhttps://t.co/nWnewA8bAw pic.twitter.com/QTC0IJOiNH
— The Japan News (@The_Japan_News) January 25, 2024

This is a mass murder case that shocked #Japan and broke that hearts of thousands and thousands of anime fans here and around the world. Today, Shinji Aoba, the perpetrator of the #KyoAni fire that killed 36 people was sentenced to death. #Anime https://t.co/FGgJDfG2IG
— shaimaa khalil BBC (@Shaimaakhalil) January 25, 2024