Kyoto: Whether Shinji Aoba, accused of the July 2019 deadly arson attack on a Kyoto Animation Co. studio, can be held criminally responsible will be the biggest focus for a ruling to be handed down on him Thursday.

Aoba, 45, has admitted murder and other charges against him in his lay judge trial at Kyoto District Court. In the incident, he allegedly poured gasoline at the No. 1 studio of Kyoto Animation, better known as KyoAni, in the western Japan city of Kyoto and set it alight, killing 36 people and injuring 32 others.

On his motives, the accused has claimed that the Japanese anime powerhouse stole ideas from his novel. Whether such a delusion affected Aoba’s ability to take criminal responsibility for the attack was extensively examined in the trial.

At the first court hearing in September 2023, Aoba, in a wheelchair, said, “I didn’t intend to cause so many deaths, and now I think I did too much.” He himself suffered serious burns during the attack.

A total of 10 sessions for questioning Aoba were held. Aoba noted that the biggest reason behind the attack was his grudge against KyoAni, saying the company “rejected his novel in its contest and stole his ideas.”

Aoba said he had thought that two or three people died in the attack but came to know the actual number of victims when he was arrested in May 2020.

In a hearing, he protested to an attorney for the victims’ families by saying, “Should KyoAni be pardoned for all of what it has done to me?”

On Dec. 6, 2023, a day before the final hearing, Aoba apologized to the victims’ families for the first time and said he should be sentenced to death to make reparations for what he had done.

During the trial, the victims’ families and KyoAni employees involved in the incident questioned Aoba whether he had thought about the families of the victims.

A family member said, “Hatred and resentment will never disappear even if the suspect is sentenced to death.” Another said that “Not only the 36 victims, but also the hearts of all others died” in the arson attack.

A female KyoAni employee who suffered serious burns in the attack said, “I will never forget, for the rest of my life, the feeling of being burned alive.”

A male employee who lost many colleagues said, “I wonder if I’m allowed to enjoy my life when I think about those whose times have stopped.”

Two experts who conducted psychiatric examinations of Aoba showed different views, with one saying that his delusions had almost no impact on the incident and the other stating that the delusions formed his motives for the attack.

Public prosecutors sought the death penalty for Aoba, saying that the impact of the delusions was limited and that they were not a condition for allowing him to escape the capital punishment.

Meanwhile, the defense called for a lighter sentence or acquittal, claiming that the accused was in a state of insanity or diminished capacity at the time of the attack.

JIJI Press