The arson attack in a revered Kyoto animation studio killed 36 people and injured dozens more.

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.

  • stown@sedd.itEnglish
    1251·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • aleq@lemmy.worldEnglish
      48·
      10 months ago

      Anything happens anywhere in the world.

      The US: “Oh, this is about me!”

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.worldEnglish
      247·
      10 months ago

      To be fair, it’s quite generous to call a political system based on a 1700s document “modern”…

      • Scrongle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        76·
        10 months ago

        That’s a peculiar statement, considering the U.S. is essentially the most recent major nation (and one of very few) to be formed and grown, about as far from the intense pressures of previously established cultural or governmental influences (both from within, or from surrounding territories) as you can get, without leaving the planet.

        …If that’s not considered relatively modern when compared to the rest of the world, what is?

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.worldEnglish
          91·
          10 months ago

          the U.S. is essentially the most recent major nation

          Which isn’t saying much at all since all other major nations are at least a thousand years old.

          What IS saying a lot, though, is that the US constitution is the oldest national constitution still in effect bar none.

          about as far from the intense pressures of previously established cultural or governmental influences (both from within, or from surrounding territories) as you can get, without leaving the planet.

          Bullshit. The US is profoundly influenced by Christian norms and traditions for better and especially for worse. It’s one of the most conservative countries in the West both politically and culturally.

          If that’s not considered relatively modern when compared to the rest of the world, what is?

          Scandinavia, for example 🤷

        • yesman@lemmy.worldEnglish
          81·
          10 months ago

          That’s a particular statement, considering the US has the oldest democratic constitution in the world.

        • xmunkEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          South America and Africa are extremely confused right now…

          Also, if you don’t want to look that far abroad look at literally either of America’s neighbors. Canada didn’t finish growing in size until 1949 and formed a province as recently as 1999. Mexico has technically been a continuous nation since 1810 but it’s worn a lot of different costumes in that time, including being ruled by a Habsburg.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.worldEnglish
          76·
          10 months ago

          Is it really, though?

          Most modern countries don’t consider dissent terrorism, most modern countries don’t have mass shootings every week if not every day and in most countries, the color of your skin doesn’t determine whether you’re likely to survive a traffic stop.

          • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
            62·
            10 months ago

            “Modern” doesn’t mean “something I like”, it means it was created recently. So yes, it really is modern.

            • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.worldEnglish
              58·
              10 months ago

              No, it means that it functions in modern ways. The US constitution is the oldest one in the world still in use and US politics and culture are both heavily influenced by bronze age myths aka Abrahamic religion.

              “Modern” doesn’t mean “something I like”

              That’s probably the most ridiculous strawman I’ve seen in 2024, well done!

              • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
                21·
                10 months ago

                We have a long way to go in 2024 haha… and sorry, but you didn’t refute it being modern, you simply listed things about it that you didn’t like, and called those not being modern. That wasn’t a strawman, I was literally just responding to what you said. If your beliefs are different then you should have chosen your words more carefully. This response is a great step up because it actually asserts something about the age of the constitution and its beliefs.

                And that assertion is actually correct-- the US is over 200 years old when the rest of the existing democracies are mostly around 50. That’s still a short timescale when we’re talking about nations, but when referring to democracies in particular… yeah, it could use some updating.

    • otpEnglish
      61·
      10 months ago

      The only modern *Western country