Paranoia Had Little Influence in KyoAni Arson Attack, Psychiatrist Testifies

From Jiji

October 23 2023

KYOTO – A man accused of carrying out a deadly arson attack at a Kyoto Animation Co. studio in 2019 had paranoid personality disorder, but the disorder had almost no influence in the attack, a psychiatrist said Monday. 


The psychiatrist, Hisashi Wada from Osaka Red Cross Hospital, testified at the 13th hearing in the trial of defendant Shinji Aoba, 45, at Kyoto District Court.


As requested by the prosecution, Wada conducted a psychiatric evaluation on Aoba before his indictment to determine whether the attacker was mentally competent to take criminal responsibility.

Aoba was diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder, Wada said. The disorder “led him to have a persecution complex” about the anime powerhouse, known as KyoAni, but except for that, it had “almost no influence in the attack,” the psychiatrist said.

The focus of the trial is the extent to which Aoba was influenced by his “delusion” that KyoAni stole ideas from his novel.