A Japanese man has been sentenced to death after an arson attack killed 36 people at a famous anime studio.
The deadly attack on the Kyoto-based studio, Kyoto Animation - better known as KyoAni, on July 18 2019.
Shinji Aoba, now 45, set the studio ablaze by dousing the entrance area of the building with petrol, killing 36 people and injuring 32.
The attack shocked Japan and drew an outpouring of grief from anime fans around the world.
Seventy people were working inside the studio at the time of the attack.
Many of the victims died of carbon monoxide poisoning after failing to escape to the roof, fire officials said.
One of the survivors, an animator, told Japanese media he jumped from a window of the three-storey building gasping for air amid scorching heat after seeing a “a black mushroom cloud” rising from downstairs.
Aoba himself suffered heavy burns and underwent intensive treatment for nearly a year.
He reportedly held a grudge against the studio, known for the series "Violet Evergarden" and other popular works, believing that it had plagiarised his novel, an allegation that KyoAni has denied.
The fire was Japan’s deadliest since 2001, when a blaze in Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment district killed 44 people in the country’s worst-known case of arson in modern times.
A pillar of Japanese pop culture, anime has become a major cultural export, winning fans around the world.
The incident prompted condolences from world leaders and business executives such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook.
Japan and the United States are the only Group of Seven (G7) nations that carry out capital punishment.
