Former Attack on Titan editor sentenced to eleven years in prison: This is what he was accused of

Former editor of the popular Kodansha manga series Attack on Titan and Seven Deadly Sins, Jung Hyun Park, has officially been sentenced to 11 years in prison for murdering his wife. The latest verdict came after a Supreme Court ruling that declared his testimony highly unreliable.

The Tokyo High Court’s formal ruling on his sentence was announced on July 18, 2024, after the Kodansha publisher was retried for the murder of his wife, which reportedly took place in August 2016. He was originally arrested in January 2017 and prosecutors had asked for a 15-year prison sentence.

The court ruled against Park, revealing that he strangled his 38-year-old wife Kanako at their shared residence in Bunkyo City, Japan, on August 9, 2016.

During the ongoing trial, the prosecution claimed that Park had “the firm intention” of killing his wife. However, the defense painted a contradictory picture, claiming that Kanako “committed suicide.” The Kodansha editor also maintained his innocence and denied the accusations of murdering his wife.

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As the Tokyo Reporter reported, the judge ultimately dismissed the suicide allegations, calling them “unrealistic” and branding Park’s crimes “malicious.”

Why was former Attack on Titan editor Jung Hyun Park on trial?

On the day of the tragedy in 2016, rescue workers arrived to answer an emergency call when Park’s deceased wife was found lying face up at the bottom of the stairs. She eventually succumbed to her fate an hour later at a local hospital. After the incident, Park claimed that his wife “fell down the stairs.” However, the autopsy report revealed that she died of asphyxiation due to pressure around her neck.

Park later also twisted his testimony, saying Kanako died because she used his jacket to hang herself from the banister. When the court questioned his altered testimony, he claimed at the time that his wife had a knife and had become violent. According to Japanese reports, Park had to change his statements about the incident because he could not tell his children that their mother had committed suicide.

The July 18 verdict further questions Park’s credibility, as the judge said: “It was too sudden and unnatural for the woman to lose consciousness, then move so violently that she made a noise and then commit suicide.”

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The Kodansha editor, who joined the publication in 1999, plans to appeal the decision. Park’s mother added that her son got along well with his wife and took care of the children. “It is too sudden and unnatural that the woman lost consciousness, then moved so much that she made a noise, and then committed suicide.”

His lawyer, however, believes that Park’s testimony was not proof of murder, but rather unreliability, which ultimately led to the eleven-year prison sentence.

The former AOT publisher has already been brought to court twice.