While being taken into custody, Aoba also accusingly said “They stole my novel,” and after a subsequent search through the entries for Kyoto Animation’s annual Kyoto Animation Awards, a novel-writing contest open to both professional and amateur writers, Kyoto Animation said that it had indeed received a novel from Aoba.
Further investigation, though, has turned up not just a single novel from Aoba, but multiple entries to the Kyoto Animation Awards contest, according to a source connected to the investigation and quoted by Reuters.
Meanwhile, this year’s iteration of the Kyoto Animation Awards has been suspended indefinitely.
The arson attack claimed the lives of 35 Kyoto Animation employees, and also injured dozens.