[News] Cartoon blamed for youth's fatal beating on mom

And guess which one it is:

<http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200312/02/20031202p2a00m0dm001001c.html>

   YAMAGATA -- A man accused of beating his mother to
   death with a baseball bat was influenced by a cartoon
   that made him believe humans were unnecessary beings,
   prosecutors told the Yamagata District Court on Monday.

   In opening statements at the trial of Hiroyuki Tsuchida,
   22, prosecutors claimed that watching the science-fiction
   cartoon "Neon Genesis Evangelion" had made Tsuchida
   believe a phrase in it that said, "The ultimate conclusion
   of (human) evolution is ruin."

   He also came to believe that humans were unnecessary
   beings who were destroying the world's environment, and
   in turn began to want to kill people, prosecutors said.

   They said the man fatally smashed his mother in the head
   with a baseball bat at about 2 p.m. on June 25, thinking
   that if he killed family members he would not hesitate
   when murdering others.

   A representative of Gainax, the firm involved in writing
   and producing the cartoon, said it did not think the
   content of the cartoon was related to the killing.
   (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Dec. 2, 2003)


NGE is so old now.
One would've thought it was another,
more recent Gainax project - FLCL.
Kidding.

Laters. =)

                Stan
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 /   _   | |/ Stanlee  stanlee[at]cif[dot]rochester[dot]edu
|  ( _|  |    Dometita   http://cif.rochester.edu/~stanlee/
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