Man acquitted in court for having sexual interest in Gundams

A man in Japan was found not guilty in court due to his alleged sexual attraction to Gundams. The case was recently highlighted on Japanese channel ABEMATV and was described with great humor in a similar style to the game series Ace Attorney.

This unusual case was featured on a Japanese morning show that introduced viewers to the nuances of the Japanese judicial system and how to handle court cases. According to the report, the incident happened in 2007 in the era of flip phones. Apparently, a 24-year-old man took a photo of a woman in skirts on escalators at a train station. At the time, she confronted him, and he confessed to the crime and apologized.

However, this incident went to court. At trial the man insisted he had not taken any voyeuristic photos. Additionally, his defense lawyer explained that the object of the defendant’s sexual attraction were not women, but… Gundams.

Although the defendant had his flip cell phone open at the time of the incident, he was apparently admiring his Gundams images and was not even taking any photographs. There were also no photographs of other voyeuristic women found on her cell phone, but dozens of photos of mobile suits from the series Gundam.

The first trial found him guilty, probably because he admitted to a crime at the time of his arrest. However, his lawyer decided to appeal after noticing the defendant’s unusual behavior, he took him to a psychiatric hospital to be examined and a doctor pointed out the possibility of Asperger’s syndrome. People with Asperger’s syndrome tend to have difficulties in social interactions and admit guilt to escape situations, which explains why the individual confessed his guilt to his wife and the police prematurely. A Rorschach test was also performed to assess the defendant’s personality and mental state. He was shown several images and all his answers were Pokémon.

The lawyer had previously indicated that the man was an otaku and highlighted that the products he had borrowed were from a rental store “all anime, mainly from Gundam”. After this appeal, the court recognized that the man had no sexual interest in men or women and was acquitted of the crime.