The man who once actually popularized the term “otaku” in a bad light – Tsutomu Miyazaki, the 45-year-old convicted serial killer, was finally executed today morning.

He was a serial killer that murdered 4 girls — four-year-old Mari Konno, seven-year-old Masami Yoshizawa, four-year-old Erika Nanba, and five-year-old Ayako Nomoto [...]

When police raided his house, here’s what they found:

5,763 videotapes that included pornographic or violent live-action and anime videos.

So during that time in Japan around 1989, the term otaku was popularise by a book called The Generation of M – We and Mr. Miyazaki (Mの世代－ぼくらとミヤザキ君,).

It basically reflected otakus in a very negative light, portraying otakus as people that don’t go out and are obsessed with anime, manga and sexual fantasies of little young girls.

Miyazaki’s trial lasted from 1990 until 1997, when he was sentenced to death. The Tokyo High Court upheld the ruling in 2001, and the Japanese Supreme Court upheld it also in January of 2006.

Source: Mainichi Japan

I wonder why the courts took so long to trial him …