Hikaru Kondo, the founder and head of the anime studio that produces the Demon Slayer anime, will not serve any prison time for his recent tax evasion conviction.
As reported by TV Asahi, Kondo's sentencing was held in Japan on Dec. 10, where the founder of animation studio Ufotable was given a suspended sentence, which requires him to stay out of legal trouble for the next three years. If Kondo does manage to find himself crossing the law again during that time, he will then be subject to his full sentence of 20 months in prison. The animation company itself was given a fine of 30 million yen (roughly the equivalent of $260,000 USD,) a reduced amount from the 40 million yen that prosecutors were originally pursuing. Ufotable issued an apology for the incident on its website, and stated that it has already begun to pay back the approximately $4 million USD in taxes that it previously failed to pay.
Kondo, who was charged with evading over $1 million USD in taxes himself, has stated that he intended to use the money to protect Ufotable from any potential future downturns in business. Prosecutors refuted that statement, saying that Kondo used the money for investments intended to increase his personal wealth, such as buying up real estate. At the sentencing hearing, the court discussed how Kondo pressured his wife, who serves as Ufotable's chief accountant, into manipulating the company's tax filings.
Kondo and the studio were originally indicted on tax evasion charges on July 9. Both Ufotable and its founder issued statements where they initially denied the allegations, but Kondo ended up confessing to the charges in September, and the animation company similarly announced that they had now filed corrected tax documents and were paying back the owed amount of taxes.
Ufotable was founded by Kondo in 2000. The studio was originally best known for its frequent collaborations with video game publisher Bandai Namco on projects such as the anime adaptations of the popular RPG Tales of Symphonia and the Monster Hunter-esque God Eater. The studio also created the acclaimed Fate/stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, which received widespread praise for its feature-quality animation. Ufotable began its biggest success in 2019, when it produced the anime adaptation of Koyoharu Gotouge's hit shonen manga, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba. The series has become one of the most popular anime and manga franchises around the world, with its 2020 continuation movie, Mugen Train, becoming the highest grossing anime movie of all time, shattering a record that was previously held by Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away for more than a decade.
Source: TV Asahi