The court of the first instance issued the judgement partly awarding monetary compensation for the plaintiffs. The Osaka High Court modified the judgement in favor of the plaintiffs, and the State of Japan appealed to the Supreme Court.

The reply to this objection is that the inability to suffer is the worst punishment that can befall a man ; he is by that same thing deranked from humanity ; the lowest hell into which a man can fall is that hell where there is no feeling, the hell in which a man may be without knowing it.

Amidst the aseptically-perfumed bare functionality, typifying a hospital ward, a pretty and petite elfin teenage girl stirs – tawny hair all tousled and bed-headed, lips full yet petulant.

Rodsmen were whacking their way through willow brakes.