One morning this September, Mantani Yoshiyuki, Yamamoto Mineteru and Hirano Isamu were told by prison wardens they would shortly be dead. As is common under Japan's death penalty system, the three men, all in their sixties, were given about an hour to get their affairs in order before being blindfolded and hanged. Their deaths brought the total number of people executed in Japan this year to 13 and ended any hope by anti-death penalty advocates that new justice minister Yasuoka Okiharu might slow the pace of executions. Two more executions on October 28 brought the number this year to 15, the largest number in 33 years according to the Japan Death Penalty Information Center.