I really like this whole thing. One thing you younger people need to remember is that it was not long ago that death penalty was ubiquitous, and that the value of life was very low after WW2. Things like CPA was very new, and any sort of notion of mental health (in the modern sense of the term) did not exist.
Your sense of values is the norm now, but that was not always the case.
I think it’s only fitting for a manga set some 40-years ago to actually reflect what it was like then, when you were talking to the older generation.