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Kyoto Animation Studio Arson Attack

Started by Blumf, July 18, 2019, 02:14:38 PM

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Blumf

Pretty heavy duty incident:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-49027178
QuoteAt least 26 people are dead and dozens injured after a man set fire to an animation studio in the Japanese city of Kyoto, officials say.

Police said the 41-year-old suspect broke into the Kyoto Animation studio on Thursday morning and sprayed petrol before igniting it.

The place did some popular animes, such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation

Consignia

33 people, I heard. Absolutely horrifying. In an industry which treats it's staff like shit, KyoAni is a beacon of at least giving it's staff a decent living.


kidney

Can only reemphasise just how shit this all is.

Sin Agog

Looks like I've seen a fair few things by them.  They had a lot of low-key series full of school-goers bonding by being ecstatically obsessed about one thing.  Probably helped give a lot of net/game-addicted youngsters a ton of inspiration.  And that Haruhi Suzumiya movie was extremely ambitious and sad and lovely- a million miles from the series in feel. All those deaths are some price to pay for supposedly half-inching off some disenfranchised fellow creator.

Pedro_Bear

QuoteFull scanslation of text of PA Works President Horikawa Kenji's speech at the company all-hands meeting on the second day after the KyoAni mass murder:

As many of you might already know, an arsonist set Kyoto Animation on fire yesterday. Before the whole picture of the incident is investigated and revealed, we already know that 33 precious lives are lost, with many injured. Let's pray for them.

This is absolutely the worst and the most terrible event in the history of anime industry. Sadness and fury took over the Internet and the news. I also tried to follow up with the updates, but the intense fluctuation of my emotions has made me mentally unstable. I thought I needed some time to calm down, yet knowing that my employees have also become swayed by the incident, I think I should (stand out now and) tell you all my thoughts at this moment. I cannot guarantee whether what I am going to say is calm, sane, or whether my thoughts are well tidied up or not.

Regarding the crime, though we don't know much beyond what has happened as a matter of fact, the tragedy that happened was so devastating, and can never be recovered. I shall refrain from commenting [on the cruelty of the incident].

Regarding the precious lives that are lost, before these souls can fulfill their dreams, the fact that they died young was so regrettable, so upsetting, beyond anyone's imagination. Nevertheless, they've left their proof of existence – look at the messages that fans from the world sent to them – "they were the hopes of my life", "I became myself at the moment because of Kyoani". They gave the fans who watched their works the power to live. The works that they produced wholeheartedly, and the proofs of their existence, shall never be forgotten. Let's pray that it will resonate in people's heart around the world, and forever become their drive to live.

Kyoto Animation spent 40 years to become the ideal form of anime production. With such long time effort, they possess the organizational power to unify the entire company towards one goal. I firmly believe that they will reconstruct and revive! I will pray for that. First, after the turmoil calms down a little bit, I think Mr. Hatta will demonstrate his strong leadership and plans. When that happens, we shall carefully consider how we can help them out.

News happen on a daily basis, washing off the tragedies to treat them only as one-time events. However, for us, despite living in the world that we live in having such ruthless and unreasonable incident, we need to think about how we can live strong, with hopes – this is the top priority that we need to take our time to think about – it is to devote your passion in your works and express it to the world; it is to create pieces to be talked about widely, generations by generations. I believe devoting our techniques, our time, and our passion is the best way to achieve this. Please do not forget this.

(2) Disaster Prevention, Fire Prevention, and Security Measures – we will reevaluate our policy and actions again. I will try my best to change people's impression that the environment of an animation studio is 'special'.




Ha. Yeah. I imagine every suit in Japan is finally going to read the Fire Safety Ordinance, many for the first time. If you haven't seen this graphic, here's how it happened at KyoAni and why it was so devastating. They didn't stand a chance. That spiral staircase acted as both chimney and flue, that wall of smoke incapacitated the victims within three breaths. By the time they even registered something was wrong, they were delerious and then unconscious. Small mercies, perhaps.



There isn't even a coherent reason, just some mentally ill rando and black seredipity with the card key access system. If a meteorite fell from the sky, or an unexpected earthquake flattened six blocks we could at very least curse god. If korean extremists blew them up, we could at very least look forward to a righteous counter-attrocity at some point in the future. So now there's just us. It's just us fuckups and our blurays and rips left of the best thing to happen to television ever. Aki Toyosaki (real life Yui, et al) has some kind words for us: https://streamable.com/13wxa but Shikata Ga Nai is a little too Japanese for me. Watching one of the very few happy beacons of hope and delight in the world get snuffed out and just shruging our shoulders feels wrong. Yet what else is there to do here? We can't even beat the shit out of the chap who did it. He's completely nuts, he'd not understand why his assailants were so pissed off, denying catharsis. I dunno. This was anathema. That Kyoto Animation could just vanish off the face of the Earth one day, for no reason, well, it defies reality. I guess it really was God's Own Television after all.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCmZ45INWYA

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on July 20, 2019, 10:52:21 AM
QuoteFull scanslation of text

Or, as it's known outside of weeb-dom, a translation.

Pedro_Bear

I'm not sure a translator guesses at one character in five? My nippon is barely JK level.

QuoteScanslation of NHK news report 20th July 2019 interview with KyoAni attack survivor:

This is the testimony from a man working at Kyoto Animation in charge of scenery. He was working at the second floor.
According to to him, he could hear an argument at the first floor. Then there was a woman's scream and a sudden "boom" a loud explosion sound.
A man climbed to the second floor and shouted "There's a fire!" A nearby woman pushed the emergency bell button and soon after a mushroom-cloud of smoke came from the spiral stairs.
The hall was ink black. In the blink of an eye, you couldn't see nearby things anymore. Breathing became difficult.
As the man evacuated the second floor with other employees, he could feel a hot wind blowing behind him and hear voices calling "Help!"
On the balcony, he could hear a voice say "It's alright, jump down." so with other employees he jumped to the first floor, injuring his arm when landing, but was rescued by the fire brigade and transported to hospital.
The man said that many voices were screaming "Help me please!" It was a choice between jumping down and hurting yourself, or dying. But at this time, some employees could not jump down.
[He continued] Kyoto Animation is "a workplace where you can do creative work, the employees and staff are like family; I don't know if many colleagues who were there are safe or not, so I can't collect my feelings."
In addition, about the suspect [name redacted, fuck your infamy mate, from here on in you'll be known as Sam-a Hyde-o], "If I said I'm not feeling frustrated, it would be a lie, but after recovering, I want him to be punished by law. And I want him to say why he did such a thing."




The sad thing here is twofold: survivor's guilt is going to be a bitch, and, there just isn't a coherent, rational reason for Sama Hydeo's actions. The line about the employees "being like family" is very true, I found this to be the case at KD. They're going to want a reason, a focus for this outrage, but there isn't one.

Japan is very tight-lipped about official information, they like to get everything correct and right with their words. We're not going to get an update on this event until KyoAni releases a full statement side by side with the police, and that probably will not happen for another week or so. One chap has been confirmed dead by his family, and it's a recognizable industry name. We can accurately guess at another fatality due to the release of an age range of victims, again, it's awful in its familiarity. We have yet to confront the full extent of this mass murder, and I suspect the real shock is going to set in with that statement. I started to hack away at another survivor article, but stopped at the word "amputation". Prepare yourselves for some very bad news next week.


marquis_de_sad

You have fully redeemed yourself over the "scanslation" incident with "Samo Hydeo".

(Maybe Hideo Samo?)