On Thursday, July 18th 41-year-old Shinji Aoba entered the front door of Kyoto Animation with gasoline and set the building on fire. The fire killed 33 and injured more than 30 (Romo, 2019; Associated Press 2019). Twenty of the 33 were women. They were trapped in a stairwell leading to the roof of the building. They died of smoke inhalation.
Aoba wasn’t an employee. He spent 3-and-a-half years in prison for robbing a convenience store and received mental health treatment. Witnesses heard him yelling “die” as he set the fire.
“There was an explosion, then I heard people shouting, some asking for help,” a witness told TBS TV. “Black smoke was rising from windows on upper floors. Ten there was a man struggling to crawl out of the window.”
Yoko Hatta and her husband Hideaki founded KyoAni, as Kyoto Animation is known, in 1981. The studio produced K-On!, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star, and Silent Voice. They had a feature film for Violet Evergarden planned for release this September and a sequel in 2020 (Martin, 2019).
Yoko started KyoAni after leaving Mushi Production, the studio dedicated to the works of Osamu Tezuka. She recruited housewives from her neighborhood in Uji city, south of Kyoto (Associated Press, 2019). The company continued to hire more female directors and writers than any other studio. KyoAni became known for its well-crafted animation and for treating its artists decently (Martin, 2019).
Is KyoAni Finished?
A man prays outside the Kyoto Animation building which was torched by arson attack, in Kyoto. Photograph:( Reuters )
Such a loss as KyoAni experienced has both a business and personal effect on a company. It has lost a good bit of its talent, and the personal bonds between workers have been severed. It would be hard to get back to work knowing your coworker is gone. The building will take time to replace, but it can be replaced. A good bit of their work was also lost. But that too can be replaced with time. The human element cannot be replaced.
Even if the survivors return to work and dedicate that work to their fellows, it will take time for any new team to become coordinated again. 33 out of 70 people in the building died. While KyoAni employs 160, it will be difficult for workers to heal after such an event. About 40% of the workforce died or was injured in this event. Likely, some of the survivors won’t be able to fully heal without moving away from the company.
“Some of them joined us just in April. And on the eighth of July, I gave them a small, but their first, bonus,” he said.
“People who had a promising future lost their lives. I don’t know what to say. Rather than feeling anger, I just don’t have words,” Hatta said. (Gulf Today, 2019)
In the face of such loss, it feels shallow to be concerned about cartoons, but the rush of fans offering sympathy shows how important KyoAni’s work is. The animators touched lives with their stories.
In fact, Kyoto Animation shifted the landscape of anime with their work. K-On and their other work helped moe dominate anime. Moe character designs pull our protective instincts. I describe the characteristics of moe in another article. Moe became the default style of modern anime. It doesn’t matter if you love it or hate it. Now, KyoAni wasn’t the only studio pushing moe, but it set many of the standards in moe design. Kyoto Animation’s focus on placing women in leading production positions introduced a different perspective to the anime industry. The popularity of its works also showed how anime fans appreciate this change in perspective. But they didn’t just do moe. Violet Evergarden told an emotionally mature story that you often don’t find in today’s anime.
If KyoAni closes (which I don’t think likely), the anime industry will be worse off. It needs a studio that focuses on women producing, writing, and directing stories. While many can argue the rise of moe has been detrimental to the diversity of anime’s designs, Kyoto Animation’s approach offers vibrancy and quality. Too often we see “cranked out” seasonal anime that offer poor quality and dashed off template designs. This isn’t to say everything Kyoto Animation does is good. Even Production IG makes stinkers.
This event may strengthen the studio by tightening the bonds among the survivors. It will take some time for people to heal, but the fans of KyoAni send their well-wishes and support. Let’s hope Kyoto Animation will be able to return after this terrible event. Luckily, you can help. Purchase their work to lend your support, and pray for the victims and their families.
References
Associated Press (2019) ‘A revolutionary change’: What is Kyoto Animation, the studio hit by arson? USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/07/19/kyoto-animation-fire-anime-studio-known-lucky-star-k-on/1776298001/
Gulf Today (2019) Japan studio boss at loss for words as he mourns bright, young staff. https://www.gulftoday.ae/news/2019/07/20/japan-studio-boss-at-loss-for-words-as-he-mourns-bright-young-staff
Martin, Annie (2019) Kyoto Animation: Anime world reacts to fire at popular Japanese studio. UPI Entertainment.
Romo, Vanessa (2019) Suspected Arsonist in Japanese Animation Studio Fire Reportedly Had Criminal Record. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/19/743649950/suspected-arsonist-in-japanese-animation-studio-fire-reportedly-had-criminal-rec
Yamaguchi, Mari (2019) Man shouting ‘You die’ kills 33 at Japan anime studio. AP English Worldstream – English.
It’s not worthy of sympathy.
These anime (pornographic cartoons) production companies have created their own reserve army for such incidents.
Historically, the Japs have had various vicious killers like tutomu miyazaki and tomohiro yudai, most of whom were nerd.
Islamic extremism in the Middle East is a nerd in the Jap context.
This incident also could not have happened if they had reflected on those incidents and thoroughly persecuted the nerds and made them disappear completely from the world.
Pedophelia nerd has no human rights. Even in the Western world, pedophelia is considered identical to paraphilia and is recognized as a mental illness that requires prompt treatment. They did not do this, and instead, they just increased their nerdiness because they were willing to pay for it, and they reaped the rewards themselves.
It was an ending that would eventually come.
Kyoto Animation is behind the wonderful Violet Evergarden, a story that examines the consequences of war and the difficulties of reaching out to people. Anime is a medium used to tell a variety of stories. Labeling all anime as pornographic is akin to labeling all of Hollywood as pornographic. While both have pornographic elements, neither are fully so.
If it is a work about war, it cannot compare to “The Voice of Kike Wadatsumi last friends,” a work that sincerely looks at and is ashamed of its own war crimes and policies.
Playing “pity party” will not change anything in the world.
(Only part of it can be viewed here, japnese)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=pjKThQZpJZc
And while Hollywood is trying to take care of political correctness in the majors.
The Japs are not.
All have failed to grow out of the values of 30 years ago.
Blacks, Koreans in Japan, peripheral Asians and refugees are not in the works, and gays are persecuted on the internet as dirty and ugly.
The Japanese subculture up until the 80’s and 90’s had something to be proud of in the world, like AKIRA, but
Right now, pornography is in a state of crude production.
Not only is anime a waste of time to watch, but it’s all toxic garbage that creates the alt-right and gives birth to a trump presidency.
It would be better to destroy this garbage and switch our view to a nation that creates great content, such as Korea, famous for its parasites.
Violet Evergarden is far from a pity party. It’s a thoughtful view of human psychology and the lost art of letter writing.
Alt-right in the US doesn’t have anything to do with anime. Most US anime watchers tend to be liberal despite their unhealthy views of women. The contrast is odd. I agree there is a lot of toxic garbage in anime. As long as it makes profit, it will be so. That’s free market capitalism at work.
If it’s mostly socially damaging garbage, we have to destroy it more and more.
Japs tend to be relatively liberal on the tv-show, and alternative content can be produced if they want to.
Dr. X, where a 30-something woman is a leader in medicine, or The Lady of CSI, where a long-running CSI woman is the main character.
I prefer the older generation of content, “dengerous cops,” which has contemporary issues, but still has intense action and cool music.
Also, the creator of alt-right has stated that “alt-right was born out of ANIME,
The idea is shared among the left in japs.
https://nextshark.com/japan-netto-uyoku-trump-internet-trolls/
Censorship only encourages people’s interests. With media and stories, it’s better to ignore it. Otherwise, you run the risk of making such content “cool” because it is seen as rebellious. Christianity made that mistake many times. Censorship almost always backfires.
The shows sound interesting. Exporting such more often would help shift the view of Japanese media.
I rather have a delay to next year than a full-on cancel of whatever they were making at the time,such as Season 2 of Dragon Maid…
I agree, but the delay could feel like a cancel with all the work they’ve lost.
I can see some people wanting to consume anything related to Kyoto Animation. It reminds me of one my friends on facebook who wrote she will watch every show made by the studio, or the ones involving this one person who worked at the studio in particular (I did not bother to read her message) in his of their honor. If there is one thing I would like to read at the moment that has connections to Kyoto Animation that would be Kana Akatsuki’s and Akiko Takase’s Violent Evergarden. However the books are not license over here and I cannot read Japanese.
“They were unable to open the locked door and died of smoke inhalation.” Are you certain about this? As according to police quoted by NHK national television on Monday said investigations had shown that while the door could be opened from the inside, smoke from the blaze appeared to have spread so fast it overcame the victims before they could do so. There still seems to be a fair amount of conjecture and supposition surrounding this point.
I saw that on NHK last night too. I will edit to reflect this. New information will keep coming in for awhile, especially concerning Aoba’s motivation.
Also, Kyoani is one of the very few (if not the only) studio that take better care of their staff, including the animators (where rest of industry treat them like dirt). And this.is.very.important. I sincerely hope Kyoani won’t close down, their existence is very important for anime industry.
It’s okay to be not active for some time, but please don’t close down. I believe people and fan has gather more than 1 million USD for Kyoani, this show how much Kyoani in hearts of many people. I know money can’t replace what have lost… but I hope it can help them recover.
I hope their example will carry over to other animation studies. And that is an impressive outpouring of support!
I also personally feel it’s highly unlikely Kyoto Animation would close it’s doors because of arson, (like you mention us as a species have the ability to bounce back)but I do imagine it’s going to take a while for the studio to get back on it’s feet. What I am not certain though is if the studio is going to return to working on it’s projects once they get themselves reestablished. I can see it being possible the studio restarting everything from scratch, but I also see a possibility of the studio just starting fresh with other projects.
Concerning how much Kytoto Animation contributed to the anime industry, I learn from one friend from high school that Kyoto Animation had a daycare for their employees which I thought was neat for the company, and reading your blog post of how much the studio has done with allowing more women to work in the anime industry and how it affected the industry felt amazing.
I am sad this has happen with the main studio being destroyed and lives being lost. Once in a while I will feel sadness creeping in my inner soul to the point I want to cry few times. I have been keeping myself away from reading comments and articles online relating to the incident since I know it’s going to make me feel worse with people getting so emotional to the point of spouting helplessness.
I learn there are two charities happening at the moment, one being base in the U.S, and I thought about donating some money when I get the chance.
It will be difficult for fans to watch KyoAni works without thinking about the fire. People will be emotional about this for some time to come, but this also lends us hope too.
It didn’t strike me people might have a hard time watching the works of Kyoto Animation now, but when I thought about it I can see that being the case. While I am sadden by what has happen I do not see it affecting me if I decide to watch one of their anime (especially with one series in particular I have unfinished business with, another series I would like to try to get despite being out of print, and that one extra episode of Violet Evergarden I have not gotten around to watching). I certainly can understand relatives and those who were close/intimate friends with the people who have lost their lives in the fire having a hard time watching anime from Kyoto Animation, but I did not consider fans might have a hard time viewing their shows as well since I can imagine the sadness for the people close to the staff is greater compared to what fans are going through. That is a good point there, Chris Kincaid.
On the opposite side, it might also increase interest in their work. At my library, we are going to buy more manga like K-on this month because we expect a surge in interest.
I did read that KyoAni lost of much of their archived files due to the arson with no apparent backups either. It’s going to take a long time for them to get back to where they were.
Also, I would add something about Free! since KyoAni really let their female staff shine for that work. Plus they took a big realistic chance in proving there’s a market for female otaku consumers who are into hot guys or love BL.
Firstly, I extend my deepest sympathies to the victims’ families and to KyoAni. This is such terrible news.
Secondly, I do hope they don’t close down. After this traumatic event, maybe KyoAni will take a different route. They can still carry on by shifting to a serious and more sober setting. They can use what happened to self-express and honor their fallen colleagues at the same time. People have extended their moral and financial support for KyoAni to pick up the pieces and slowly rebuild itself to where it was before this horrific event. I pray for the victims. I pray for KyoAni to sustain. Let its strength fuel the memories of the accomplishments of its departed artists. May they find peace and solace in the other world.
It’s possible KyoAni might even change their style away from moe in light of this event. Whatever they do will impact the rest of the industry.
I agree. Nothing will ever be the same again after what happened. But they can use this to heal. My heart and thoughts go out to all of them.
I forgot about Free! Thanks, Tony.
I don’t see Kyoto animation closing because from a bussiness perspective they have been very successful so I don’t see them closing doors. That’s not to say that the quality of their work won’t be affected in some way. I hope they can recover quickly though.
I agree with you. Although it is possible it could close for human reasons. Not likely, but possible.