Fire at Kyoto Animation

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by Dextro

Holy crap... that description... I don't know what to say. I woke up to the news this morning and have been devastated the entire day as more "bad" news drips in. Losing Takemoto-san and now, acording to that post, Ishihara-san and Ichidate-san as well? That's absolutely brutal. Brutal. I cannot imagine the absolute hell the survivors went through (and will go through from now on from the trauma).

Devastated. I don't really care much for most corporations but everyone here in the forums will not be shocked to hear that I'm a massive fan of KyoAni for the quality of their art and the different way they have tackled the anime medium this past decade (at least).

Like I said I'm absolutely devastated but my shock from hundreds of kilometers away is nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the victims. I'm not religious so I won't send prayers but my thoughts are with the victims and their families. Let us hope that the studio and, most important, all the affected employees can come out of this stronger and as safe as possible.

The post isn't that correct, the most updated news is that 33 died, and Ishihara, Ishidate and Naoko is confirmed safe. and the building was the 1st studio, not the head office

EDIT: check the wikipedia just now, it seem the criminal is a repeater, he apparently robbed a convenient store back in 2012, the link to the source of the info here:
http://topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp/artic...01907180000956

[serenade_beta]

Although fundraising money is a kind act, to be honest, it isn't going to help much.
The anime industry is already strained as it is on animators, who don't exactly have the kindest jobs out there. And this incident killed a lot of the human resources that no money can bring back.

Also, I'm just going to take this moment to face-palm at bad translations and spreading of said translations writing off the wrong people as dead.

Originally Posted by Klashikari

This may be the most horrible coincidence, or another cold calculation from the culprit, but it appears the access to the studio usually requires a card, but that security measure was disabled on 18th July as the staff was expecting visitors.

I personally think he was too methodical in his attack on the building for it to all be a coincidence.

Originally Posted by Dark Wing

So this psycho did this because he believed his idea was stolen? That's horrific...

From what I gather, パクりやがったmeans to steal, but it also can refer to being caught/arrested. And that he said the line after he was caught.
Either way, again, from what I gather, it is possible he will die from his injuries and we will never know his motive.

[Toukairin]

The police probably knows by now the name of the perpetrator. Is there any news of law enforcement searching his home and/or the homes of his closest relatives for anything that may give investigators answers like hard drives, documents, recordings, or any potentially incriminating material?

[dniv]

My condolences to all of the Kyoto animation employees caught up in the fire.

And I pray for their families who must be going through an extraordinarily hard time right now.

I just hope that promare and fire force actually manage to make some people in Japan care more about dealing with this sort of thing so that it never happens again.

[Kanon]

Maybe this is just how it works in Japan, but I find it surprising that the identity of the perp hasn't been disclosed yet. Usually, news come flooding when such a crime occurs.

[Diluc]

Those staff whom died are part of team whose has struggled the create animation quality for us.
"Sigh" Hibike! Euphonium Third Year wouldn't be same anymore.

[blakstealth]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

This may be the most horrible coincidence, or another cold calculation from the culprit, but it appears the access to the studio usually requires a card, but that security measure was disabled on 18th July as the staff was expecting visitors.

jesus christ. I can come up with a lot of what-ifs and things where this whole incident could've been less worse, but I won't say it. the damage has been done.

[Ichinotachi]

What is quite disturbing about this terrible incident are the reports about the building, some people are calling it a death trap, blocked emergency exit, no water sprinklers or anything to ensure the security of the people working there. Of course this isn't something they can predict but those 2 things are something basic for any building so the people working there can at least have some degree of protection, what is going on with the safety standards?

[TinyRedLeaf]

KyoAni had received 'death threats'

Kyoto (July 19, Fri): The head of the Japanese animation studio that was set ablaze on Thursdayby a suspected arsonist has said that the company had previously been threatened.

Kyoto Animation president Hideaki Hatta told reporters on Thursday that "there have been e-mails with death threats", but he did not provide further details.

The motive for the blaze remains unclear.

The tragedy has shocked Japan, where violent crime is extremely rare, and there were questions over how so many people could have died in a country where fire safety is taken very seriously.

The blaze appeared to have engulfed the three-storey building with shocking speed, and firefighters said many of the bodies they found were on a stairwell leading from the top floor to the roof, suggesting that people were trying to escape the flames when they were overcome.

Keizo Harafuji, a former scientific investigation officer for the Tokyo police, told public broadcaster NHK that those trapped inside would have had little chance of escape.

"Flames spread incomparably faster with petrol than in a normal fire," he said.

"So I think the flames spread so fast that there was no time for the fire alarm and fire doors. It would have been difficult to escape after the fire began."

AFP

KyoAni blaze ranks as worst mass-killing in Japan in 18 years

Kyoto (July 19, Fri): A 41-year-old man suspected of torching an animation studio in western Japan shouted that he had been plagiarised and appeared to have planned the attack, media reports said on Friday.

The resulting blaze has killed 33 people, making it Japan's worst mass killing since a suspected arson attack in Tokyo killed 44 people in 2001.

A woman who saw the suspect being detained by offiicers told reporters that he "seemed to be discontented, he seemed to get angry, shouting something about how he had been plagiarised".

A day later, none of the victims' identities had been disclosed.

"I imagine many of the people who died were in their twenties," said 71-year-old Kozo Tsujii, fighting back tears after laying flowers near the studio in the rain on Friday morning. He said he drives by the studio on his daily commute.

"I'm just very, very sad that these people who are so much younger than me passed away so prematurely," he said.

Jun Shin, a 30-year-old Chinese man living in nearby Osaka, came to the site on Thursday night to lay flowers near the burnt-out office and say a prayer.

"I am an anime fan," Jun, an information-technology worker, told Reuters. "I have watched animation since I was a student, and this was a terrible event, I just want to come and mourn. It left me speechless."

REUTERS

[dragon1412]

I think the damage got a lot worse because of the explosion though. The perpetrator was burned himself so i think the explosion is not in his plan. And the whole thing is planned in my opinion, this guy clearly rigged the building so the victim can't exit and he choose day where the security is lax

[BPD Renegade]

This is terrible news. We don't even have information on the survivors. Depending on the severity of their injuries, they could have suffered permanent damage, not to mention the mental trauma of going through something like this. A lot of these employees were likely young animators as well.

I don't see how KyoAni can come back from this any time soon, but I hope that it is able to rebuild itself. The arsonist is a mass murdering terrorist who does not deserve any satisfaction in seeing the studio collapse or struggle from this, nor does he deserve any limelight or sympathy from "victimization" stories.

In this case, it looks like the arsonist actively sought to prevent escape from all exits. Still, the rest of Japan, not just anime studios, will hopefully consider updating their buildings to give employees a better chance of escape during emergencies if they haven't already.

[brocko]

Originally Posted by Ichinotachi

What is quite disturbing about this terrible incident are the reports about the building, some people are calling it a death trap, blocked emergency exit, no water sprinklers or anything to ensure the security of the people working there. Of course this isn't something they can predict but those 2 things are something basic for any building so the people working there can at least have some degree of protection, what is going on with the safety standards?

Apparently, the building itself complied with fire codes and was last inspected and checked off in October 2018.

Whether it complied to residential or business standards is still unclear to me. But it's design really wasn't escape friendly at all for this situation.

Some good explanations here (with diagrams and pictures) and an expert analysis video with summarised translation in quote below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comme...hread/eu63rs8/

https://vimeo.com/348935537
Points of that expert talk:

Gasoline is very flammable and explosive and is very good at spreading fire. In a situation where the guy has spread gasoline around, the initial fire's firepower is very high.

With the building construction, there is a spiral staircase in the middle of the room which becomes a funnel where flames rise up straight up to 3rd floor. Meanwhile, the fire from first floor, thanks to gasoline spread once it reaches the window will rise up to the window to second floor, which caught on fire, and spread to 3rd floor. Overall approx only 2-3 minutes were needed for fire to spread to 3rd floor

So people from 2nd and 3rd floor are caught with fire from the spiral staircase (which supposedly be a way out but unfortunately cant) and the window

the bodies count are 20 on 3rd, 11 on 2nd, 2 on 1st. 1st perhaps because as long as there is open window they can jump away. 2nd floor, the bodies are found by the hallway presumably caught by fire from multiple direction as per prior explanation. 3rd floor, because the door to rooftop is locked they are trapped and unable to run away. Carbon monoxide produced from the burning also caught up faster than any human running speed and presumably suffocates them and thus weakened them fast, which contributes to high number of death

Https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/201...ws-related_002

Ex-Forensic Officer explains arson situation: “a gasoline fire would have been extremely difficult to escape from.”

Key takeaways: unlike normal fires, gasoline fires are very hot and reach those temperatures in a very short period of time. Their flames can also be as high as a few metres. People and anti-fire systems would not have had time to react.

“An explosion can be deduced from the glass shrapnel on the first floor; the state of the second and third floor suggests that an extremely hot flame propagated in a short amount of time. From this I could guess that it was a gasoline flame which spread quickly.”

“In a normal fire, the room temperature won’t rise above 1,000C. But in the case of gasoline, this can go up to 1,500C. This temperature, which is hot enough to melt steel, makes it hard to breathe just by being around the fire. The people on the first floor would have been consumed by the explosion before even having a chance to react; the people on the upper floors probably heard the explosion, but the ensuing confusion would have delayed their response. In that short period of time, both the flame and the smoke would have come up to attack them, and their means of escape would have been lost.”

“Gasoline flames can rise to a few metres in height, and spread very quickly. It is probable that this speed would have been too fast for fire detection systems and fire escape doors to react in time. This would have been a difficult fire to escape.”

“(Moving forward) Entrance management, bag checking, and security should be strengthened.”

The perpetrator specifically targeted the exits. You'd be hard pressed to find any building constructed to prevent such an attack. The gasoline ignition left little time for any fire systems to react, even if there were water sprinklers there wouldn't have been any time for it to trigger, not to mention it probably would've have been very effective for chemical fires like this gasoline one anyway.

I'm not sure how the building passed inspections and whether it passed the correct type of code for its use at all, but I hope they at least revise and improve the codes to include some more basics such as fire escape ladders, leaving the roof accessible as emergency exit and water sprinklers like you mentioned.

[Cosmic Eagle]

https://twitter.com/key_official/sta...75063235911680

Key's statement of support. Must have hit them hard seeing how far back the ties between both entities stretch. Seeing Takahiro Baba's tweets that seems pretty clear


Goes without saying also but I pray that if anyone finds themselves in the perp's shoes one day (and it can happen to anyone), that is consumed by emotions they cannot control, that they retain enough clarity to go seek help

[Tenzen12]

I don't know if there is any truth about this Arsonist supposedly felt cheated because Hibike Euphonium movie wasn't yuri bait enough (characters getting boyfriend or something, I wouldn't know).

As motive that sounds too crazy for me just simply believe it, but sane individual wouldn't do something like that in first place.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Maybe this is just how it works in Japan, but I find it surprising that the identity of the perp hasn't been disclosed yet. Usually, news come flooding when such a crime occurs.

CNN

Originally Posted by CNN

Police identified the suspect as 41-year-old Shinji Aoba during a press conference on Friday and said he has unspecified mental health issues.

Freakin' Shinji!

[Nachtwandler]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

I don't know if there is any truth about this Arsonist supposedly felt cheated because Hibike Euphonium movie wasn't yuri bait enough (characters getting boyfriend or something, I wouldn't know).

As motive that sounds too crazy for me just simply believe it, but sane individual wouldn't do something like that in first place.

This one looks liker trolling. Even the rumor that they used a nickname like his for some Euphonium-related account looks more believable.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

I don't know if there is any truth about this Arsonist supposedly felt cheated because Hibike Euphonium movie wasn't yuri bait enough (characters getting boyfriend or something, I wouldn't know).

As motive that sounds too crazy for me just simply believe it, but sane individual wouldn't do something like that in first place.

The story I heard is he felt cheated but not about yuri but because Baritone Saxophone. The guy supposedly was somewhat renowned for something he did online (unrelated to Hibike) and earned the nickname "barisaku" or something like that, and Hibike used that word as an abbreviation of the Baritone Saxophone. He felt cheated that Hibike used it.

That's still 2ch hearsay though. Whatever the case, still an utter degeneracy.

=====

On other news, Makoto Shinkai tweeted his condolences about the tragedy, but anime saviour Yamakan was spotted replying him with "shut up will you". He has since been tweeted back to shut the hell up himself by various netizens.

[Vegard Aune]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

On other news, Makoto Shinkai tweeted his condolences about the tragedy, but anime saviour Yamakan was spotted replying him with "shut up will you". He has since been tweeted back to shut the hell up himself by various netizens.

Yeah that's... no. That's pretty much the equivalent of loudly announcing on broadcast TV "I AM A GARBAGE HUMAN BEING! PLEASE HATE ME!!"

[XLNC]

I don't recommend sharing the suspect's name. There's no need to give him more attention.

Unfortunately, his name and photos, including his childhood ones, are being widely reported in the Japanese media. He is currently unconscious from his injuries.

As for other news, the president of KyoAni has said almost all the materials the company had are lost forever, past or current, whether on paper or computer.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by XLNC

I don't recommend sharing the suspect's name. There's no need to give him more attention.

Unfortunately, his name and photos, including his childhood ones, are being widely reported in the Japanese media. He is currently unconscious from his injuries.

As for other news, the president of KyoAni has said almost all the materials the company had are lost forever, past or current, whether on paper or computer.

Oh god. That last part is absolutely terrible.