Kyoto Animation studio arson attack

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Kyoto Animation studio arson attack

Postby KleinerKiller » Thu Jul 18, 2019 8:02 am

The central studio of legendary anime company Kyoto Animation (known for such works as K-On!, Lucky Star, Haruhi Suzumiya, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, A Silent Voice, etc) was attacked by a currently unnamed arsonist today. The man poured gasoline around the studio and onto several people before lighting it, resulting in a large explosion and ensuing blaze. The bastard was fortunately apprehended by police after injuring himself in the fire, but though he's confessed to the crime, his motive is apparently still unknown.

There were around 70 people in the building at the time. The current death toll sits at 10, with many more critically injured.

Sentai Filmworks has set up a donation page to help the survivors recover.
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Re: Kyoto Animation studio arson attack

Postby KleinerKiller » Thu Jul 18, 2019 6:36 pm

The donation page has raised $750,000 in just 11 hours.

Unfortunately, the death toll is now at 33 -- nearly half of the people in the building. There may be people unaccounted for still trapped inside the studio, and the whereabouts of certain directors are -- at least as of the last report I've read -- still unknown.

KyoAni's CEO says that the studio has received death threats for the past few years. A middle-aged man believed to be the arsonist was also seen earlier buying a large quantity of gasoline, claiming it was for a generator.
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Re: Kyoto Animation studio arson attack

Postby KleinerKiller » Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:57 pm

Final updates for now; most of the relevant information has been updated into the last article I linked, so I won't bother sourcing again.

The arsonist is 41-year old Shinji Aoba, who claims that he started the fire because the studio stole a novel from him (that old delusional psychopath chestnut). This lines up with eyewitness reports that stated he was screaming something along the lines of "you copied it". He's still awaiting official arrest while he recovers from severe burns -- I'll resist the urge to editorialize about how I think they should just slam the cuffs on him and leave him untreated.

28 of the dead succumbed to smoke inhalation / carbon monoxide poisoning; only 5 died to the fire directly. Most deaths and critical injuries happened on the upper floors as people tried to rush for the roof, as Aoba had deliberately set fire to the entrance. Unfortunately, the lack of fire code adherence seems to have contributed heavily to the number of deaths; the building had no clear emergency exits, no fire escapes, two spiral staircases that would have acted like chimneys for a gas fire (with the only other route between floors being one elevator), and apparently not even working sprinklers or other fire suppression systems. Had people managed to reach the roof in the first place, their only means of escape would have been to jump three stories to the streets below. Combined with it being a traditional animation studio with tons of paper and other flammable materials lying around, the studio would have acted as a giant furnace even if the blaze had been accidental.

Unfortunately, I can't find a list of casualties, so I don't know at this time whether any beloved directors or animators were among those killed or hospitalized. But this stands as one of Japan's worst mass killings since WW2, right up there with the 1995 sarin gas attack (which had 20 fewer deaths, but orders of magnitude more critical injuries).
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Re: Kyoto Animation studio arson attack

Postby Marcuse » Sun Jul 21, 2019 1:36 pm

Unfortunately, the lack of fire code adherence seems to have contributed heavily to the number of deaths


My understanding was that, despite the clear and glaring shortcomings in the design and precautions, it did in fact comply with the fire code at the time. Maybe that's wrong but I remember being surprised that the BBC reported that it wasn't required to have things like extinguishers or sprinklers.
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Re: Kyoto Animation studio arson attack

Postby KleinerKiller » Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:53 pm

Marcuse wrote:My understanding was that, despite the clear and glaring shortcomings in the design and precautions, it did in fact comply with the fire code at the time. Maybe that's wrong but I remember being surprised that the BBC reported that it wasn't required to have things like extinguishers or sprinklers.


That's more what I was going for, but I didn't know how to phrase it without casting an overtly negative-sounding judgment on the studio in an incident where it can't be overstated that this was all one delusional psycho's fault. According to various things I've read since, fire safety in Japan is apparently ludicrously lax, with all but the most recently constructed buildings often lacking critical features like this. You'd think a country that was heavily firebombed throughout WW2 would want to account for fires as much as possible, but, well, here we are.
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Re: Kyoto Animation studio arson attack

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Wed Jul 24, 2019 5:44 am

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