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Thread: At Least 10 Dead, Nearly 40 Injured In Arson Attack On Kyoto Animation Co. Studio (Japan)

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    At Least 10 Dead, Nearly 40 Injured In Arson Attack On Kyoto Animation Co. Studio (Japan)





    https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20.../#.XTAgs3V_V0s

    At least 10 dead in suspected arson at Kyoto anime studio
    KYODO

    JUL 18, 2019

    KYOTO - A man started a fire at a Kyoto animation studio after spraying a liquid Thursday morning, leaving at least 10 dead and nearly 40 injured, several of them unconscious, local police and rescuers said.

    Many bodies were found on the second floor of the three-story Kyoto Animation Co. studio after the fire started around 10:30 a.m. The police also found knives at the scene.

    The company is known for producing popular TV animation series ?K-On!?, ?Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu? (?The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?), ?A Silent Voice,? ?Clannad? and ?Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon? (?Miss Kobayashi?s Dragon Maid?).

    The 41-year-old man who has said he started the fire was among the injured and has been taken to hospital, the police said.

    People near the studio said they heard a series of explosions and saw black smoke billowing out of the building. People were later seen being carried out of the studio covered in blankets.

    ?A person with singed hair was lying down and there were bloody footprints,? said a 59-year-old woman who lives nearby.

    ?I heard a bang and the black smoke and the burning smell were awful,? said a hair salon manager in his 30s.

    Kyoto Animation, known for short as ?KyoAni? in Japan, has animation studios in Kyoto and nearby Uji, where it is headquartered. The studio in question is its first studio, according to the company.

    The company, founded in 1981, has released a number of animations appealing to younger generations, particularly in the 2000s. Many fans have visited locations associated with the works.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Fuck, the latest numbers are terrible


    (aerial footage at link)
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49027178




    Kyoto Animation fire: Thirteen dead after suspected arson attack
    32 minutes ago


    Media captionKyoto Animation offices on fire

    At least 13 people are dead and dozens injured after a suspected arson attack at an animation studio in Kyoto, Japan, local emergency officials have said.

    Local media quoted police as saying a man broke into the Kyoto Animation Co studio on Thursday morning and sprayed an unidentified liquid around.

    Some 30 people still remain unaccounted for, broadcaster NHK reported.

    The suspect, an unidentified man, has been detained and was taken to hospital with injuries.

    How did the incident unfold?

    The fire broke out at the three-storey building at around 10:30 local time (01:35 GMT) on Thursday. Rescue operations are still ongoing.

    A Kyoto prefectural police spokesman told news agency AFP that a man "threw a liquid and set fire to it". Police also found knives at the scene, say local media.

    NHK said the man had been heard saying "drop dead" as he set fire to the building.

    It is not clear what relationship the suspect may have had to the company.


    The fire broke out at the three-storey building mid-morning


    Eyewitnesses described a loud explosion followed by an inferno that rapidly engulfed the building, reports the BBC's Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.

    More victims could still be on the top floor, which was still filled with thick smoke, our correspondent says.

    "We are trying to bring out several victims who are trapped inside the three-story building, including ones who may not be able to move by themselves," a fire department spokesman told AFP.

    Japanese officials said one death had been confirmed and 12 people had been found "in cardio-pulmonary arrest" - a formulation routinely used in Japan for victims who have died but whose deaths have not yet been officially confirmed.

    Nearly 40 other people are in hospital, some in a serious condition, reports say.

    What do we know about the studio?

    Kyoto Animation, known as KyoAni, was founded in 1981 and has produced popular animation shows including "K-On" and "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya".

    On social media, many fans have been expressing their shock and posting pictures of their favourite KyoAni shows.

    Twitter post by @juantwothreefoe
    My thoughts and prayers to Kyoto Animation Studio and it?s workers who brought many of us pure joy, tears and unforgettable moments. May those artists get well soon. pic.twitter.com/MgPUAKqxjk
    ? Se?or Juan (@juantwothreefoe) July 18, 2019

    I have love for Kyoto Animation productions, even more so today. #京都アニメーション pic.twitter.com/udmWpAaXo6
    ? Idolatry (@PleiadesRising) July 18, 2019

    A GoFundMe campaign titled "Help KyoAni Heal" has also been started, with more than $50,000 (?40,000) raised in an hour.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Not a disgruntled employee if this article's accurate, plus there are people making comments like this under the article :

    "Not a lot of confirmed information yet beyond the fact that the culprit seems to be a 41-year-old man. And the TV news said there is a report that he is neither a current nor former employee. I also saw an interview of a witness from the neighborhood who said he was saying something that implied the studio had copied someone?s work."


    https://japantoday.com/category/crim...o-anime-studio

    At least 23 confirmed or presumed dead after man sets fire to Kyoto anime studio

    By Mari Yamaguchi
    TOKYO
    A man screaming "You die!" burst into an animation production studio in Kyoto and set it on fire on Thursday, authorities said, leaving at least 23 people confirmed or presumed dead.

    The blaze injured another 36 people, some of them critically, Japanese authorities said. Most were workers at Kyoto Animation, known for mega-hit stories featuring high school girls.

    The fire started at around 10:30 a.m. in the three-story building in Fushimi Ward after the suspect sprayed an unidentified liquid accelerant, Kyoto prefectural police and fire department officials said.

    Seven have been confirmed dead with severe burns, said fire department official Satoshi Fujiwara. Six people also found on the first and second floors were presumed dead, Fujiwara said.

    On the third floor, more than 10 people were found unresponsive, he said. Some of them were found on the stairs, where they apparently collapsed while gasping for air and trying to go out to the roof.

    The suspect was injured and taken to a hospital, officials said. Police are investigating the man on suspicion of arson.

    Survivors who saw the attacker said he was not their colleague and that he was screaming "(You) die!" when he dumped the liquid and started the fire, according to Japanese media reports. They said some of the survivors got splashed with the liquid.

    Footage on Japan's NHK television showed gray smoke billowing from the charred building. Other footage showed windows blown off.

    "There was an explosion, then I heard people shouting, some asking for help," a female witness told TBS TV. "Black smoke was rising from windows on upper floors, then there was a man struggling to crawl out of the window."

    Witnesses in the neighborhood said they heard bangs coming from the building, others said they saw people coming out blackened, bleeding, walking barefoot, Kyodo News reported.

    Rescue officials set up an orange tent outside the studio building to provide first aid and sort out the injured.

    Fire department officials said more than 70 people were in the building at the time of the fire and many of them ran outside.

    Kyoto Animation, better known as KyoAni, was founded in 1981 as an animation and comic book production studio, and its hits include "Lucky Star," ''K-On!" and "Haruhi Suzumiya."

    With at least 23 killed or presumed dead, the fire was the worst mass killing in Japan since a man stabbed and killed 19 people at an assisted living facility in western Tokyo in 2016.

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    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/w...animation.html

    Now 33 people are reported dead at the studio

    KYOTO, Japan — He can’t get the women out of his mind.

    A day after an apparent arson killed 33 people at an animation studio in the Japanese city of Kyoto, a neighbor, the 81-year-old Ken Okumura, remembered seeing several women jump from the building’s second floor. They were so badly burned that blood was coming from their noses, and all of their clothes but their underwear were gone.

    “Just horrible,” Mr. Okumura said on Friday, as the smell of burning still hung in the humid air.

    Much was still unknown about the Thursday fire, which appeared to be Japan’s worst mass killing in decades. The police identified Shinji Aoba, 41, as a suspect in the case, based on statements they said he made when he was apprehended. They said Mr. Aoba was being treated for severe burns and had not been arrested.

    Japanese news reports, citing unnamed police sources, said the suspect had told the police that he started the fire because he believed the studio, Kyoto Animation, “stole a novel” from him.

    Sign up for The Interpreter
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    NHK, the public broadcaster, reported that Mr. Aoba had served time in prison for robbery and that he was being treated for an unspecified mental illness. The report, which cited an unidentified source, said he lived in the city of Saitama, near Tokyo.

    At least 33 people were killed by a fire ignited around an animation studio in Kyoto, Japan, on Thursday. A man ignited a flammable liquid around the studio, the police said.CreditCreditKyodo News, via Associated Press
    As of Friday, none of the names of the 33 people killed in the fire had been released. What was known was that almost two-thirds of them — 20 — were women.

    That appears to reflect a trend in Japan’s animation industry, as well as the hiring practices at Kyoto Animation. There are about twice as many women as men among working animators in their 20s, according to Daisuke Okeda, a lawyer and adviser to the Japan Animation Creators Association.

    Male animators still lead the industry, and they outnumber women among animators over 35, Mr. Okeda said. But Kyoto Animation — known as KyoAni to its fans — is known for employing more women, particularly younger women.

    More than half of the workers in the burned building were women, based on figures released by the Kyoto fire officials about the dead as well as the dozens of injured.

    On Friday, a man distraught about his 21-year-old granddaughter, who worked at Kyoto Animation, told NHK that he could not find her name on lists of people taken to local hospitals.

    Mourning the fire’s victims on Friday. Thirty-three people were killed.
    “She was my pride,” the man, Kazuo Okada, 69, said of his granddaughter, Megumu Ohno. “Her name started appearing on the screens of anime movies. I was so happy to see that. I was proud of her. I want to see her face soon.”

    Kyoto Animation was co-founded by Yoko Hatta and her husband, Hideaki Hatta, in 1981, and went on to produce high-quality, meticulously detailed works. They included “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya,” a science fiction series based at a high school, and “Lucky Star,” whose intelligent female protagonist is distracted from her studies by anime and video games.

    Kyoto Animation also played a role in the careers of two star women directors of television anime, said Patrick W. Galbraith, a lecturer at Senshu University who has written extensively about the art form. “That’s significant,” he said.

    Naoko Yamada directed the series “K-On!” for Kyoto Animation, and Hiroko Utsumi directed “Free!” a series about a boys’ swimming team. “Free!” stood out in the anime world, often known for being preoccupied with the female form, because it focused on the male body instead.

    Ms. Utsumi has since moved to another anime studio, Mappa. According to Nikkan Sports, a daily newspaper, Ms. Yamada was not hurt in the fire.


    Kyoto Animation is also unusual among anime studios in that it pays its workers salaries, rather than freelance fees. Japan’s animation industry has been accused of exploiting workers, who work long hours for low wages.

    Ironically, KyoAni’s system may have exposed its workers to greater risk by concentrating so many of them in one studio. “It’s a rare system in the industry,” Mr. Okeda said.

    The arsonist is believed to have purchased about 10 gallons of petroleum at a gas station near the studio, about half an hour before starting the fire. According to police reports, the man brought it to the studio in two cans, on a hand cart, then poured it out on the building’s first floor and ignited it with a lighter.

    “We saw yesterday that anyone can cause mass killings and tremendous damage with cheap and easy tools anyone can obtain in daily life,” said Daiju Wada, a lecturer on security at Seiwa University in Chiba, Japan, and a security consultant. “It’s difficult not to sell gasoline to people.”

    Hatsumi Yamashita, 74, who teaches dance at a nearby community center where firefighters treated some of the injured in a garage, remembered seeing one woman sitting on a staircase, wearing what Ms. Yamashita first thought was a jet-black outfit. “But when she laid down on the floor, I saw she was so burned that she was almost naked,” she said.

    “I could never forget this young woman,” Ms. Yamashita said.

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    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49042992

    Japanese police have named the man suspected of carrying out a deadly arson attack on an animation studio.

    Shinji Aoba is in police custody in hospital and is being treated for burns before he can be questioned.

    The fire swept through Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) on Thursday, claiming at least 33 lives and injuring many in one of Japan's worst mass killings in years.

    People who witnessed Shinji Aoba's arrest said they heard him complaining that the company had stolen his ideas.

    Police say the attacker entered the building and splashed flammable liquid from a bucket before setting it alight, and shouted: "Die!"

    In the wake of the attack, dozens of people have gathered outside the premises of the studio, laying flowers and offering prayers.

    A crowdfunding campaign has also raised more than $1.3m (?1.04m) to assist victims and their families.

    KyoAni produces films and graphic novels, and is well regarded by fans for the quality of its productions.

    What do we know about the suspect?
    Police detained Shinji Aoba on suspicion of setting fire to the building.

    The BBC's Tokyo Correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says CCTV footage from a nearby petrol station appears to show him filling up two containers with petrol shortly before the incident.

    Mr Aoba allegedly accused the animation studio of plagiarising his novel. However, he is still recovering from injuries in hospital and has not been formally interviewed about his motive.

    Public broadcaster NHK reports that he has a criminal record and was previously jailed for stealing money from a convenience store.

    Kyoto Animation's president has said he recently received threatening letters, but has no idea if they were connected to the attack.

    What happened?
    The fire broke out at the three-storey building at about 10:30 local time (01:35 GMT) on Thursday.

    Eyewitnesses described a loud explosion followed by the blaze, which people jumped out of windows to escape from.

    "It was like I was looking at hell," a local woman told Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

    Kyodo news agency said firefighters had found the door to the roof was shut, leaving people trapped inside.

    A Kyoto fire official also told Reuters news agency that the building did not have any sprinklers or indoor fire hydrants – but did not need them to comply with Japan's fire code.

    Momoko Higuchi, a Tokyo-based architect, told Reuters that the blaze was probably made worse by the building's three-storey spiral staircase, which would have "[acted] as a chimney."

    "Because the fire was with petrol, the effect was like a bomb," Mr Higuchi added.

    The fire has since been put out, and police are searching the site for evidence in their investigation. Knives have also reportedly been found at the scene.

    In response to the incident, the studio has cancelled screenings for the trailer of its latest film, a spin-off of the popular swimming anime series Free. It has also delayed a collaboration with Keihan Main Line, a railway service between Kyoto and Osaka.

    Another Japanese animation studio, David Production, has postponed the broadcast of its latest episode of Fire Force. The animated series centres on a group of firefighters who have the ability to manipulate fire.

    Who is Kyoto Animation?
    Kyoto Animation was founded in 1981 and has produced popular animation shows including K-On and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

    The studio also creates film versions of some of its popular franchises, and released the standalone feature A Silent Voice in 2016 to critical acclaim.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    I was suprised to see it, but I've read a few comments saying fire safety regs in Japan aren't very good - which would explain why they have such a terrible death & injury toll for a daytime fire in a relatively small office building.

    If it really is true, I hope change will come from this

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    Quote Originally Posted by blighted star View Post
    I was suprised to see it, but I've read a few comments saying fire safety regs in Japan aren't very good - which would explain why they have such a terrible death & injury toll for a daytime fire in a relatively small office building.

    If it really is true, I hope change will come from this

    You'd think with the chance of Earthquakes, tsunamis, and the fact that during WWII, more people died from firebombing than 2 nukes, they would be pretty vigilant when it came to safety and fire prevention.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Well, now that you've listed all of that, maybe there's just too much shit going on to remember to worry about fire escapes.

    A few people brought up lack of mental health services etc early on too - with the info coming out about the things he was yelling, it sounds like they might be right

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    Senior Member Jumaki15's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by blighted star View Post
    Well, now that you've listed all of that, maybe there's just too much shit going on to remember to worry about fire escapes.

    A few people brought up lack of mental health services etc early on too - with the info coming out about the things he was yelling, it sounds like they might be right
    Most likely.

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