Disaster Kyoto Animation studio set on fire - 35 Dead, Many Injured

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Article said:
A man started a fire at a Kyoto animation studio after spraying a liquid there Thursday morning, leaving nearly 40 people injured, several of them unconscious, and one person feared dead, local police and rescuers said.

The fire started around 10:30 a.m. at a three-story studio of Kyoto Animation Co., a company known for producing popular TV animation series "K-On!!" and "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu).

The man believed to have set the fire, apparently in his 40s, was among the injured and has been taken to a hospital.
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This appears to still be ongoing and details are pretty sparse between any article covering it in english at least. This seems like a very unique case though, in that I don't think there is any precedent for this kind of thing at all.

10+ dead at this point.
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According to Kyoto Police and fire department, one person died on first floor.
12 more cardiac arrest (dead).
36 more injured, 10 severe, 6 moderate, 20 meh.

View attachment 847467
Locations and Bodycounts based on areas of the building. The 19 on the staircase on the third floor are pretty much stacked on eachother as they tried to make a rush to the roof, but appearantly the door only opens from the outside (suicide prevention) or was a pull door.

How can I support?
There is no clear indication of where the funds are headed as of yet, other than that they will be on hold until they can coordinate a distribution method.
This is a direct link to the KyoAni shop. A Twitter user has provided a guide for creating an account and making purchases.

Who?: 青葉真司 AOBA, Shinji. 41, unemployed. He was not an employee at any point. He had a prior arrest in 2012 for robbing a convenience of 20,000 yen and was in jail for 3.5 years. In 2016 he was released and lived in a rehabilitation facility before moving to a single apartment somewhere in Saitama. In March and August of 2018 police went to his apartment over Noise Complaints. July 14 days prior to the incident he had grabbed and threatened to kill a neighbor after they complained about noise, police were called again. He was spotted the day before the incident within the area of the studio laying on park benches.

How?:He brought 40 liters of Gasoline between 2 tanks, a BBQ lighter, and a bag with knives and a hammer. He used a pushcart to transport everything to a nearby area. Poured the gasoline at the entrance by the spiral staircase, which funneled the fire and smoke upwards at a rapid rate. He himself was caught in the fire. Due to an event being held that day, the security system which used ID cards had been disabled that day for a guest event, allowing him entrance.

Why?: Currently the theories are taken from statements that have been connected to him prior on 2ch/annel, and something he said while arrested.
1; Music/A song he may have claimed ownership too was used in Sound! Euphonium
2; He was a Railfan that had snapped over wrappings on a train "dirtying" it (This is being disputed by news stations)

3; Possibly another undetermined claim of them "ripping him off". Now claimed to be over a novel he had written, which was "plagiarized" by KyoAni. This is the prevailing theory as of yet due to his statements to the police
4; His waifu he shipped with another girl was confirmed to not be gay, got a boyfriend or was interested in one, and is not "pure" anymore

How many people were injured or killed?: 35 Confirmed Dead, 33 others injured, with 8 of them in critical condition. 6 Escaped unharmed.
Police say 74 people were in the building at the time of the attack. Some of which were guests from an outside studio attending an event.

Who died? (this may partly be speculation, its built off of people not being accounted for):
-Takemoto Yasuhiro
-Kawanami Eisaku
-Nishiya Futoshi
-Ishida Naomi
-Tsuda Yukie
-Ono Megumi

Here's a newer article with a more detailed explanation of the situation
Asahi Times Article said:
KYOTO--Thirty-three people were killed and 17 others remain hospitalized after a suspected arsonist set fire to a three-story animation studio here on July 18, police and fire department officials said.

Some of the 36 people injured in the fire were unconscious, according to Kyoto prefectural police.

The studio, operated by Kyoto Animation Co., is located in a residential area in Kyoto’s Fushimi Ward about 100 meters north of Rokujizo Station on Keihan Electric Railway Co.’s Uji Line. There were about 70 people in the studio at the time.

Several neighbors called the fire department around 10:35 a.m. after they heard an explosion and saw smoke rising from the building. Thirty-five firetrucks were dispatched to the scene.

Police detained a 41-year-old man who is believed to have spread a flammable liquid in the area. Witnesses said he ran into the building screaming, “Die.”

He was injured in the incident and remains unconcious at a hospital.

A 61-year-old woman in the neighborhood said she initially mistook the suspect for a victim of the blaze.

She said she opened the front entrance to her home after the interphone sounded and found a large man kneeling on the ground. Both of his arms had burns and his right leg was on fire. His hair appeared singed.

The woman asked the weakened man if he was all right, but he did not respond. She used a hose to pour water on the man.

As she waited for an ambulance, a number of police officers surrounded the man and peppered him with questions about how he entered the studio and why he set it on fire, she said.

The woman said she could not catch much of what the man said, but she did clearly hear him shout, “They ripped me off.”

A woman in her 20s who works nearby said she went outside after hearing the explosion around 10:30 a.m. When she approached the burning building, she saw a man apparently in his 20s trying to escape along a support on the outer wall on the second story.

The woman and a co-worker brought a ladder to the building to help the man reach the ground.

The head of a local taxi company’s branch near the site said two men ran into the office around 10:40 a.m. and asked that the fire department be called.

One of the men was assisting the other, whose clothes were badly burned. The branch chief tried to support the two while they waited for an ambulance to arrive.

A 22-year-old man said he heard two or three explosions and saw black smoke emerging from a first-floor window. He said flames could be seen in many of the building’s windows.

Kyoto Animation has produced a number of popular TV anime series, such as “K-On!,” “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” and “Sound! Euphonium.”

Although many major animation companies are located in the Tokyo area, Kyoto Animation has kept its base of operations in the ancient capital since its founding in 1981 because the city has accumulated a long cultural history, company officials said.

Much of the work on the company’s TV programs and movies is done in Kyoto.

Sources-
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201907190042.html
http://archive.fo/WZ1Ed
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190719/p2a/00m/0na/003000c
http://archive.fo/zr1gf
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/...-repeatedly-caused-trouble-for-neighbors.html
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190719_32/
http://archive.fo/qNZ6l

Edit: Cleaned formatting, additional information, trying to identify what is speculated, spelling/grammar.
Edit: Added information, added sources, archived sources.
 
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So about $135,549 of $500,000 has been raised on GoFundMe for Kyoto Animation in just around three hours.

I found some faith in humanity in me that I didn't even know I had.
 
So about $135,549 of $500,000 has been raised on GoFundMe for Kyoto Animation in just around three hours.

I found some faith in humanity in me that I didn't even know I had.
You forgot to include the donation link! You idiot! You almost did it right and then you fagged it up!

Its almost at 145k now.

 
I'm surprised that these types of disasters don't happen more often. Larger retail buildings (from what I've encountered) will have a single narrow stairwell, 2-3 small elevators, and a set of narrow escalators (sometimes they only go up, you need to take the stairs to get back down). I would absolutely hate to have to evacuate from one of those buildings. They can be absolute deathtraps
 
You forgot to include the donation link! You idiot! You almost did it right and then you fagged it up!

Its almost at 145k now.

Thanks. I'm sorry for being too lazy to post the link. Please forgive me.
 
Is it a thing in Japan to sue companies for shit like this? Because if this happened in the US Kyoani would be dead from the lawsuit over their insanely poor fire safety.

I don't know what Japanese fire codes are but I don't think they're close to American ones. I don't recall seeing more than maybe a fire extinguisher or two in most buildings. The school I worked at might have had a fire escape but I don't honestly remember and it was being renovated while I was there. Apparently smoke detectors were actually banned for a long time because they contained radioactive material but that's changed only recently.

Also, kerosene heaters are still widely used in many places if that says anything.
 
You forgot to include the donation link! You idiot! You almost did it right and then you fagged it up!

Its almost at 145k now.


Will the money go to the corporation that fucked up or the workers?

Is it a thing in Japan to sue companies for shit like this? Because if this happened in the US Kyoani would be dead from the lawsuit over their insanely poor fire safety.

The Japanese bend over for corporations more than the Americans. I doubt much will happen. I suspect that the legislation exists but is never enforced.
 
Interior trough a behind the scenes video:
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(Potential Heat Alarm instead of Fire Alarm?)

Windows from a picture, molten goop of plastic below a few of the windows, noticed it in a livestream where the windows were oddly becoming deformed really fast:
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The stuff hanging down looks more like window screen to me. Look at the window on the third floor, it still has it. I've heard central air isn't as common in buildings as it is in the US.
 
This dude has to be the more-exceptional reincarnation of Timothy McVeigh. He targeted a building of innocent people, with children in it, too, over being assmad over something that's small and stupid. Hopefully, and it seems like it's going that way, he gets death row.
 
Will the money go to the corporation that fucked up or the workers?



The Japanese bend over for corporations more than the Americans. I doubt much will happen. I suspect that the legislation exists but is never enforced.
Sadly that is one depressing reality about Japan because capitalism there is like a hierarchy that resembles that of Japan's medieval caste system.

In the United States, you can have a really young person start a multi-million dollar company and do a lot of cool shit. In Japan however, your age and where you stand in society dictate how far you can go and companies they are run more like mini monarchies than a private entity.

You really won't find that many young people running the biggest business there and it's almost always old people that have really deep connections to both the Japanese government and sometimes the Yakuza and shit.
 
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The plot thickens
>A few months back, there was a shitstorm on 5ch over one of the baritone sax solos in Euphonium. The song played was Take the A Train. This caused train otakus to freak out (train otaku known to be a very unhinged and crazy group of people). The shitstorm had came and just went a while ago, but some people speculate that it may have something to do with the attack.

so there's a possibility that a different kind of loony did the attack. But what the fuck, getting this worked out on trains? Holy shit this is getting clown world levels of retardation
 
The plot thickens
>A few months back, there was a shitstorm on 5ch over one of the baritone sax solos in Euphonium. The song played was Take the A Train. This caused train otakus to freak out (train otaku known to be a very unhinged and crazy group of people). The shitstorm had came and just went a while ago, but some people speculate that it may have something to do with the attack.

so there's a possibility that a different kind of loony did the attack. But what the fuck, getting this worked out on trains? Holy shit this is getting clown world levels of exceptionalism
That's pretty much Randy Stair levels of autism.
For those who may not remember him or don't know who he is, Randy Stair was a mass shooter that would eventually delude himself that he kills as many people as possible then he will be with Ember from Danny Phantom in the afterlife. He worshiped the Columbine shooters and he would then push himself over the edge and then killed his fellow co-workers in the supermarket that he worked in.

And this is more or less a repeat of that.
 
The plot thickens
>A few months back, there was a shitstorm on 5ch over one of the baritone sax solos in Euphonium. The song played was Take the A Train. This caused train otakus to freak out (train otaku known to be a very unhinged and crazy group of people). The shitstorm had came and just went a while ago, but some people speculate that it may have something to do with the attack.

so there's a possibility that a different kind of loony did the attack. But what the fuck, getting this worked out on trains? Holy shit this is getting clown world levels of exceptionalism
What the fuck is a train otaku? Or is it exactly what it sounds like?
 
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According to a female witness, she walked out of the entrance after hearing an alarm go off. She saw the suspect on the side of the road, wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans, suffering from multiple burns, bloodied his feet and arms, with all his hair burnt too. The suspect was still on fire, so she grabbed a hose in an attempt to put the fire out. Subsequently, a bunch of police came and asked [the suspect] "why would you do such a thing? How did you enter the workshop?" The suspect explained the process of setting the premise on fire with petrol.

Female witness' description of the suspect "his face is green and scary, why would something like this [the fire] happen, it's so scary!"

The suspect firstly drizzled the emergency exit on ground floor (or first floor for you Americans) with petrol, waiting for the petrol to dry up and evaporate, which he then set on fire. People who are on fire attempting to escape through the emergency exit will explode after getting in contact with the evaporated gas.

The suspect carried several knives, presumably to stab the ones who are somehow able to escape through the emergency exit alive.

Under any circumstances, this is nothing but anti-social terrorism. (Or multicultural enrichment if it happened in any cucked western country, price and parcel)

So basically the psycho flooded the emergency exit with petrol, waiting for it to evaporate, then set the place on fire. People who caught on fire wanting to escape through that exit using its designed functions will "explode". He even had several knives to stab the ones that made out alive.
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This dude has to be the more-exceptional reincarnation of Timothy McVeigh. He targeted a building of innocent people, with children in it, too, over being assmad over something that's small and stupid. Hopefully, and it seems like it's going that way, he gets death row.
At least McVeigh was pissed off over something actually vaguely consequential (the big bad US gubmint) and not anime lesbians or whatever the fuck triggered this nutjob.
The plot thickens
>A few months back, there was a shitstorm on 5ch over one of the baritone sax solos in Euphonium. The song played was Take the A Train. This caused train otakus to freak out (train otaku known to be a very unhinged and crazy group of people). The shitstorm had came and just went a while ago, but some people speculate that it may have something to do with the attack.

so there's a possibility that a different kind of loony did the attack. But what the fuck, getting this worked out on trains? Holy shit this is getting clown world levels of exceptionalism
Thank god Shaner never tried to kill everyone at the Colebrookdale Railroad.
 
Out of pure curiosity as to how such a shitty looking building could be allowed to exist and whether the speculation about potential legal consequences is feasible or not, I went and looked up the fire safety provisions applying to Japanese building code. I found that the Fire Service Act (found in English here) and the Building Standards Law (which is turning out to be a real pain to find in it's native format but can be found summarized very well alongside the FSL here and here among other sites) are the sole documents governing fire management. Neither are nearly as comprehensive as codes I've seen from North America and the critical summary to the best of my very sleep-deprived abilities is that:
1) Office buildings like the one KyoAni was in are only required to be fire retardant, rather than fire-resistant as residential and commercial dwellings are, and do not require fire doors or material breaks
2) Dedicated escape stairs and fire extinguishers/sprinklers are not required by law as the building is (presumably) neither over 31 meters or 4 stories, nor a high-density commercial zone (like a grocery or department store)
Unless I've read something wrong, which is very possible so I encourage you to skim the documents yourself, the building was up to code. If I'm right and that is the case, I doubt any sort of wrongful death suit would go far, and there's nothing to prosecute the building owners or construction firm for since it wasn't caused by a structural fault. I'd like to say this is a wake-up call for Japanese lawmakers to push for better fire safety standards, but the fact that this was caused by an act of otaku terrorism leads me to believe that the most it'll lead to is some posturing from the Diet or Abe's cabinet about further restrictions on anime publication and a slap on the wrist at most for whatever agency verified the structures compliance with code.
 
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