#PrayForKyoAni

At 10 in the morning, residents of Kyoto heard a explosion, the Studio 1 building of Kyoto Animation was in flames. The Studio 1 building and it’s staff being a target of an arsonist, with a backpack full of knives and a hammer in tow, poured gasoline on the building’s ground floor earlier that morning. One witness to the tragedy citing he shouted “SHINU!” (or “you die!”) threatening the lives of the 70-some workers inside, seeing to it they die. This unknown 41-year old man had just sadistically committed Japan’s most heinous post-war mass killing, with the blood of 33 souls, on both his hands and feet, raving angrily about the world around him.

Why did he target Kyoto Animation? That’s up for debate: some would argue the killer’s mental health, but Japan has rarely had issues like this. Maybe he was a disgruntled worker, payed poorly for such work?, it was confirmed that he had no ties to the studio, even in-spite of the studio receiving death threats. Any claims of the studio’s poor work conditions had been debunked with Kyoto Animation being often praised for both it’s hospitality, and it’s distinction to pay employees on per-hour salary, rather than the traditional pay-per-frame policy made standard practice by rival studios in such a highly competitive industry. Maybe he hated the studio’s work?, maybe he hated animation in general? I don’t know. Why he did it sounded like he was inflicting harm on random people because of something in his life made him furious? that’s just a theory.

Like I said; this is Japan’s most brutal mass killing in the post-war era, but combine that with Kyoto Animation’s resume stretching back as far of 1981, with works such as K-On, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, A Silent Voice, and Violet Evergarden, (coming to Netflix) and with each work’s fans being sympathetic and heartbroken over the tragedy, they had banded together on GoFundMe, smashing the expectations of Texas-based specialty studio Sentai Filmworks, who are running the campaign. If any of you want to help Kyoto Animation directly in their time of need, I highly suggest you DO IT, even a little will come a long way for them to overcome this disaster.

I wasn’t certain about either leaving this in the General (Non-gaming) discussion or here in the Anime discussion. But considering it’s already on the World News, I feel like fans of the studio’s anime or anime in general will find it here. I may not be a general anime fan, but for all that is lost I feel like we should talk about it here: one rule before I go: no disgracing the suspect’s family, they have feelings too. Reply with your Fs for respect, and donate in their hour of need.