Dozens dead in arson attack at Kyoto anime studio
AT LEAST 33 DEAD AFTER MAN SHOUTS ‘DIE,’ SETS FIRE TO JAPANESE ANIME STUDIO
A man shouted “Die” as he doused an animation studio with fuel and set it ablaze in Japan on Thursday, killing at least 33 people in the nation’s worst mass murder in nearly two decades.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the attack in the city of Kyoto — the latest grisly killing in a nation widely known for its low crime rates — “too appalling for words.”
Police arrested a 41-year-old injured man outside the three-storey Kyoto Animation building following the attack, which appeared to be motivated by a financial grievance.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that a 61-year-old woman in the neighbourhood thought the arrested man was a victim when she found him kneeling outside her home because he had burns to both arms and his right leg was on fire. She used a hose to put out the flames on the man who was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
Officers surrounded the man and when asked why he had started the fire, she heard him say, “They ripped me off.”
According to police, the man ran into the building shortly before 10.30 a.m.
Witnesses say he sprayed a liquid around the ground floor of the building and set fire to it, and was shouting “Die”. Police say that about 70 people were in the building.
Neighbours told local media that they heard a series of explosions.
Fire engulfed the building and white and black smoke billowed from its charred windows.
The dead were found on all three floors of the building, including in the studio, and on a staircase leading up to the roof, the fire department said. It was not clear if the roughly 10 people found dead on the staircase had been trying to escape.
Thirty-six people had been taken to hospital by midday, the fire department said earlier, with 10 of them seriously injured. The death toll was expected to rise.
Shiro Misaki, a 47-year old owner of a neighbourhood bar five minutes from studio, said he was driving nearby when he saw the thick smoke.
“Policemen were stopping traffic and it was really hazy with smoke,” he said. “Even after I got back to my restaurant I could smell the smoke.”
The prime minister said the cause was arson.
“Today, many people were killed and wounded in an arson murder case in Kyoto,” Abe said in a post on Twitter. “It is too appalling for words.”
Japanese animation, known as “anime,” includes television series and movies. A pillar of Japanese popular culture, it has become a major cultural export, winning fans around the world.
Kyoto Animation produces popular series such as “Sound! Euphonium.” Its
IT IS UNBEARABLE THAT THE PEOPLE ... WERE HURT AND LOST THEIR LIVES IN THIS WAY.
“Free! Road to the World — The Dream” movie is due for release this month.
“I am heartbroken,” Hideaki Hatta, the studio’s chief executive, told reporters. “It is unbearable that the people who helped carry Japan’s animation industry were hurt and lost their lives in this way.”
He told broadcaster NHK, “We have received protests against our company, not a few of them if not on a daily basis. There were murder emails including those which said ‘die’.”
The studio has an outsized role in Japan’s animation industry that outstrips the list of works it has produced, said Tokyo-based film commentator Yuichi Maeda.
“It has a huge presence in animation here. To have this many people die at once will be a huge blow to the Japanese animation industry,” he said.
It was Japan’s worst mass killing since a suspected arson attack in Tokyo in 2001.
Violent crime is relatively rare in Japan but occasional high-profile incidents have shocked the country.
Less than two months ago, a knife-wielding man slashed at a group of schoolgirls at a bus stop in Kawasaki, just south of Tokyo, killing one girl and the father of another, while injuring more than a dozen children.
In 2016, a man armed with a knife broke into a facility for the disabled in a small town near Tokyo and killed 19 patients.
The Japan Times reported that people convicted of deliberately setting fires in the country can face the death penalty.
A man convicted of setting a fire that killed 16 people in Osaka in 2008 is currently on death row, said the paper.