Kyoto studio arsonist repeatedly caused trouble for neighbors - Kyodo News Plus

A man apprehended over a deadly arson attack on a Kyoto Animation Co. studio has a criminal record and has repeatedly caused trouble for his neighbors, according to investigative sources and people who know him.

The man, identified by police as 41-year-old Shinji Aoba, was seen screaming "Die!" as he entered the studio building Thursday and splashed gasoline around before starting a blaze that killed 33 people, according to the police. Knives and a hammer were also recovered from the scene.

While his motive is not yet clear, he told the police he started the fire because the company "stole a novel," claiming his ideas had been plagiarized, the investigative sources said.

Aoba's driver's license shows him as a resident of Saitama, north of Tokyo. It is considered rare for the police to disclose the identity of an apprehended person who has not yet been formally arrested.

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Aoba was arrested for robbing a convenience store in June 2012, according to the sources. He was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for stealing 20,000 yen ($186). He was living in the eastern Japan city of Joso at the time.

He was released from prison in January 2016. He then lived in a rehabilitation facility in Saitama for several months before moving to an apartment for single people in the city three years ago, they said.

Aoba often caused trouble for his neighbors, according to nearby residents.

A 27-year-old man who lives next door to him said Aoba once falsely accused him of making a noise, grabbing him by his collar and hair and threatening to hurt him.

A woman in her 40s in the neighborhood said the police were called in August last year when Aoba was listening to music at a very loud volume late at night.

As he refused to open the door, the police entered his apartment from the balcony, and an ambulance was later called, she said.

Aoba is being treated in hospital for burns on his face, chest and other parts of his body, and the police plan to question him thoroughly after he recovers.

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2019-07-19 11:58:55Z
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Shinji Aoba Identified as Alleged Kyoto Animation Arsonist - Newser

(Newser) – The man accused of setting fire to an anime studio in Japan, killing at least 33 people in one of the country's deadliest postwar mass murders, has been identified as Shinji Aoba. The 41-year-old man is being treated for burns in a hospital and police have so far been unable to question him, reports the BBC. His motive is unclear, though witnesses say they heard him complain that Kyoto Animation had plagiarized his novel before he splashed flammable liquid from a bucket and set it on fire. CCTV footage reportedly shows Aoba buying gas in containers from a nearby station before the attack. Kyoto Animation president Hideaki Hatti says the studio recently received threatening letters, though he doesn't know whether they were from the suspect.

Aoba would not have been able to enter the studio building if he had chosen a different day, the Asahi Shimbun reports. Hatti says people normally need ID cards to enter the building, but the system was temporarily deactivated Thursday because of a meeting involving outside guests. Experts say nature of the blaze and the construction of the building—which did not have sprinklers, and wasn't required to under Japan's fire code—may have contributed to the high number of deaths. They say a spiral staircase leading from the first to the third floors would have acted as a "chimney," causing fire and smoke to spread with terrifying speed. Nineteen bodies were found piled on top of each other on stairs between the third floor and roof; Kyodo reports the door was shut but could reportedly be opened from the roof side. Police say that out of 74 people in the building when the fire broke out, only six escaped uninjured. (Read more Japan stories.)

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2019-07-19 11:39:00Z
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At Kyoto Animation, Women Were Central. When It Burned, They Paid the Price. - The New York Times

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.

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.

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.

Image

Mourning the fire’s victims on Friday. Thirty-three people were killed.CreditJae C. Hong/Associated Press

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.

“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.

Image

Flowers at the site of the fire on Friday.CreditKim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

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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2019-07-19 11:04:22Z
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At Kyoto Animation, Women Were Central. When It Burned, They Paid the Price. - The New York Times

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.

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.

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.

Image

Mourning the fire’s victims on Friday. Thirty-three people were killed.CreditJae C. Hong/Associated Press

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.

“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.

Image

Flowers at the site of the fire on Friday.CreditKim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

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.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/world/asia/japan-fire-kyoto-animation.html

2019-07-19 10:33:10Z
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At Kyoto Animation, Women Were Central. When It Burned, They Paid the Price. - The New York Times

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.

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.

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.

Image

Mourning the fire’s victims on Friday. Thirty-three people were killed.CreditJae C. Hong/Associated Press

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.

“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.

Image

Flowers at the site of the fire on Friday.CreditKim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

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.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/world/asia/japan-fire-kyoto-animation.html

2019-07-19 09:30:07Z
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South Korean man sets himself on fire outside Japanese embassy in Seoul - CNN

According to a statement from the local Jongno Fire Station, "it is presumed that the man, using 20 liters of gasoline and butane gas in the car, tried to set himself on fire."

The incident occurred in the early hours of Friday morning, at 3:24 a.m. The man succumbed to his injuries in hospital several hours later, after suffering extensive second-degree burns to his chest, arm and face.

The reason for the incident has not been revealed.

It comes amid heightened tensions between Japan and South Korea, over issues including the history of colonial war during World War II and an expanding trade dispute over supplies for microprocessor chips and other high-tech goods which could threaten the global supply.

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2019-07-19 08:46:00Z
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South Korean man sets himself on fire outside Japanese embassy in Seoul - CNN

According to a statement from the local Jongno Fire Station, "it is presumed that the man, using 20 liters of gasoline and butane gas in the car, tried to set himself on fire."

The incident occurred in the early hours of Friday morning, at 3:24 a.m. The man succumbed to his injuries in hospital several hours later, after suffering extensive second-degree burns to his chest, arm and face.

The reason for the incident has not been revealed.

It comes amid heightened tensions between Japan and South Korea, over issues including the history of colonial war during World War II and an expanding trade dispute over supplies for microprocessor chips and other high-tech goods which could threaten the global supply.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/asia/south-korea-japan-embassy-fire-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-07-19 08:38:00Z
52780334791604