Some unknown inside stories of the Kyoto Animation fire nearly half a year ago were revealed

Kyoto Animation is a cornerstone of Japan's booming $2 billion animation industry, but since the arson in July, reports have been coming out one after another. This is the worst mass "killing" in Japan since World War II. Recently, foreign media Hollywood Reporter published an inside report on the Kyoto Animation fire, which revealed some unknown events after the fire.

Kyoto Animation President Hideaki Hatta

As the president of Kyoto Animation, 69-year-old Hideaki Hatta spent most of the morning preparing for an 11 a.m. business meeting with Japanese broadcaster NHK. After the incident, Hatta visited the fire scene, but because there were too many reporters on the scene, President Hatta had to park his car more than 800 meters away and run to the scene.

The Hollywood Reporter pointed out that in order to avoid the media, Kyoto Animation held the funerals of the deceased employees in batches in secret. The employees who survived the fire were unable to participate in all the secret funerals and could only participate multiple times. Some surviving employees even attended their colleague's funerals five times.

The report also revealed that Kyoto Animation is a company that attaches great importance to its employees. At the beginning, Kyoto Animation allowed employees to work at home. Mihoko Eda is an old employee who has worked at Kyoto Animation for more than 30 years, and her daughter also joined the Kyoto Animation family in 2014.

On the day of the fire, Hideaki Hatta was surrounded by reporters whether he was returning home or in Studio 5. In order to avoid the reporters, President Hatta drove around aimlessly. Later, his son found Hatta not far from where Aoba had camped before the accident. Hatta and his son did not sleep all night.

After the fire, the employees who returned to work said that continuing to produce animation was the only meaningful thing they could do at the moment. Akiko Takase, the character designer of "Violet Evergarden", said that when she was drawing, she felt that her dead colleagues were still there, but when she got home, she felt a state of emptiness.

Kyoto Animation's attorney Daisuke Okeda

After the fire, President Hatta was troubled by the media, and Daisuke Okeda, the attorney representing Kyoto Animation, became a key figure in protecting the surviving employees. Daisuke Okeda had dealt with President Hatta and his wife before, and he had a friend who worked at Kyoto Animation. Unfortunately, when the fire broke out, this lawyer friend of Daisuke Okeda was hospitalized, so Lawyer Okeda volunteered to be Kyoto Animation's attorney, and for "free" (Mr. Okeda's wife also agreed to her husband's move).