Arson at Kyoto Ani­ma­tion Stu­dio takes both a human and artis­tic toll

From Japan comes a dis­turb­ing report with fright­en­ing impli­ca­tions beyond its imme­di­ate­ly trag­ic dimen­sion. This morn­ing, an uniden­ti­fied man broke into the Kyoto Ani­ma­tion Stu­dio and sprayed a flam­ma­ble liq­uid before shout­ing ​“drop dead!” and igniting.

Dead­line is report­ing on the sit­u­a­tion as it devel­ops, and cites fig­ures from Japan­ese broad­cast­er NHK that 25 lives have been lost in the blaze. It also spec­i­fies that while the sus­pect has been appre­hend­ed and hos­pi­tal­ized, many of those affect­ed by his con­temptible actions still remain unac­count­ed for.

Experts have not­ed that this fire rep­re­sents the nation’s most destruc­tive and lethal since a 2001 fire at a gam­bling club in Tokyo, which claimed 44 casu­al­ties. Today’s inci­dent in Kyoto, how­ev­er, comes with an addi­tion­al cost in the form of the irre­place­able art that has been destroyed.

This report arrives on the heels of last month’s shock­ing New York Times exposé about the truth behind Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios’ 2008 fire, in which a mas­sive trea­sure trove of audio and video mas­ters melt­ed and accord­ing­ly fad­ed into his­to­ry. As the com­plete enor­mi­ty of the mate­r­i­al lost has come into view, the pub­lic has renewed a con­ver­sa­tion about the absolute vital­i­ty of prop­er dig­i­tal preservation.

While the pri­ma­ry toll in Kyoto Animation’s sad sto­ry con­cerns that of its staff, the stu­dio nonethe­less fig­ures into indus­try-wide reflec­tions on the fright­en­ing fragili­ty of phys­i­cal media. Kyoto Ani­ma­tion has been the site of many well-regard­ed ani­mé fea­tures and series (one fan on Twit­ter has shared a fond remem­brance of watch­ing their Liz and the Blue Bird last year), and the sum total of what’s been erased from that back­log won’t be clear until the dust settles.

We all must come to terms with our own mor­tal­i­ty at some point, but the notion that art can under­go its own expi­ra­tion can be sim­i­lar­ly dis­tress­ing for those com­mit­ted to cul­ture and, in par­tic­u­lar, the preser­va­tion of phys­i­cal media. Until seri­ous insti­tu­tion­al mea­sures are imple­ment­ed for a secure stor­age method and the prop­er main­te­nance for upkeep, cin­e­ma will con­tin­ue to van­ish into the ether of history.