The 18th. July 2019 was a sad day for the employees and owners of the Kyoto entertainment studio when the company’s premises caught fire. It was called the arson of KioAni. A total of approximately 36 people were killed and 33 injured during the attack, including the attacker Shinji Aoba.
The report showed that the attack was in fact planned as a suicide attack, but one thing led to the perpetrator being arrested by an officer during a flight attempt and then handed over to the authorities. In an interview with the police, Aoba confessed that he was the pioneer of the attack and explained that he had chosen a location in Kyoto because this was the largest expansion of the company in terms of the number of employees.
Biological Shinji Aoba: Age, place of birth, parents, siblings, education
The arson suspect, Shinji Aoba, was born in 1978 when he was 41 years old at the time of the attack. He lives in Saitama, on the outskirts of Tokyo. There are no details about his parents, brothers and sisters, place of birth and the schools where he studied.
We know in detail that he was in the vicinity of the crime scene two days before the attack and then committed the attack. When asked why he decided to set the building on fire, he accused Kyoto Animation of stealing the idea for his novel without carrying it with him. He claimed the attack was their only fault, because they’d always flown.
Arson in KyoAni
It was reported that the suspect had bought two 20-litre cans of gasoline at a hardware store in a park near the Kyoto Animation Building in Tokyo and had prepared an inflammatory operation after arriving there by train. This attack led to the murder of 36 people because, strangely enough, he believed that his novel was a plagiarism. Prior to the attack on the company, Anime received several threats by email. It is not known whether the threats were related to the attack, but the police have been informed.
The attack began with a loud explosion after the suspect entered the building, had poured petrol on several workers, including those in the area, and set them on fire. He set himself on fire. The suspicion is that he entered the building with gasoline on a car. He kept screaming that he was going to die.
The fire grew quickly and completely blocked the entrance. As a result, several employees were unable to find a solution. The bodies were scattered from the third floor to the top floor. There were signs that people were trying to escape, including a suspect who tried to escape but was later arrested.
After the rescue by the firefighters, all the wounded and dead were taken to hospital and the firefighters reported that the office building had been completely destroyed. The office building was classified as small, there were no sprinklers or fire hydrants inside, but there were no safety problems. There were no guards in the building? This is the question the journalists asked themselves when they tried to understand that no one could see Aoba entering the building. According to reports, employees or visitors needed badges to enter the building, but the door was open on the day of the attack. Other reports state that no security system has been installed, either in the office or at the door that opens wide during working hours.
The arson not only destroyed the building, but also many documents, computers and equipment in the Kyoto studio. The things that were not affected by the fire are some important photographs that were shown in the Tukishma exhibition. The attack was carried out on one of the largest objects, but they managed to recover some original scanned drawings from the server.
After the Second World War, this attack is considered one of the bloodiest massacres in the country’s history and the deadliest fire to destroy a building in Japan after Myeozyo in 2001.
Criminal record Shinji Aoba
Eight years before Kyoani Aoba’s attack, he was arrested for attempted robbery of a shop in Ibaraki, East Tokyo, with a knife and sentenced to three and a half years in solitary confinement after being convicted of the crime. It is said that Aoba is mentally ill. At the time, he was living in Jozo. The Kyoto news agency reported that it stole almost $200 from the store. After his release, he remained in a residential area built for ex-prisoners. However, there are indications that his sentence for arson may not be fatal because of his mental state and that he is likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment.
