This week, an angry man barricaded the exits of one of Kyoto Animation's studio buildings and started a fire. Thirty-three workers died in the attack. The rest of the seventy employees on site were hospitalized in varying condition.
When SunshineDuk messaged me to tell me about the arson and massacre, I was in the middle of a three-day trip to Lake Tahoe.
Long-time followers may remember that I first visited the lake over a decade ago and immediately fell in love. I was captivated by the blue sky, the white clouds, the slopes and rocks and water, the myriad colors in the meadows. And while I soaked in the sights, an impressionable teenager, I was listening to a certain anime's soundtrack on my old iPod. That anime was AIR, and its is forever the background music of my favorite place in the world. After a decade away from Tahoe, I was back, listening to those same tunes, revisiting a sanctuary.
A lot of horrible things happen in this world every day. On the scales of world hunger and climate catastrophe, of war and mass deprivation, the murder of a quarter of the animation staff at one studio may seem like a blip.
But somehow as I digested what I was reading I found myself horribly empty: scooped out.
This was personal, I realized. These dead aren't a statistic that I need to remind myself to be upset about, overcoming human biases against processing mass horror. They aren't distant victims of a process I understand on an analytical level. They are casualties of something both immeasurably unknowable—senseless violence—and deeply intimate—passion, in an unqualified sense, regarding their work.
Passion for Kyoto Animation's work is something so ingrained in me that I didn't get it at first. SunshineDuk had to hold my hand through it and remind me of my own experience.
But there I was, immersed in the truest sense in my KyoAni fandom. In the AIR soundtrack. In Tahoe.
AIR was my first love affair with Kyoto Animation, but it wasn't my last, nor my most enduring. I have watched the thirteen-episode series somewhere between 15 and 16 times, which is more time (some 80 odd hours!) than I've spent on any other KyoAni property. And I still love it, despite its flaws, its flimsy characters, its paper-thin plot, its reliance on the crutch of mysterious and sexy disease. Its soundtrack and visuals still carry it forward a decade and a half after its TV run, and nostalgia does the rest of the heavy lifting.
I've seen most of KyoAni's catalogue, and won't bore you with reviews of everything, but suffice to say I've seen most of what I've seen multiple times. I'll mention some highlights.
Fullmetal Panic! Fumoffu? remains my all-time favorite comedy series. I've seen it many times, shown episodes to many friends. It's a perfect example of KyoAni's mastery of physical comedy, something specifically couched in the attention and skill of its animators.
K-on!... I've written about K-on! before. I don't know if I can truly express how blown away I am to this day that I became so invested in the characters and their minute struggles and triumphs. It's a masterclass in buy-in.
Violet Evergarden is a gem for its distinction, its meandering pace and perspective, its sensitivity. I should write about it in more detail sometime, because it made me feel complex things, and it's noteworthy when a series does that after seeing four or five hundred titles.
Koe no Katachi—"shape of voice," or "A Silent Voice" as it was localized—is a fucking masterpiece. It's not for everyone. I can't recommend it willy nilly. It's painful to watch, and it's about pain, but it's also about healing, and it's healing to watch. Along with Violet Evergarden, it is a testament to KyoAni's growth and maturity: that they are able to produce works of meaning and weight without tweens who uncontrollably make cute noises when they're upset.
Despite my focus on these four titles, I should note that I carry everything with me: Hibike! Euphonium, possibly the series besides Aria the Origination which I watched weekly with the least patience, is high up there. The rest follow: Kanon, Clannad, Hyouka, Haruhi, Lucky Star, even Munto.
And it's way past time for me to give Free and Nichijou the attention they deserve. There's other, more recent stuff I want to watch, stuff I didn't care as much about after an episode or two: perhaps a knee-jerk reaction not unlike my initial dismissal of K-on!, which has gone on to become one of my greatest pleasures.
My relationship with KyoAni's works hasn't always been smooth. In my previous life as a more well-known anime blogger, I ranted against Haruhi, against Lucky Star, against even K-on! at first. As I said, I am no stranger to passion when it comes to KyoAni.
The thing that tempers all my past criticism, I think, is the kernel at the center of every KyoAni work, the through-line in their catalogue: heart.
Whether it was the avant-garde use of eye-blinking in AIR, or the attention to backgrounds in Kanon and Hyouka, or Haruhi belting out the lyrics to "God Knows," or the way the girls pat the turtle as they leave their band behind in K-on!, or the notes in the margins of the players' sheet music in Hibike! Euphonium, or the decentering of the heroine in Violet Evergarden's middle segments, or the amazing control of depth of focus in all their works, that kernel is always there. Fluid movement and attention to detail. Animators that cared. Animators that loved.
Whatever happens next, Kyoto Animation is the anime studio I've always cared about the most. I've spent 14.5 days' worth of time in their works. Hell, I've watched "Endless Eight" in its entirety three times.
KyoAni isn't some be all end all, some superlative existence that obviates the rest of the industry. I have plenty of favorites they didn't produce. But I haven't returned to anything in the same way that I've returned to KyoAni. And I doubt I ever will.
From Fred Gallagher's initial recommendation of AIR back when I was an idiot who read sad weebcomic MegaTokyo to last week's screening of Hibike! Euphonium Oath's Finale, I've been of KyoAni. This isn't a cute partisanship, but it is who I am, and this week, of all weeks, I won't apologize for it.
Thank you, Kyoto Animation, for all that you have done, and for all that you mean to me.
I will bring your works forward with me as I wade onward into this world.
I intend to watch and rewatch a lot of KyoAni works in the coming weeks. Some of this may result in more writing, but I won't commit to it. This is ritual, for me, something of fabricated significance. I want to spend time with the animation, with the animators. If you're new to the studio, I don't really recommend that you join me: this is a moment with too much weight for recommendations. I don't want you to check out your first KyoAni work feeling like you need to care because the animators died for making it.
But sometime down the line, when the weight is a little lessened, let's watch some KyoAni together. There's a lot of heart, and I'd like to share it.