Known by fans as KyoAni, the company is famous for licensing some of its anime productions to Netflix and giving its employees the time and creative space to work on their craft that is rare in the industry.
In 2009, it established the locally influential Kyoto Animation Award for novels and manga, making many of the winners into anime productions. In 2014,won the grand prize and was turned into an anime series in 2016. It was licensed by Netflix in 2018, and is available to the streaming giant's subscribers worldwide. A spin-off feature film was due out in September, with another a sequel set for release next year.
Pay in the anime industry in Japan is infamously low for many artists, who often work grueling hours on a freelance, per-image basis with little security. Many were surprised, for example, when Studio Ghibli recently advertised for experienced animators to work on its new films on short-term contracts starting at just $2,300 a month.
However, KyoAni is known for making its animators permanent employees and allowing them more time to work on their craft, something many anime aficionados see as reflected in the quality of its productions. No motive for the arson attack has yet been reported, but the suspect has admitted deliberately starting the fire.
Messages of support and sympathy have been flooding in from around the world, and a GoFundMe campaign, started by Sentai Filmworks, a Texas-based distributor which has released KyoAni productions, had raised more than $250,000 by Thursday evening Japanese time.
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