Kyoto Animation CEO Hideaki Hatta: Apart from the human casualties, everything has been lost. All the materials, be it paper or digital data, is gone

[delete12345]

Translation in the title.

This is pretty sad, or rather, it's a giant Oof.


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Clarifications:

Someone with better Japanese can correct me on this if I'm wrong, I'd maybe caution about reading too much into what specifically has been lost here. I do believe that their physical archives - past genga, settei, storyboards and all - we stored in that building and therefore presumably destroyed, but when it comes to the computer comment I'm not sure there's anything in the article that implies more than the fact that the computer hardware they keep on site has been destroyed, and nothing at all about any kind of loss of digital archives.

Now, that's not exactly a small loss for the company - I believe it's the site where they did all the photography and compositing work - but it doesn't mean any digital work the studio has done over it's lifetime has necessarily been lost.

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Hatta isn't saying that all their current work is gone or destroyed. He is lamenting the loss of studio culture and legacy from the fire because all the design materials and original animation sheets from their past works which were stored in the studio are gone forever now.

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[ElectricBlanketFire]

As someone not familiar with the genre, is their released material widely available or is some of it lost forever?

 

[TheGreatDirector]

This whole thing has been incredibly sad.

 

[chaobreaker]

Like I said in the other thread, I hope they can come back from this.

Though I wonder why nothing digital was backed up or preserved offsite. I know Japan is a country that still regularly uses fax machines in offices but NAS or cloud backups is not exactly infeasible.

 

[Kewlmyc]

Very sad to hear, especially with the death toll now being at 34.

I would also assume that all of their upcoming projects are now either delayed indefinitely or cancelled.

 

[Futureman]

They didn't have off-site data back up for the digital stuff? This whole situation is very sad. I read an article that 2/3 of the deaths were women.

 

[KDR_11k]

So they don't even have offsite backups of older digital materials?

 

[Arkanius]

No offsite backups?
There are bigger problems right now, but what the fuck?

 

[The Struggler]

Im more upset about the loss of life rather than material but I get where they are coming from.

 

[Aine]

Such a goddamn tragedy, all around.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

"Apart from the human casualties"?

Shouldn't it be "including"?

 

[Infinity Times Two]

In the face of the human loss, it's miniscule, but still, weird to have no backups.

 

[marimo]

Everything about this tragedy is so upsetting

 

[ultracal31]

So they don't even have offsite backups of older digital materials?

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Cost issues most likely is the reason they don't do offsite backups

 

[KtotheRoc]

When I talk to people about this tragedy, they wonder if Kyoto Animation can recover.

I just don't know. :(

 

[Deleted member 23212]

So, not only did the survivors lose co-workers/friends, they also lost who knows how many hours of labour.

 

[Deleted member 16609]

This is what I fear. What a tragedy.

 

[MikeHattsu]

From the other thread:

Someone with better Japanese can correct me on this if I'm wrong, I'd maybe caution about reading too much into what specifically has been lost here. I do believe that their physical archives - past genga, settei, storyboards and all - we stored in that building and therefore presumably destroyed, but when it comes to the computer comment I'm not sure there's anything in the article that implies more than the fact that the computer hardware they keep on site has been destroyed, and nothing at all about any kind of loss of digital archives.

Now, that's not exactly a small loss for the company - I believe it's the site where they did all the photography and compositing work - but it doesn't mean any digital work the studio has done over it's lifetime has necessarily been lost.

Click to shrink...

Hatta isn't saying that all their current work is gone or destroyed. He is lamenting the loss of studio culture and legacy from the fire because all the design materials and original animation sheets from their past works which were stored in the studio are gone forever now.

Click to shrink...

 

[delete12345]

"Apart from the human casualties"?

Shouldn't it be "including"?

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It's a translation issue. I was only copying what others are saying on Twitter.

From the other thread:

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Adding clarifications to OP.

 

[Deleted member 31092]

As someone not familiar with the genre, is their released material widely available or is some of it lost forever?

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Japanese animation studies in general aren't that great at storing and preserving their material, especially small/medium scale studios.

Gainax for example lost the original audio tracks of Gunbuster and plenty of cells from all of their shows.

However no official news about what was lost in this case was shared yet, so I won't speculate much about it.

For sure their key/in-between animations for their current project are gone tho, that's going to be a major setback.

 

[Komo]

From the other thread:

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The OP should clarify this.

 

[delete12345]

The OP should clarify this.

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It's already added.

 

[Richter1887]

A damn shame.

All that work, lost because of some piece of shit.

 

[Instro]

Might as well close the thread as it's not accurate.

 

[Cerium]

The quote seems to have been initially mistranslated, and as is this thread might give the wrong impression.

Please wait for official word about what was lost. Try not to create threads about news in other languages unless you are a fluent speaker.