My Experience with Kyoto Animation

Kyoto Animation is my favorite anime studio, and it is not just because it is the studio behind my favorite anime of all time, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Even beside Haruhi, this studio has brought many memorable anime to life, such as Lucky Star, Kanon, Clannad, Air, A Silent Voice, Free, and Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon. It's as if almost everything this studio touches turns into gold, and an anime they create is always something to look forward to. I wouldn't say that I'm up-to-date with everything this studio has done, but I do love Kyoto Animation and almost everything it does.

That is why what I heard about today broke my heart.

Apparently, someone had walked into Kyoto Animation Studio 1, poured gasoline all over the place while saying "Die" again and again, and lit the place on fire.

33 people lost their lives in the fire, with more injured. Fortunately, the suspect has been brought into custody, but the fact that he has been arrested does not change the fact that lives have been lost and many more have been changed forever. This incident has caused an upset in the anime industry and among anime fans, and for good reason, considering how many wonderful anime this studio has made. Sentai Filmworks has started a GoFundMe page, and you can donate to it if you click on this link. I want to donate to it, but I am not 100% sure if I can at this time. What I can do, however, is tell the story of how I came to love this studio.

My first anime from Kyoto Animation was, of course, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The way I first heard of this anime was quite unique compared to how I first heard of other anime. Back before I got into anime, I was really into Pokemon, even more than I am now. One day, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across this video.

In this video, three Pikachu (one shiny), a Plusle, and a Minun are doing the Hare Hare Yukai dance. In case you don't know, "Hare Hare Yukai", sung by Aya Hirano, Yuuko Gotou, and Minori Chihara (the respective voice actresses for Haruhi Suzumiya, Mikuru Asahina, and Yuki Nagato), is the ending theme for the first season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and it's well-known for the dance that goes with the song. I couldn't understand the song's lyrics, but I certainly liked the video for the fact that there were Pokemon in it....and I also found the end bit kind of cute.

Fast forward at most a year later, and I'm just getting into anime. Pretty much all I had watched at that point were Tokyo Mew Mew, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Mermaid Melody, Rosario + Vampire, and Shugo Chara, all of which I loved a lot. (I watched Tokyo Mew Mew first, and the rest were anime that my friends from the website I heard about it from watched.) One day, I happened to remember the video and how I couldn't understand the song's lyrics, and I thought, "Could that song have been from an anime?" I searched YouTube for the video again, and sure enough, the song was from an anime called "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya". (For a while, though, I just called it "Haruhi Suzumiya".) After a while, I finally got around to watching it, and although I admit that it took me a while to really get into it, I was absolutely in love with it when I did! I loved the characters, animation, music, and story. It was also my first light novel, which I happened to get for my birthday; you wouldn't believe how many times I reread the first volume until I finally got the second!

The next KyoAni anime I watched is what ended up being my second favorite KyoAni anime and my fifth favorite overall, "Lucky Star". In case you don't know, Lucky Star is basically about the daily lives of four high school girls, and it is chock-full of anime references, which makes sense, considering how our leading lady, Konata Izumi, happens to be an otaku. I had heard about it for a while, but it only really caught my attention when I came across a video of it on YouTube, which showed the Haruhi Suzumiya references the anime contained. That day, I told myself, "I should probably watch Lucky Star one day to see if it is really as awesome as Haruhi." Eventually, I got around to watching it, and sure enough, it was! It isn't really for those who want a whole lot happening in their anime, but Lucky Star just has a charm to it that not a lot of other slice of life anime have. I used to schedule days when I would watch certain anime, and I remember that when Tuesday rolled around, I'd go straight to the computer, go onto YouTube, pull up the next Lucky Star episode that I hadn't watched yet, and watch it. About a year or so later, I watched it again, and I was able to catch onto a lot more of the references! I wonder how many more I can catch if I watched it a third time....

Next was another slice of life anime that is well-known in the anime community, "K-On!" I first heard about K-On through - once again -  a YouTube video. (The method where I heard about Haruhi isn't sounding so unique anymore....) This time, it was through a Vocaloid video. Back when I first got into anime, I was also really into Vocaloid, thanks to the same people who got me into the first few anime I watched. One day, I happened to come across a few videos on YouTube that were basically Vocaloid versions of the opening and ending themes of K-On; my favorite was the one for "Go! Go! Maniac" - the first opening for the second season - simply because not only was Hatsune Miku singing it, but Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Megurine Luka, and Kasane Teto all got singing parts in the song. I soon found out that these videos were based off of an actual anime; naturally, I got curious about this anime. I wouldn't say K-On necessarily makes onto my top 10 or even top 20 favorite anime, but I found it very cute and charming and really loved the music. Heck, I'm listening to "Fuwa Fuwa Time" as I type this paragraph! (The Mio version, in case you're wondering. I like Yui's version, too, though.)

After that is what I like to call, "The Key Trio". (I know that there are anime adaptations of more of Key's works, but there are only three done by KyoAni!) The first I watched out of the three was "Kanon", which I first discovered through - you guessed it - a YouTube video. I'm not going to share it this time, as the video is a spoiler from the anime; all I'm going to say that it involves one of the characters, Makoto Sawatari. I quickly recognized the animation style from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and thought, "I'm going to have to watch this one day." To this day, I have watched it three times and am considering going for a fourth watch, considering how long it has been since I watched it; I was just blown away by the animation, voice acting, music, characters, and story, even with the spoiler-y clip I had seen before I even watched it the first time. Through Kanon, I became interested in Clannad and Air. I watched Clannad first and gained pretty much the same feelings for it as I did for Kanon. As I was making my way through Clannad, Christmas came around, and I got a DVD for Air as a present; I watched the whole series that very day and still loved it! It's mainly through these three anime that I came to be known as KeyAndKyoAniLover on Anime-Planet. (By the way, I watched the Toei versions of all three anime, too. I don't care what anyone else thinks; although none of them matched the quality of the KyoAni versions, I thought all three were pretty good, too.)

We'd be here all day if I were to talk about all of the anime Kyoto Animation has made that I watched; however, there is one more that I want to talk about, and that is Tamako Market. Unlike the other anime I've mentioned on this blog post, I didn't hear about Tamako Market through a YouTube video; in fact, when I first heard about it, it hadn't even aired yet! Because I was really becoming a KyoAni fangirl at that time, I was looking through a list of the anime they had made at the time on Wikipedia and came across one that hadn't aired yet called "Tamako Market". When I clicked on the link to the Wikipedia article, I noticed that the picture for was in the same style as K-On and thought, "Okay, I'm watching this." I went through a period of time where I would watch seasonal anime, and becoming interested in Tamako Market and wanting to watch the second season of Haganai (I was also a fan of Haganai back then) was what started it. I found Tamako Market to be a really cute anime, and all I wanted in life at that time was for Mochizou to confess his feelings for Tamako! (I finally got my wish when Tamako Love Story came out. Gosh, I love that movie!)

As you can see, I have many memories associated with Kyoto Animation and the anime the folks over there have created. That is why the fire has affected me. Will the world never get to see any more of KyoAni's masterpieces? What will become of those affected in the fire? Things will probably never be the same for those affected again, and all we can hope for is that the GoFundMe is successful and those who survived will be okay, even though their lives have changed forever in a way very unlike how they changed mine.