November 25 marked the start of the demolition of Kyoto Animation Studio 1, with all the scaffolding surrounding the building going up to shield the neighborhood from the noise and debris of the work. January 22 marked the start of stage two of the demolition work, the tearing down of the studio.

A video released by Nippon TV on January 22 shows the start of the destruction of the building where the arson attack on the company occurred on July 18, killing 36 and injuring 33 employees of the much-loved anime studio. The video shows two excavators on the roof of the studio, breaking through the concrete roof, filmed from a helicopter.

Nothing has been confirmed about what is going to happen to the land on which the studio sits as of yet. Kyoto Animation and family members of the victims want to have a memorial on the site. Understandably though, the residences don’t want the quiet suburbian neighborhood to have a spot that’ll attract a lot of visitors and cause a disturbance.

The demolition is scheduled to be finished in April 2020.

Source: Nippon.com

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Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs the YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.