KyoAni Gofundme/Donation Drive

[KebabRemover]

@goronyanpai gofundme takes a chunk of the money and payment processors also get a chunk of it. Not only you're giving money to a gofundme that may get pocketed or not send the whole money to kyoani but even if they were 100% honest, Kyoani will receive less money that if you were to buy digital goods from their store.

The gofundme will take longer to finish and sending the money compared to buying digital goods(which are unlimited) directly from their online store which will deposit the money straight into kyoani's pockets and without the need of dealing with shady variables.

 

[boldmonkey]

KyoAni may be one of the shittiest anime studio in existence, but Jesus Christ. What does one even say about something like this? The perpetrator is obviously some kind of mental case, and Japan's mental health care field is notoriously bad. Reminds me of that one h-doujinshi author whose house was burnt down after he published an NTR story with characters from some harem anime.
@SteamedBunInvasion
Sentai would be over as a company if they tried to turn this situation into a scam. Nobody would buy their stuff, no studio would work with them, and the ones responsible would face criminal charges. This isn't a random guy calling from a cellphone, or a bunch of amateurs failing to deliver on their promises for a better game of 3D CG chess, this is a well-established company and an internationally known incident of mass-murder through arson.

 

[ItsQuote]

@KebabRemover

gofundme takes a chunk of the money

they do not: https://www.gofundme.com/c/free-fundraising

payment processors also get a chunk of it

unless you're mailing cash directly to KyoAni, this will happen regardless. non-issue.

that may get pocketed or not send the whole money to kyoani

this would mean the end of Sentai. companies may not be trustworthy, but can you honestly say they'd risk their entire business for a few hundred thousand dollars?

deposit the money straight into kyoani's pockets

which will then have to be dispersed according to their agreements with the various agencies that made it possible, unless KyoAni owns the manufacture and distribution chain end-to-end which i'm almost certain they don't. still, it's not 100% to KyoAni

 

[goronyanpai]

*sigh*
Let's stop embedding theories with each other. Stay with your own decision. I just want to see how everyone is united at a time like this and all the burden is on Sentai's. Let's see to the end.

By the way, ANIMATE (Japanese stuff shop) has started to open a donation box :
https://twitter.com/livedoornews/status/1152123264098979840
https://www.animate.co.jp/info/278030/
Tottori and Iwami-Cho prefectures too :
https://twitter.com/livedoornews/status/1152149349146583042
Think of this as a supporter because finally there is another party that moves besides Sentai. I want to see if people still think of them as profit seekers or purely question GoFundMe itself.

WTF? So, 34 people!?
https://twitter.com/livedoornews/status/1152239196083376130

 

[traveling_chef]

this is a horrible tragedy made worse by buttheads spouting shit about donating to a cause.

if you think it's a scam, fine. don't donate, but don't go making anyone who did donate out to be a fool because they wanted to support people in the face of a tragedy.

if Sentai is on the Up and up, then you will have missed your chance to donate directly to the people who need help and not the people who make and distribute their merch.

if they aren't and they pocket the money, then Sentai will be shooting themselves in the foot and committing business suicide. they would lose ALL faith any fans have towards them and business partners will be more inclined to take their money elsewhere.

oh and I guess if they take the money you get to wear a little smug smile while saying "I told you so" in the face of a tragedy.

good job you did it, you made the world a better place.

 

[crazybars]

@kn1000a

Waiting for a direct donation or official Gofund me to redirect people to.


I got scammed a while back by some charity that was owned by the company collecting the "donations"
It was a text book company and they were supposed to give the money to schools for text books.


Book company collected donations to give to a charity Broke ass books. (Not the real names obviously)

Book Company owned 100% of Broke Ass books charity and only gave 2% as donations to the school, rest was profit and running the charity.


I WAS LIVID!!!

So yeah, that's why there's so much suspicion on charities. A lot of us who have donated have experienced the hatred of finding out only 2% of our donated money actually was used for actual charity work.

 

[Fuko]

I don't trust an American company which takes donations on behalf of a Japanese company which didn't even asked for it.
It is already $1.5M anyway

 

[elfalas]

News reminded me of how some people say they'll go murder/burn author or other responsible people if the development in some story don't go their way..
One of my first thoughts was wondering if it's some moron that actually meant it too.

 

[Exiled]

The only place anyone should consider donating money to is a fund set up specifically to benefit the families of the deceased with funeral expenses etc. Sendai may even be well-meaning here but any money you hand to a corporation will by and large go to benefit the major shareholders of that corporation first, and then the employees will get the table scraps. Even with actual registered charity organizations like the Red Cross, a huge amount of donation money ends up in the pockets of the executives rather than the people who need it.

 

[b33fy]

While that approach isn’t really wrong, I don’t think Sentai Filmworks is publicly traded, it’s just not that large of a company. And while the language barrier isn’t insurmountable, it’s not like it isn’t an obstacle.

Personally, I’d like Sentai Filmworks to clarify exactly how the money will be transferred to whom, but it looks like they’re trying to figure that out now. Gotta deal with both the USA and Japanese tax code for one thing, there might be ways of keeping donations untaxed somehow.

 

[Jela]

Firefighters said they had found 33 bodies, two on the first floor, 11 on the second floor and 20 on the stairs from the third floor to the top floor, he said.

The whole thing makes me wonder if the building up for code.

Similar thing happen to a school in my country where the arson started on 1st floor ( ground floor for US), people cannot escape because the building was not up to code with emergency exits. From the news the people seems to unable to find exit they just go up from floor to floor by the way the bodies located. Regardless, what a tragedy.

As for Sentai issue me not wanting to be involve with their gofundme because how fast they reacted to it. From what they said on their own gofundme they don't even know how, where and when to get the money to appropriate parties they setup this before figuring those out, even JP company like animate waited. Basically I'm not convinced, the money might go to Kyoani but after unrelated parties get their cuts.

 

[Keetonman]

This isn't just some guy or some internet group. They're one of the biggest anime licensing companies. If they pocket the money, they are legally liable for a scam, they'd probably lose every business deal they're in, and it'd cause a PR nightmare. I dunno why this is even a debate, I think you people are just looking for something to fight about instead of focusing on the tragedy and lives lost.

Why not set up a boxing match instead lol

 

[kn1000a]

@Jela This building was very old, so yes it was not up to the fire code. Add to the fact that the arsonist planned this whole thing out; it was not a simple spur of the moment.

@crazybars Seems like people forget this is an international effort, so if Sentai really wanna fuck something up for cash, they're fighting on the wrong battlefield. I would say this is on a scale much bigger than any textbook donation service you donated to, meaning eyes are watching their moves, eyes not only from donors but also news agencies, governments, etc. But if you and others distrust them that much, fine I guess. I would rather donate immediately because while you're waiting for an official donation outlet, people and their families are bleeding. Donations can be postponed, but damage can't. I don't wish this on any of you, but when you experience a real emergency, you will see how painful the race against time is.

Being distrusting of big corps and people are fine and all, but in emergencies I will put all that aside. At the end of the day, even if you choose to hate Setai, they did rally the community and let us demonstrate how powerful we can be. Sentai could be in this for their own benefit, but the impact alone is enough for me to still give them my bucks and support.

Wow, look at this guy showing off his riches by donating so much money for the victims and recording it for his followers. If you ask me, that's a pretty arrogant thing to do. But at the end of the day, his money still makes an impact to the cause, and while I hate the dude I would still acknowledge his contribution.

Once again, if you can't donate by any means, please do support the cause in any other way possible. If you can draw, draw a tribute. If you can edit, make an awesome video. If you are a lurker, get factual information and keep people up-to-date. Let's not stop here and argue about who to trust and forget that this terrible incident needs all the attention and help it can get.

 

[remunramu]

@Jela Well youre absolutely correct with your last statement, they do take their cuts before sending to the needs. I have acquaintance that make his money by this way. He always seek for poor disease/cancer/need an immediate surgery people, took their pictures and make some articles on facebook in... a sad way to grab donators sympathy. He took some of the money before sending to them. He then post the results after couple of weeks - the healed person. At least he did really trying to help them and really send part of the money, though its kinda unhealthy business.

 

[Tanterei]

@Jela

At least it appears I'm not alone in wondering what kind of environment the people were working in.
My first thought when reading the news on Guardian was "There's something horribly wrong with the building, if 33 people died when an arsonist started his fire on the ground floor. Even if he cut off the main stairwell they should've been able to escape via fire exits"
Then I swa the video footage of the building and the problem was obvious.

No matter how much of a pain some regulations in Europe may be, I'm glad we have agencies here which are so much of a pain in the backside, that even dated (or protected) buildings will get auxiliary metal staircases added to conform to fire safety standards.

 

[ZenithStar]

I think some people in this thread severely underestimate the pervasiveness of charity scams. We have a history of far larger scams (think hundreds of millions to billions of USD. Your not even millions yet are just pennies). From a quick search: 1 2 3

Not saying that this is going to be how things turn out, but by donating, you're literally trusting a guy with that money just because he's acting sympathetic and made a pinky promise on his good name as president of a for-profit company. *wink wink* Even if the extent of help that this guy from Sentai ends up yielding directly to KyoAni is something like "thoughts and prayers" while he picks out his new yacht, a donor would have no easy legal avenue to seek recourse. (You have to lawyer up and invest tens of thousands of dollars into that lawsuit, since no one's taking this one pro-bono, to maybe recover your $20.) In that guy from Sentai's statement, he's only "hoping" and "intending" to use that money to yield the "most direct, meaningful assistance possible" (totally subjective). No guarantee of transparency. No paper trail. Plenty of legal wiggle room. He's probably not going to be dumb enough to post himself picking out that yacht on instagram. Therefore, even if you sue him, you'll probably not win. That'd be totally up to some small time local Texas judge (have fun taking time off work to fly to Houston to deal with this). Harassing them on twitter isn't going to eat into their bottom line like you think, since you're just an internet troll. By the time it's obvious that it was a scam, you'll likely have forgotten about the whole thing, it'd be past the window for a credit card chargeback, and you'll simply end up eating the loss.

Bad behaviors will persist so long as we continue to reward people for bad behavior. Digital purchases directly to KyoAni sound like a much better avenue.

(Edit: typos)

 

[goronyanpai]

Imagine how this debate took place on reddit. I can't even.
And it will hurt more to see people busy arguing over people who pay attention to the development of cases.

Some updates :
Interview from a young firefighter who tried to find a way in and managed to save 4 staff :
https://twitter.com/jbot26830444/status/1152098167837429766

Critical staff that must be amputated :
https://twitter.com/livedoornews/status/1152400473699176448

I have a Japanese friend on Facebook and him, just like anyone else who took the time to give a visit to the scene.
Source : 山村寿朗

This grief is too big. I see the victims as individuals (not just KyoAni employees). I'm too sentiment for things like this.

Actually there are more and it's far painful to see those who give bouquets of flowers and pray.

 

[Captaininvictus]

armchair fire safety analyzers talking about whether it's up to code or not are disregarding this was not accidental, this was targeted and aggravated with flammables. the arsonist explicitly flooded both main exits, the entire first floor lobby, and doused multiple employees in gasoline before setting them ablaze, the totality of the first floor was engulfed almost instantly. Fire safety codes don't really help much when someone targets all the exits to make them unusable.

 

[Wexmajor]

>Fire safety codes don't really help much when someone targets all the exits to make them unusable.

Actually, real fire escapes would have helped a lot. There should be nothing flammable inside of the fire escape. They should be concrete shafts of stairways with a door on each floor that lead directly to the outside. An arsonist shouldn't be able to make them unusable. Gasoline doesn't burn for that long by itself, with nothing flammable around it. Over 30 people died a horrible death and we have their asshole boss, who chose to have them work in an unsafe building, talking about how he's going to build a monument or some shit. I don't understand the motivation to pretend that this is an okay state of affairs. It's really wrong and upsetting. Whatever.

 

[Cheshyre]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack