The coronavirus has made days feel like weeks and weeks like months. It’s been one year since the Kyoto Animation arson tragedy, and yet I could swear it was eternity ago. While COVID-19’s effects are far greater in scope, the tragedy of what happened to KyoAni still hits hard. It was a shining beacon of the anime industry in so many ways, from the quality of its output to the way it treated its workers. 

Those who follow me on Twitter may have noticed that my icon since last summer has been Hazuki from Sound! Euphonium. She’s my favorite character in that series, to be sure, but the other reason I’ve left it unchanged is as a quiet memorial to Kyoto Animation. “Twitter identifier” is so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but regardless of what anyone else thought or how they’d interpret my icon, I wanted to remember what happened.

There is going to be a memorial livestreamed on YouTube by Kyoto Animation on 7/18 at 10:30am JST. That would be 7/17 9:30pm EST/6:30pm PST, which you can find below.