Akihabara murders: Kato was unhappy with life
Bits of news are still coming out of the Japanese news feeds about Tomohiro Kato, the man who murdered 7 people and injured 10 others in the centre of Akihabara on Sunday. He is reported as having told police he was unhappy with working conditions and the fact there had been personnel cuts at the car factory in Shizuoka where he was working. Apparently the decision to downsize the firm from 200 to 50 workers is sufficient to make a temporary worker go over the edge and decide to try and kill anyone within reach. It has also been revealed that Kato changed job a number of times after leaving college.
I’m sorry, but the sooner people realise the economic bubble in Japan burst about 15 years ago, the better. We no longer live in an age where you have job security for life, great conditions and working hours for workers, a salary that allows you to go to a hostess bar every night and a wife who is doesn’t do anything about the fact that you do. Well, maybe the latter is still here in Japan, but that’s a subject for another topic altogether. You have to put in hours of work these days, and lots of people don’t really like their jobs. Many Japanese companies still believe that the way back to success is to make workers to “voluntary” overtime until 9 or 10pm each night, but the fact of the matter is that productivity is going down like a lead balloon. And any temporary worker knows that they will be the first to leave a company when cutbacks are made. The word “temporary” can act as a slight giveaway to some. But it seems in Japan some people are still not realising the reality of it all.
And it was a sad sight yesterday to see Kato’s parents apologising and bowing deeply on the news, 
apologising for their son’s actions. I’m sure Tomohiro has made mummy and daddy very proud of him now. But as the cameras flashed, it is hard not to feel sympathy for the parents. It’s not as if Kato junior was 10 years old and the parents had bought the knives for him. There is only so much responsibility that parents can take over a child before it goes over to them to act like an adult.
Kato said he bought 6 knives the day before the attack, which was confirmed by shopping receipts. But he also said he gave one knife to a colleague, and police only recovered 5 knives from the scene of the attack. Now that could mean a couple of things. Did Kato have an accomplice, who was supposed to join him in the killing frenzied attack, but who then backed out? Did the colleague know about the attack beforehand, and if so why didn’t he contact the authorities? If not, why did he accept a knife given to him; did he not think to question why he was being given a blade?
Thoughts should be given to the victims once again, and a little more information has come out about them. Those who died after being hit by the truck were Takahiro Kawaguchi, 19, a second-year student of Tokyo University of Information Sciences; Kazunori Fujino, 19, a second-year student at Tokyo Denki University; and Katsuhiko Nakamura, a 74-year-old retiree. Fujino and Nakamura died after incurring extensive bruises and Kawaguchi had his skull cracked, according to the police. Those who died after being stabbed were Mitsuru Matsui, a 33-year-old cook; Kazuhiro Koiwa, a 47-year-old unemployed man; Mai Muto, 21, a fourth-year female student of Tokyo University of the Arts; and Naoki Miyamoto, a 31-year-old company employee. Matsui and Muto were stabbed in the abdomen, Koiwa in the back and Miyamoto in the chest.
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