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?

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..as news of another knife attack (this time attempted) has made the top story here in Japan. Yup, the copycat people are out now, and we know how Japanese people like to follow the trends. Once again, Kyodo News with the story.

16-year-old boy arrested for barging into ex-girlfriend’s high school with knife in Kitakyushu
Tuesday 10th June, 10:35 AM JST

KITAKYUSHU - A 16-year-old boy was arrested Tuesday for trespassing in his ex-girlfriendfs high school and threatening staff with a knife in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, on Monday afternoon. Police said 20 officers were mobilized but nobody was injured.

According to police, the boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, entered the high school, brandishing a knife around 4 p.m. He told staff that he wanted to see his ex-girlfriend who is a student at the school. The boy became agitated and started waving the knife, a teacher said. Staff called police who took the boy into custody.

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Get the boy named says I. Get him named & shamed and put away rather than concealing his identity as he’s a child and doesn’t know any better. Anyway, just thought I’d throw that one in. No doubt there will be a further attack in the net hour or 2. If not, i might have to get a fruit peeler from the kitchen area at work and go crazy!!! (For those of you lacking a sense of humour, that was a joke).

Another day, another knife attack here in beautiful Japan. This time the victim was a schoolgirl and the attacker wasn’t known. This, from Kyodo News:

Man slashes schoolgirl with knife in Nagoya
Monday 09th June, 04:28 PM JST

NAGOYA - A man on Sunday night assaulted a schoolgirl on a street in Kita-Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, police said Monday. According to police, the girl, 13, was walking home after finishing softball around 8 p.m. when the suspect came up behind her. The girl told police the man grabbed a softball she was carrying and threw it at her.

The girl said that as she turned to run away, the man came at her with a knife and slashed her pants. Police said she wasnft injured because her wallet in the left back pocket of her jeans protected her from the blade.

The suspect fled on a bicycle, mumbling to himself, the girl was quoted as saying. According to the girlfs description, he was in his 40s and was wearing a white cap and black clothes.

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OK, as much as this is providing fodder for my blog, I could really do without all these knife attacks to report. The situation is getting crazy here. What the hell would provoke a man to throw a softball (for those of you who don’t know what they are like, they are bigger than baseballs and their name is deceiving) at a 13 year old school girl and then try to slash the girl, before escaping on a bicycle? And then 2 of the other headlines here in Japan read “64-year old man arrested for strangling lover’s husband in Saitama” (yup, it’s in Saitama once again!) and “55-year old woman arrested for strangling 80-year old mother in Tokyo”. According to the woman, the excuse for the latter case was that “It is impossible for me to take care of her forever because she will never get better. I thought it would be bad for my husband, too”. Taking care of your old mother would be bad because she is going to die anyway, so why waste good time and money when we could kill her instead, it should read.

Oh, and if anyone has lost their left leg then please let police in Kumamoto know, as they have found a left leg severed below the thigh floating in a river in that area!

Another slight personal update today (as you might be able to tell, I have quite a bit of free time on Mondays!). June is the time of year when student teachers come to various schools throughout Japan for a few weeks of teaching experience, both watching and then later taking part in lessons. The student teachers are university teachers and will be 21 years old, give or take a year. They always come looking exactly the same: same hairstyle (differing ever so slightly between males and females), black suits, white shirts/blouses and darkish coloured tie for men. This seems to be the case for anyone newly entering a workplace in Japan. But this year was a little different as I walked into the school staffroom and suddenly realised that I knew 3 of the students! Now comes the more scary thing from my point of view: I know them because I have taught them! In my first year here in Okinawa, these three were 3 of my favourite English students. And now I’m going to be teaching a class with at least one of them and maybe two of them. It will feel a little strange and makes me feel very old; I shouldn’t be teaching WITH my students! But it should be a good few weeks as we learn from each other and I get the chance to catch up with a few people from my past.

A couple of weeks ago you may recall I posted an article about suicide in Japan, why it has been rising and what is being done/can be done in order to bring it down. I gave a few examples, and included that of a singer called Kago Ai (pictured below), who was in a group called Morning Musume. In that entry I made comment about the Up-Front Agency, who managed Ai at the time, and who offered her little support when the media was just using her for easy target practice. Well, it seems like the Up-Front Agency, were actually doing something to Kago Ai to rehabilitate her after the first incident. It seems that they had her placed under house arrest so that she could cause no more scandals for them. I kid you note, and here is a translated press release that was distrubuted by the Up-Front Agency:

To whom it may concern:

Regarding our client Kago Ai and the article in the weekly magazine that went on sale on March 26th, the information in the article has been verified with Kago herself, to our regret.

One year ago, when Kago was 17 and the smoking problem happened, we still considered her future in this company, and as punishment, she was imposed to house arrest in her parents’ home. Seeing how she had progressed over that year, it was decided to start from scratch and start preparing for a comeback by bringing her to Tokyo and having her do clerical and other office duties, starting on January 23rd. Although this worked out well for two months, there was another incident and the comeback plan was abandoned. After consulting with the family, as she is a minor, it has been confirmed, and she has been released from her contract.

We’re very sorry that it has come to this, and accept full responsibility.

We feel a renewed sense of responsibility for the future, especially when it comes to minors.

2007/3/26 Kawaguchi Yuukichi, Representative Director, Up Front Agency

So one recorded incident of her smoking had her placed under house arrest, all of her singing and showbiz career coming to an abrupt halt, and made to become an office lady as she is re-educated on how she “should” behave. And then when she was seen with an older man, it was decided the re-education wouldn’t work and that she was a lost cause and should be dropped. The “accept full responsibility” is a joke, as if they had done this then they would try and help & support her if they thought it was their fault. But saying that would save face, which is what it’s all about here. When something like that happens, you can imagine where she’s coming from in thinking about taking her own life.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, the support for people here is shocking, and until this gets addressed and people are seen as more than financial commodities, this will not change.

A chilling story for you here, which most of you have probably read about by now so I will try and give you a different slant and opinion on it. The news event I am talking about is the one which happened in the Akihabara district of Tokyo yesterday, in which a man went on what I believe constitutes a “spree”, killing 7 people and injuring 10 others.

For those that have yet to read the story, here is a brief summary. This guy, 25-year old Tomohiro Kato rented a truck in Shizuoka Prefecture, on the way to Tokyo. Once he got to the Japanese capital he headed to the Akihabara district. This is a popular area of Tokyo with both Japanese and foreigners. It is the electronics district of Tokyo and on Sundays some of the main roads are pedestrianised. Arriving in Akihabara at 12:30pm, this man proceeded to ram his truck into a bunch of people. He then got out and started stabbing wildly with a 13cm-bladed survival knife, aiming first for the people he had hit with the truck (slower targets) and then anyone he could get to, as he headed into the labyrinth of alleys in Akihabara. The police acted quickly (and deserve commendation for their actions), restrained & arrested the man, and seized his knife. Kato told police, “I came to Akihabara to kill people… I am tired of the world… Anyone was OK. I came alone”. At the time of arrest he was only charged with attempted murder as none of the suspects had died, but since then 6 men and 1 woman between the ages of 19 and 74 have died. The deceased have been confirmed as Mai Muto (21), Kazuhiro Koiwa (47), Katsuhiko Nakamura (74), Mitsuru Matsui (33), Kazunori Fujino (19), Naoki Miyamoto (31), and Takahiro Kawaguchi (19).

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Just as I was starting to write this entry on a particular news story, another one comes in that is equally as likely to make you think “What the…”. First off, remember not to point at ANYONE in Japan. Doesn’t matter who you are or why you did it, you could get run down, as these kids can testify:

Man held for attempted murder after driving car into schoolchildren in Chiba
Monday 02nd June, 03:10 PM JST

CHIBA - A 32-year-old man was arrested on Monday morning for intentionally driving his car into a group of schoolchildren, aged 6 to 10, who were on their way to school in Matsudo City, Chiba Prefecture. Three children were taken to hospital with injuries, police said.

Tsuyoshi Minaminaka, 32, a plumber, was charged with attempted murder in the incident which took place around 7:40 a.m. The suspect told police he got angry after some of the children pointed their fingers at him. According to police, he drove past the children, then turned around and plowed into them.

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My first reaction was shock that this guy didn’t come from Saitama, as that’s where a large proportion of the nutters come from in Japan though. I’m going for the trifecta though, and will predict that he’s single, living at home with his parents, and will keep his driving licence. I mean, how thin-skinned and weak have you got to be to be so offended by some kids pointing their finger at you that you stop your car, turn it around and mow right through them? This wasn’t just an instinctive thing of him turning his car into them. To take them time to stop and turn around requires some thought process and pre-meditation. He must be on some medication, or rather should be but isn’t willing to go to the doctor’s about his condition or take the medicine that is needed for it. As someone on a news website commented, “in most regards Japan is very safe, but the care in the community brigade are a danger”. I can understand this, especially after hearing a few stories recently about the areas surrounding my hometown. Apparently, the neighbouring town to mine has the highest proportion of crazies in all of Okinawa. What seems to happen is that quite a few of them are born there (currently for reasons unknown) and the sane people all leave. What we’re left with is a kind of town of the nutters type of thing. Maybe something you would expect from a bad horror film. Anyway, it’s pretty shocking but no doubt we’ll hear very little follow-up from this over the next few days. If we do I’ll be sure to report back. Something for you all to ponder: can you imagine if this had been a foreigner (and let’s heighten it all by saying a US Marine!) who had turned his car round and run into a bunch of Okinawan primary school kids?! I really cannot even contemplate the reaction it would cause.

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It was inevitable that after my post about suicides last week, related stories would be hitting the front pages. Just a day after, one of the Japanese statistics groups revealed that suicides in Japan were over 30,000 for the 10th straight year, and they were trying to work out what was going wrong. I really should send them a link to my site for some ideas. And then we had this story as the lead on the news websites this morning:

16-year-old girl hangs herself after message on blog tells her to die
Monday 02nd June, 03:21 AM JST

KITAKYUSHU - Police on Sunday said they are investigating the death of a 16-year-old high school girl who hanged herself on Thursday apparently after receiving an anonymous message on her school blog telling her to die.

According to police, the girl - a student at Mihagino Girlsf High School - hanged herself in her room at home on Thursday morning. Her parents notified police and the school. The parents told police that she had left a suicide note saying that a message on her blog had told her to kill herself. A school official said the message had been sent to the girlfs blog on Monday.

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This is yet another tragic loss of someone young and probably with a whole lot to live for. Now first of all, I think there has got to be some more to this story than a simple blog message saying “I want you to die” and her killing herself. Surely it can’t have been a single comment like that which drove her to take her own life. You would have to question if she was having issues at home or at school which started making her feel this way, and that this was the final straw. Issues at home could be something like parents only having a couple of minutes to talk to their child properly due to working so late, doing their “voluntary” overtime. Hopefully the police will trace this message that someone sent to her telling her to kill herself. Maybe the author of that message will be the key to finding out what has caused this tragedy.

The first of 3 pieces today covering a range of topics. I would like to focus the first article on the subject of sport, something very close to my heart. I got the urge to write about this topic while watching men’s volleyball last night (Japan vs Iran) although I had thought about this subject during the women’s volleyball tournament earlier this month too. And the specific point I would like to talk about is television coverage of sports, particularly those involving the national team, in Japan. I should add that my comments come from experience of watching volleyball, judo, karate, handball, football and a few others. I have excluded baseball from the list as I would personally rather remove my own colon with a spoon and proceed to eat it than watch a full game of that.

Right, onto business. First I would like to put forward the benchmark, which is coverage of sport involving the English/British national sporting team. Coverage will come on and you’ll usually be greeted by a frontman, often an ex-player, talking about the game and building it up. They will talk a little about the teams and who they will be hoping has a good game. We’ll then go to coverage from inside the stadium where the teams will come out, we’ll have national anthems and then get started. If it’s a competitive football game involving England, just before kick-off you will hear one of the commentators say “England expects…” Quite what they expect is never explained, but by now it is probably “England expects to underwhelm the world with their lack of talent once again, probably resulting in post-match violence against any nationals of the opposing team currently in the country”. But I digress. Incidents will be replayed again and contentious points talked about in detail in the half-time and after the final whistle blows. If the English team loses (as the inevitably do), the analysts will talk about who didn’t stand up to be counted, and what needs to be done to win the next game.

Now let’s offer a little contrast with coverage of a sporting event in Japan. For sake of argument, I will use last night’s volleyball as a comparison. Coverage immediately starts with 2 far too excitable but still reasonably cute young women welcoming everyone, and reminding everyone about the score in the last match (if it’s against anyone half decent, Japan probably lost). Now it becomes immediately obvious that (as far as I know) these girls haven’t hit a volleyball since they were at high school, as getting all hot & sweaty working out and playing sports would not be seen very high on the kawaii-ometer (kawaii meaning cute in Japanese). But that’s ok - they are just the main announcers; they have 2 nameless and cute Japanese girls who know nothing about the sport, in England we have Claire Balding. Hmm… as you can see there is already a rift developing. But maybe things will change as we’re now moving over to the stadium, where the teams are starting to warm up.

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As anyone who lives here in Japan or reads Japanese news can see, the suicide rate here is a big problem. In 2005 there were over 32,000 suicides and Japan has the second highest suicide rate of all OECD countries (S. Korea being top) and the 10th highest in the world (Lithuania topping that list). There is never a week goes by that you don’t read at least one story in the news about someone killing themselves by jumping off a bridge (the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo seems a popular spot), overdosing on someone of gassing themselves to death (most popular at the moment).

The most recent high profile suicide has been that of Ako Kawada (see right). Kawada was a 29 year old TV announcer who had worked on TBS here in Japan for 5 years. Last year she left TBS and started to branch out doing some freelance announcing on TV Asahi. On her blog last week she said that she was feeling really worn down and needed a break from things. It seems like things came to a head over the weekend. At 6am on Monday morning, she was found slumped in the drivers seat of her car with a pair of charcoal briquettes in there. She was already dead when the police arrived? It always baffles me to think about what could cause someone who’s young, beautiful, and seemingly doing very well in her career field of choice decide that taking her life is the best way to solve her problems.

Last year the Japanese media almost ended up destroying the life of a singer called Kago Ai, who used to sing in a J-pop group called Morning Musume. In Japan your pop stars have to be squeaky clean and if you do the slightest thing wrong, you will be crucified for it. Anyway, photos came out of Ai smoking underage (shock, horror!) and holding hands with a boyfriend (even more shock and horror!). The media had a field day about how much of a failure she was, and Ai was promptly fired from the band and her management company. It started a very quick downward spiral which culminated in her slitting her wrists. Fortunately she was saved and has made a recovery, but still has the scars on her wrists as testament to what could have happened. gI still have the scars where I cut my wrists… I’ve made up my mind never to do such a thing again” she said in a recent press conference. One interesting point to note about Ai’s situation was the reaction of her management company. As soon as the first of these two scandals came out, the Up-Front Agency distanced themselves from her, and she was removed from Morning Musume. When the second scandal emerged, they dropped her straight away. Even in the companies statement’s, there was nothing said about supporting her, or hoping that she could get over these scandals in the near future. It seemed the most important thing was for the company to retain integrity and not really care about Ai and what her problems were.

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