Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the News story category. Noteworthy entries are filed topmost.
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?
I’m just laughing at my desk here…
..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).
OK, this is getting tedious
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!
A crazy goes crazy in a crazy part of Tokyo
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).
No really, what the hell is happening in society?
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.