7 Killed in Akihabara (6/08/2008)

[guy]

If you haven't already heard, you will soon; the news and internet discussion boards are widely covering this incident.

TOKYO (AFP) — A man went on a stabbing spree Sunday in a Tokyo neighbourhood famed for comic-book subculture, killing at least six people and leaving more than a dozen others injured, officials and reports said.

The assailant, who later told police he was "tired of living," swerved a truck into a crowd of pedestrians shortly after noon in Tokyo's bustling Akihabara area before jumping out screaming and stabbing strangers.

The assailant was identified as Tomohiro Kato, 25. He first said he was a gangster before retracting his story.

"I came to Akihabara to kill people. It didn't matter whom I'd kill," he was quoted by Jiji Press as telling police.

Full Article

As the reports first came out there were a number of conflicting details, but currently the coverage stands as such: Tomohiro Kato (25) apparently rented a truck from Shizuoka, south of Tokyo, drove it into one of the main avenues in Akihabara (which are traditionally closed to traffic on Sundays to allow pedestrians to shop freely), hitting and killintg 3 victims. He then proceeded on foot, stabbing bystanders at random until a police officer was about to secure him at gunpoint.

So far, 7 people have been confirmed dead: 6 men age 19-74 and 1 woman age 21. A number of deaths were from cardiac arrest due to the stabbing. 11 others were additionally wounded.

There is no apparent connection to gang activities, though early speculation suggested that Kato was affiliated with yakuza. He later denied it, stating that he simply wanted to kill people, as well as revealing his previous attempts at suicide. Currently there is no additional detail on his motive.

More info here. (warning: graphic images)





As is being discussed, this incident is only overshadowed by the Tokyo sarin gas attacks in 1995 and the Osaka school massacre in 2001, so it is a very serious incident, particularly since Japan has had very few major crime sprees like this in modern times. As you can already imagine, it will most likely affect Akiba quite significantly, marking it as more vulnerable than as a safe-haven.

 

[handyman]

Thanks guy. I wondered which district it happened in. I saw it on the BBC earlier and they just said Tokyo...

Really fucked up. It's always the families of the victims who suffer most from these tragedies.

 

[nosihc]

tired of live

an akihabara-living being wound never attack to dream city
only those outsider wound do such a thing

 

[guy]

Actually, investigators have found more information about the killer, and it seems he's more of an otaku himself than someone trying to attack them.

Friends of Mr Kato described him yesterday as a typical Akihabara type — a cartoonist of reasonable talent who would “lose himself for hours in cyberspace”. When he went to karaoke, he would select the theme tunes of TV animations; when it came to women he would declare that he was “only interested in two-dimensional girlfriends”.
Related Links

Police investigating Japan’s worst killing rampage believe that the attacks were planned. In the days before the spree, Mr Kato made several visits to Akihabara to establish its suitability for his ambitions. “I knew there would be lots of people and I decided this some days ago,” he told police. Even as the minutes ticked down to the start of his rampage, he is believed to have recorded his thoughts on a blog through his mobile phone. The first comment, which appeared on the internet at 5.21am on the day of the violence, read: “I will kill people in Akihabara, have a vehicle crash and, if the vehicle becomes useless, I will use a knife.” After a running commentary that tracks his 100km (60-mile) drive from Susono, in the foothills of Mount Fuji, the messages end just minutes before the attacks. “It’s time; I’m going,” read the final comment.

Until this weekend, he appeared to have led the average life of a young Japanese man from a small, provincial town: a serious boy who graduated from a good local high school in the northern prefecture of Aomori, and headed south to work in a car-parts factory in Shizuoka. According to work colleagues, he would become deeply immersed in online forums.

He appears to have shared with tens of thousands of young Japanese men a passion for Akihabara and its maze of shops that helped to create Japan’s otaku stereotype. Originally, otaku referred to a sub-class of youth culture that encompassed manga comics, video games and animated pornography. More recently it has gone mainstream and financial analysts track the spending habits of its participants.

...

The mainstream media have spent the past five years demonising the otaku phenomenon, and the horrors of the weekend will only heighten the suspicion and dislike of the geeks of Akihabara.

Full Article

Even though Akihabara is seen as a haven for otaku, I think it can still be unrelentlessly anonymizing. Akiba was probably the only thing that Kato had to hold onto, and if people thought he was odd or eccentric, that's probably what he would blame for his life being negative or unhappy.

 

[xeruel]

is he kenshin or what ??? 7 people is a lot and most them died of cardiac arrest of knife stabbing

its weird there's no people to stop this lunatic when that happened.... baseball bat,stun gun,pepper spray, broom ? where all that shit goes ?

 

[guy]

Well, it wasn't exactly obvious to everyone else that the crime was happening. Kato wasn't making a commotion, so it took time before people realized what was happening. In fact, many people say they weren't even aware that anything had happened until after they left Akihabara and saw it on the news.

And unfortunately, for better or worse, the crime rate is quite low so paramedics simply don't have much experience in treating victims on-site.

 

[wyang]

this people is 100% crazy...
:sick:

 

[xeruel]

Well, it wasn't exactly obvious to everyone else that the crime was happening. Kato wasn't making a commotion, so it took time before people realized what was happening. In fact, many people say they weren't even aware that anything had happened until after they left Akihabara and saw it on the news.

And unfortunately, for better or worse, the crime rate is quite low so paramedics simply don't have much experience in treating victims on-site.

no way he wasn't making a commotion:crash:, he rammed a truck into a crowd damnit all eyes should be into him then he get out of the truck and started a rampage with knife......:coldsweat:

I wonder if he uses a katana, will the victims add up ?

and is it really the crime rate low in japan ? molesting does not count a crime ??
yakuza anyone ???

 

[cattz]

is he kenshin or what ??? 7 people is a lot and most them died of cardiac arrest of knife stabbing

its weird there's no people to stop this lunatic when that happened.... baseball bat,stun gun,pepper spray, broom ? where all that shit goes ?

That's the point to the whole thing that bothered me most honestly. Almost more then anything Kato did even.

Most every report was that most everyone stood there and watched/recorded it instead of doing anything about it.

Those types of people are just as bad as Kato himself, if not more to me..

 

[guy]

It's easy to sit in your armchair and blame the bystanders for not doing anything. The reality is that the idea of Akihabara is nothing like that of (any of the districts in) cities such as New York City, where crime happens so regularly that everyone knows to be on the lookout for trouble and how to respond to it. If anything, most people probably thought Akihabara was the last place in Tokyo where something like this could happen, and that illusion is precisely how any crime could get out of hand. It's a false idea of safety, but you can't blame the bystanders for that.

If you want to blame the bystanders for not fighting back (because you think "it should have been obvious to everyone what Kato was doing"), why not also blame the victims for not getting out of the way since it was so obvious? Do you really think that everyone was fully aware of what Kato was trying to do, and that they just chose to let it happen? Of course not, indiscriminate crimes don't happen that way.

Frankly, if I had been there that day, I would have been as confused as on any other Sunday in Akihabara. Lots of random "crazy otaku acts" (dancing in the street or anime re-enactments) happen spontaneously, and with all the other regular commotion that happens on Sundays, it really takes some time to figure out exactly what's happening around you. In the end, it's just a reality check for Tokyo-ites (and all metro-area citizens), that you just can't make assumptions about where you think crime might occur.

I do agree that some people's reactions were less than appropriate (smiling and waving on the TV cameras); but again, Akihabara is imbibed with such a strong mystique that makes you constantly think, "Is this really happening? Is this reality?", no matter what's happening around you. In my mind, there were simply two incompatible "worlds" at that time: one of the crime and the reality, and another of the usual fervor of Akihabara.

:distressed:

 

[cattz]

It's easy to sit in your armchair and blame the bystanders for not doing anything. The reality is that the idea of Akihabara is nothing like that of (any of the districts in) cities such as New York City, where crime happens so regularly that everyone knows to be on the lookout for trouble and how to respond to it. If anything, most people probably thought Akihabara was the last place in Tokyo where something like this could happen, and that illusion is precisely how any crime could get out of hand. It's a false idea of safety, but you can't blame the bystanders for that.

If you want to blame the bystanders for not fighting back (because you think "it should have been obvious to everyone what Kato was doing"), why not also blame the victims for not getting out of the way since it was so obvious? Do you really think that everyone was fully aware of what Kato was trying to do, and that they just chose to let it happen? Of course not, indiscriminate crimes don't happen that way.

That's really quite a ridiculous point. There's a big difference between the victim's and the jerk off's videotaping/taking pictures of it.
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/author/chris-salzberg/
Skim through this one and read what one of the 2 guys streaming the incident live as it was happening and in gruesome detail had to say about doing it. Tell me, can you really compare mother fuckers like that to an innocent bystander on any level....?

Also, for the record, yeah I've been stabbed because I helped a guy who was mugged and stabbed right in front of me. But I wouldn't fucking change a thing. When someone gets stabbed right in front of you, you just kind of act without thinking, unless of course your some kind of pathetic...

Frankly, if I had been there that day, I would have been as confused as on any other Sunday in Akihabara. Lots of random "crazy otaku acts" (dancing in the street or anime re-enactments) happen spontaneously, and with all the other regular commotion that happens on Sundays, it really takes some time to figure out exactly what's happening around you. In the end, it's just a reality check for Tokyo-ites (and all metro-area citizens), that you just can't make assumptions about where you think crime might occur.

Yeah, I mean, getting hit by a truck must have been some kind of tribute to the first episode of excel saga, especially how excel dies from it, and walking around with a bloody knife from stabbing people must have been like, uh, a higurashi no naku koro ni reenactment/tribute, yeah, that must be it!!

I do agree that some people's reactions were less than appropriate (smiling and waving on the TV cameras); but again, Akihabara is imbibed with such a strong mystique that makes you constantly think, "Is this really happening? Is this reality?", no matter what's happening around you. In my mind, there were simply two incompatible "worlds" at that time: one of the crime and the reality, and another of the usual fervor of Akihabara.

:distressed:

Takes me back to that episode of jigoku shoujo where the father of a victim murders the pricks doing the same thing, makes me wish people would imitate some parts of anime..

It was more about the people who decided to record/take pictures of the incident as it was happening, not the aftermath of it.

Ugh, all this is actually making me sick to my stomach. Not figuratively in the least either..

 

[Bellotizio]

Truth

There's also something extremely important left out of this, which is actually quite funny; He didn't like real life people, he liked 2D animated people more and felt real people shouldn't exist and wished everything was 2D.