“One of the safest countries in the world?” “Low crime rates?” “They have good sushi there, right?”
What is it about Japan that has kept the stereotypes of the 70s and 80s alive for so long? Forget the samurai and geisha too, because it’s not all about sushi and safety anymore.

Japan’s confidence and security, have for quite some time, been slowly crumbling from the inside. Who can forget the randomness of the recent unprovoked rampage in Tokyo’s Akihabara district that left seven dead, and an entire nation transfixed to the story’s most minute details? A jaded and world-weary man, ignored by his country and his family, announced his intentions via internet message boards, and went after the one thing Japanese society refused to give him: his name in lights.

And then this week, it happened again. Albeit a smaller scale, but the motive and the methods were eerily similar. 33 year-old Shoichi Kanno, frustrated with his job and his family made a “spur of the moment” decision to purchase a kitchen knife with a 15cm blade, and kill the first person who crossed his path. And just like the previous Akihabara case, it didn’t matter who.

It brings to light a whole host of societal issues at play in Japan. Namely the undeniably tortuous survival conditions within the social and corporate hierarchy, and the common man’s cultural obligation to repress their true feelings. With reoccurring psychological patterns that often inevitably lead to suicide (subjects being frustrated and “tired of life”) in a country with a notoriously high rate, these crimes should also be recognized as such. Rather than sensationalized on the news for other potential copycat killers to idolize, these crimes need to be treated with the same sensitivity of a suicide.

Japan needn’t be looking to continue to dwell on the memory of another bright, young university student robbed of her life; rather Japan needs to further examine the roots of its own psychological hell, whose by-product is an increasingly common case like Mr. Kanno.