The Akihabara district attracts its share of troubled types — typically, socially inept young men who view the world through the prism of manga comics and computer games. But while thousands go there to find acceptance and a kind of camaraderie, Tomohiro Kato arrived there on Sunday for very different reasons.
The aim of people like Kato ”is to make as big an impact as possible,” said Nobuo Komiya, a professor of criminology at Rissho University in Tokyo. ”They see famous places like Akihabara as a stage, and themselves as the protagonist. It’s their way of breaking out of their isolation and getting society’s attention. The worst thing is that, in their eyes, they are doing nothing wrong.”
Komiya cites the ever-growing income gap in Japan as one of the factors in creating an underclass of young people who go to extremes to break out of their isolation. ”The gap between rich and poor is growing at the same time as Japan’s information society is becoming more sophisticated,” he says.
Even government ministers admit that poverty is now at unacceptable levels; that neo-liberal economic reforms have created a low-paid, part-time workforce, the antithesis of the job-for-life security that the Japanese took for granted until the arrival of the ”lost decade” of recession and corporate restructuring.
While social conservatives are quick to blame the promotion of individualism in Japan’s postwar, United States-authored education system, few American children would recognise the relentless pressure on their Japanese counterparts to pass exams, and the ease with which the system discards those who fail.
While Sunday’s killing spree is an extreme example, Japan has few safety nets for those who feel they are about to reach snapping point.
Counselling services lag far behind those in the West, partly due to a strong cultural resistance to discussing personal problems and the stigma attached to mental illness. And Japan’s prowess in information technology has only made it easier. Only last month, a government panel called on parents to limit their children’s cellphone use amid a dramatic rise in anonymous bullying on internet school message boards.
”The internet means people start believing they can function, find what they are looking for in life without ever having to really interact with another human being,” Komiya said.
While mercifully few people turn to murder, many more seek escape in ending their own lives. More than 30 000 Japanese people kill themselves every year. Already this year about 300 people, mainly in their 20s and 30s, have taken their own lives by inhaling the deadly gas produced by a concoction of household detergents. Last year the government set aside more than $197-million for suicide prevention.
While Japan looks kindly on studious pupils and workaholic employees, it can be unforgiving for those who underachieve. – guardian.co.uk