Fuji TV went all out during this evening’s news broadcast about Tomohiro Kato. Frightening music, dramatic panning/zooming, and a focus on how he liked anime:

• Look! Tomohiro Kato is holding a pink mobile phone! Ridiculous music plays while showing footage of the carnage he caused.
• One of Kato’s co-workers tells reporters that Kato was a pretty average guy, a serious worker, generally got along well with others at the factory. He liked cars and would sometimes go to car races with work friends.
• All of that changed on Thursday, when Kato came to the factory and found his work clothes were missing. Kato left the factory in a rage, perhaps thinking that he had been fired. [more details at Mainichi]
• Kato was very interested in military equipment, and had once asked the co-worker (a former member of the Self-Defense Forces) where he could buy SDF stuff.
• Coworkers who had visited Kato’s apartment described it as pretty much empty. Kato’s only notable possessions were a bunch of doujin manga.
• When Kato would go to karaoke with co-workers, he would only sing anime songs. He allegedly told them that he was only interested in anime and the 2D world.

The obsession with military equipment and a rage over what happened at work seem like they could have something to do with his crime. But does reading comic books and singing anime songs turn people into killers?

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Or, more accurately, 21 angry parents hold a lot of sway these days in Japan.

Okay, tongue in cheek critique of Japan in hazy terms time: Japanese parents suck at parenting. Obviously that is a gross generalization, stated more to provoke thought that close minds, but let me lay out some totally convincing bullet points:

The U.S. Navy held a special event in Yokosuka yesterday, handing out free manga about the USS George Washington to Japanese residents:

The first hour was manga madness for “CVN 73,” the Navy’s 200-page comic starring the USS George Washington. The aircraft carrier is scheduled to arrive in Yokosuka this August and will be the first nuclear-propelled ship forward-deployed to Japan.

Sailors handed out about 800 copies of “CVN 73″ in three hours in the manga’s first day of distribution. More will be handed out at upcoming open base events, said Waterman, a spokesman for Commander U.S. Naval Forces Japan.

“The response has been phenomenal,” Waterman said. “People told me that if we passed out a brochure or a tri-fold, they wouldn’t read it. But with a manga, we’re speaking their language.”

“CVN 73″ puts a positive spin on ship life, safety and U.S. Japanese relations through the eyes and experience of fictitious Japanese-American sailor Jack Ohara. About 30,000 copies have been printed, the vast majority in Japanese. The title comes from the ship’s hull number.

The format appears to be perfect for tackling “points of contention,” Waterman said, as the ship’s nuclear plant is the flashpoint for local citizens groups worried about ship safety and environmental impact. Thousands of signatures have been collected calling for a public vote on the issue, but Yokosuka city government defeated the measure twice in two years.

A pdf of the manga can be downloaded here (direct link to PDF file).

How have Japan’s English language bloggers responded to the killings that took place in Akihabara yesterday? Here are a few excerpts from notable posts:

Adamu of Mutantfrog Travelogue commented on the police response (a comment I wholeheartedly agree with, if reports about the police officer’s actions are accurate):

Apparently a policeman chased this man with his baton — and actually parried with him as he ran and apparently was still stabbing people — and only drew his gun AFTER Kato had put down the knife. Three words for the Japanese cops — SHOOT TO KILL!

Marxy predicts an “Otaku Moral Panic”:

They already found some anime-style drawings from the suspect — something extremely ubiquitous among almost everyone in Japan — but the images will point the blame squarely at “pop culture.” (Will his middle-school tennis club picture lead to a crackdown on clay courts nationwide?) That being said, I don’t think this guy chose Akihabara just because it’s a “popular area,” as if Shinjuku or Ikebukuro would have sufficed. There will be some kind of link.

Patrick Macias has also written about the media focus on otaku morality:

The timing could not have been worse. The energy was already flagging in Electric Town as the area was slowly becoming a police state in the wake of crackdowns on street idols and cosplayers (the TV is now praising the already-elevated police presence in the area, saying there would have been more mayhem if not for them).

MTC put some blame on emergency medical personnel for very high death toll from the stabbing attack:

For good and ill, Japanese emergency medical personnel have very little experience in treating weapons trauma victims.

Danny Choo has posted a list of recent random stabbing attacks, expressing concern over such crimes:

The worst thing about these killings is the “just wanted to kill anybody” factor with no other particular motive and that they happen in broad daylight on innocent people going about their business.

Debito used the occasion to bring attention to a store in Akihabara that has a sign stating it will not sell knives to minors and foreigners. It wasn’t long before Debito had called the store and convinced them to change the sign:

I mentioned that there are many different types of NJ in Japan, and not all of their customers are simply leaving afterwards. He said that they don’t mind selling to NJ with addresses in Japan as long as they present ID. I said that that’s not what the sign out front says, and suggested he change the sign to reflect what he just told me.

Information about the reaction of some Japanese bloggers can be found at Global Voices online, where Chris Salzberg has written a very informative post.

Mainichi reports that some within the Japanese government are not too happy about Japan’s decision to go along with Europe and support a ban on cluster bombs:

“Britain (which decided at the last minute to support the cluster bomb ban) is all right, it’s surrounded by European countries. Japan’s got China and Russia nearby, so the security environment is totally different. We need those bombs as a defense (against China and Russia),” another high-ranking Defense Ministry official said, criticizing Japan for allowing itself to be dragged along with European countries in supporting the ban.

What has saved the Defense Ministry is the treaty allowing signatories to conduct joint exercises with non-participating countries.

“If there’s a crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. will use cluster bombs. We’ve got to be able to keep shipping lanes open, so we’ve cleared the way for the SDF and transport companies to ship materiel over to the Americans,” a Defense Ministry source said.

There are still many problems the cluster bomb ban poses for the ministry. The Air and Ground Self-Defense Forces possess four varieties of cluster munitions, costing taxpayers 27.6 billion yen.

All of these weapons will be outlawed by the treaty, which becomes even costlier when the vehicles used to launch the munitions are also made redundant, so the financial burden is considerable. One top brass from the ASDF estimates the cost of disposing of the cluster munitions will be 10 billion yen for the air branch alone.

The US, China, Russia, Israel, India and Pakistan - countries that produce and use a lot of cluster weapons - have not signed the cluster ban.

Some photos of Tomohiro Kato, the 25-year-old man who went on a stabbing rampage in Akihabara yesterday:

Tomohiro Kato drove a white two-ton rental truck into a crowd of pedestrians, running over at least three people and then emerging from the truck with a large knife, according to police and witnesses.

Indiscriminately slashing and stabbing as he went, Kato then ran and walked through the center of the Akihabara neighborhood, where thousands of young men from Japan and around the world gather for electronic gadgets and comic books, computer games and nerdy fellowship.

“I am tired of life,” Kato later told police. “I came to Akihabara to kill people. It didn’t matter who they were. I came alone.” - The Washington Post

Some details about Kato that have been reported in the press:

• He had been to Akihabara many times in the past.
• He worked for a Tokyo-based temp company that had dispatched him to a job in Shizuoka.
• He was originally from Aomori Prefecture, where he lived until he graduated from high school.
• He played tennis in junior high, and a junior high.
• A yearbook page obtained by the press contains a sketch of an RPG character with some text Kato had written in English.
• A high school classmate told the press there had once been rumors that Kato carried a knife at school.

A close up of the yearbook sketch, which appears to be from the game Tales of Destiny:

Kato drawn in ASCII, from 2-channel:

Police are currently investigating why Kato became “tired of life.”

Horrible news out of Akihabara, where a man went on a rampage with a survival knife, injuring and killing at random:

A man went on a stabbing spree on Sunday in central Tokyo, injuring at least 14 people with about five of them left unconscious, a fire department official said.

The man was subdued after stabbing bystanders near the bustling train station of Akihabara, an area known for electronics stores and is a haven for fans of video-games and comic-book culture.

At least 14 people including a police officer were injured, the fire department official said.

“About five of them are unconscious,” he said.

The man was driving a truck that swerved into pedestrians before he got out and began stabbing people at random, according to media reports.

Reuters erroneously reported that the attacker was “identified as a 25-year-old member of one of Japan’s yakuza crime syndicates.” Japanese media reports originally only said the man claimed to be a gangster. They now report he has admitted the gangster claim was not true.

A few photos of ambulances and the aftermath of the attack can be viewed at Iza.ne.jp.

Akihabara is usually very crowded on Sundays, with its main roads closed to cars so that pedestrians can enjoy shopping.

Update: These photos, allegedly showing police arresting the attacker, have been showing up all over 2ch.net:

Update 2: The death toll has reached 3.

Update 3: It is now being announced that 6 people have died.

The suspect, Tomohiro Kato, has told police that he drove a rental truck all the way from Shizuoka for the purpose of killing random people in Akihabara.

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.

By the time Kato dropped his knife at the gunpoint of a police officer, 17 people lay bloodied on the street of the crowded district, according to fire department and police officials.

Jiji Press and other Japanese media said that six people were dead — five men aged 19, 20, 29, 47 and 74 and a 21-year-old woman — marking a rare deadly crime in a city famed for safety.

Update 4: The count now stands at 7 dead, 11 wounded.

2-channel users have been repeatedly posting screen captures of shameless idiots waving to the camera during a news broadcast:

Update 5: The killer posted some online messages announcing the attack from his mobile phone:

On Monday, investigators said that they were looking at a series of messages sent by mobile phone to a website that appeared to foretell the attack.

“I’ll crash my vehicle into people and if the vehicle becomes useless, I’ll get out a knife. Goodbye everyone!”, Japanese media reports quoted one posting early on Sunday morning as saying.

Subsequent messages appeared to chart the suspect’s journey from Shizuoka to Tokyo.

“No postponement because of rainy weather,” said a later message, Kyodo news agency reported.

Another posting, some 20 minutes before the attack, simply said: “It’s time,” Kyodo added.

Update 6: AFP’s latest article has the following quote from a kid they interviewed about the incident:

“I’m afraid he did this because he played video games. But he should have known that in life, you can’t hit the restart button.”

Its firefly viewing season in Tokyo, as this Fuji TV news report shows:

If you want to check out the fireflies shown in the video, details can be found in a recent article in the Japan Times.

If you think blood type has an effect on one’s personality, you’re in agreement with most Japanese people. According to a survey translated on What Japan Thinks, a sizable majority of Japanese people buy into pseudo-scientific BS about blood types, and nearly half of those surveyed also believed in fortune telling.

Read the full survey translation here!