Akiba Slaying Update: More on the Perp
Just a quickie– Japan Probe has some more background on Tomohiro Kato, the man who killed 7 and injured more in Akihabara yesterday. Apparently he was a bit of an otaku himself; his own sketch from the game Tales of Destiny from a yearbook was unearthed (above) and he had apparently been to Akiba many times.
Japan Today has even more, specifically word of Internet postings possibly written by Kato and posted via mobile phone immediately prior to his stabbing spree.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Yeah, the media is loving the horror of the story. It’s amazing the amount of information the media in Japan can dig up only 24 hours after the event. Interviews with neighbors who never saw the guy, elementary school classmates who said he was nondescript yet would occasionally get super angry and coworkers who said he did his job without any problems.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Don’t want to take away from the fact that it is a terrible incident. It is. The way the media has taken the image above as an example of his disconnection with society is disturbing however. A character holding a sword demonstrating a violent strain. A 15 year old writing in English, obviously an oddball…
June 9th, 2008 at 12:48 am
The media has already given him the death sentence.
June 9th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
And Japan is proceeding with the exorcism of the spirit of Akihabara.
The irony is that this terrible event has just given Japan the incentive to crack down on the otaku in Akihabara once and for all.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
All it takes is one loser to give the rest of us a bad rep. Man I hate stereotyping.
I hope the Tales series doesn’t get a bad rep after all this chaos. The thing is, Tales of Destiny really isn’t all that violent. I’m curious to see how the media will handle this.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
The media have handled it as the media does. This has become last weeks news and is only mentioned in passing on news reports. It has irked Japan to the core though, there have been a number of similar knifing incidents recently but this has been the boldest and best planned out. I don’t think there is going to be an “otaku hunt” or anything, everyone is otaku here. But there will be some changes, closing of the weekend Akihabara walking district, closer observation
June 19th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
of online blogs for criminal intent and perhaps restrictions placed on the purchase of survival knives.
I don’t see any repercussions against Tales of Destiny, the link between material source and effects on the consumer are not so criticized here. No warning labels on video games and the porn is right on the magazine rack beside the manga.
(Sorry for hijacking the comment posts on this one gia! :oops: )