While the school tragedy, which also left more than 20 people injured, is unprecedented in scale, it is only the latest in a series of mindless and deadly crimes that have left Japan, which once prided itself on its safety, increasingly shaken. I felt the blood drain from my face when I heard. While school shootings are becoming a grim part of life in the United States, no random tragedy on such a scale has ever struck a Japanese school before. There's a huge amount of social stress and pressure.
Some people just explode.
While the motive remained unclear, Japanese media reported that the man had taken a huge dose of tranquillisers and was babbling incoherently. He had a history of psychological problems, they added. More recently, there has been a wave of incidents on Tokyo's crowded trains, including one in which a man was killed by a fellow passenger enraged at his request for people to step back so he could board. School attacks have also been increasing. Experts blame a complex mix of factors for the rising number of crimes.