I’d recently arrived in Japan when the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway line perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo occurred in 1995. I remember with shame now how I joked about the incident at the time, not realizing its significance (the cult was also responsible for the murder of a young lawyer, wife, and child in 1989.) Today, the leader of the cult, Asahara Shoko, was executed.
He was born and raised in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto. - William
