𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐉𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭

[Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] other techniques of mind control included hours of chanting and listening to tapes like this [Music] [Applause] [Music] followers paid thousands of dollars to be blessed by asahara to drink his blood or tea brewed from his hair [Music] when i first came to japan i remember that first week of feeling overwhelming culture shock i had always been interested and fascinated by japanese culture from what i'd seen and what i read on the internet but actually stepping into a new country and a new culture is always a completely different experience for everyone from the train station rush hours to vending machines on every corner to thousands of years of tradition preserved that sometimes as a foreigner you feel like you have to keep up with just to fit in and yeah anime is also somewhere twined into all of that but one thing that has just never escaped my mind is where the [ __ ] are all the trash cans as bizarre as it seems japan is one of the cleanest countries in the world and yet also simultaneously has some of the least amount of public trash cans available this is one of the most common concerns that you'll hear from people that have lived or stayed in japan it's actually asked so often that it's become an inside joke with everyone if you've ever asked yourself this question then a quick google search will lead you to results that nearly all say the same thing a domestic terrorism attack in 1995 where a japanese cult released syringas in tokyo subway system the attack was said to be the most serious attack upon japan since world war ii the cult was named om shinrikyo and the leader responsible was shoko i'm detective aki and this is on the case [Music] welcome to on the case this is a series that i do on this channel where i go over urban legends and cases in japan and explain them in great detail now some of you may have seen various youtube videos talking about this case but in this video i'm going to be sharing footage from japanese media outlets visit locations of the crime and unveil how a group went from a religious group loved by thousands to a recognized foreign terrorist organization in several countries in order to do this we're going to have to dive into the childhood of the leader of this cult shoko asahara shoko asahara was born under the name chizuo matsumoto matsumoto was brought up by a large poor family of tatami mat makers he was born with a condition that caused them to lose sight in his left eye and partially blind in his life which caused them to enroll in kumamoto prefectural school for the blind his parents had faith that he would be able to make something of himself despite his condition but shoko asahara ruthlessly bullied other students and took their money but at the same time he became somewhat a leader of other children because he was the only one that could partially see he wanted to attend medical school but wasn't accepted due to his impaired eyesight he then aimed to enter law school but failed the entrance exam as he grew up he eventually graduated and studied acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine he also married a woman who birthed him six children but in 1982 matsumoto was arrested for selling fake chinese medicines at a pharmacy without a license he was fined two thousand dollars and given a brief jail sentence he filed for bankruptcy and became even more obsessed with fortune telling yoga buddhism and divination eventually he asked himself what am i living for is there anything absolute does true happiness really exist in this world if so can i get it as his obsession with divination and religion grew matsumoto claimed to have been meditating on a beach in kanagawa and that a god descended from the sky and said i appoint you as the god of light who leads the armies of gods a photograph was published of matsumoto's seated and lotus position levitating in the air along with this he published a book claiming he could levitate control weather and had telekinesis not long after matsumoto went to visit the dalai lama and had a photo taken of them that he would later use in his books to make his work seem more legitimate he started a religious group called om shinse nokai which later got renamed to om shinrikyo which translates into supreme truth it was after this that he decided to change his name to shoko asahara the reason for this name he thought asahara was a classier family name and shoko was a word that means offering of incense asahara went to the government to apply his group as a legitimate religious organization authorities were reluctant at first but eventually granted them the legal recognition and om shinrikyo was born om shinrikyo had beliefs that tied in bits of buddhism hindu and christianity they believed the end of the world was imminent and that they alone would survive the followers were told that japan would fall and there would be a nuclear war there were also hints of murdering the emperor their belief was simple except shoka asahara and you would attain salvation asahara continued to publish books claiming many things in his book titled declaring myself the christ well the title becomes self-explanatory he claimed to be the lamb of god who could absorb bad karma of his followers he would tell the people that if they rejected him then they would be destined to be born as animals hungry ghosts and end up in different hells due to their bad karma to become a part of any society you have to go through an initiation and in the case with omashin rikyo asahara was considered to be so pure that people would actually eat off of his plate drink his dirty bath water touch his feet and other things that would normally deemed very unhealthy for a person to do some would even brew his hair in their tea and you couldn't just walk in for free and go through this initiation to become a member meant paying a hefty sum one member claimed that he had paid eight thousand one hundred dollars for the blood initiation that involved drinking shoko asahara's blood the ironic thing about all of this was that the cult was taught to stray away from materialism some less disgusting initiations involved being put through physical and mental obstacles such as immersion in hot baths and living underground for days at a time it was found later that some people would actually die through this process and that the cult covered it up by secretly cremating their bodies now after all of this has been said and done and you are officially in the cult you get the privilege to listen to a tape like this for hours on end zone you could also be one of the lucky members to wear this electrical cap that members believed to help synchronize your brain waves with asahara's omishin raquel was growing in size and reputation within japan they had collected members of various skills many of them were students at elite universities and normally this is rare but the students signed up because of the pressure of being successful and the cult promised them a more meaningful and stress-free life but all of this was a disguise to recruit great minds to help aid the cult's popularity even further while at the same time breaking their confidence the cult even managed to get members in japan's military forces this was especially useful to shoko asahara for his plans later down the line in the meantime life was going good for shoka asahara he was garnering fame and money from television followers and news outlets from all over one report claimed them to have over 9 000 members in japan and as many as 40 000 worldwide the cult even created their own anime studio called m-a-t which stood for manga anime team anime was growing rapidly in japan so an anime called shotsu sekai was produced with the intent of recruiting anime fans and otakus into their cult it must have worked considering that there's about 272 of you that signed up according to my anime list [Music] and while i'm on the topic of their anime i should probably address a video game thought to be made by the cult themselves the game was called the story of kamukushiki village where you play ashoka asahara himself it caused the stir of reviews online in fear that anyone who played it was subjecting themselves to be brainwashed into joining the cult fortunately this was never the case it was purely satirical and created by a japanese internet troll who wanted to take jabs at the cult and to japanese people playing the way the story is read makes it actually very obvious this game is satirical so if you ever see any youtube videos telling you otherwise know that it isn't true now back to the cult not everyone of course was a fan as the cult grew more and more people started disappearing some were killed in secret by the cult and some were threatened to stay friends and families began protesting in concern for their loved ones whereabouts because of this growing outrage a man by the name of tatsumi sakamoto stepped in he was an anti-cult lawyer who sought out to rescue members of the cult and reunite them with their families he had previous experience in bringing down cults before and om shinrikyo was next on his list sakamoto started organizing a campaign against the cult he established what was called the om shinriko victims association in order to pursue a class-action lawsuit against asahara he needed to get members to testify that they did not join the group voluntarily and that they were lured in by deception and were being held against their will sakamoto knew that in order to bring down the cult he had to destroy the image by debunking the cult's claims one claim was that shoko asahara had divine power running through his blood and somehow sakamoto was able to convince the cult leader to submit to a blood test to prove that after taking it the results showed no sign of any supernatural phenomenon and the evidence proved to be potentially damaging to asahara soon after that the lawyer filmed an interview with a local news station in tokyo about his doubt and efforts to expose the cult this was it all that needed to happen now was to air this interview and asahara would be exposed to the world unfortunately before the interview could air someone from the news station showed the footage to the cult members and the news station was pressured to cancel broadcasting it not long after some of the cult members including the chief scientists got together to eliminate sakamoto they packed syringes filled with potassium chloride with the intent to knock out the lawyer and waited for him to come to the train station but sakamoto never showed up so the members pursued sakamoto in his own home they found one of the doors unlocked and snuck in when they walked into the bedroom they found sakamoto his wife and a 14 year old month baby in the crib next to them sakamoto was smashed in the head with a hammer and his wife was beaten while another member injected the baby with the syringe filled with potassium chloride they later injected it into the couple the wife died quickly from the toxins but sakamoto not as much so instead the cult strangled him to death afterwards their bodies were placed in metal drums and the cult separated their bodies in three separate prefectures they hoped that by doing this the police wouldn't be able to make a link between their murders not only that their teeth were smashed to warp their identity their bodies would not be found until the gas attacks soon to come six years later some believe that this was the cult's way of intimidating other lawyers from pursuing them but even doing that didn't stop some lawyers from chasing after them others did begin challenging the cult one journalist was able to uncover the disappearance of the sakamoto family and was pursued but she avoided being found another lawyer by the name of toko takimoto went in and debunked shoko asahara's book on levitation after feeling humiliated by the lawyer shoko asahara added takimoto to the hit list and had an assassination attempted on him luckily it was not successful and he was hospitalized making a full recovery om shinrikyo's true colors were beginning to unravel each passing day asahara continued to preach that the apocalypse was coming and no one outside the cult would be safe he continued to use fear and manipulation on his followers in 1990 asahara decided to run in a house of representatives election with 24 of his members despite their best efforts and overshooting their confidence the cult only received a little over 1700 votes and lost the election this was thought to truly spur asahara's hunger for power which began his pursuit of overthrowing the japanese government so he began a project asahara and his most loyal followers built a facility where they would begin experimenting with chemical weapons the intent was to use these weapons against their enemies and put the cult on top as they were testing out chemicals a foul odor began coming out of the facility and disturbing the neighbors nearby the fumes inhaled would cause symptoms such as nosebleeds and convulsions when citizens protested in front of the facility the cult blamed the us army saying the united states had released poison gas on the area but residents all gathered together and provided hundreds of photos proving that the cult was responsible for the horrid smells and that they were up to no good the evidence was removed but the cult decided to move their facility to a sheep station in australia which cost over 50 million dollars to develop some truly question how lacking the security was over watching the cult there was even a member who was fined for transporting the chemicals hidden in sake bottles one of the members who was a chemist helped create the serene gas that would be used in the cult's murders once the serene gas was made they decided to test it out before i move on there's some things that you should know about serene gas sarin is an odorless and colorless gas that has the power to kill quickly and painfully imagine the worst cramp you've ever had in your life now times that by a hundred and instead of in one place it's in every part of your body including your eyes sarin causes your nervous system to go haywire by flexing every muscle in your body until you get painful cramps that are so extreme that it can even disrupt your diaphragm preventing air going into your lungs it's an extremely painful way to die and anyone in contact with it is at risk of dying in just under 10 minutes it's been classified as a weapon of mass destruction and is banned from use in modern warfare no thanks to the chemist and military personnel that were involved in the cult this is how they got their hands on the substance asahara ordered his first attack in an apartment block in matsumoto nagano prefecture japan where he sought out three judges living there he was paranoid that these judges were out to rule against him in a lawsuit not to mention asahara was also angered by residents where over 140 000 signatures were signed in a petition against the colt's wishes to establish a facility in their city it was a warm evening and most of the residents were leaving their windows open at night to let the fresh air come into their homes but as they slept the cult released the serene gas in the neighborhood seven people died and hundreds were injured one of the victims went into a coma for 14 years and died shortly after awakening the police investigated the area and found dead fish dogs birds and caterpillars surrounding the neighborhood despite tip-offs the police did not link the attack to the cult little did anyone know that at the time the matsumoto gas attack was an experiment for the cult's biggest terrorist attack fingerprints from the matsumoto gas attack linked one of the cult members to the case and the police set out to raid the cult on march 22nd but asahara had friends in high places two cult members just happened to be inside japan's armed forces and warned asahara that the police were coming in just a few days so asahara acted fast and ordered an attack on the tokyo subway lines close to the police department some believe that this was a desperate attack on asahara's part to begin the apocalypse the attack was set to hit during rush hour at the absolute busiest part of the transport systems it's march 20th 1995 at about 8 am thousands of citizens board the trains during rush hour to go to work among them were five cult members that carried out asahara's orders and split up to different trains on one of the busiest lines in tokyo each of them is holding a plastic bag filled with liquid sarin wrapped in newspaper they boarded the train and set the bags gently on the ground as soon as the train would come to a stop the cult members would stand up virtually at the same time as if to exit the train they would use the tips of their umbrellas to puncture the bag which leaked out the serum as the members exited the train they would meet with an accomplice in a getaway car just outside the station and return to alm headquarters as the cult members drove away the liquid would quickly evaporate and spread within the train cars the sarin liquid vaporizes and begins to spread its fumes throughout the train passengers began to inhale the deadly nerve gas and showed severe poisoning symptoms people began coughing and looking around and almost immediately they began convulsing with muscle spasms blood begins to pour from their noses and their mouths the train is still running making its stops and incoming passengers come in contact with the serene gas others that escaped the train fast enough still had difficulty breathing after three stops a passenger desperately hits the emergency button and the train is forced to make a stop but the train found itself in the middle of a tunnel and was forced to continue to stop at the next station the first call to the police is made an announcement was made for everyone to please evacuate the station and the passengers made a run for the exit 13 passengers died from the serene gas while thousands more were injured at first everyone believed it was an explosion but quickly the train line completely shut down in order to evacuate all commuters at kasumigaseki station as staff members searched for the source of where the gas was coming from two members died in the process while others tried to mop up the liquid they too fell ill from the exposure it wasn't long until investigators connected the incident to the cult i took a trip to kasumigaseki station and it was here that the trains stopped to evacuate all of its passengers staff members were scrambling around to locate and dispose of all of the syrinn bags it's also at the station that every year a memorial is held to remember all of the victims and as of march 20th 2021 the station held its 26th anniversary memorial from what i had researched online it seems that the serene bags were put into the train rather than in trash cans but because of fears of another attack in the future the government removed all of its trash cans because it was seen as a potential hiding spot for serene bags before i continue on i want to discuss the victims and shed a light on just how much this incident changed japan i feel sometimes exposures are almost completely given to the criminal and almost never to the victims and people affected whether it's just human nature for us to look at a car crash we can't look away from or the media just doesn't care enough to talk about the victims i decided to shed a line on it after reading haruki murakami's book underground this book was completely dedicated to focusing on the lives of the victims through the interviews and first-hand experiences it was like i'd been shot or something all of a sudden my breathing completely stopped like if i inhaled anymore all my guts would come spilling right out of my mouth i was walking back to the office to my replacement when the chief officer matsumoto came out with a mop we head up the escalator to the platform there we found toyota takahashi and hishinuma with a bundle of wet newspapers on the platform they're stuffing it all by hand into plastic bags but there's liquid coming from them and spilling into the platform there was a very strong smell then takahashi walked over to the trash can at the end of the platform probably to fetch some more newspaper to wipe up where it was still wet suddenly he sinks down in front of the bin and keels over takahashi's face looked awful he couldn't talk we laid him on his side loosened his tie and he looked in really bad shape the news had broken out and the police headed to om headquarters shoko asahara was found hiding in a concealed room he was sweaty and seemed to had intended to stay in hiding for some time but once he was brought into questioning he denied the allegations and said that he couldn't possibly have done it because he was a blind man his followers denied it as well and said that it was a separate plan made by other cult members instead after further interrogation of the cult members responsible they also they legitimately thought what they were doing was right many japanese he is guilty and we must be punished by death and so judge will think same way while members may have confessed shoko asahara stayed silent he went through an eight-year trial and attended over 256 court sessions and never once offered an apology nor explanation instead he reportedly developed a mental illness where he babbled nonsense in broken english and talked incoherently it wasn't uncommon that people thought he was just trying to receive the insanity plea his lawyer however had made a statement you [Music] his followers were all sentenced on death row after the attack and trial the cult members responsible for killing sakamoto-san and his family had finally revealed the location of their bodies [Music] foreign [Music] foreign it was six years after the incident a memorial was built in nagano prefecture and is regularly visited by those closest to the family as well as the families of the victims the cult member responsible for making the syringe to kill the lawyer was stabbed in front of the paparazzi by a yakuza member before his trial even started on july 6 2018 he was 63 years old asahara's body was cremated soon after he hanged at the tokyo detention house but his ashes remained there because his family disagrees over what to do with them authorities feared that giving the ashes to the family would turn into an item of worship from members still involved with the cult one of the daughters of asahara who remains anonymous was designated to receive his remains and to scatter his ashes into the pacific she had several ties with her parents and had made statements regarding her childhood involvement with the cult from the time i was around two or three i lived by myself in a room like a storehouse with no windows after my brother was born and i went into my mother's room she turned me away saying there's no longer any room for you here both now and in the past i never thought of my father as a dad when i was born my father was already a sec leader and a guru i never once called him dad the woman had claimed that she had been made to eat omelets with pieces of broken pot in them and was even forced to stand outside in the cold for hours this abuse made her fearful of being killed if she ever resisted her parents wishes she had apparently applied in december 2015 to be removed as an heir to the cult the daughter and the lawyer agreed that it would be best to receive the ashes and scatter them in the ocean so that followers could not create a holy land with them the lawyer also asked the government to support the daughter in order to protect her from the possible attacks from followers or any attempts to steal the ashes in the end she added what i want to say most now is that i want a system under which children can cut ties with their parents if there are marked problems she said i'm grateful to my parents for giving birth to me but i don't think i owe them anything when it comes to raising me considering the weight of my father's crimes i don't think that there is any way for him to take responsibility but for the death penalty to be carried out this was one of if not the only child of asahara who supported the death penalty on her father her siblings did not take kindly to that not long after this her older sister came onto the media and even amongst other youtube channels defending him saying that their father was just mentally ill and pleaded for re-trial of his case it was a day that i lost most of my sense of reality and my clock stopped ticking people think of him as a monster but he was human naturally the public went completely against the older sister and believed she was still part of the cult trying to keep her father's memory alive on good terms she went on to publish a book called a clock that has stopped she went on to argue that her father was mentally ill and should undergo treatment so people can hear what he has to say about the crimes she has attempted suicide multiple times and has regularly tried to visit her father in tokyo detention house but not once did the staff ever let her see him japan removed most of its trash cans and fear that it could be a possible hiding spot for future attacks most of the trash cans you'll find are usually near a vending machine and occasionally in a park and a train station here and there but japan takes the placement of their trash cans quite seriously in 2014 and 2017 when donald trump and barack obama were visiting japan they tightened security and sealed the trash can shut until the end of his visit on new year's 2019 a man by the name of kazujiro kusakabe intentionally plowed his car into a crowd in harajuku district he said it was in retaliation of the death penalty system investigation on linking his attack to the execution of the cultists who died the year prior is still unclear life after the event made it incredibly difficult for the children of shoko asahara to live normally everywhere they went was faced with discrimination and resentment colleges universities and part-time jobs dismissed applications once they knew who they were unfortunately the end of shoko asahara and his followers did not end the cult's existence and in fact had split into two cults called aleph and the circle of light circle of light constantly tries to make it public that they have nothing to do with om aleph also tries to make it clear that they have nothing to do with shoko asahara but the public security intelligence agency warns that aleph and the circle of lights still remain devoted to asahara in their own ways while omg enrique was designed as a terrorist organization by several countries these two subcults are still legal in japan but under heightened surveillance and deemed as dangerous religious organizations and today the police still carry out investigations and raids against the cults in november 2017 the police raided five offices of aleph after investigating a woman who was spending tens of thousands of yen for study sessions but the group still reportedly has about 2 100 members and continues to recruit new members under the name aleph but in 2019 the tokyo court demanded alef to pay out more than 1 billion yen to the victims of the attack march 20th 2021 marks 26 years since the event and victims and families are still affected today every year a memorial service is held at kasumigaseki station where citizens can pay their respects in memory of those who are harmed sakamoto-san is still highly respected today at his family's memorial since the attack of 1995 japan has never been the same when people see cult members they never really think about the process of a person getting there they just see the result everyone in life is on their own journey trying to find happiness and sometimes that journey brings you into a crowd who wants to take advantage of that happiness cults will recruit you with positivity and the promise of a better life they find someone who is at their most fragile and tell them exactly what they want to hear in order to stay and in worse cases like omishinry kyo will threaten you once recruited the one thing i think everyone should take away from stories about cults if nothing else is always think for yourself no matter how desperate you are for a better life always try to look at the bigger picture and weigh your options just because someone smiles at you and consoles you when you're down doesn't mean you're indebted to them a person who truly wants nothing but the best for you isn't looking for anything in return cults go completely against that and want you and all of you but thank you guys so much for watching and being patient with this on the case series these videos take a lot of time translation and research so if you would like in the meantime feel free to support me on patreon but i'm detective aki and thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: akidearest

Views: 2,499,455

Keywords: anime, otaku, tentacles

Id: PTE9RLxMRko

Length: 31min 40sec (1900 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021