On the whole, I feel very safe in Japan. It's an orderly place and people exert a high level of self-control, certainly more than in Australia. I haven't checked the crime figures, but I would guess that the murder rate per head of population is higher in Oz too.
But when it come to brutal or bizarre murders, often amongst family members, Japan takes the cake. Rarely a day passes when another out of the ordinary killing is reported. Most recently, a young man murdered and chopped into pieces his sister, allegedly because she told him that he wouldn't amount to anything. It's now pretty routine for news items about fathers killing sons or daughters, sons killing their fathers, mothers dropping infants from high rise apartments and so on.
I've asked Japanese friends and students just what is going on. Is there something the matter in modern Japanese society? I have a few pet theories that I wont discuss here. Suffice it it say that many people seem to think that something is rotten at a fundamental level. Too much pressure...few mental health services.
I do feel safe here but I wonder, for example, about the man next door, who dislikes foreigners and who one evening banged angrily on his bedroom window when our baby was crying. Yes really, a potential lunatic, in my opinion.
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