Abe Shinzo’s assassin achieved his political goals
In Japan, political violence looks worryingly effective
“Revolution+1”, a new Japanese film, opens with actual footage of the killing of Abe Shinzo, Japan’s former prime minister, last July. The grainy frames show Abe giving a stump speech in Nara while his assassin, Yamagami Tetsuya, approaches from behind wielding a homemade gun. The feature film proceeds to portray a sympathetic protagonist named Kawakami, whose biography bears a striking resemblance to Abe’s actual killer: his father committed suicide, as Mr Yamagami’s did, and his mother fell under the spell of the Unification Church (uc), a cultlike group.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “The wages of violence”
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