Yahoo Finance Japan's History Of Disturbing Mass Killings
Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world and strict gun laws - so US-style mass killings are relatively rare.
When these massacres have occurred - often involving knives rather than guns - they have stunned the country.
These are some of the worst mass killings seen in Japan.
May 1938: Mutsuo Toi, 21, goes on a killing spree in rural Okayama using a shotgun, Japanese sword and axe. He kills 30 people, including his grandmother, before killing himself.
In his suicide notes, Toi said he was angry about being shunned by women and his neighbours since he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, the disease that killed his parents.
He said he killed his grandmother, who had raised him, so she wouldn't have to live with the stigma of being a murderer's grandmother.
March 1995: Members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult release sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 people and sickening or causing temporary vision problems in thousands more.
In five co-ordinated attacks, the group targeted several subway lines, including those passing through Kasumigaseki and Nagatacho, home to the Japanese government.
Scores of Aum members were put on trial and 13 were sentenced to death, including the cult's leader, Shoko Asahara.
September 1999: Yasuaki Uwabe, 35, drives a car into the main train station in the southwestern city of Shimonoseki and starts stabbing travellers at random.
He kills five people and injures 10 before he is stopped by police.
Uwabe, who said he was embittered by a series of failures in his work and personal life, was sentenced to death and hanged in 2012.
June 2001: Former school janitor Mamoru Takuma, 37, goes on a stabbing spree at Ikeda Elementary School in Osaka's affluent suburbs, killing eight children.
Most of the victims were aged seven or eight, while another 13 children and two teachers were injured.
Takuma had previously been jailed for rape and had a history of metal illness and assaults. He was sentenced to death in 2003 and executed a year later.
June 2008: Disgruntled mechanic Tomohori Kato drives a two-ton rented truck into a crowd at a junction in Tokyo's bustling Akihabara shopping district on the anniversary of the Osaka school attack.
After hitting five people with the truck, he jumped out and started stabbing people as they tried to help the crash victims. Seven people were killed and 10 injured.
The attack prompted a ban on possession of double-edged knives with blades longer than 5.5cm.
Kato was sentenced to death in 2011.
October 2008: Arsonist Kazuhiro Ogawa, 46, kills 16 people in a fire at an all-night video shop in Osaka.
Ogawa torched the shop, which screened adult films in small rooms, in a failed suicide bid.
He was sentenced to death in 2009.
March 2015: "Social misfit" Tatsuhiko Hirano, 40, stabs five people to death in a family home on Awaji Island.
Unemployed Hirano, 40, had reportedly squabbled with his neighbours, who had sought help from police.
June 2016: Nobuyuki Matsuhashi, 33, who had been treated for mental illness, stabs a woman to death and wounds three others in an attack at a shopping mall in Hokkaido.
