17 people have been seriously injured after a 24-year-old man dressed as The Joker from the 2019 'Joker' film attacked them on a Tokyo train.
During the event, the man attacked individuals with a large knife and then poured petrol in the carriage before setting it on fire. One man is said to be in critical condition.
Many of the travellers on the train had been heading to Halloween parties and were in fancy dress meaning the assailant, who is now in custody, did not stand out from the crowd before the frenzied attack began.
Video footage of the attack shows people scrambling from windows and through the train as a large fire burns.
Sources close to the police have told journalists that the attacker was obsessed with the Joker movie and the wider Batman franchise. No other motive has been given for the attack other than a general anger brought about through losing his job.
One witness said:
"I thought it was a Halloween stunt. Then, I saw a man walking this way, slowly waving a long knife."
In the 2019 Joker movie, the first Joker movie to not prominently feature Batman, the principal character is portrayed as a loser who has become ostracised from society. He then becomes the Joker to escape his mundane life and exact revenge on those he believes to be in the wrong. The first people the Joker kills in the film are thugs on an underground train.
This isn't the first time that real-life violence has been connected to the Joker character. In 2012, it was reported that the Aurora cinema massacre in the US state of Colorado that killed 12 people and wounded dozens more was carried out by an individual dressed as the Joker. The shooting took place during a screening of the 2012 Batman movie 'The Dark Knight Rises', which featured a Joker played by Heath Ledger. While it was later revealed that the killer was not dressed as the Joker, it led to some cinemas in the US putting in place armed security for showings of the 2019 Joker movie due to the fear of copycat violence.
While Japan experiences low levels of violence compared to most developed countries, this is not the first attack of its kind to take place in recent years. In 2021, 10 people were injured by a knife attacker on a Tokyo train, and in 2019 a man attacked and killed 2 children who were waiting for a bus, he wounded 18 others.
[Based on reporting by: BBC]
COMMENTS