Mamoru Takuma

Mamoru Takuma was born on 23 November 1963 in Itami, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan.

As a child, he displayed unusual and anti-social behavior: at the age of three, he rode his tricycle towards the center of a highway, causing traffic jams, and habitually killed small animals by wrapping them in newspaper and lighting them on fire.

From elementary school to junior high, Takuma was both a victim and a perpetrator of bullying.

He expressed envy and jealousy for the "highly educated and high-income elite" from an early age.

Takuma was both physically abused and neglected by his father, whom he contemplated stabbing to death in his sleep.

In February 1979, Takuma enrolled in high school in Amagasaki, but dropped out in March 1981.

He worked part-time at a gas station for several months until enlisting in the Japan Air Self Defense Force at the end of 1981, at age 18.

However, Takuma was discharged in January 1983 for boarding and sleeping with a teenage runaway.

His relationship with his parents worsened following the discharge, and there were incidents in which his father beat him with stones.

Takuma in turn threatened to enlist in the yakuza to "mess up" their lives.

In 1984, Takuma and his mother left the family home and purchased an apartment, leaving his oldest brother and father by themselves.

They lived together for a year and a half, until his father came back for his wife.

On 21 November 1984, Takuma raped a woman while collecting rent for a condominium management company.

After the incident, believing the woman had filed a complaint to the police, he consulted a psychiatrist with his mother on 12 December and he complained about hearing hallucinations, "feeling that he's plunged into someone" and other complaints.

The hospital initially diagnosed him with anxiety, but later stated it was schizophrenia in the medical certificate and in response to police inquiries.

Takuma, who was placed in a closed ward, was dissatisfied with his care.

On 4 January 1985, he jumped from the roof of the hospital's fifth floor in a suicide attempt, but instead fractured his mandible and maxilla.

He later wrote to his mother that he was hospitalized to avoid being pursued by the police in a rape case and jumped off the fifth floor to "harass his parents".

After being discharged from the hospital, Takuma decided to commit even more crimes for "revenge on the world."

Later, the doctor in charge of Takuma's psychological examination stated that it may have strengthened his resentment towards society.

In November 1986, Takuma was sentenced to three years in prison for the rape charge.

While in prison, he jumped out of the hospital ward, explaining in a letter to his mother that he did it because she would not cooperate regarding his discharge.

He demanded that his parents pay for his living expenses after release.

His father refused, citing Takuma's lack of remorse, and told him that he would hand over the money he traded in for his personal belongings to disown him.

After his release from prison in March 1989, Takuma moved to Ikeda and found work driving buses and trucks.

His coworkers described him as a quiet and unremarkable man, but a bit of a loner who did not like dealing with customers.

Takuma testified in a later psychological examination that he caused two fatal car accidents, one when he was a dump truck driver and the other when he was a semi-trailer truck driver.

In the first incident, while transporting industrial waste in the mountains, Takuma drove in front of another truck and suddenly pressed the brake pedal on a downward turn, causing a collision; all the passengers of the other truck died the next day.

He lied about the cause of the crash and was not indicted on any charges.

In the second incident, while driving near the Metropolitan Expressway, Takuma caused a motorist to fatally collide with a side wall.

He immediately left the scene.

In February 1999, Takuma's brother, facing bankruptcy, died by suicide by slashing his neck with a knife.

His father was hospitalized due to drunkenness after the incident, but according to Takuma in the detention center, he said, "I wanted him to commit suicide like Tsutomu Miyazaki's father."

Mamoru Takuma (宅間 守) was a Japanese mass murderer who killed eight children in the Osaka school massacre in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, on 8 June 2001.

Takuma had a long history of mentally disturbed and anti-social behaviour, and an extensive criminal record including a conviction for rape.

He stabbed to death eight students and seriously wounded fifteen others at Ikeda Elementary School in a knife attack that lasted several minutes.

Takuma was convicted in August 2003 and executed on 14 September 2004.

Takuma's mother had a lifelong struggle with mental illness, and died in late 2016.

His father died in April 2020, aged 88.

The former Takuma residence in Itami was demolished in September 2020; the site is currently vacant.