At a Nara police station, the suspect—a 41-year-old named Tetsuya Yamagami—admitted to the shooting barely 30 minutes after pulling the trigger. He then offered a motive that sounded too outlandish to be true: He saw Abe as an ally of the Unification Church, a group better known as the Moonies—the cult founded in the 1950s by the Korean evangelist Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Yamagami said his life had been ruined when his mother gave the church all of the family’s money, leaving him and his siblings so poor that they often didn’t have enough to eat. His brother had committed suicide, and he himself had tried to.
“My prime target was the Unification Church’s top official, Hak Ja Han, not Abe,” he told the police, according to an account published in January in a newspaper called The Asahi Shimbun. He could not get to Han—Moon’s widow—so he shot Abe, who was “deeply connected” to the church, Yamagami said, just as Abe’s grandfather, also a prime minister and renowned political figure in Japan, had been.
Investigators looked into Yamagami’s wild-sounding claims and found, to their alarm, that they were true. After a quick huddle, the police appear to have decided that the Moonie connection was too sensitive to reveal, at least for the moment. It might even affect the outcome of the elections for the Upper House of the Diet, set to take place on July 10. At a press conference on the night of the assassination, a police official would say only that Yamagami had carried out the attack because he “harbored a grudge against a specific group and he assumed that Abe was linked to it.” When reporters clamored for details, the official said nothing.
After the election, the Unification Church confirmed press reports that Yamagami’s mother was a member, and the story quickly took off. The Moonies, it emerged, maintained a volunteer army of campaign workers who had long been a secret weapon not just for Abe but for many other politicians in his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which remains in power under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Later that month, the Japanese tabloid Nikkan Gendai published a list of 111 members of parliament who had connections to the church. In early September 2022, the LDP announced that almost half of its 379 Diet members had admitted to some kind of contact with the Unification Church, whether that meant accepting campaign assistance or paying membership fees or attending church events. According to a survey by The Asahi Shimbun, 290 members of prefectural assemblies, as well as seven prefectural governors, also said they had church ties. The rising numbers exposed a scandal hiding in plain sight: A right-wing Korean cult had a near-umbilical connection to the political party that had governed Japan for most of the past 70 years.
The Japanese were outraged not just by the appearance of influence-peddling but by a galling hypocrisy. Abe was a fervent nationalist, eager to rebuild Japan’s global standing and proudly unapologetic for its imperial past. Now he and his party had been caught in a secretive electoral alliance with a cult that—it soon emerged—had been accused of preying on Japanese war guilt to squeeze billions of dollars from credulous followers.
…
The influence of the Moonies on Abe and the LDP remains a live issue, and last November the Kishida government—eager to clear its name—opened an inquiry that could threaten the Unification Church’s legal status in Japan as a religion. That could prove a lethal blow, and might raise questions about the church’s role in the other 100 or so countries where it has a presence, including the United States. Because the group’s leaders have not been charged with any crime, the Japanese government would, in essence, be asserting the power to decide when a religion does more harm than good.
…
Although the Unification Church is headquartered in South Korea, since the 1970s the bulk of the group’s money has come from Japan, and so have many of its most fanatical followers. “Japan is actually designated as a core pillar” of the church’s finances, I was told by Masaue Sakurai, a former high-ranking official in the church who was forced out in 2017.
…
Sakurai was blunt about the church’s ruthless methods in Japan, but he spoke warmly about its adherents, whom he sees as victims of a misguided leadership. (He grew up in the church.) He told me that when he began working for the church, in 1998, it was “already focusing 100 percent on the forced collection of donations.” The group initially raised money from “spiritual sales.” Japanese followers were pressured to buy and sell cheap Korean-made products at outrageous markups—miniature stone pagodas, personal inkan signature stamps, “special” ginseng tea—with the promise of healing powers. When that triggered lawsuits and public complaints, the church moved to direct donations.
…
Moon’s most successful business venture may have been sushi, which he and his Japanese followers helped popularize in the United States. Eating raw tuna was still an exotic pursuit to Americans when Moon—the self-declared “king of the ocean”—began investing in shipyards in the late 1970s and sending his followers to sell door-to-door from refrigerated vans. True World Foods, a seafood company founded at Moon’s direction, controls a large share of the sushi trade, selling raw fish to thousands of restaurants across the United States and Canada.
They run a newspaper and website (the Epoch Times) that is popular with conservatives in the US, and also all those Chinese cultural history dance shows (Shen Yun) are run by Falung Gong.
They run a newspaper and website (the Epoch Times) that is popular with conservatives in the US, and also all those Chinese cultural history dance shows (Shen Yun) are run by Falung Gong.
The NYT had a good article on the history of sushi and moonies in America. The unification church is absolutely a cult. They're also famous for their mass marriages.
The NYT had a good article on the history of sushi and moonies in America. The unification church is absolutely a cult. They're also famous for their mass marriages.
Are you using Cloudflare's DNS (1.1.1.1)? Archive.ph doesn’t allow people using Cloudflare DNS to access their site. You'd need to use another DNS server (e.g. your default ISPs or an alternative...
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An aside:
I did some research to understand the reasoning behind this issue. This is what I found.
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The whole article was a pretty wild ride to discover this cult and learn more about the assassination but this part really sticks out as fascinating to me, about one of Moon's children: I think...
The whole article was a pretty wild ride to discover this cult and learn more about the assassination but this part really sticks out as fascinating to me, about one of Moon's children:
A third son, Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon, founded a separate, gun-centered church in Pennsylvania known as Rod of Iron Ministries, where followers do target practice with AR-15s and bring guns to church to be blessed. Hyung Jin wears a golden crown made of rifle shells, and delivers hate-filled sermons against the Democratic Party. He also expects to become the king of America. He reviles his mother—who runs the international church in South Korea—as the “whore of Babylon.”
I think mainly because cults like this have really dropped out of the news that i guess i follow. I was sure that the time of crazy cults was behind us.
Damn, i managed to get to the point where they were selling tommy guns with trump's face before i had to stop reading. The whole thing is a bit much and the dude reeks of various mental disorders...
Damn, i managed to get to the point where they were selling tommy guns with trump's face before i had to stop reading. The whole thing is a bit much and the dude reeks of various mental disorders so i just can't keep going. Really unfortunate that the gop panders to this group.
Agreed, it twists around into a couple very interesting angles. Including the ties to the potential ties to th Korean Central Intelligence Agency. I've been worried about Shinzo's sympathies...
Agreed, it twists around into a couple very interesting angles. Including the ties to the potential ties to th Korean Central Intelligence Agency.
I've been worried about Shinzo's sympathies toward Japan's imperial and militarist past for a long time. But, I didn't realize his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was a suspected war criminal or linked to Manchuria.
The degree to which the Unification Church/Moonies/Family Federation for World Peace and Unification have ended up being linked to the government, and how much clout they had, is also wild. Considering Moon's comments, their right wing leanings, and the outreach tactics laid out in the article...
[The founder, Sun Myung Moon’s] own homophobia went far beyond the LDP’s; he once described gay people as “dirty, dung-eating dogs.”
...it really makes you question how much the "church" may have shaped current Japanese society and norms.
One of Abe's greatest claims to fame was his relation to Kishi. It gave him huge familial power, gave his faction the ability to appeal to an imagined-perfect past, and shaped his political...
Exemplary
One of Abe's greatest claims to fame was his relation to Kishi. It gave him huge familial power, gave his faction the ability to appeal to an imagined-perfect past, and shaped his political thought. His aspirations towards emulating Kishi were intentional, not accidental.
I'd say less of Abe's extreme-right-wing views were shaped by the Unification Church than it was a marriage of convenience. They shared similar conservative views on social policy, but Abe was a well known leader of the 'there were no war crimes/there were no comfort women/the war was actually good, and we shouldn't be ashamed' movement in Japanese politics long before it's alleged he became deeply enmeshed with the Church.
Things like continued visits to Yasukuni, trying to remove Article 9 of the Japanese constitution (which outlaws Japan launching a war of aggression to settle disputes), pushing textbooks that erase Imperial Japanese Army/Navy war crimes, revoking the apology to the Korean government on 'comfort women' (sex slaves en masse, as part of Imperial Japan's war policy) a week after it was settled... these were all deep features of Abe's political thought, policy, and character, even before his second, more successful stint as Prime Minister.
Abe was such an ultra-conservative that, in the hours after his assassination, the leading theory for his death was that he was killed for betraying 'the cause' as he failed to overturn Article 9. The assassin was an ex-Japanese Self Defense Force member, and early analysis was that he was likely an aggrieved person who also shared extreme-right-wing views.
If that had have been the case, we wouldn't be looking at the most successful political assassination of the 21st century. Abe would have been deified, and members of his faction would be emboldened to carry on his policy. Figures in Japanese politics are often more powerful as kingmakers after having 'retired' than whilst they're in legislative power - even moreso when they can be invoked as ideals personified (ala Kishi). But in the days following his death, as more and more details came out, it was clear his legacy would mainly be on the deep corruption of the Unification Church/LDP linkage.
What's more, as soon as Yamagami's motivations became clearly 'this person hurt my mother, nobody listened to me, I was driven to a desperate act', Japanese public opinion turned favourably towards him. Die-hard LDP supporters could at least understand his grievances, and Abe's link to it. And even the normally very-malleable Japanese press started asking every LDP politician 'do you have ties to this Church?', leading to resignations, continued scandals to this day, and a much-weakened extreme-right faction in Japanese politics.
So in answer to your hypothetical, I'd say that interactions between the Church and LDP may have been a mutually re-enforcing loop of very conservative social thought (role of women, homophobia, etc). But Japanese society and norms being shaped towards 'well, the Pacific War wasn't that bad...', 'I've never heard of [war crime]/[war criminal]': that was all the LDP, and, in our century, Abe.
Thanks. The situation is obviously evolving, and while I was aware of Yasukuni's history along with some of the other controversies/issues, this helps better flush out and connect the individual...
Thanks. The situation is obviously evolving, and while I was aware of Yasukuni's history along with some of the other controversies/issues, this helps better flush out and connect the individual things in my head.
There are plenty of cults, most are just more "private" and thus not widely known. I don't think many cults become known unless they do something really big to get in the news. Mass suicides for...
There are plenty of cults, most are just more "private" and thus not widely known. I don't think many cults become known unless they do something really big to get in the news. Mass suicides for instance, or big busts for child marriages.
...That said, that cult sounds like a parody of American gun culture, which makes it more horrifying that it's real.
Nobody could have guessed the killer's motivations when the news first broke. I've seen this called one of the most successful political assassinations in modern history. While that might be...
Nobody could have guessed the killer's motivations when the news first broke.
I've seen this called one of the most successful political assassinations in modern history. While that might be taking it a bit far, what more could the guy have asked for? The unification church is being cracked down on, and the Japanese people see him as a sympathetic martyr. The ruling party is cutting all ties to the cult.
From a national stability perspective, extrajudicial killings aren't great, so I just hope Shinzo Abe's assassination doesn't lead to any copycats.
Technically speaking, would this count as a political assassination? If we believe the killer for a moment, this seems to be much more personal to him. I don't even know if his full goal was a...
Technically speaking, would this count as a political assassination? If we believe the killer for a moment, this seems to be much more personal to him. I don't even know if his full goal was a nation-wide crackdown, it seemed like he was mostly interested in revenge.
Specifically revenge against a political establishment with close ties to the cult that ruined his life. He wanted to enact revenge and call attention to the fact that the Liberal Democratic Party...
Specifically revenge against a political establishment with close ties to the cult that ruined his life. He wanted to enact revenge and call attention to the fact that the Liberal Democratic Party was supporting the unification church. The assassination had pretty clear political motivations.
The nationwide crackdown may not have been what he expected, but he accomplished his goals and then some.
Why, though? I mean, making a video on a home-made shotgun that was used to assassinate a political figure I can understand on some level. The "let's make it brokenly so it'd explode in my hands"...
Only Brandon purposely made his recreation wrong in such a way that it would violently detonate like a pipe bomb. Which it did. He knew it was going to explode so he was hiding behind a barrel, but it would have killed him if he held it
Why, though?
I mean, making a video on a home-made shotgun that was used to assassinate a political figure I can understand on some level. The "let's make it brokenly so it'd explode in my hands" part that weirds me out.
Or was all of that just cover for doing a pipe bomb video?
Maybe he didn't want to give people a working gun? Or make it so the shooter also dies in the process? Honestly if I did something similar online from an intellectual curiosity perspective, I'd...
Maybe he didn't want to give people a working gun? Or make it so the shooter also dies in the process?
Honestly if I did something similar online from an intellectual curiosity perspective, I'd make sure anything I upload about it would either not work, or harm the user more than anyone else.
Hmm, maybe. My initial thought was that he'd have described his deviation, seeing as he went ahead and took cover before igniting it, but I suppose that easily could've been described in the video...
Hmm, maybe.
My initial thought was that he'd have described his deviation, seeing as he went ahead and took cover before igniting it, but I suppose that easily could've been described in the video as merely a general safety precaution, rather than the "this won't be a gun, it'll be a bomb, so obviously I'm not firing it manually" that at first assumed.
Best case scenario as far as I can tell, he was looking for a way to spice things up for the video. Worst case it's as you said, he wanted to inform people on how to make an IED for reasons...
Best case scenario as far as I can tell, he was looking for a way to spice things up for the video. Worst case it's as you said, he wanted to inform people on how to make an IED for reasons unknown, but if the other poster's remark about him being 'excited' about the assassination are true, aren't entirely in the dark.
I guess... I mean, that worst case one makes sense to me (y'know, given a starting intent of wanting (people) to commit terrorism or whatever). But that best case scenario, just... There's enough...
I guess...
I mean, that worst case one makes sense to me (y'know, given a starting intent of wanting (people) to commit terrorism or whatever).
But that best case scenario, just... There's enough videos both of firing guns on YouTube and of people of various reasons setting off explosions, trying to force one into the other... I really just don't know.
So your thought is that it was linking something with potential for viability on its own (pipebomb on YouTube) with a current topic (Abe assassination) just for views?
It was clearly a mix of riding the trending topic and doing something he knew would go instantly viral (setting off a pipe bomb on YouTube). And it did go viral to some degree.
So your thought is that it was linking something with potential for viability on its own (pipebomb on YouTube) with a current topic (Abe assassination) just for views?
I'd like to take a moment to highlight a very commendable action in the article: What a man.
I'd like to take a moment to highlight a very commendable action in the article:
Jun, a retiree with a quiet, steadfast manner, told me it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened to his wife. He was determined to act, but he knew that other deprogramming efforts with Moonies had backfired, in some cases in spectacular fashion, when believers were locked up by their families for months, even years, and sometimes returned to the church anyway after regaining their freedom. The Moonies I met talked about these failed interventions (some of them documented in court) as evidence of the hostility they often face in Japan.
Jun told me he spent 18 months coming up with a team and a strategy before confronting his wife. He wanted to approach her “with sense, with feelings,” and not just castigate her. He organized a month-long decompression, living with her in a hotel where relatives and former church members visited and helped her gain a fuller perspective on what she’d been through. Eventually, Keiko told me, she realized that the church had reduced her to a state of infantile dependence. This, she told me, is at the root of its doctrine: “They tell you not to think on your own,” because that was Eve’s original sin.
The whole thing was so weird. No one around me really knew what to think at first but there was some slight palpable relief when it turned out to be a Japanese rather than a foreign actor. A...
The whole thing was so weird. No one around me really knew what to think at first but there was some slight palpable relief when it turned out to be a Japanese rather than a foreign actor.
A handful of days later the news broke that the assassination was somehow linked to that cult. Blew my mind since some sorts (some.) of LDP supporters are the same sorts you used to get screaming about every small grievance in their lives being due to some Korean conspiracy and then holy shit it turns out the ones in on the conspiracy were hundreds of their own politicians.
Few weeks later and there were some guys cosplaying Yamagami at Abe’s state funeral (scroll down a bit). Anyway, when I see a picture of Abe it doesn’t even feel like the guy actually died. LDP’s still doing their thing. Yen’s burning in a raging dumpster fire. At least we’re not hearing so much talk of revising the post-war constitution so they can turn the JSDF back into an army.
...Huh. So I mentioned this to my mother and was surprised she immediately recognized the Unification Church, complete with the founder's name. The article mentioned that it was visible in the...
...Huh. So I mentioned this to my mother and was surprised she immediately recognized the Unification Church, complete with the founder's name. The article mentioned that it was visible in the 80's, but it was apparently very active in recruiting at colleges when she attended in the 70s. She mentioned going to a talk from a woman who'd been kidnapped away from the Moonies by her families to help de-brainwash her. Apparently there were a few similar cases where the people pressed charges against their parents.
One anecdote she told me that's really surprising: around that time in Germany, they had plans to buy a castle to turn into some sort of monastery. The German government approached an opera singer to buy it instead. As far as I can tell it must be Rheinstein Castle, though I can't find any online mentions of this bit. My mom learned about it during a trip there in the 80s or so. The castle had an article on the wall about it and she got to talk to the owner a bit.
These days, my knowledge of it comes purely from mentions in manga and Korean webcomics. So it's kind of shocking to hear just how widespread and known it really was here in the US. It's a bit chilling in some ways.
From the article (archive link):
…
…
…
…
There's Falun Gong, for one.
They run a newspaper and website (the Epoch Times) that is popular with conservatives in the US, and also all those Chinese cultural history dance shows (Shen Yun) are run by Falung Gong.
They are also behind several Youtube channels like China Uncensored. I fell for that one a while ago but fortunately realised that it was propaganda
The NYT had a good article on the history of sushi and moonies in America. The unification church is absolutely a cult. They're also famous for their mass marriages.
Da Vinci Code plot unfolding right there! Add Priory of Sion to the list.
Catholics own a whole lot of hospitals.
Is anyone else having issues getting past the captcha on the archive? It just keeps refreshing for me.
Are you using Cloudflare's DNS (1.1.1.1)?
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An aside:
I did some research to understand the reasoning behind this issue. This is what I found.
Yes :(
The whole article was a pretty wild ride to discover this cult and learn more about the assassination but this part really sticks out as fascinating to me, about one of Moon's children:
I think mainly because cults like this have really dropped out of the news that i guess i follow. I was sure that the time of crazy cults was behind us.
Yeah, that's fair. I dont regularly interact with qanon folks.
Oh man that just unlocked a memory of a wild Rolling Stone article, where the son is wearing a crown of bullets: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rod-of-iron-ministry-jan-6-sean-moon-moonie-1398447/
Damn, i managed to get to the point where they were selling tommy guns with trump's face before i had to stop reading. The whole thing is a bit much and the dude reeks of various mental disorders so i just can't keep going. Really unfortunate that the gop panders to this group.
Agreed, it twists around into a couple very interesting angles. Including the ties to the potential ties to th Korean Central Intelligence Agency.
I've been worried about Shinzo's sympathies toward Japan's imperial and militarist past for a long time. But, I didn't realize his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was a suspected war criminal or linked to Manchuria.
The degree to which the Unification Church/Moonies/Family Federation for World Peace and Unification have ended up being linked to the government, and how much clout they had, is also wild. Considering Moon's comments, their right wing leanings, and the outreach tactics laid out in the article...
...it really makes you question how much the "church" may have shaped current Japanese society and norms.
One of Abe's greatest claims to fame was his relation to Kishi. It gave him huge familial power, gave his faction the ability to appeal to an imagined-perfect past, and shaped his political thought. His aspirations towards emulating Kishi were intentional, not accidental.
I'd say less of Abe's extreme-right-wing views were shaped by the Unification Church than it was a marriage of convenience. They shared similar conservative views on social policy, but Abe was a well known leader of the 'there were no war crimes/there were no comfort women/the war was actually good, and we shouldn't be ashamed' movement in Japanese politics long before it's alleged he became deeply enmeshed with the Church.
Things like continued visits to Yasukuni, trying to remove Article 9 of the Japanese constitution (which outlaws Japan launching a war of aggression to settle disputes), pushing textbooks that erase Imperial Japanese Army/Navy war crimes, revoking the apology to the Korean government on 'comfort women' (sex slaves en masse, as part of Imperial Japan's war policy) a week after it was settled... these were all deep features of Abe's political thought, policy, and character, even before his second, more successful stint as Prime Minister.
Abe was such an ultra-conservative that, in the hours after his assassination, the leading theory for his death was that he was killed for betraying 'the cause' as he failed to overturn Article 9. The assassin was an ex-Japanese Self Defense Force member, and early analysis was that he was likely an aggrieved person who also shared extreme-right-wing views.
If that had have been the case, we wouldn't be looking at the most successful political assassination of the 21st century. Abe would have been deified, and members of his faction would be emboldened to carry on his policy. Figures in Japanese politics are often more powerful as kingmakers after having 'retired' than whilst they're in legislative power - even moreso when they can be invoked as ideals personified (ala Kishi). But in the days following his death, as more and more details came out, it was clear his legacy would mainly be on the deep corruption of the Unification Church/LDP linkage.
What's more, as soon as Yamagami's motivations became clearly 'this person hurt my mother, nobody listened to me, I was driven to a desperate act', Japanese public opinion turned favourably towards him. Die-hard LDP supporters could at least understand his grievances, and Abe's link to it. And even the normally very-malleable Japanese press started asking every LDP politician 'do you have ties to this Church?', leading to resignations, continued scandals to this day, and a much-weakened extreme-right faction in Japanese politics.
So in answer to your hypothetical, I'd say that interactions between the Church and LDP may have been a mutually re-enforcing loop of very conservative social thought (role of women, homophobia, etc). But Japanese society and norms being shaped towards 'well, the Pacific War wasn't that bad...', 'I've never heard of [war crime]/[war criminal]': that was all the LDP, and, in our century, Abe.
Thanks. The situation is obviously evolving, and while I was aware of Yasukuni's history along with some of the other controversies/issues, this helps better flush out and connect the individual things in my head.
There are plenty of cults, most are just more "private" and thus not widely known. I don't think many cults become known unless they do something really big to get in the news. Mass suicides for instance, or big busts for child marriages.
...That said, that cult sounds like a parody of American gun culture, which makes it more horrifying that it's real.
Man that sounds just like the gun church from American Gods. Crazy stuff.
Nobody could have guessed the killer's motivations when the news first broke.
I've seen this called one of the most successful political assassinations in modern history. While that might be taking it a bit far, what more could the guy have asked for? The unification church is being cracked down on, and the Japanese people see him as a sympathetic martyr. The ruling party is cutting all ties to the cult.
From a national stability perspective, extrajudicial killings aren't great, so I just hope Shinzo Abe's assassination doesn't lead to any copycats.
Technically speaking, would this count as a political assassination? If we believe the killer for a moment, this seems to be much more personal to him. I don't even know if his full goal was a nation-wide crackdown, it seemed like he was mostly interested in revenge.
Specifically revenge against a political establishment with close ties to the cult that ruined his life. He wanted to enact revenge and call attention to the fact that the Liberal Democratic Party was supporting the unification church. The assassination had pretty clear political motivations.
The nationwide crackdown may not have been what he expected, but he accomplished his goals and then some.
Why, though?
I mean, making a video on a home-made shotgun that was used to assassinate a political figure I can understand on some level. The "let's make it brokenly so it'd explode in my hands" part that weirds me out.
Or was all of that just cover for doing a pipe bomb video?
Maybe he didn't want to give people a working gun? Or make it so the shooter also dies in the process?
Honestly if I did something similar online from an intellectual curiosity perspective, I'd make sure anything I upload about it would either not work, or harm the user more than anyone else.
Hmm, maybe.
My initial thought was that he'd have described his deviation, seeing as he went ahead and took cover before igniting it, but I suppose that easily could've been described in the video as merely a general safety precaution, rather than the "this won't be a gun, it'll be a bomb, so obviously I'm not firing it manually" that at first assumed.
I obviously haven't watched the video, do anything I say is pure conjecture
I mean, same, so there's.
Best case scenario as far as I can tell, he was looking for a way to spice things up for the video. Worst case it's as you said, he wanted to inform people on how to make an IED for reasons unknown, but if the other poster's remark about him being 'excited' about the assassination are true, aren't entirely in the dark.
I guess...
I mean, that worst case one makes sense to me (y'know, given a starting intent of wanting (people) to commit terrorism or whatever).
But that best case scenario, just... There's enough videos both of firing guns on YouTube and of people of various reasons setting off explosions, trying to force one into the other... I really just don't know.
So your thought is that it was linking something with potential for viability on its own (pipebomb on YouTube) with a current topic (Abe assassination) just for views?
I'd like to take a moment to highlight a very commendable action in the article:
What a man.
The whole thing was so weird. No one around me really knew what to think at first but there was some slight palpable relief when it turned out to be a Japanese rather than a foreign actor.
A handful of days later the news broke that the assassination was somehow linked to that cult. Blew my mind since some sorts (some.) of LDP supporters are the same sorts you used to get screaming about every small grievance in their lives being due to some Korean conspiracy and then holy shit it turns out the ones in on the conspiracy were hundreds of their own politicians.
Few weeks later and there were some guys cosplaying Yamagami at Abe’s state funeral (scroll down a bit). Anyway, when I see a picture of Abe it doesn’t even feel like the guy actually died. LDP’s still doing their thing. Yen’s burning in a raging dumpster fire. At least we’re not hearing so much talk of revising the post-war constitution so they can turn the JSDF back into an army.
...Huh. So I mentioned this to my mother and was surprised she immediately recognized the Unification Church, complete with the founder's name. The article mentioned that it was visible in the 80's, but it was apparently very active in recruiting at colleges when she attended in the 70s. She mentioned going to a talk from a woman who'd been kidnapped away from the Moonies by her families to help de-brainwash her. Apparently there were a few similar cases where the people pressed charges against their parents.
One anecdote she told me that's really surprising: around that time in Germany, they had plans to buy a castle to turn into some sort of monastery. The German government approached an opera singer to buy it instead. As far as I can tell it must be Rheinstein Castle, though I can't find any online mentions of this bit. My mom learned about it during a trip there in the 80s or so. The castle had an article on the wall about it and she got to talk to the owner a bit.
These days, my knowledge of it comes purely from mentions in manga and Korean webcomics. So it's kind of shocking to hear just how widespread and known it really was here in the US. It's a bit chilling in some ways.