A female employee in her 20s at a Pokemon merchandise store was fatally stabbed in Tokyo’s bustling commercial district on Thursday evening. The assailant, also a man in his 20s, inflicted a neck wound on the woman at 7:16 p.m. local time (1016 GMT) inside a commercial complex.
Both the victim and the suspect were rushed to a hospital but were declared dead within an hour. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department confirmed the incident, noting that the attacker reportedly wielded knives in both hands.
In a significant development, the motive behind the stabbing remains unknown. The incident occurred during Japan’s children’s spring break, heightening the shock among shoppers present at the scene.
Videos circulating on social media captured panicked shoppers fleeing as ambulances arrived at the site, located just a few hundred meters from Ikebukuro terminal, one of Tokyo’s busiest train stations. The victim was identified as a staff member of the Pokemon Center store housed within the building.
Meanwhile, the Pokemon Company, which operates approximately two dozen stores across Japan selling merchandise from the globally popular franchise, had no immediate comment on the tragedy.
Notably, Japan’s strict gun control laws mean that knife attacks are a more frequent form of public violence. Several stabbing incidents have occurred on trains and at railway stations in recent years, underscoring ongoing security concerns.
