Knives found near Prince Hisahito's desk at Tokyo school

Does this mean anything? Maybe someone just misplaced their cutlery.

Some idiot wanting to make a point on behalf of his organization. P

With a little imagination it could even be a subtle warning to his father re Yasukuni.

@Patricia Yarrow

Does this mean anything? Maybe someone just misplaced their cutlery.

Kind of like the nutter in Ikebukuro some years ago who misplaced his cutlery in a number of human knife-bins as they reached the top of the TokyuHands escalator. An abattoir worker perhaps?

certainly a message of fear.

Extremely disturbing news. I hope security is stepped up to maximum inside and outside the school. I pray that Prince Hisahito remains safe. This man must be insane, which makes this even more scary.

@Ganbare Japan!

This man must be insane, which makes this even more scary.

No reason to think he’s insane. Sane people do awful things such as this which appears to be intimidation. My own use of the word “nutter” in a previous post I think is justified though I never read a follow-up story that said he was insane.

We wish safety for the Prince. Hisahito-ouji - away from such dangerous objects.

Threat? Or Prank?

I am surprised at the lack of security that allowed someone to enter he premises so easily - and that he knew the location of the boy's classroom. They should take this threat seriously.

He’s old enough to understand the situation. Do you let Hisahito know about the attack so he can be on guard or is ignorance bliss?

"disguised as a construction worker"

some of them non disguised construction workers could use a free vacation to compton or long beach california.

The hilts of the knives were attached by adhesive tape to a stick, the sources said, and the combination was placed across the prince's desk and the one next to it.

The blades of the knives were painted pink, they added.

If this happened to one of my kids, I would be out on the street looking for the guy with some very bad intentions. Prince Hisahito's father and mother, however, have to be calm and dignified at all times. What a twisted nightmare for them. I hope the guy is caught and kept away from kids forever.

"It is difficult for an outsider to freely enter the campus," 

bwaa haa haaa, s/he is living in dream land. our society is based entirely on people doing the right thing. if i decided i was walking into any establishment tomorrow, i could walk in, without question.

i suspect this zealot had an inside word. knowing when to enter and which room to go to suggests so.

I hope they catch the guy,  No child should need to live knowing someone was able to get that close.

Knives today....

Forks tomorrow.

Poor boy stuck in an archaic tradition while he should be playing and laughing with friends.

Petty, passive-aggressive and underhand. Typical Japanese way.

The description of how they were displayed is not very well expressed, but I wonder what the significance of pink could be? Unusual, to say the least.

In an attempt to answer my own question above I have been trawling through the Japanese language rumour mills, which are not surprisingly hard at work. There is a page summarizing them here, in Japanese, and at the bottom a poll asking the public to choose a reason for this strange event.

https://rondan.net/21117

Many people seem convinced that it is a protest against the Komuro marriage procrastinations, and pink refers to the colour of Princess Mako's dress.

PS Re 'procrastinations' above, about 70% of the J public are of the opinion that the marriage should not be allowed to go ahead at all, and the royal family have been too soft.

Another large body of opinion suggests the ringleader might even be Komura Kei's mother.

For what it is worth, just recording some of the public sentiment. Please do not shoot the messenger.

@nanda

Seventy per cent? Really?

lucabrasi, bizSPA did an interview in February with 100 young people in their 20s to get honest opinions about the marriage.

One in four, (25 people) supported the marriage.

35 people did not support it.

40 expressed no interest.

https://bizspa.jp/post-122107/

@nanda

Thanks for the info : )

Everyone who downvoted me...I was the first responder. "Cutlery" could have meant anything at the time, including a butter knife. I was wondering what kind of cutlery we were looking at...plastic conbini cutlery? School kitchen cutlery? Now more facts are known and it does indeed seem rather sinister and threatening, but do not blame me wondering "cutlery" refered to in this ill-written piece.

Various news sources are quoting social media users pointing to the similarity of the alleged taped knives and handle construction to the two-pointed spear of Longinus, recreated for the Anime series Evangelion. The recreation, finished in a sort of pinkish red metallic effect, was exhibited around the world. Many also see a female influence in the very concept of covering any blade in pink, be it paint or nail varnish?

This spear concept, and the crucifixion of Christ, and Easter, and the changing of the eras, has the popular imagination hard at work finding a meaning behind it.

Finally, to address some of the confusion here regarding what type of knives they were.

In the absence of photographs and any detailed description, the Japanese press is split between calling them ナイフ, (Knives) 包丁 (Hocho, i.e. kitchen knives) and 刃物 (Hamono, i.e. bladed utensils).

The JT article above says 'thought to be fruit knives', but we need to be careful with that. My mother always used a small knife for peeling fruit and veg, so imagining that was my first instinct, but my J wife by contrast always uses a fairly large kitchen knife for equivalent jobs. That seems to be the traditional norm here. It is quite possible that these thought to be 'fruit knives' could actually be regular kitchen knives. Today I saw an artist's rendition of the contraption carried into the school grounds by the fake construction worker, and it looked exactly that, two fairly large curved-backed kitchen knives, tied to a 60cm pole.

I am just wondering if the 'paint' may not have had a secondary function, i.e. to render the edge blunt and thus if/when caught to escape potential heavy prosecution under Japan's knife and gun laws.