We all know that the Japanese like their stabbing weapons (see: Samurai, Samurai films, ninjas, and Mishima, et al), but this is a little much. . .

At least seven killed in Tokyo stabbing spree

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- A man ran over a group of people with his truck and then stabbed 18, killing at least 7, in a video game district of downtown Tokyo Sunday afternoon, according to a Tokyo fire official.

The dead included five men -- three aged 19, 47 and 74 -- and a woman, according to a Tokyo metropolitan police officer. The gender of the seventh person was not immediately known. Eleven others were wounded, police said, with two critically injured.

"The suspect told police that he came to Akihabara to kill people," Jiro Akaogi, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, told The Associated Press.

"He said he was tired of life. He said he was sick of everything," Akaogi added.

Authorities said the man drove a rented truck into a crowd, jumped from the vehicle and then began stabbing the people he had knocked down, AP reported.

Japanese media reported that the suspect told investigators he was 25 years old.

Man arrested over random stabbing threat at airport railway station

NAGOYA -- A man was arrested Tuesday for posting a message on a police Web site threatening to stab someone at a railway station near an airport in Aichi Prefecture, police said.

Ryosuke Hayashi, 24, a part-time worker from Chita, Aichi Prefecture, is accused of forcible obstruction of business. He admitted that it was a copycat prank of bulletin board messages left by the suspect in the Akihabara random street attack.

"I imitated online messages in which the suspect in the Akihabara stabbing rampage threatened to launch an attack," Hayashi was quoted as telling investigators. He was not carrying any weapons when he was taken into custody.

Hayashi used his computer at his home to post a message on the Aichi Prefectural Police Web site at around 1:30 p.m. on Monday saying, "At 9:30 p.m. today, I'll stab someone at Central Japan International Airport Station," according to investigators.

He forced station workers to change their work shifts to be on alert, obstructing the station's business, prefectural police said.

Knife-wielding woman attacks 7 at Hiratsuka Station

YOKOHAMA —

A woman attacked seven passers-by with a knife Monday evening just outside a ticket gate at JR Hiratsuka Station in Kanagawa Prefecture, injuring six of them, police said. Hisae Sakurai, 34, from Chigasaki in the same prefecture just southwest of Tokyo, was arrested on the spot. The suspect told police she has problems with her father, they said.

Six people sustained minor injuries in the incident which occurred around 7:30 p.m., and five of them were taken to a nearby hospital, according to police and firefighters. The seventh man who was attacked only had his clothes cut, they said. The victims are aged between 18 and 56, they said.

Here's a pretty good summation of things:

Japan reeling from latest bizarre murder spree

A 77-year-old Japanese man bludgeoned his family to death with a hammer to feel "relief", the latest in a series of violent and bizarre attacks in the country.

Yoshio Kiuchi killed his wife, son, daughter-in-law and 4-year-old granddaughter at their home in Kashiwa, east of Tokyo, after being given the "cold shoulder" by his wife, he told police.

He was found passed out wearing blood-spattered clothes surrounded by his family's dead bodies and the murder weapons after calling police.

After his arrest, he reportedly told police that he decided to kill his family when he got up in the morning because his wife told him he was a "disturbance" to the family.

"I did it because I thought I would feel relief if I killed all the members of my family," Yoshio Kiuchi was quoted as telling police .

His comments were a chilling echo of the utter lack of concern for others displayed by Tomohiro Kato, 25, who murdered seven people in Tokyo's Akihabara district on June 8 in a frenzied knife attack.

Since then, Japanese authorities have struggled to keep pace with a "flood" series of violent crimes and threats, many apparently inspired by Kato. The trend is particularly shocking in a nation proud of relatively low crime levels and social order.

In the last 16 days, police across the country have taken action against 17 individuals who posted claims on the internet that they were planning to commit mass murder.

"I will commit a historic mass-murder at a train station in Kyushu," read one email message, while another threatened to "Blow up a place close to the east exit of Yokohama Station", police said.

"The police have no option but to take action," national Public Safety Commission Chairman Shinya Izumi said after a Cabinet meeting. "Otherwise, they will be unable to protect those that need to be protected.

"We cannot allow the public to feel extreme anxiety," he said.

However, increasing numbers of people are giving vent to anger and violent emotions on the internet.

On Monday, a man aged 19 was arrested for threatening a copycat knife attack at Tokyo Disneyland, the city's most popular attraction.

The same day, a woman identified as Kazuka Oyama was arrested in Osaka for slashing three other women with a knife in the city's main station. One of the women required 25 stitches. Oyama, who complained to station officials that train doors had closed on her when she was alighting from a train, told police that she wants to "think about the situation."

But perhaps most alarming is the case of the 16-yaer-old girl referred to a family court for allegedly posting messages on internet chat boards threatening to kill people in the trendy Shibuya district of Tokyo.

The girl, who has not been named as she is a minor, wrote "I'll kill them and then I'll die too.

"I adore the suspect Mr Kato," she wrote. "You are so cool Mr Kato."

Here's an even better summation of things: