Stabbing Near Todai-mae Station Highlights Pressure of Intense Exam Culture and Its Impact on Students

The Mukaoka and Nishikata districts of Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, are quiet residential areas spreading around the Hongo Plateau. They retain traces of samurai residences and are also known for housing the University of Tokyo Hongo Campus, Japan’s most prestigious university.

On May 7, a random stabbing incident occurred at Todai-mae Station, the nearest station to the University of Tokyo. Before 7 p.m., 43-year-old unemployed suspect Yoshitaka Toda used a knife with a blade about 20 cm long to randomly stab a male university student in his 20s and others inside the station on the Namboku Line. Police officers from the Motofuji Police Station of the Metropolitan Police Department, who rushed to the scene, arrested him on the spot on suspicion of attempted murder.

“Suspect Toda had apparently been living alone for several years in Ikusaka Village in northern Nagano Prefecture. On the day of the incident, he took the train from his home to Tokyo. Around 4 p.m., he arrived near the scene, then spent about an hour and a half walking around the University of Tokyo campus and having a meal at the cafeteria. The knife used in the attack was brought from his home, suggesting premeditation,” said a reporter from a national newspaper’s social affairs section.

Toda reportedly gave the following statement regarding his motive:

“I myself became a truant in junior high school because of my education-obsessed parents and had a hard time. I wanted to show the public that when parents who are overly obsessed with aiming for the University of Tokyo go too far, their children rebel and may commit crimes.”

A-kun passed the entrance exam for Kaisei Junior High School

The reporter is from the local area where the incident occurred. The father had high expectations regarding entrance exams, often comparing the reporter to an outstanding classmate, A-kun, who lived nearby, and frequently scolding him:

“A-kun passed the entrance exam for Kaisei Junior High School — one of Tokyo’s most prestigious private boys’ schools — and after graduating, he went straight to Kyoto University’s Medical School. So why are your grades like this? You need to try harder.” (The reporter later entered a third or fourth-tier high school in Tokyo, repeated university entrance exams twice, and eventually went to a private university.)

In Bunkyo Ward, nearly half of the children take entrance exams for junior high schools, and the area has long been known for its intense educational enthusiasm. However, the reporter’s uncle, who has lived near Todai-mae (Tokyo University Front) for nearly 40 years, says he has never heard of any major trouble like kids going delinquent and committing crimes as described by the suspect.

“I don’t think any big incidents ever happened around here. The public safety was quite good. But lately, the atmosphere has gradually gotten worse.”

Indeed, in recent years, several disturbing incidents have occurred near Todai-mae. In January 2022, a high school boy attending a prestigious school in Aichi Prefecture stabbed three passersby one after another, and in the recent case, a 43-year-old man attacked a university student he did not know at the station. This historic residential area, home to Tokyo University, is undergoing changes.

What factors are behind this? Educational journalist Reiji Ishiwata explains:

“In the past, setbacks in education and entrance exams were used as motivation: ‘Let’s try harder’ or ‘Next time for sure.’ However, with the rise of the digital society and being surrounded by convenient information in the filter bubble of the internet, people tend to think, ‘It’s not my fault things don’t go well. Society is to blame.’

Their dissatisfaction is directed toward successful elites and the neighborhoods where they live. Todai-mae, where this incident happened, is symbolic—it’s an easy-to-understand place name for people with distorted hatred. For those worried about educational issues, it’s important to advise them not to have a narrow perspective of ‘anything other than Todai (Tokyo University) is no good,’ but to recognize that there are many ways to succeed besides academics.”

In this incident, the suspect Toda also said, “I thought if I caused an incident at a station with ‘Todai’ in the name, it would easily remind people of abuse.”