Episode 39: Tsuyama Massacre

Black Torii — Japanese True Crime · Aug 9, 2026 · 14m

It's 1:30 in the morning on May 21, 1938. A remote mountain hamlet in Okayama Prefecture is completely dark — someone cut the power lines eight hours ago. A 21-year-old man steps out of his house. He has strapped two electric torches to his forehead. In his hands are a shotgun, a katana, and two daggers. An axe is on his belt. His grandmother is already dead behind him. He killed her first. What follows over the next ninety minutes is the worst one-man killing spree in modern Japanese history. By the time he reaches the hillside above the village and turns the gun on himself, thirty of his…