The calm and ordered veneer that has become a hallmark of Japanese society was shockingly ripped away on Friday when the country's former prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot at close range and killed while giving a political campaign speech in the historic town of Nara, not far from Kyoto.
Noted as one of the safest countries in the world, with a percentile rank of 87.5 for absence of violence and political violence in 2020, Abe's assassination seemed radically at odds with that image.
