It's crazy the amount of reach they had to bring in animators and artists to work on it, because I refuse to believe that they just had enough people who did those jobs who already were part of the cult.

You know what's scary? My dad was on at least 1, if not 2, of the affected subway lines on the day of the Sarin Gas attack. If he didn't sleep in that day due to having a day off but instead went during rush hour, he could've actually died. And since I was born after the attack, then I could've never existed.

It amazes me how Japan is either super peaceful where you can just leave your stuff and no Japanese would steal them, or they would have so extreme criminals like these. There's no in between

To be clear, it's not a "banned" manga. It's simply not sold or distributed. If it were "banned', purchasing it would be a crime.

Always a good day when detective aki is on the case

"this feels like a collectors item, and not in a good way"

Well I mean, it is a piece of history. Bad or good, it's still history and people should know.

It is scary to think that someone believed this.

As best i know the current situation with Aum is this:
They split into two groups. The main one is called 'Aleph'. They have about 1600 members and 13 facilities in Japan. They appear on internet talks and events, but there have been arrests for incidents involving trying to sell cult lectures as 'yoga classes' and attempting to make out the sarin gas attack as a government conspiracy.
The second group is called 'Hikari no wa' (Circle of Light). It claims around 60 members and seems to be mainly concerned with trying to keep the compensation payments to gas attack victims going (which Aleph has defaulted on) and deprogramming members of Aleph.
Both organisations are under close surveillance, though the US took Hikari off its terrorist list last year.
I highly recommend a pair of documentaries, 'A' and 'A2' made by Tatsuya Mori in 1998 & 2001 showing the events around Aum following the attack.

this is quite literally a cult classic

One fun fact is that in both Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 6 the cult is parodied. Knowing about the cult for a while before playing these games made for a surreal experience when doing those substories.

I applaude Aki for covering this. Honestly, take what you see here as a warning to avoid ever being in a cult. I was born and raised in one, and trust me, they know how to keep you hooked in. Thankfully, I left, and it took me years to truly break free from the mindset I had, but it was worth it. Cults tend to reach out at your most vulnerable state of mind, just like this trash of a manga shows. Using things like illnesses, loneliness, and the sense of a community (aka love bombing) to pull you in. If you get culty vibes, RUN!

One has to wonder if Aki would/could get in trouble with Japanese authorities for purchasing something that is banned and showing it to the internet. I hope not.

I’m Highschool in America we got visited by a Japanese class 2 times while I was there, one year I was the only one given a book that was very cultish, science of happiness was the name I think, and the next year everyone else got books from these students when they visited, and since I had already gotten this book I knew that in it it tells about a cultish leader who was the reincarnation of Christ and they had anime stuff too, and I felt bad but I brought the book to the main office and snitched and everyone got their books taken away, I never knew if what I did was bad or good, but it is so odd and the fact this cult Aki is talking about also has anime / Manga to promote it.

No matter how dark it's history, this manga is still an important piece. It shows how deviant and manipulative this cult was and it should be preserved. It's much like Third Reich items, it was not our finest moment as humankind in history but the items left over tell us part of the story, no matter how gruesome that story is. The cult is defunct now but what they did will be forever etched in the history of Japan.

Sarin itself is not terribly difficult to produce granted you can get the necessary chemicals (which luckily will sound alarm bells if purchased in large quantities these days). Productions however is tremendously dangerous. To give a example on how dangerous, back in the mid 1930's the Germans set up a factory to produce Tabun (a nerve gas 10 times less toxic than Sarin), before the actually production was ever undertaken about 300 serious accidents happened in this factory, the worst being several workers who were drenched with Tabun when they removed a pipe that still contained some Tabun. Despite being in full protective gear they were all dead before the rescue crew could get them out of their suits. Sarin is 10 times more toxic and those who worked on the Tabun factory were trained professionals, the fact that the cult members did not kill themselves while making it is a miracle on itself.

As a trained chemist and employed in a pharmaceutical company I would never even attempt to make a product this dangerous, not even if it was part of my job. I simply don't have a death wish. No sane person would ever want to produce products like Tabun, Sarin, Soman and so many other nerve agents. The deadly exposure levels are so low that there is no room for any slip-up, and even when you survive you will most likely be crippled for life.

While I don't think of myself as someone who seeks out crime stories, it's interesting getting a peek into the history of another country.  As uncomfortable as stories like this can be, it can give valuable insight into the darker parts of humanity.

this is the thing with japan being idolized. (im japanese, i am am a ‘cult’ survivor. from the womb to age 8. i moved to suburbs of nikko japan. i left to america at age 11. there is NO inbetween at all. i feel safer in japan than america but only some spots in japan.) not everything is cute and happy in japan. especially when you get into the deep deep history of cults and mafia based gangs in japan. you HAVE to be vigilant about where you are in japan.

For those interested to know more details about this cult or the victims and those who survived and how it all happened I reccommend checking out a book that Haruki Murakami wrote for it interviewing the surviving victims of the train attack... it's a life changing book, honestly. I highly recommend it.

"Underground" by Haruki Murakami.

Okay so major sound geek here. Those “meditation” tracks are binaural beats; they rely on infrasound and dynamic frequencies to induce euphoria like states. Technically speaking they have the ability to hot-wire the brain. And it doesn’t just stop at causing euphoria binaural beats can also be used to simulate the effects of drugs and alcohol. They can also be quite addictive with long term exposure. If that CD was in fact produced by that cult it honestly just further proves how sinister it truly was.

its sad seeing how people can get to such a desperate point, in which they feel the need to live and thrive within these cults.

The crazy thing about aum shinrikyo is they made the sarin gas themselves. There were actually chemists who were involved with the cult.