Animated Truth
September 6, 2011 9:00 AM   Subscribe

In the 1990s, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo ("Supreme Truth"), infamous for their gas attack on the Tokyo subway released a number (NSWF) of anime videos as a recruitment tool.
posted by griphus (15 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
These look fascinating - but are there any with English subtitles?

I'm actually reading 20th Century Boys right now, which (I have heard) was partly inspired by these attacks. I can't recommend it highly enough - it's brilliant. After I've sped through to find out the mysteries, I'm going back to re-read for all the stuff I
missed.
posted by jb at 9:17 AM on September 6, 2011


I have, unfortunately, not been able to find any with subtitling.
posted by griphus at 9:24 AM on September 6, 2011


Sort of like listening to Manson's pop album, no?

Sure to piss off any number of folks.
posted by clvrmnky at 10:10 AM on September 6, 2011


you can turn on google auto-caption on the NSFW one... it doesn't help.... or maybe it's totally accurate.
posted by ennui.bz at 10:19 AM on September 6, 2011


The play and checkmate... is difficult to succeed.
posted by cmoj at 10:31 AM on September 6, 2011


I believe I have heard of this, but oh damn, I never thought they'd surface on the internet. But hell, I never figured Aum would still be around.

For the backstory, nothing is better than David Kaplan's book "The Cult at the End of the World." There was a summary by Kaplan in Wired magazine. Yes, Aum did entice people with sex and drugs, and was run like a personal sex cult for the leaders like Shoko Asahara.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:47 AM on September 6, 2011


Aum Shinrikyo also made it into Shigesato Itoi's Earthbound for the SNES. Discussion starts here*.

*Warning: If you haven't played the game, there are quite a few spoilers before the discussion point and after, but none during, so it's a safe listen otherwise.
posted by lemuring at 10:48 AM on September 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Worst porn music ever.
posted by Xoebe at 10:52 AM on September 6, 2011




I'm actually reading 20th Century Boys right now, which (I have heard) was partly inspired by these attacks. I can't recommend it highly enough

For the backstory, nothing is better than David Kaplan's book "The Cult at the End of the World." There was a summary by Kaplan in Wired magazine.

I'd also recommend Murakami's Underground. I really enjoyed it. It's a collection first-hand accounts of the gas attacks, including some interviews with the participants inside Aum Shinrikyo.
posted by Hoopo at 1:54 PM on September 6, 2011


You should clarify that the Happy Science movement has nothing to do with Aum Shinrikyo. It would be unfair to smear one group of nutcases with the evil reputation of other nutcases. Japan has many insane cults. And it's hard to get rid of even a group like Aum, under Japan's religious freedom laws. Aum Shinrikyo is still around, they just renamed themselves to Aleph.

Aum also ran candidates in elections, that's all covered in "Cult at the End of the World" and to a lesser extent, in Murakami's "Underground." Officially, it is illegal for religious groups to sponsor candidates in elections. AFAIK this is only enforced (rarely) as a prohibition on direct financial support.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:18 PM on September 6, 2011


I'd also highly recommend Robert Jay Lifton's Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism.
posted by postel's law at 8:47 PM on September 6, 2011


Something like this happened to me once -- I met this girl and we started making love out in the open, in the nude of course, but then a mob appeared around us, all dressed in togas, and they started angrily flinging their feces at us, refusing to explain why.
posted by knoyers at 8:58 PM on September 6, 2011


...and they started angrily flinging their feces at us, refusing to explain why.

You were probably doing it wrong
posted by the noob at 9:32 PM on September 6, 2011


It starts to make a little bit more sense if you watch it through a filter.
posted by tmt at 12:35 AM on September 7, 2011


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