ABSTRACT
The Heisei period provides a convenient frame for thinking about the impact and significance of one new religious movement, Aum Shinrikyō, which was registered as a religious corporation in August 1989. Its official status was revoked just six months after it launched the 20 March 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, and its conclusive end came with the conviction of founder Asahara Shōkō and six of his close followers and their execution in July 2018. Although it remained a small movement, its violence towards society contributed to a sense of social crisis and generated a significant political response that revealed something about the nature of Heisei Japan. The calls for moral and patriotic education, as well as legislation enacted by the political establishment (LDP), suggest that crisis moments prompt some to return to the reservoir of traditional values and seek to reassert them into public life and institutions.
