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Scholars share a broad consensus that the Aum Shinrikyō subway attacks in March 1995 fundamentally shifted prevailing attitudes against “religion” in Japan. However, comparison with the case of Soka Gakkai, Japan’s largest active “new religion,” complicates this view. In this article, I provide a counter-narrative to the argument that “Aum changed everything” by showing that public officials’ strategies against Aum Shinrikyō from 1995 emerged in large part from a sustained anti-Soka Gakkai campaign that intensified immediately before the Aum attacks. Tracking interactions among politicians, the media, and Soka Gakkai before and during the Aum Shinrikyō incident, I outline ways in which Soka Gakkai and Aum Shinrikyō form part of a historical continuity of high-profile “new religions” that public moralists have consistently scapegoated for political gain throughout the modern era. At the same time, I also confirm that Aum Shinrikyō did, in a way, change everything: Aum may have marked the end of religious mass movements in contemporary Japan.

japanese journal of religious studies

Did Aum Change Everything? What Soka Gakkai Before, During, and After the Aum Shinrikyo Affair Tells Us About the Persistent “Otherness” of New Religions in Japan