The Yamagami Tetsuya trial, which began in October after he admitting to killing former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in 2022, has increased anxieties about political corruption and the Liberal Democratic Party’s ties to religious groups. The proceedings raise questions about current Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s commitment to confronting these deep-rooted relationships, with the answers very much important to the ongoing controversy over the balance between religious freedoms and public welfare.

Taken together, Yamagami’s testimony and social media accounts suggest a childhood marred by family tragedy and financial ruin caused by his mother’s devotion to the Unification Church. His story calls attention to and symbolically represents several enduring national concerns: coercive religious environments, unclear political fundraising, and the intersection of religion and political power. While Takaichi has not been in office long enough to fully address these issues, it remains unclear whether and to what extent she might.

The timing of the trial increases its political salience. Takaichi faces intense scrutiny over recent funding scandals and the LDP’s historical engagements with religious groups. Despite the LDP’s pledge of “increasing transparency,” her government has not yet implemented meaningful reforms on political donations, disclosure rules, or links to high-demand religious organizations. 

The Yamagami trial is then not simply a legal reckoning but also a political mirror, reflecting doubts about whether Takaichi is prepared to take substantive steps to confront the entrenched structural vulnerabilities that allowed the Unification Church to exert such considerable influence for decades.

Born in 1980 in Nara, Yamagami grew up in a stable household until a series of losses, including his father’s suicide, his grandmother’s death, and his older brother’s illness, disrupted his family life. In the wake of these events, his mother was drawn to the Unification Church by its teachings on “ancestral evil spirits.” She soon immersed herself in church activities, traveled frequently to South Korea, and donated more than 100 million yen from life-insurance payouts and inherited assets. As the family’s finances collapsed, conflict with relatives intensified, and Yamagami abandoned plans for university. In his high school album, he wrote that his dream was simply to “become a small stone,” expecting his life to amount to........

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