It was wonderful. We hit Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka - and loved it all. We were (jokingly) looking up how to apply for long-term visas on the flight back!

I lived in Fukui for six months. Met my wife there. I applied for a long term Visa, and gave it up for the Philippines. I still remember discussing what I wanted to look at for my long term visa with the attorney, I had been reading what I could find about why the homicide rate dropped so significantly. I described to him that if I walk blocks in the USA, passing 100 to 200 people that the odds were very good that someone I passed was carrying a pistol. It looks like other people were curious too, beat me to it, and bore out some of the ideas I had.

Abstract
Japan's homicide rate dropped 70% in the last 50 years, and the nation now has one of the lowest homicide rates in the world. A decline of this magnitude has been documented in few other contemporary social settings. One key feature of the fall is young Japanese males, who now commit one tenth as many homicides as their counterparts did in 1955. At present, (2008) Japan's homicide rate is higher among men in their 50s than among males aged 20 to 24. This article describes Japan's postwar homicide decline and the vanishing young killer in particular. More is known about who is responsible for the decline than about what has caused it. The search for a more satisfying explanation of Japan's homicide drop should be a high priority in homicide studies.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/108876790...