was a Japanese mass murderer who killed eight children in the Osaka school massacre in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, on 8 June 2001. Takuma had a long history of mentally disturbed and anti-social behaviour, and an extensive criminal record including a conviction for rape. He stabbed to death eight students and seriously wounded fifteen others at Ikeda Elementary School in a knife attack that lasted several minutes. Takuma was convicted in August 2003 and executed on 14 September 2004. Early life Mamoru Takuma was born on 23 November 1963 in Itami, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. As a child, he displayed unusual and anti-social behavior: at the age of three, he rode his tricycle towards the center of a highway, causing traffic jams, and habitually killed small animals by wrapping them in newspaper and lighting them on fire. From elementary school to junior high, Takuma was both a victim and a perpetrator of bullying. He expressed envy and jealousy for the "highly educated and high-income elite" from an early age. Takuma was both physically abused and neglected by his father, whom he contemplated stabbing to death in his sleep. In February 1979, Takuma enrolled in high school in Amagasaki, but dropped out in March 1981. He worked part-time at a gas station for several months until enlisting in the Japan Air Self Defense Force at the end of 1981, at age 18. However, Takuma was discharged in January 1983 for boarding and sleeping with a teenage runaway. His relationship with his parents worsened following the discharge, and there were incidents in which his father beat him with stones. Takuma in turn threatened to enlist the yakuza to "mess up" their lives. In 1984, Takuma and his mother left the family home and purchased an apartment, leaving his oldest brother and father by themselves. They lived together for a year and a half, until his father came back for his wife. In February 1999, Takuma's brother, facing bankruptcy, died by suicide by slashing his neck with a knife. His father was hospitalized due to drunkenness after the incident, but according to Takuma in the detention center, he said, "I wanted him to commit suicide like Tsutomu Miyazaki's father." Takuma's mother had a lifelong struggle with mental illness, and died in late 2016. His father died in April 2020, aged 88. The former Takuma residence in Itami was demolished in September 2020; the site is