A female employee at a Pokémon Center in Tokyo has been stabbed to death by a man who ran into the store in front of families during the country’s spring holiday, before he then stabbed himself. Reported by Reuters, based on a story from Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi, the attacker is said to have entered the store carrying a knife in both hands on the evening of March 26.
According to the TV network, the victim was working at the Pokémon Center in Sunshine City, Higashi-Ikebukuro, when at 7.16 p.m. local time (5 a.m. EST) the man entered the store wielding two knives, and stabbed the female employee in the neck. He then stabbed himself. Within an hour of the incident, both were pronounced dead at a local hospital. The motivation for the attack is not yet known.
Japanese news site Jiji reports that a call was made to emergency services in which the caller said (according to machine translation), “a person with a knife is on a rampage.” The assailant, said to be in his 20s, entered the store alone and went to the employee behind the counter and stabbed her multiple times, before then turning the knife on himself. The store, which has both a Pokémon Center merch store and a Pikachu Sweets candy store, apparently had more than 100 customers inside at the time, including families with children, who witnessed the attack.
The Pokémon Company has issued a statement on its Japanese website stating that “due to the incident that occurred,” the store involved will now be closed until further notice. It said it was “prioritizing our full cooperation with the police and the physical and mental well-being of our staff.” Here’s the full statement, via machine translation:
“Thank you for your continued patronage of Pokémon Centers.
Due to the incident that occurred on Thursday, March 26, 2026, at the Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo in Sunshine City, Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo, we will be temporarily closed until further notice, prioritizing our full cooperation with the police and the physical and mental well-being of our staff.
We sincerely apologize for the great concern and inconvenience this has caused everyone.
We will inform you again when we will be reopening for business.
We kindly ask for your understanding.”
