Nearly a year on, the children of the Hino district of Kyoto's Fushimi Ward at last seem as if they are getting back to normal.
Not so long ago, says 67-year-old community leader Osamu Ueno, they were "really stiff." Now they clown around with him as they used to, before Hino Elementary School became the main attraction of a media circus last winter.
On Dec. 21, a 7-year-old boy was stabbed to death in broad daylight in the school playground. What had been a quiet town, where old and new residential complexes mix at the foot of a mountain, was suddenly thrown into turmoil. It was not just the shock of the tragedy but the hundreds of reporters and TV crews that converged on the area.