The 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo cult shocked Japan and led to increased scrutiny of religious groups.

The emoji, invented by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, has become a popular form of communication and a ubiquitous feature of modern digital communication.

Death Note, created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata in 2003, is a popular manga and anime series that follows a high school student who gains the power to kill anyone whose name he writes in a special notebook.