Mourners offer flowers and prayers July 8 at a special stand in Nara city for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was gunned down a year ago in front of the Kintetsu Line’s Yamato-Saidaiji Station, while a memorial service is held at Zojoji temple in Tokyo. (Video footage by Tatsuo Kanai)

Photo/Illutration A woman prays for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8 at a special stand near the Kintetsu Line’s Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara city. (Tatsuo Kanai)

Memorial events were held across Japan for slain lawmaker Shinzo Abe, who twice held office as prime minister. July 8 marked the first anniversary of his death at the hands of a gunman in Nara city.

Abe, the nation’s longest serving prime minister, was shot while delivering a campaign speech.

Mourners brought flowers and offered prayers from the morning at a special stand erected in front of the Kintetsu Line’s Yamato-Saidaiji Station where Abe was killed. 

A memorial service held at Zojoji temple in Tokyo was attended by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Abe’s widow, Akie.

Abe’s funeral was held at the same temple in July 2022. Abe was accorded a state funeral, an event that polarized public opinion, at the Nippon Budokan hall in the capital on Sept. 27 that year.

In Nara city, priests from Saidaiji temple held a memorial service July 8 at the station around 11:30 a.m., the time Abe was shot.

A monument to Abe was recently erected at Mikasa Reien cemetery about 5 kilometers east of the station. Mourners also offered flowers and prayers there on July 8. 

A 35-year-old woman working in the tourism sector visited the special stand in front of Yamato-Saidaiji Station with her husband and two children.

“I have held feelings of apology for the past year that such an incident occurred in Nara,” the woman said. She visits the station on the 8th of each month to offer prayers.

“I am so concerned about the future of Japan that I always pray, ‘Please protect us,’” she said.

A 58-year-old company executive visited the site for the first time from Shizuoka city, in part because of an incident in April when an explosive device was lobbed at Kishida while he was giving a campaign speech.

“I feel something has changed because important people in government are being attacked,” he said.

Guardrails have been removed from where Abe gave his campaign speech and the Nara city government has converted the area partly into a road as well as planted flowerbeds along the sidewalk.

Shizue Shimamura, 77, a Nara Prefecture resident, said, “It would have been too difficult to look at something tangible, such as a monument. With flowerbeds, those who know can bow their heads when they pass by. I always think about Abe in my heart.”

A special stand was also set up at Zojoji so the public could offer flowers and prayers from the afternoon of July 8.

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