Without Further Comment #6 ("Living in a Post x World" edition)

The Kobe earthquake and the Tokyo gas attack of Janurary and March 1995 are two of the gravest tragedies in Japan's postwar history. It is no exaggeration to say there was marked change in the Japanese consciousness "before" and "after" these events. These twin catastrophes will remain embedded in our psyche as two milestones in our life as a people.

That such cataclysmic events should come in quick succession was as startling as it was coincidental. Yet, arriving as they did at the time when Japan's "Bubble economy" burst, marking the end of those times of rampant excess, they ushered in a period of critical inquiry into the very roots of the Japanese state. It was as if these events had been lying in wait to ambush us.

Emphasis mine.

from Haruki Murakami's Underground (2000), an oral history of the Tokyo subway sarin gas attacks.