Letter from Toyko: The "war on terror" has arrived in our neighbourhood. Coin-lockers in our local train station have been sealed up to prevent them being used for bombs, and a policeman beadily eyes weary commuters, writes David McNeill.
Signs have been plastered everywhere warning us to be on the lookout for suspicious-looking people or objects.'
I decide to turn myself in, just in case I'm fingered by a zealous, terrorist-hating salary-man, but the Station Master says they are more worried about "swarthier" foreigners. What a relief.
Odd place for terrorist alerts though, I suggest; a hick town about 60 miles west of Tokyo that boasts few foreigners, swarthy or otherwise. Not much to shatter the suburban calm here apart from noisy car exhausts and the odd drunken fight. "You can't be too careful," he says.
Careful is the word. Since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the smouldering ruins of Ground Zero in New York in 2001 and memorably said "We must fight terrorism", in heavily accented English on American TV, Japan has firmly hitched its wagon to the US-led war against Jihad warriors.
Warnings like the one in our station have sprung up all over the country.
Extra security guards and technology have been employed at every large organisation here and a raft of new laws have been added to an already bulging kit of anti-terror legislation.
All this has accelerated since Japan sent troops to support 'peacekeeping operations' in Iraq, straining the country's anti-war constitution to breaking point and making it a target for Mr. Bin Laden & co., who put it on a fresh list of enemies earlier this year.
Terror alerts and bomb-proof lockers ["Blame the Terrorists!"] may be old hat for the citizens of Ireland and the UK, but Japanese nerves have been jangled by these new and unfamiliar distractions from the main business of a 70-hour working week and three-hour commute. Safe to say, many resent it.
Imagine their surprise then when millions sat down last weekend to watch a primetime documentary on TV Asahi on the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks, hosted by perhaps the country's best-known star Beat Takeshi. In effect, the documentary completely dismissed the official story of what happened on 9/11 and said the whole anti-terror thing is an elaborate Kabuki show to mask a naked grab for power.
Japanese and US experts testified that the Pentagon was not hit by a plane piloted by America-hating fanatics but by a Global Hawk missile, launched by the US itself.
The terrorists, with their light training at private flight schools, were incapable of piloting the jumbo jets into the World Trade Center, and that it was very likely these planes were remote controlled by the US military.
President Bush knew of the first bombing before he went in to read his pet goat book, collusion between him and Osama Bin Laden is rife.
On and on the documentary went, clocking up one jaw-dropping accusation after another.
The coup de grace was the final segment of the program which compared 9/11 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Both attacks were either used by the US to persuade a reluctant public to go to war. Many Japanese still believe that the US knew about the attack that launched American's entry into the second World War.
"We've all been fooled," said one wide-eyed studio commentator at the end of the programme. "I feel ill."
Ridiculous conspiracy theory it may or may not be. But the fact that a major network in a staunch and conservative ally of the US decided to air it, and that millions are ready to believe it, is as profound an indicator of the levels of distrust in US motives over here as you're likely to find anywhere.