Okami

"Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who examined the three former hostages twice since their return, said the stress they were enduring now was 'much heavier' than what they experienced during their captivity in Iraq. Asked to name their three most stressful moments, the former hostages told him, in ascending order: the moment when they were kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the knife-wielding incident, and the moment they watched a television show the morning after their return here and realized Japan's anger with them.

"'Let's say the knife incident, which lasted about 10 minutes, ranks 10 on a stress level,' Dr. Saito said in an interview at his clinic on Thursday. 'After they came back to Japan and saw the morning news show, their stress level ranked 12.'

"To the angry Japanese, the first three hostages — Nahoko Takato, 34, who started a nonprofit organization to help Iraqi street children; Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance photographer; and Noriaki Imai, 18, a freelance writer interested in the issue of depleted uranium munitions — had acted selfishly. Two others kidnapped and released in a separate incident — Junpei Yasuda, 30, a freelance journalist, and Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a member of an anti-war group — were equally guilty."

Apparently, they violated "okami," or, "what is higher." In other words, put their individual aspirations ahead of the society at large. And the cost and trouble the Japanese government paid to get them out was unforgivable.