murder

How to Raise a Murderer

[Music]

So before we get started,
this is about a murder

and it’s very graphic and very
disturbing if you’re not into that.

You usually just stop listening right now.

So as we proceed from here,
there’s going to be some gross stuff.

It’s about a man who’s
decapitated and there’s some pretty

graphic details of what
actually happens to the body

because there’s some body
mutilation that comes later.

For those of you who are like,
“Ooh, I want to listen to this.

” Maybe think about
some stuff first.

So back in July, July 3rd,

a corpse was founded a love hotel.

A love hotel in Japan is a place
where people go to participate

and intimate activities
together for short term.

I’ve explained the love hotels before,

but what they are is Japan has
a lot of generational households

where you live with your parents,
parents live with their kids into old age,

so you might actually have
three generations in one house.

It means having intimacy in your
place sometimes isn’t always possible.

So they created this system of hotels

where you can stay for one
hour, two hour, three hours.

It basically paid by the hour

and entertain yourselves with your friends.

So in July 3rd, so July 3rd, staff went
to clean a room and they found a corpse,

but it was a headless corpse
that’s been decapitated.

Three weeks later, a
family of three was arrested

and the head was found in their residence.

So that’s pretty damning evidence

if they actually find the head
of the corpse in your house.

Runa Tamura, who is 30 years
old, who is the daughter of the family,

has been accused of murder, mutilation
of a corpse, and several other crimes.

Those are the two worst ones
that are going to get the most time.

The victim was a 62 year
old cross dressing man.

They met in the red-like
district of Sapporo.

Now, it sounds like they had had
relations multiple times in the past.

The motive of this murder
seems to be anger over

the unprotected sex they
had the previous month.

So it sounds like they
had had sex multiple times.

They had used protection, and
this last time, for some reason,

the guy didn’t use
protection, and Runa was

really angry about it, so
she decided to kill him.

They did an SNM session, where
the man, the victim, was bound,

and once bound was stabbed
in the neck with a folding knife.

Runa then decapitated the body,

and put this head in the
suitcase, and then took it home.

She was picked up by her
father, who is a psychiatrist,

who seems to have known what she did.

Now, what we find out
later is much more dramatic,

because you could actually say,

“Oh, the father didn’t
know what was in the bag.

” So he just picked up his
daughter when she asked for a ride

that makes perfect sense.

Once home, she started to skin the head

and remove the eyes she wanted
her mother to film her doing it.

So now we’ve gotten to
sort of the depths of depravity

that we’re actually
talking about in this story.

It is a lot.

The mother was arrested as an accomplice.

She denies doing this or
any guilt or any involvement.

The reason I started doing
the murder in Japan series

is because when you get the
actual court documents released,

usually this is from
TokyoReporter.

com, which is an
excellent website.

It’s where I get a lot of my news,

or when I get a lot of
stories that I want to

follow up on, they
release court transcripts,

which is a very interesting
insight into the murder itself,

and the actual ongoing of
the Japanese judicial system,

which is something we
don’t get a lot of insight into.

So that’s actually honestly the part I’m
more interested in than the actual murder.

Like the murder is the
impetus for this thing happening,

but I really want the insight in
how the Japanese system works

when they’re actually
prosecuting or crying.

So the first part is about the mother.

So the mother says under oath,

so she takes the stand she’s under oath.

She says I only found out
about the damage to the head

after it was brought into the house.

There’s actually an implication there

that she actually knew that the
head was coming into the house.

It was the damage she
didn’t know about until after.

So it’s not true that I
allowed it to be hidden.

When I found out it was
already in the bathroom.

It was so abnormal that I couldn’t
say anything to my daughter.

I couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t accept it.

And I couldn’t say anything.

This seems sort of reasonable.

It seems sort of reasonable
because she’s essentially saying,

this is so beyond the pale off the chain

that I am just in shock immediately.

I was frozen. I didn’t know what to do.

I was just completely lost.

Runa wanted the mother to
video Runa doing the things

I’m trying to be gentle about.
I’ve already said it.

Runa wanted the mother to video her skinning
and removing the eyes from the head.

Regarding the videotaping, she said,

there’s a difference between carrying
out the videotaping and approving of it.

I wasn’t told what exactly
we were going to film.

I couldn’t bear it, so I asked my husband
to film it out of a desire for help.

I had absolutely no intention
of helping with the crime.

I had no intention of
helping with the desecration.

So she’s saying, look, my
daughter was doing this thing.

She asked me to video it.
I did not approve of the videoing of it.

I actually didn’t video it.
I gave it to my husband.

That doesn’t mean I
approved of what was going on.

But again, she’s kind of
saying she was in shock.

Her basic defense is
that she says she knew,

but she didn’t approve
of what was happening.

Therefore, she is not committed that
any of the crime she’s been accused of.

The father claims he didn’t
know about the murder until

Runa came home with the head,
but he did know about the S&M.

And that’s actually going to be a weird
little twist we hear about in a moment.

Details about the family
dynamic is that basically Runa

ran the house and she was
never punished for anything.

She was essentially sort of
the queen of this little family unit.

In a recording from October 6, 2020,
Runa yells abuse at her father in English

saying things like, “I want to kill you
and why don’t you follow my orders?

” So that actually gives
you already a sense of the

dynamic of what’s
happening in this household.

She’s saying like,
“I give you orders.

There’s an expectation
that you should follow them.

It doesn’t even make
sense to me that you don’t.

” The weird part to me is
that her father is a psychologist.

The father being a psychiatrist,
a psychiatrist, a psychiatrist.

The weird thing is that
her father is a psychiatrist.

He should be vaguely familiar with
the results of actually giving kids,

spoiling them and giving
them free reign, that

this is the kind of
person they grow up into.

But he actually seems to have had some sort
of deficiency and then fallen to this trap

that he has with his own daughter.

Now, there could be some other things
going on, DNA, genetics, who knows.

Like, I mean, there could be the bad gene.

Or it could just be, this is again a
nature versus nurture kind of conversation.

Did they raise her wrong and she
ended up a murderer or does she just like,

born bad and they did
everything they could to try

to make her a nice person
and give her a good life.

And she just like manipulated
all that as she grew up.

We’re actually never going to know.

Runa says in Japanese
on January 22nd, 2023,

“I’m going to get a little
stronger and kill you guys.

” That’s what I’ve always
thought my sister and I.

Now, the sister part is very interesting
because she doesn’t actually have a sister.

That same day, she says,
“I’ll kill everyone. That’s all.

” “Oh, some who responds,
don’t kill, I don’t kill any.

” Runa adds, “You’re not
even taking responsibility.

Just hurry up
and do it. You idiot.

” So this is again, the way she’s
talking to her father and the way her

father’s responding to her tells
you a lot about the relationship.

She says in Japanese
in an apparent reference

to the murder victim
on June 1st, 2023,

the other person thinks that he is
at my mercy, so I made him think that.

But I am the one in control. She goes on.

I thought it would be like a
contest of endurance because

I could pretend to be a
bitch as far as I could go.

But I don’t look like that kind of girl.
Don’t you think?

She’s basically saying, “I
look innocent, I see innocent, so

people don’t assume I’m capable
of this kind of level of violence.

” So then they put the
father on the stand and

the defense starts
questioning the father.

So defense, in one of Runa’s
statements, she said, “My sister, did

she have a sister? The father.
No. The defense. Who is her sister?

” The father says, “Runa. Runa’s
soul.” So when Runa refers to her

sister, she’s almost talking
about another version of herself,

it turns out that when she
talks about Runa’s sister,

she’s talking, that’s when
she sort of switches to English.

So we’re getting kind
of a feeling of a dual

personality thing
going on in the defense.

Who is the subject of the conversation
that says, “I killed my sister?

” The father, I think
Cynthia is the main character.

There are many other souls,
but Cynthia is the main character.

So now he’s talking about
multiple personality disorder.

Defense, who does
Cynthia’s soul want to kill?

The father, me and
Hiroko, the mother.

Cynthia thinks that Runa’s soul
died because of our response.

Defense, have you ever been
harmed by Runa? The father, no.

Defense, did she ever wave a
knife or a kitchen knife around?

The father, not directly at us.

So she has waved a knife
around in the past. The defense.

Regarding the fact that you
were forced to take photos of the

victim’s head, could the photo
session have been postponed?

The father. He only had one eye
left, and although it was Friday evening,

I had to leave for a business trip to
Kansai first thing the next morning.

If I returned on Sunday night,
I would be away for two days,

and I thought I would have to
ask Hiroko to take the photos.

He didn’t actually like even
conceive of the idea that you

don’t have to take these photos
that you should actually say no.

Just thinking about this kind of damage was
enough to send shivers down my spine. Hiroko could

not bear it. It may sound rude, but I thought
it would be better for this to end quickly.

On the night of July 1st,
2023, was Samu drove

Runa by car to Susuquino,
looking for the victim.

So this is basically where clubs may be the red
light district in Sapporo City. It’s a security

camera footage of Samu is shown inside the
club several meters from Runa and the victim.

So he’s driven her to a club where
the victim is. He’s dropped his daughter

off and he’s kind of hanging out in
the club waiting for them to come out.

The defense asks, what did you want
from the victim? I thought that if she

confronted him and there was an
apology, the situation could be repaired.

I thought that if he didn’t apologize, that would be an end
of it. So he’s just hoping there’s going to be some kind of

confrontation about this sexual relationship they had and it’s
just going to end that night after they have maybe an argument.

What were your thoughts
when you looked for the victim?

I hope that he wouldn’t be found
that she would just give up on it.

So he’s actually like the whole time going, I hope
she doesn’t find this guy. I hope we don’t have

to talk to this guy. I hope this doesn’t actually
work out the way I think it’s going to work out.

He knows something bad is going
to happen if she actually finds him.

The defense. I don’t think you
know anything about the victim.

So how did you look for places he might be? The
father. I didn’t get any personal information from

him at all. I heard his nickname and that he
often goes to clubs for older people on weekends.

So I looked for him based on those conditions.
The defense. When Runa went looking for

the victim, she called him Sheikah, which
is Japanese for deer on the line chat app.

How did she start calling him Sheikah? The father. When we were looking for the victim, neither my daughter nor any of the family knew him. So calling
him by his nickname didn’t sound good to my daughter. I guess she thought there were other ways to call him. My daughter asked me to call him Sheikah

just before we left. I don’t get the relevance of that. It’s an interesting point that they started talking about. This guy has a nickname in what
people should be calling each other. So Runa had bought the equipment. She bought a bunch of knives, several knives, and the father bought a suitcase.

And a saw because she told him to. She’s like, I want
you to get a suitcase that holds a hundred kilos and a

saw. And I’m not going to tell you what it’s for, but
we’re going to go see this guy that I’m really angry at.

The father and daughter
practiced SNM before the murder.

So that’s actually going
to be the bit that comes up.

Defense. Who is the one who started talking about
SNM practice? A father. From my daughter, after

making an appointment with the victim, my daughter
practiced saying I was attacked last time.

So this time I’ll be the attacker.
The defense. How long did it take?

I think it most it was one to two
minutes. Defense specifically. The father.

I was sitting upright with my hands handcuffed behind my
back and wearing an eye mask. And my daughter approached

me from behind touching me here and there. I remember
her asking me how it felt in interacting with me.

So she’s got her father tied up in an SNM kind of
bondage scenario. She’s taken a knife for some kind

of tool and she’s just touching him with it saying
like how does this feel? How do you feel right now?

And she’s trying to
figure out what the best

way of executing this
murder would actually be.

Osama’s internet history search
on June 25th, 2023 shows that he

researched the purchase of a large
black suitcase during questioning.

He said it was to be used for Runa’s
doll collection, which numbers over 100.

So she has 100 like toys,
stuffy animals, dolls in her room.

He’s saying the suitcase was for that.
The defense did Osama’s search for suitcase

load capacity 100 kilograms and suitcase
load capacity 50 kilograms. The father.

I don’t remember exactly, but I was asked to look
what could fit in it. So I did type it in myself

or click it maybe. How many dolls can fit in a
black suitcase? I think 20 to 30 can fit in it.

What about the 70 centimeter tall
ones? I think about 15 can fit in it.

How much do they weigh? Each one weighs
four to five kilograms. These are heavy.

So these aren’t stuffy animals
like I thought. These are big

heavy dolls and seven
decentimeters is about half my height.

So that’s like two three
feet tall. So if there’s no

cushioning or anything, it could
weigh about 50 to 70 kilogram.

Were you told to clearly
film the destruction?

I was told to film without being
told what was inside the bathroom.

So this is interesting a thing the defense is doing what they’ve
done is gone through. Did you buy the suitcase? What could

fit in the suitcase? And then switch immediately back to where
you told clearly to film what she was going to do to the head.

And he has to like pivot back and
forth. That might be to throw the person

on the stand off so that they have
to answer questions without thinking.

I’m just again, I’m interested in
the court proceedings and the

tactics that actually take place
when you’re actually on trial defense.

At what point did you realize that the mutilation of the
head would occur? The father I took the camera to the

bathroom and when I was shown the damaged bottles and other
things and I was told the eyes were still in the head.

I thought that the mutilation would occur. I didn’t
know until I got to the bathroom, but that does

indicate that he knew there was a head in there and he
hasn’t stopped this and he hasn’t called the police.

During the trial the prosecution’s explanation
of evidence revealed that before the incident

Osamu had searched the internet for fingerprints
can be erased with bleach. Very telling.

And suitcase load capacity 100 kilograms. For her part, Hiroko sent a line message to Osamu
asking, “By the way, will the GPS record of the car be saved?” She then deleted the message.

She’s asking like, “Is there going to be a record of where the car goes that night? Can
we delete that?” And then she deleted that message thinking that it would then disappear.

So then they get sort of switch topics and
they get into the weird SNM practice again.

Runa told me to sit upright in the
middle of the living room of our house.

Put my hands behind my
back and close my eyes.

Osamu told the
court as a witness.

I was told to sit as if I was
handcuffed and blindfolded.

I felt something moving
from behind and I felt

something touching my
cheeks and neck with a scarf.

So he’s saying there’s
some kind of binding material,

a scarf or something that
she’s touching him with.

Yeah, she’s testing to see what
his kind of reactions are going

to be before he actually goes
ahead and does this actual crime.

It turns out that a few more details
came out a couple days ago. There are

claims that she rented several horror
movies 10 days before the actual crime.

She rented the 2016 movie Terrifier.
She rented the 2017 movie Leatherface.

Both contain neck cutting scenes
which Runa recorded on her phone.

So she’s watching these horror
movies. She’s getting to these parts where

she actually like the murderer
kills someone by cutting their throne.

And she records that on her phone. We assume so
she can study it later. Runa and the victim had

sex multiple times. The last time there was no
protection used and she said you broke your promise.

The only other details
are about sort of her youth

and when she’s a child and
when she was brought up.

And it’s really just a question of how did she get to
this place in her life where she was able to command her

parents so freely where she was able to think that murder
was going to be an accessible solution to this problem.

Runa stopped going to school after middle school. She
never went to high school. She never did any schooling

beyond that. It sounds like she didn’t work. She just
stayed at home and ordered her parents to do things.

She already had control by that time over her
parents. Her parents raised their daughter

without getting angry. They bought her
everything she wanted the prosecution said.

They couldn’t scold her. The house was
overflowing with loonous things. Kidoko lived in

a small place and Osama had no place in the
house so he spent his time at internet cafes.

So because the house was full of her stuff, there was no
actual space for their parents. The father actually seemed to

spend most of his time outside of the house at internet cafes,
probably just surfing the internet reading and sleeping.

Kidoko would ask her daughter what she wanted and communicated with Osama
online. So basically she would say, “What do you want today? Maybe food?

Maybe a thing.” And then she would make that request to the father on a
messaging app and then the father would come home and just drop it off.

The mother called Runa young lady and spoke to
her in polite language. So in Japanese there is

familial language and polite language. There’s
different levels. There’s also very rude language.

That’s sort of the important thing you have to
learn when you start learning Japanese. When you

speak to your parents, you should be more polite,
just a little bit, but you’re still familiar.

In this case the mother is speaking to
the daughter like the mother is a servant

and then the daughter is sort of the master
of the house by calling her young lady.

Runa told her father to sell her
mother to a jukujo fusoku business, which

is a brothel that specializes in older
women instead of younger women.

And Osama was her personal driver. So like
when she went searching for the victim,

the father drove her around from place to
place so she could go hunting for this guy.

She made the father join all
nighters at game centers and other

places, Runa was selfish and
treated her parents like slaves.

So this is an ongoing case. There is
no resolution yet, but when we get to an

update, I will update on the actual
results, but it’s pretty clear she’s guilty.

It’s actually more interesting as to whether or
not the parents what they’re going to be prosecuted

with, what they’re actually going to be charged with,
what they’re actually going to find culpable of.

Because it sounds like in a weird way, once Runa took control over
the household, they were almost victims of her, but of course at

any point being adults, they could have called the police, they could
have looked for help, they could have tried to do something else.

But the father’s a psychiatrist is to me
one of the more interesting parts because he

fed into this as much as anyone else, but at
the same time, he should have known better.

So this is really just a statement for anyone
out there who thinks about having kids be strict,

do not let your children take control of
everything and do not be nice to your children.

I can’t stop with who will don’t be nice to your children. But
absolutely, this is a case for being strict with your children and not

giving them sort of that gentle, soft love and never saying no to
them like is actually a very modern trend of what is gentle parenting?

I’m not a fan of that. This is a very good example case of gentle
parenting and not saying no to your kids is not a good idea

because you could end up in a situation where you are driving your
child around looking for a victim and participating in the crime.

Which is going to get you arrested as well.

I think this murder in Japan series,
because this is the third one, if it keeps

going, should be Ninja Ninja Japan
specials, which is almost self evident.

But I’ve hit basically writer’s block.
I’ve been doing so many other projects

that I haven’t had any ideas for
things to talk about for a seeming be.

And I don’t want it to just die. So I think
that’s actually why I did it this way. I

kind of just took what would be a special
Ninja Japan and made it into a seeming be.

I was trying it out though, and I do like it.
There’s a lot less commentary a lot more just like

reading and passing on facts. I think this might
be one that’s better to do with someone else.

Like I go through this stuff and
then talk to someone about it.

More Murder in Japan: The Yuka Takaoka Story

(upbeat music)

Now, this story starts back in 2019.

And back in 2019, I followed
this story very closely.

It was not because it’s a
murder or it’s a salacious story.

It was actually the interesting part to me

was how the internet
reacted to this heinous event.

So the basic story is that back in 2019,
this girl attempts to kill her boyfriend.

She gets sentenced to attempted
murder and she goes to prison.

The internet reacted unusually
because she was attractive.

And that was the main reason.

You have someone who’s
committed a horrible act

and is getting treated very differently from
other people because they’re attractive.

The reason this is
sparked interest in me again

is because just recently,
she was released from prison.

And on Tokyo reporter,
they released a transcript

of the trial, some of the
questions and answers from 2019,

which is sort of an insight into
Japanese courts that we don’t normally get.

So I wanna go over a bit of the history of
the story, then we’ll read the transcript.

And just remember the
whole time Japanese men

on the internet are
white-niting this girl

so hard, they’re saying
that she’s innocent,

she shouldn’t be punished
because she’s too beautiful.

If she had been with me,
this wouldn’t have happened.

That was always the
part that was rolling around

in the back of my head, is that this
woman attempted to kill another human being

and they were willing to let
it go because she was cute.

And I think what made it one
of the things that made it worse

was the media was calling
her a real life yandere.

So that is the character in anime who
doesn’t show outward expressions of emotion.

She gets very jealous on the inside.

She loves very passionately.

In some anime, they would make it that
she would kill for the person she loves.

So they’ve made it already,
like she’s a character

in anime, appealing
to these anime nerds.

These guys who way, way overreacted.

And again, these people
who started making fan art

and started doing stuff on the internet
to say, she’s amazing, she’s wonderful,

she shouldn’t be punished
because she’s beautiful.

And she was just doing
this wonderful thing.

She was killing because of her jealousy,

but her jealousy was an
indication of how strongly she loves

and if she loved me, then this
would never have happened.

Let’s get back into reality,
characterizing someone

as an anime character would
certainly increase your interaction

rate on the internet, which is
what these people really want.

But it also puts up this
strange sort of relationship,

the meta relationship,
the internet creates,

where these people are like truly going
forward and attempting to defend her.

They set up like a GoFundMe style thing
to try to get her money for her defense.

They were trying to get her not
punished for attempted murder.

And the media didn’t help by creating this
atmosphere around her of this character.

And she had an Instagram
and that of course got blown up

because everyone wanted to
see more pictures of the pretty girl.

And in that, she did cosplay
of Yandere characters.

And they’re like, wow, this is just her
showing who she really is on the inside.

So I think really the thing
I was interested in was

all the bits of the story,
of course, because we’re all

interested in these sort
of like real crime stories.

But then there was also the
secondary aspect of this crime

and the person who committed it
were being fetishized the whole time.

And the internet audience was eating it up.

So you have Yuka Takoka, she
was working in a bar, a girls bar.

She became a manager, so she
was obviously quite good at it.

Girls bars, basically guys
come in, they pay money, they

pick a girl, the girl will
sit with them, they’ll talk.

That’s the base standard.

I mean, it implies a
certain level of sexuality.

There’s all these other like
other aspects to the relationship

of a hostess club where, you
know, you’ll go out on dates.

The dates are nonsexual,
but the man is expected to

give presents and pay money
and buy expensive things.

One of the scams, I don’t know if it’s a
scam because the people are going for it.

They kind of know what happens as well.

Is that on my birthday, let’s
say, I would go to the five men

who love me the most who come
to are my most regular customers.

And I tell them, I want
this very specific watch.

I want this very specific bag.

And I get five of those and then
I can return four and then keep

the one and say, “Oh, look
at this bag, you gave me.

I love it so much.

” But then I also got the cash
money for the other four bags.

So this is the kind
of relationship that is

created within the
hostess club atmosphere.

This is also what happens on the host side,

which is men basically manipulating
women into giving them money

for the exact same thing
that sort of may fake meta

love relationship, which
is what her boyfriend did.

Her boyfriend’s name was Phoenix Luna.

I can’t be his real name, but
that’s actually a pretty good name.

You know, I’m going to
name an anime character.

I might name him Phoenix Luna now.

Both the men and the
woman in this relationship

had this job where they
created relationships with

other people in order to
extrapolate money from them.

They moved in together.

Now, she was looking, this
is the version of the story.

She was looking at Luna’s
phone while he was in the shower

and she found pictures of him
with other women at the bar.

Now, remember, that’s his job to go
to the bar, talk to women, sit with them.

They take selfies, whatever.

They try to put on this great atmosphere.

They just do this all the
time because that’s his job.

His job is to make these women
actually fall in love with him

so they will come back more, spend
more money, give him more money.

That’s how he makes money.

She does the same thing.

Maybe it’s at a manager level.

She doesn’t do it so directly anymore, but
she teaches the other girls how to do it.

She tries to develop these
relationships so that the

bar makes more money, so
she can make more money.

Like, this is not something
that should be a surprise to her,

but she immediately connected if
she’s taking pictures with these women,

then he must be sleeping with these
women, and she got insanely jealous.

This is another part of
the Yandade character,

attributes that
everyone was playing into,

thinking this was so great that she was
fulfilling this fantasy character so much.

So, in Takahoka’s mind, this meant
that he was having sex with them.

So, she waited until 350 in the
mornings that he would be dead asleep.

She got a knife from the kitchen,
and she stabbed him in stomach.

He woke up and he struggled, and he managed
to get to the elevator before he collapsed.

She, for some reason,
brought him down to the lobby,

so she must have actually pulled
him out of the elevator as well.

There’s a bit in there that’s sort of
unknown, but basically it was discovered.

He was laying on the floor, bleeding out.

She’s sitting on the
floor, smoking a cigarette,

and talking on her cell phone in
sort of pajamas and like slippers.

She, her legs and her
arms were covered in blood.

There’s blood all over the lobby for.

She wasn’t calling the police.

She wasn’t trying to save his life.

She was just sitting
there talking on the phone.

I don’t actually remember if it
was revealed who she was talking to.

A passerby came and saw all
the blood and called the police.

So, that is how this was
discovered in the first place.

The photos in the lobby
are what made her famous.

Now, the most famous picture is her
sitting on the lobby floor on the phone.

She’s wearing sort of a black shirt
and not much else, some slippers.

And so, of course, the fetishization
of this person began immediately there

because she has her legs
out and she’s covered in blood.

And it’s exciting and sexy and dangerous.

And that’s the bit everyone wants to see.

And she’s just ignoring
the police at this point.

So, she’s sitting there
talking on her phone,

ignoring the police
officers who are there.

The shocking bit to me was the
boyfriend is sitting in the background.

He’s just bleeding out.

Like, he’s going to die if someone
doesn’t take some emergency action.

The police don’t seem to be making
any moves to actually make that happen.

I don’t actually know what
the proper procedure is there.

I assume separate the two and immediately
start performing first aid on the man

and arrest the woman since
she seems to not be injured.

We don’t know what happened
at this point if you’re the police.

You don’t know if he attacked
her and she fought back.

You don’t know if she attacked him.

So separate them and start giving
the person a news injured some first aid.

But that’s the picture
that set off the internet.

It set off the story.

It set off this because
she’s an attractive woman.

All these sort of white
night guys coming in.

Crowd funding her defense to
try to get her off this very clearly.

She’s guilty of attempted murder.

Her statement was I intended to die
after watching him die from stabbing.

Basically her statement
was once he died on the floor.

So this is where my
actual question comes in.

Why did she take him to the lobby?

If she was just waiting for
him to bleed out and die.

Once he died, she
was going to kill herself.

There didn’t seem to be any
reason to take him to the lobby.

And it seemed weird that she
started calling someone on the phone.

That is all information that
is lost to history at this point.

Then the article started
coming out and they

started calling her the
two beautiful criminal

because she’s cute. And by Japanese
standards, she hits sort of ticks every box.

She’s cute and sexy.

And that’s sort of this whole
atmosphere of attractiveness.

And then they add on
this other layer this yandere

sort of anime thing
they’ve thrown into it.

Again, the media threw
this into it right away.

They leaned into this
hard, setting off this

whole crazy fetishization
of this person.

So this was published on Tokyo
Reporter and Seemic B is a podcast.

So of course, I’m going to read it to you.

But if you’re on the YouTube
channel, you can read along with it.

What follows is a transcription of
some of the questions by her lawyers in it.

Readers learned the details of the
innocent how it happened, how it ended,

and her later regret
reports news post seven.

This is back from December 9, 2019.

Let’s go back to the time of the incident.

After Runa arrived at around 3 p.m.
on May 23rd,

we put up the curtains
together, talked and had sex.

What did you talk about?

Apparently, he had made a
reservation at a hair salon that night,

and his boss had asked him why he
was meeting with me outside the bar.

Now, this is one of the things
about being a host or hostess.

If you meet outside the bar and you start
dating or forming an actual relationship,

that will actually take
money away from the bar.

So they want you to keep the customers
coming into the bar as often as possible.

So having these relationships outside
can actually be very dangerous for the bar.

Maybe you form a real enough relationship
that you stop working at the bar,

and then he loses two
streams of income because

you’re not there to
attract more people,

but then also, the people aren’t
coming in to give the money.

Why would your boss say something to
you if you met Takoka outside the bar?

Because if I meet him outside the
bar, I would stop coming to his bar.

Well, that’s actually what I just said.

After that, he fell asleep,
so I went to the kitchen,

and my desire to kill him
and die remained the same.

So I grabbed a knife from
the kitchen and went to him.

So again, this is, she saw pictures
on his phone of him doing his job,

sitting in the bar, talking to
other women, taking selfies,

and she immediately
extrapolated that they must

be having sex as well,
so he was cheating on her.

What was that knife?

On the morning of May 23rd, I
bought it at Don Quixote in Okubo.

After work for household purposes,
I had no intention of killing him.

I just bought it for household purposes.

How did you hold the knife?

This is again, that bits that, for
me, isn’t outside are very interesting,

because I don’t know what kind of
questions they ask in a Japanese court.

I don’t know what is
important, what is not important,

when they’re talking about an attempted
murder, because this is all new to me.

I held the knife in both hands and stabbed
him in the stomach as he was sleeping.

What was he wearing?

He was wearing a pair of pants.

Where were you positioned?

I was standing in the middle
of Runa’s torso on his left side.

How did you hold the knife?

So he’s asking it again.

I held it with both hands.

What direction was the blade facing?

I don’t remember.

I stabbed Runa in the stomach.

What angle was the blade at?

He was a right angle to him.

How many times did you stab him once?

So this is trying to make sure
that all the details are accurate.

So there is some, perhaps,
suspicion that maybe she’s just

saying this, maybe she’s
covering up for someone else.

So she has to get all the
details right to actually prove

that she was the one who
actually tried to kill the guy,

even though she’s admitted to it
very directly and very obviously.

After you stabbed him, he tried to get up.

So I got on top of him to
stop him from getting up.

And he tried to let me go by choking me.

So he tried to get her
off of him by choking her.

What kind of conversation
did you have with Runa?

He said, “Okay, I love you.

So let’s stay together forever.

” So I said, “I love you.

So let’s die together.

” He put the knife
under the bed and said,

“I won’t tell the police,
but I’ll call an ambulance.

” So I took his mobile phone.

So he’s now in a strange negotiation phase
where he’s trying to, he’s been stabbed.

He’s trying to get away from
her so he can get to the hospital.

He’s saying, “I won’t
hold this against you.

I won’t call the cops.

” We’ll just say it was an
accident, something like that.

She doesn’t believe him.

She just wants them both to die.

Why did you put the knife there?

When I stabbed him in
the stomach and saw the

pain on his face, I
felt really regretful.

And by that point, I think I had no
longer any intention of killing him.

So this is in the moment when it’s real.

She suddenly thinks this was a bad idea.

I regret it.

I had this must actually happen so much.

What happened after you
took the mobile phone away?

He got up and went to the front door so
I chased after him, telling him not to go.

He hit me, punching and kicking
with his arms, legs, and face.

That’s when my contacts came out.

So I went to get my glasses.

I also took my cigarettes and
cell phone and chased after him.

That is a strange detail.

But again, very realistic
because I bet every time she

leaves the house, she grabs
her cigarettes and cell phone.

That’s just a natural thing.

I always just reach for and grab my keys
to the house before I walk out the door.

And I bet even in an emergency situation,

I would instinctively
just do the same thing.

So I think that’s probably
why this panic, the stress,

she just did what she always does,
grab her cigarettes and cell phone.

The lawyer asked the same question though.

Why the cigarettes?

I don’t know.

But I found myself holding a cigarette.

I found Runa lying at the entrance.

I was so regretful
that I called the police.

Now, that may not be true.

This is her testimony from 2019.

It’s actually said that she
isn’t the one who called

the cops, that it was a
passerby who called the cops.

Now, I, again, I’m getting all
my information from the internet.

It’s all secondhand.

I have no idea what is actually accurate.

Why did you call the police yourself?

When I saw Runa’s blood
and how he looked and pain,

I really regretted it and realized
that I had done something terrible.

I didn’t want him to die and I was so scared
of him dying that I called the police.

You told the police something different.

You said to them, “I heard a woman scream
when I was going down the emergency stairs,

so I knew I couldn’t
die with him.

” I was really panicked
at the time and I said

yes to what the police
and prosecutor said.

But what I really regret
most is having stabbed him.

So she’s saying, in the
moment, she called the police.

She just started saying whatever she
felt she needed to say in the moment.

I think that’s a very
realistic answer, to be honest.

Please tell us about
when you called the police.

They first asked me if it was a crime
or an accident and I answered crime.

It seemed like they
thought it was a prank, so

I told them the same
thing over and over again.

This is an interesting reaction
because I think in other countries,

if you say I just stabbed someone,
it’s never going to be taken as a prank.

But Japan being such a generally saved
country, the police probably are like,

“We want to make sure this is real
crime before we take our time on it.

” What happened?

I told the my name, Runa’s
name, that I had stabbed him,

that I was at the entrance, and
that we needed an ambulance.

I explained what I had done and
made sure everyone asked me.

Why did you stab him?

I liked him and I wanted to be with him.

I’m sorry.

I did something selfish.

When did you start to
think this around June?

I thought so after hearing
about Runa’s situation

from my lawyer and hearing about
my mother and father’s situation.

So Runa was in a coma for five days
and it took him five days to wake up.

He’d been stabbed.

He’d actually pierced his liver
and so he wasn’t able to eat.

He was actually having a lot of trouble.

So there’s a lot of rehabilitation.

At this time, he was probably
still just starting his rehabilitation.

It was very tough recovery.

He did do a full recovery though.

What was Runa’s situation?

The scars were deep,
reaching all the way to his liver

and he had been in a coma
for five days without waking up.

What about your parents?

When they came to
visit, they were very thin.

Their hair was turning gray.

They were crying and
with so many media outlets

at our house, they
were almost neurotic.

So again, this was a massive news story.

Everyone wanted as much
information as possible.

They were trying to make
this as grandiose as they could

because this pretty
woman with this yandere

atmosphere, we want to
create the story of the century

so they were just all over
everybody in the story.

The parents, of course, are
going to be hounded by the media.

Is that both your father or mother?

Both my father and mother.

As time went on, I became
more and more scared

that I had done something
so horrible and I felt so sorry,

so scared and so sorry that I
had nearly taken someone’s life.

I also caused trouble for my parents.

What about Runa?

I wrote a letter of
apology to Runa in June.

I said I was truly sorry that I
would no longer be involved with him

and mentioned compensation and
had it delivered through my lawyer.

And what about while you were in custody?

I was thinking about Runa and my parents,

making sure they were eating
properly, getting enough sleep.

My mother came over at
least three times a week,

but my father was busy with work,
so he came about twice a week.

What did we talk about?

We talked about a lot of things,

like the incidents, the procedures
from moving out of the house and our cat.

What about Runa?

I heard they settled for five million yen.

Five million yen is not very much money.

Like it would be the average salary for a
year in Japan is four to five million yen.

So it’s the upper end of a
very average salary in Japan.

I heard that they had submitted a petition.

What about the five million
yen settlement money?

My mother prepared it for me.

This is interesting because
I’ve actually read the story.

I reviewed some of the details.

After Phoenix had made his recovery, he
actually came out with a statement saying

he didn’t have a grudge against her,
he didn’t hold anything against her.

He wasn’t necessarily saying
he was going to get back

together with her, but he was
saying I’m not holding a grudge.

I’m not angry at her for what she did.

What kind of exchange did
you have with your mother?

She told me I prepared it for your future.

Your desire to return the
money is enough for me.

You don’t have to pay me back.

What did you think?

I want to work and save five
million yen, earn more money,

pay it back, and make my
mom and dad’s lives easier.

How did you spend your
time while out on bail?

I took a training course called
initial training for care workers.

I want to be useful to
someone in the future.

I took it because I wanted
to be like my mother.

My mother is a certified care worker.

She’s a great person and
I want to be just like her.

Is that a qualification?

It’s a qualification equivalent
to a second class helper

and allows you to work
in homes and the like.

How often did you go about three days
a week for about six hours each time?

The lectures were really fun.

I learned a lot of new things
and it was very educational.

I want to take practical
training and study

become a certified
care worker in the future.

Did you get the qualification?

Yes.

I heard that you need practical experience.

So what will you do about finding a job?

I would like to find a job through
Hellowork and start working.

Hellowork is sort of a very
normal job search place.

I don’t know if it’s from the government,

but it’s a search.
It helps you find jobs in Japan.

When you enter society, you will probably
find people who know about the incident.

How do you plan to respond to them?

I haven’t thought about how
to respond in any particular way.

It’s a crime that I committed.

Should I just let it go?

Rather than just
letting go, I think about it

deeply and make efforts
to a tone for my crime.

Can you endure?

I will endure.

There’s a little bit more
listening to your mother’s story.

It really broke my heart seeing
my mother crying so much.

I didn’t know how to
apologize, even though

this crime couldn’t
possibly be the fault of

a parent, so no matter how
much it was painful for me,

I decided to stay with her so
that I could make her life easier.

And what about Runa?

No matter how much I apologize,
I can never apologize enough.

It’s a crime I can’t a tone for
even if I spend my entire life doing it.

I don’t think I’ll be
forgiven even if I apologize.

It may seem strange and weird for me to say
this, but I’m really glad that I’m alive.

I’m truly sorry.

I am doing a very Canadian story now.

Didn’t realize that.

Now that I’m actually listening to myself
speak, I realize just how Canadian I am.

So she got three and a half years in
prison and she just got out recently.

She’s still active on
Instagram, X and YouTube.

What does she do on Instagram and YouTube?

Well, her YouTube, the most recent
one, she has 10,000 subscribers by the way.

The most recent one is her
doing a variety of different cosplays.

So it starts out with
her with not much makeup

on and how to put the
makeup on and then it’s

applying more makeup and then some
wigs and stuff and this is two hours long.

So I don’t know if she’s
going to be making enough

money off this, but
again, the people who are

watching this, it’s a question of are
they interested in her as a cosplayer,

as a beauty influencer
or are they interested in

her because of his dark
criminal background that

makes her attractive in a
different and unique way.

She’s not doing care work. So what she was
saying in the transcript, who just read,

it’s not that she was lying.
She didn’t follow through on what she said.

I think in that thing, she’s trying to
say, “Look, I want to be a better person.

I want to help society.

” That’s not necessarily a
bad thing that she didn’t do it.

I think again, I have a negative
view of influencer, which is

ironic because I make podcasts
and YouTube videos and stuff.

It’s interesting that the guy has
no grudge or he says he doesn’t.

I’m sure he hasn’t met her again since.
So I guess it’s easy to say,

you’re not holding a grudge
if you just never plan on

seeing someone again, just
how I live most of my life.

So for me, the salaciousness of the
murder wasn’t enough to get me interested.

I read about murder all
the time because I read

about the news all the
time and there’s a lot

of real-life crime in the news all
the time. I think it was the immediate

fetishization of her as a character.
Not even as a real person as a character,

but the fact that she
was a hostess played

into it, the fact that
her boyfriend was a host

played into it, the fact
that all these people

on the internet inserted
themselves into that

relationship, so many of
the guys on the internet

saying that if it was me,
this wouldn’t have happened.

I’m wondering now that she’s built her
influencer sphere. She’s on the Instagram,

she’s on YouTube. Are
the people there holding

out that small hope that
they could be the one

that’s actually with her
in the future and that

her yandade love, that
strength of love, that they

actually in a weird way
admire and want because

you want that sort of
level of passion directed

towards you, that they
would return it and then

they would end up having the
perfect relationship with her.

It’s interesting to see where she
will go from here because in Japan,

they have a weird
relationship with fame, so

she’s now gotten famous and she can probably
hold on to that fame for a long time.

There’s a story. I don’t want
to go into the whole thing.

I actually think I may have done this
story on an old Velocipod cast episode,

but there was a guy,
a Japanese guy, and he

was in France, and he
killed an eight a woman,

and because of the rules,
he wasn’t a French citizen,

they were like, “Okay,
we’ll send him back to

Japan,” and they will
punish him, and then

he was sent back to
Japan, he was extradited,

and then when he ended
up in Japan, they’re like,

“Well, he didn’t actually
commit a crime in Japan,”

so the Japanese didn’t
persecute him, so he

ended up basically
just getting away with it,

and then, based on his
reputation as a cannibal,

started doing restaurant
reviews and became

a really famous restaurant
reviewer in Japan, based

purely off a crime that
he’d committed in France,

one of the most heinous
crimes you could actually

ever think of, killing and
eating another human being,

so there’s this weird
disconnect almost with the

fantasy and the reality
in Japan, and you see

this in a lot of different
aspects, but I think

in these situations, it
shows so clearly and so

really that people
don’t have a connection

between what’s really
happening and what they’re

seeing sort of in media,
because they’re living

the dream, they want
the dream to happen,

they think this could
be real, but the reality

is, this is a convicted
attempted murder,

or, God, that’s a terrible sense, convicted
attempted murder, as way easier to say,

all these guys on the
internet living out a

fantasy that isn’t real,
because the character they

gave her in the media
isn’t her real character,

and she may play into it
now because that’s how

she’s going to capitalize
on that fame, but that’s

just as fake as the love
she may have shown people

while she was working
in a hostess bar, while

her boyfriend was
working in a host bar,

while they were getting
money from other people

pretending that they
actually were into them.

It’s a skill, it’s a skill I don’t have,
you can tell by this ending right here.

[MUSIC]