Japan, 2009. This can be a morning in August and, in a carpark in Saitama – a regional centre about 30kms north of Tokyo – a condo automotive is noticed with a person mendacity within the again seat. His title is Yoshiyuki Oide. Nevertheless it seems that he’s no longer having a snappy nap – he’s lifeless.
The reason for loss of life is carbon monoxide poisoning and is first of all regarded as a case of suicide. However the police aren’t satisfied, so that they knock at the door of the girl Oide were courting, 35-year-old Kanae Kijima. This marks the start of the investigation into what would turn out to be recognized within the media because the “Konkatsu killer” case. The title derives from konkatsu, that means marriage searching.
The investigation exposed proof that prompt Kijima had killed 3 males she met on courting websites. The 3 deaths have been first of all thought to be as suicides however have been all deemed to had been staged. The courtroom agreed and Kijima – who has at all times maintained her innocence – used to be discovered responsible in 2012, in keeping with what used to be extensively held to be in large part circumstantial proof, and sentenced to loss of life. The verdict used to be upheld in next appeals, and she or he is now on loss of life row looking ahead to execution.
Kijima’s case used to be very similar to the of Chisako Kakehi who died in jail on December 26 2024 whilst beneath sentence of loss of life. She were discovered responsible of homicide and fraud and given the loss of life penalty after a courtroom discovered she had entrapped and swindled cash from 3 males (together with her husband) ahead of killing them the usage of cyanide.
There used to be hypothesis that her good fortune lay in her “homely” qualities – the stereotype of overweight girls being cheerful, nurturing and very good chefs. It used to be prompt that males would possibly favor the sort of girl’s heat and hospitality over a classy girl’s “air of superiority”.
In Japan, when any individual is sentenced to loss of life, they have a tendency to vanish from the general public eye. However Kijima maintained a weblog the place she detailed her existence and relationships – and persisted to put in writing on it all the way through and after the trial, most certainly thru her legal professionals. She nonetheless publishes on more than a few problems: from the type of cookies to be had within the detention area to the prerequisites within the loss of life row, from nutritional recommendation to mirrored image at the lay assessor trial in Jap prison process.
The media eagerly mined her posts to fortify stereotypes about gender roles and look, however Kijima driven again. She has sharply criticised the focal point on her appears to be like and gender over the felony proof, the usage of her reflections to focus on those biases.
Telling the tale
Novelist Asako Yuzuki took inspiration from Kijima’s case to create a fictional narrative for her novel Butter. It’s a tale by which a journalist masking the tale of a lady assassin is sucked into her swirling obsession with butter and lavish meals, exposing fat-phobia and sexism in Jap society.
The fictionalised account of the case demanding situations steretypes about Japanes girls.
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Kijima, who has printed a memoir and a unique of her personal, expressed her deep discontent with the e-newsletter of the unconventional on her weblog: “What Yuzuki and the publisher are doing is nothing short of theft. If they interfere with external communication rights, they are not just thieves but complicit in murder. They continue to use my name without permission … I truly think it’s a vulgar book, BUTTER.”
However, after I interviewed her, Yuzuki insisted that she used to be within the implications of her case, in how Jap media frequently sensationalises tales, moderately than the main points of the crime.
Jap media … frequently replicate the viewpoint of tough males. … This realisation used to be a turning level for me. Till then, I hadn’t truly wondered a lot or paid shut consideration to politics or media bias. But if it got here to one thing I really like – cooking – it struck a nerve.
Stereotypes and social expectancies
In her e-book, Yuzuki questions some deep-seated Jap stereotypes – in particular round girls and cooking. She says that the concept that of “marriage hunting” continues to be standard in Japan, and ladies who love cooking are frequently labelled as “domestic” or “obedient”.
However, in her enjoy, any individual keen about cooking is a ways from submissive. To the contrary, cooking is strong, and a lady professional within the kitchen may simply as simply hurt any individual as she may nourish them. “There’s a fine line between nurturing and dangerous precision,” she advised me.
Social media has turn out to be a formidable device for activists and writers like Yuzuki to connect to others and magnify their voices. She has joined different authors in advocating for marginalised teams, together with sexual minorities, highlighting the intersectionality of problems reminiscent of gender, elegance, and prison justice.
The Kijima case, during the information, her weblog posts from jail, and during the paintings of writers together with Yuzuki, invitations a deep mirrored image at the weight of societal expectancies on gender and look. Past the query of guilt or innocence, it illustrates how feminine criminals are judged no longer just for their movements however for defying norms of femininity.
This twin scrutiny aligns with historic biases in Japan, the place girls who problem societal norms are frequently framed as bad outliers. Kijima’s portrayal as an unconventional femme fatale conjures up the Nineteenth-century “poison women” trope – referred to as dofuku. This casts girls as harmful forces who upend the lives of the ones round them.
The severity of Kijima’s punishment — the loss of life penalty used to be no longer used in any respect in 2023 and best as soon as in 2022 — turns out designed to ship exemplary justice. Within the minds of many Jap other folks she used to be responsible no longer best of homicide however of manipulating societal expectancies of femininity whilst failing to adapt to traditional requirements of good looks and behavior.
The case has bolstered the narrative that her transgressions prolonged past the court docket and into the area of societal betrayal.
