Sada Abe
Encyclopedia
is remembered in Japan
for erotically asphyxiating
her lover, , on May 18, 1936, and then cutting off his penis
and testicle
s and carrying them around with her in her handbag. The story became a national sensation in Japan, acquiring mythic overtones, and has since been interpreted by artists, philosophers, novelists and filmmakers.
makers in Tokyo
's Kanda
neighborhood. Only four of the Abe children survived to adulthood, and of those, Sada was the youngest. Abe's father, Shigeyoshi Abe, was originally from Chiba Prefecture
. He had been adopted into the Abe family to help with the business, which he eventually inherited. Age 52 at the time of Sada's birth, Shigeyoshi Abe was described by police as "an honest and upright man" who had no conspicuous vices. Though some acquaintances reported him to be somewhat self-centered, with a taste for extravagance, Sada's mother, Katsu Abe, likewise had no known legal or moral blemishes on her record.
Sada's siblings and father did behave questionably though. Her brother Shintaro was known as a womanizer, and after his marriage ran away with his parents' money. Sada's sister Teruko was also known to have had several lovers. Her father sent her to work in a brothel
, then not an uncommon way to punish female sexual promiscuity in Japan, though he soon bought her back. Teruko's past was not considered a hindrance to marriage for those of the Abes' class at the time, and she soon married.
, both activities which, at the time, were more closely associated with geisha
and prostitutes than with classical artistic endeavor. Geishas were considered glamorous celebrities, and Abe herself followed the image by skipping school for these lessons, and wearing stylish make-up. As family problems over her siblings, sister Teruko and brother Shintaro, became more pressing, Abe was often sent out of the house alone. She soon fell in with a group of similarly independent teenagers. At the age of 15, during one of these outings, she was rape
d by one of her acquaintances, and even though her parents defended and supported her, she became a difficult teenager. As she became more irresponsible and uncontrollable, her parents sold her to a geisha house in Yokohama
in 1922, hoping to find her a place in society with some direction. Toku Abe, Sada's oldest sister, testified that Sada wished to become a geisha. Sada herself, however, claimed that her father made her a geisha as punishment for her promiscuity.
Abe's encounter with the geisha world proved frustrating and disappointing. To become a true star among geisha required apprenticeship from childhood with years spent studying arts and music. Abe wound up a low-ranking geisha, in which her main duties were to provide sex. She worked for five years in this capacity, and eventually contracted syphilis
. Since this meant she would be required to undergo regular examinations, like a legally licensed prostitute, Abe decided to enter that better-paying profession.
's famous Tobita brothel district, but soon gained a reputation as a trouble-maker. She stole money from clients, and attempted to leave the brothel several times, but was tracked down by the well-organized legal prostitution system. After two years, she eventually succeeded in escaping the licensed prostitution system, and began working as a waitress. However, not satisfied with the wages, she was soon working as a prostitute again, though now unlicensed. She began working in Osaka's unlicensed brothels in 1932. Abe's mother died in January 1933, and Abe went to Tokyo to visit her father and her mother's grave. She entered into the prostitution market in Tokyo and became a mistress there for the first time. When her father became seriously ill in January 1934, Abe nursed him for ten days until his death.
In October 1934 Abe was arrested in a police raid on the unlicensed brothel at which she was working. Kinnosuke Kasahara, a well-connected friend of the brothel owner, arranged to have the women released. He was attracted to Abe, and, finding that she had no debts, and with Abe's agreement, made her his mistress. Kasahara set up a house for Abe on December 20, 1934, and provided her with money. In his deposition to the police, he remembered, "She was really strong, a real powerful one. Even though I am pretty jaded, she was enough to astound me. She wasn't satisfied unless we did it two, three, or four times a night. To her, it was unacceptable unless I had my hand on her private parts all night long... At first it was great, but after a couple of weeks I got a little exhausted." When Abe suggested that Kasahara leave his wife to marry her, he refused. She then asked Kasahara to let her take a lover, which he also refused to do. After that, their relationship ended, and to escape him Abe left for Nagoya. Kasahara ended his testimony with an angry remark about Abe, "She is a slut and a whore. And as what she has done makes clear, she is a woman whom men should fear." Likewise, Abe remembered Kasahara in less than flattering terms, saying, "He didn't love me and treated me like an animal. He was the kind of scum who would then plead with me when I said that we should break up."
In Nagoya in 1935, again intending to leave the sex industry, Abe began working as a maid at a restaurant. She soon became romantically involved with a customer at the restaurant, Goro Omiya, a professor and banker who aspired to become a member of the Diet of Japan
. Knowing that the restaurant would not tolerate a maid having sexual relations with clients, and bored with Nagoya, she returned to Tokyo in June. Omiya met Abe in Tokyo, and, finding that she had contracted syphilis, paid for her stay in a hot springs resort in Kusatsu
from November until January 1936. In January, Omiya suggested that Abe could become financially independent by opening a small restaurant, and recommended that she start work in an apprentice position in such a business.
neighborhood in 1920. When Abe joined his restaurant, Ishida was known as a womanizer who did little in the way of running the restaurant, which was managed mostly by his wife.
Not long after she began work at Yoshidaya, Ishida began making advances towards Abe. Omiya had never satisfied Abe sexually, and she gave in to Ishida. In mid-April, Ishida and Abe initiated their sexual relationship in the restaurant, to the accompaniment of a romantic ballad sung by one of the restaurant's geishas. On April 23, 1936 Abe and Ishida met for a pre-arranged sexual encounter at a teahouse, or machiai – the contemporary equivalent of a love hotel
– in the Shibuya
neighborhood. Planning only a short 'fling', the couple remained in bed for four days. On the night of April 27, 1936, they moved to another teahouse in the distant neighborhood of Futako Tamagawa. Here they continued to drink and have sex, sometimes with the accompaniment of a geisha's singing. They would continue even as maids entered the room to serve sake. They next moved their marathon love-making bout to the Ogu neighborhood. Ishida did not return to the restaurant until the morning of May 8, 1936. Of Ishida, Abe later said, "It is hard to say exactly what was so good about Ishida. But it was impossible to say anything bad about his looks, his attitude, his skill as a lover, the way he expressed his feelings. I had never met such a sexy man."
After they separated, Abe became agitated and began drinking excessively. She claimed that with Ishida she knew love for the first time in her life, and the thought that Ishida was back with his wife made her jealous. Over a week before the murder, Abe began considering the act. On May 9, 1936, she attended a play in which a geisha attacks her lover with a large knife. After seeing this, Abe decided to threaten Ishida with a knife at their next meeting. On May 11, 1936, she pawned some of her clothing and used the money to buy some sushi
and a kitchen knife. Abe later described meeting Ishida that night, "I pulled the kitchen knife out of my bag and threatened him as had been done in the play I had seen, saying, 'Kichi, you wore that kimono just to please one of your favorite customers. You bastard, I'll kill you for that.' Ishida was startled and drew away a little, but he seemed delighted with it all..."
Ishida and Abe returned to Ogu, where they remained until his death. During their love-making this time, Abe put the knife to the base of Ishida's penis, and said she would make sure he would never play around with another woman. Ishida laughed at this. Two nights into this bout of sex, Abe began choking Ishida, and he told her to continue, saying that this increased his pleasure. She had him do it to her as well. On the evening of May 16, 1936, Abe used her obi
sash to cut off Ishida's breathing during orgasm
, and they both enjoyed it. They repeated this for two more hours. Once Abe stopped the strangulation, Ishida's face became distorted, and would not return to its normal appearance. Ishida took 30 tablets of a sedative
called Calmotin
to try to soothe his pain. According to Abe, as Ishida started to doze, he told her, "You'll put the cord around my neck and squeeze it again while I'm sleeping, won't you... If you start to strangle me, don't stop, because it is so painful afterward." Abe commented that she wondered if he had wanted her to kill him, but on reflection decided he must have been joking.
About 2 a.m. on the morning of May 18, 1936, as Ishida was asleep, Abe wrapped her sash twice around his neck and strangled him to death. She later told police, "After I had killed Ishida I felt totally at ease, as though a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and I felt a sense of clarity." After lying with Ishida's body for a few hours, she next severed his genitalia with the kitchen knife, wrapped them in a magazine cover, and kept them until her arrest three days later. With the blood she wrote Sada, Kichi Futari-kiri ("Sada, Kichi together") on Ishida's left thigh
, and on a bed sheet. She then carved 定 ("Sada", the character
for her name) into his left arm. After putting on Ishida's underwear, she left the inn at about 8 a.m., telling the staff not to disturb Ishida. When asked why she had severed Ishida's genitalia, Abe replied, "Because I couldn't take his head or body with me. I wanted to take the part of him that brought back to me the most vivid memories."
After leaving the inn, Abe met Goro Omiya. She repeatedly apologized to him, but Omiya, unaware of the murder, assumed that she was apologizing for having taken another lover. Abe's apologies were for the damage to his political career that she knew his association with her was bound to cause. On May 19, 1936, the newspapers picked up the story. Omiya's career was ruined, and Abe's life was under intense public scrutiny from that point onwards.
, resulting in a large traffic jam. In a reference to the recent failed coup in Tokyo, the Ni Ni-Roku Incident
("2-26" or "February 26"), the crime was satirically dubbed the "Go Ichi-Hachi" Incident ("5-18" or "May 18").
On May 19, 1936, Abe went shopping and saw a movie. She stayed in an inn in Shinagawa on May 20, where she had a massage and drank three bottles of beer. She spent the day writing farewell letters to Omiya, a friend, and Ishida. She planned to commit suicide one week after the murder, and practiced necrophilia
. "I felt attached to Ishida's penis and thought that only after taking leave from it quietly could I then die. I unwrapped the paper holding them and gazed at his penis and scrotum. I put his penis in my mouth and even tried to insert it inside me... Then, I decided that I would flee to Osaka, staying with Ishida's penis all the while. In the end, I would jump from a cliff on Mount Ikoma
while holding on to his penis."
At 4:00 in the afternoon, police detectives, suspicious of the alias under which Abe had registered, came to her room. "Don't be so formal," she told them, "You're looking for Sada Abe, right? Well that's me. I am Sada Abe." When the police were not convinced, she displayed Ishida's genitalia as proof.
Abe was arrested and interrogated over eight sessions. The interrogating officer was struck by Abe's demeanor when asked why she had killed Ishida. "Immediately she became excited and her eyes sparkled in a strange way." Her answer was: "I loved him so much, I wanted him all to myself. But since we were not husband and wife, as long as he lived he could be embraced by other women. I knew that if I killed him no other woman could ever touch him again, so I killed him....." In attempting to explain what distinguished Abe's case from over a dozen other similar cases in Japan, William Johnston suggests that it is this answer which captured the imagination of the nation. "She had killed not out of jealousy but out of love." Mark Schreiber notes that the Sada Abe incident occurred at a time when the Japanese media were preoccupied with extreme political and military troubles, including the Ni Ni Roku incident
and a looming full-scale war in China
. He suggests that a sensationalistic sex scandal such as this served as a welcome national release from the disturbing events of the time. The incident also struck a chord with the ero-guro-nansensu ("erotic-grotesque-nonsense") style popular at the time, and the Sada Abe Incident came to represent that genre for years to come.
When the details of the crime were made public, rumors began to circulate that Ishida's penis was of extraordinary size; however, the police officer who interrogated Abe after her arrest denied this, saying, "Ishida's was just average. [Abe] told me, 'Size doesn't make a man in bed. Technique and his desire to please me were what I liked about Ishida.'" After her arrest, Ishida's penis and testicles were moved to Tokyo University
Medical School's pathology museum. They were put on public display soon after the end of World War II
, but have since disappeared.
On December 21, 1936 Abe was convicted of murder in the second degree and mutilation of a corpse. Though the prosecution demanded ten years, and Abe claimed that she desired the death penalty, she was in fact sentenced to just six years in prison
. She was confined in Tochigi women's penitentiary, where she was prisoner No. 11. Abe's sentence was commuted
on November 10, 1940, on the occasion of the 2,600th anniversary celebrations of the mythical founding of Japan, when Emperor Jimmu
came to the throne. She was released, exactly five years after the murder, on May 17, 1941.
The police record of Abe's interrogation and confession became a national best-seller in 1936. Christine L. Marran puts the national fascination with Abe's story within the context of the dokufu or "poison woman" stereotype, a transgressive female character type which had first become popular in Japanese serialized novels and stage works in the 1870s. In the wake of the popular "poison woman" literature, confessional autobiographies by female criminals had begun appearing in the late 1890s. By the early 1910s, autobiographical writings by criminal women took on an unapologetic tone and sometimes included criticisms of Japan and Japanese society. Kanno Suga, who was hanged in 1911 for conspiring to assassinate Emperor Meiji
in what was known as the High Treason Incident
, wrote openly rebellious essays while in prison. Fumiko Kaneko
, who was sentenced to death for plotting to bomb the imperial family, used her notoriety to speak against the imperial system and the racism and paternalism which she said it engendered. Abe's confession, in the years since its appearance, became the most circulated female criminal narrative in Japan. Marran points out that Abe, unlike previous criminal autobiographers, stressed her sexuality and the love she felt for her victim.
. As the mistress of a "serious man" she referred to in her memoirs as "Y", she moved first to Ibaraki Prefecture
and then to Saitama Prefecture
. When Abe's true identity became known to Y's friends and family, she broke off their relationship.
Wishing to divert public attention from politics and criticism of the occupying authorities, the Yoshida
government openly encouraged a "3-S" policy — "sports, screen and sex". This change from the strict pre-war censorship of materials labeled obscene or immoral helped enable a change in the tone of literature on Abe. Pre-war writings, such as The Psychological Diagnosis of Abe Sada (1937) depict Abe as an example of the dangers of unbridled female sexuality and as a threat to the patriarchal system. In the postwar era, she was treated as a critic of totalitarianism, and a symbol of freedom from oppressive political ideologies. Abe became a popular subject in literature of both high and low quality. The buraiha
writer, Oda Sakunosuke, wrote two stories based on Abe, and a June 1949 article noted that Abe had recently tried to clear her name after it had been used in a "mountain" of erotic books.
In 1946 the writer Ango Sakaguchi
interviewed Abe, treating her as an authority on both sexuality and freedom. Sakaguchi called Abe a "tender, warm figure of salvation for future generations". In 1947 The Erotic Confessions of Abe Sada became a national best-seller, with over 100,000 copies sold. The book was in the form of an interview with Sada Abe, but was actually based on the police interrogation records. Angry that he had implied that the book was based on interviews he had made with her, Abe sued the author, Ichiro Kimura, for libel and defamation of character. The result of the lawsuit is not known, but it is assumed to have been settled
out of court. As a response to this book, Abe wrote her own autobiography, Memoirs of Abe Sada. In contrast to Kimura's depiction of her as a pervert, she stressed her love for Ishida. The first edition of the magazine , in January 1948, featured previously unpublished photos of the incident with the headline "Ero-guro of the Century! First Public Release. Pictorial of the Abe Sada Incident." Reflecting the change in tone in writings on Abe, the June 1949 issue of Monthly Reader calls her a "Heroine of That Time", for following her own desires in a time of "false morality" and oppression.
Abe capitalized on her notoriety by sitting for an interview in a popular magazine, and appearing for several years in a traveling stage production called Showa Ichidai Onna (A Woman of the Showa Period). In 1952 she began working at the Hoshikikusui, a working-class pub in Inari-cho, downtown Tokyo. She lived a low-profile life in Tokyo's Shitaya neighborhood for the next 20 years, and her neighborhood restaurant association gave her a "model employee" award. More than once, during the 1960s, film-critic Donald Richie
visited the Hoshikikusui. In his collection of profiles, Japanese Portraits, he describes Abe making a dramatic entrance into a boisterous group of drinkers. She would slowly descend a long staircase that led into the middle of the crowd, fixing a haughty gaze on individuals in her audience. The men in the pub would respond by putting their hands over their crotches, and shouting out things like, "Hide the knives!" and "I'm afraid to go and pee!" Abe would slap the banister in anger and stare the crowd into an uncomfortable and complete silence, and only then continue her entrance, chatting and pouring drinks from table to table. Richie comments, "...she had actually choked a man to death and then cut off his member. There was a consequent frisson when Sada Abe slapped your back."
In 1969 Abe appeared in the "Sada Abe Incident" section of director Teruo Ishii
's dramatized documentary , and the last known photograph of Abe was taken in August of that year, She disappeared from the public eye for good in 1970. When the film In the Realm of the Senses
was being planned in the mid 1970s, director Nagisa Oshima
apparently sought out Abe and, after a long search, found her, her hair shorn, in a Kansai
nunnery.
Japanese Noise music
ian Merzbow
adopted the alias Abe Sada for an early musical project. He released only one record under this name, the 1994 7" Original Body Kingdom/Gala Abe Sada 1936
.
In March 2007, a four bass noise
band from Perth, Western Australia
named Abe Sada won a Contemporary Music Grant from the Australian Department of Culture and the Arts to tour Japan in June and July 2007.
Also, there have been at least four movie
s based on her life:
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
for erotically asphyxiating
Erotic asphyxiation
Erotic asphyxiation or breath control play is the intentional restriction of oxygen to the brain for sexual arousal. The sexual preference for that behavior is variously called asphyxiophilia, autoerotic asphyxia, hypoxyphilia. Colloquially, a person engaging in the activity is sometimes called a...
her lover, , on May 18, 1936, and then cutting off his penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
and testicle
Testicle
The testicle is the male gonad in animals. Like the ovaries to which they are homologous, testes are components of both the reproductive system and the endocrine system...
s and carrying them around with her in her handbag. The story became a national sensation in Japan, acquiring mythic overtones, and has since been interpreted by artists, philosophers, novelists and filmmakers.
Family background
Sada Abe was the seventh of eight children of Shigeyoshi and Katsu Abe, an upper middle-class family of tatami matTatami
A is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Traditionally made of rice straw to form the core , with a covering of woven soft rush straw, tatami are made in standard sizes, with the length exactly twice the width...
makers in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
's Kanda
Kanda, Tokyo
See also Kanda, Fukuoka and the disambiguation page for Kanda. is a district in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It encompasses about thirty neighborhoods...
neighborhood. Only four of the Abe children survived to adulthood, and of those, Sada was the youngest. Abe's father, Shigeyoshi Abe, was originally from Chiba Prefecture
Chiba Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region and the Greater Tokyo Area. Its capital is Chiba City.- History :Chiba Prefecture was established on June 15, 1873 with the merger of Kisarazu Prefecture and Inba Prefecture...
. He had been adopted into the Abe family to help with the business, which he eventually inherited. Age 52 at the time of Sada's birth, Shigeyoshi Abe was described by police as "an honest and upright man" who had no conspicuous vices. Though some acquaintances reported him to be somewhat self-centered, with a taste for extravagance, Sada's mother, Katsu Abe, likewise had no known legal or moral blemishes on her record.
Sada's siblings and father did behave questionably though. Her brother Shintaro was known as a womanizer, and after his marriage ran away with his parents' money. Sada's sister Teruko was also known to have had several lovers. Her father sent her to work in a brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
, then not an uncommon way to punish female sexual promiscuity in Japan, though he soon bought her back. Teruko's past was not considered a hindrance to marriage for those of the Abes' class at the time, and she soon married.
Early life
Sada Abe was born in 1905 and, as the youngest child, her mother doted on her and let her do as she wished. Abe's mother encouraged her to take lessons in singing and in playing the shamisenShamisen
The , also called is a three-stringed, Japanese musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi. The Japanese pronunciation is usually "shamisen" but sometimes "jamisen" when used as a suffix . -Construction:The shamisen is a plucked stringed instrument...
, both activities which, at the time, were more closely associated with geisha
Geisha
, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.-Terms:...
and prostitutes than with classical artistic endeavor. Geishas were considered glamorous celebrities, and Abe herself followed the image by skipping school for these lessons, and wearing stylish make-up. As family problems over her siblings, sister Teruko and brother Shintaro, became more pressing, Abe was often sent out of the house alone. She soon fell in with a group of similarly independent teenagers. At the age of 15, during one of these outings, she was rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d by one of her acquaintances, and even though her parents defended and supported her, she became a difficult teenager. As she became more irresponsible and uncontrollable, her parents sold her to a geisha house in Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
in 1922, hoping to find her a place in society with some direction. Toku Abe, Sada's oldest sister, testified that Sada wished to become a geisha. Sada herself, however, claimed that her father made her a geisha as punishment for her promiscuity.
Abe's encounter with the geisha world proved frustrating and disappointing. To become a true star among geisha required apprenticeship from childhood with years spent studying arts and music. Abe wound up a low-ranking geisha, in which her main duties were to provide sex. She worked for five years in this capacity, and eventually contracted syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
. Since this meant she would be required to undergo regular examinations, like a legally licensed prostitute, Abe decided to enter that better-paying profession.
Early 1930s
Abe began work as a prostitute in OsakaOsaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
's famous Tobita brothel district, but soon gained a reputation as a trouble-maker. She stole money from clients, and attempted to leave the brothel several times, but was tracked down by the well-organized legal prostitution system. After two years, she eventually succeeded in escaping the licensed prostitution system, and began working as a waitress. However, not satisfied with the wages, she was soon working as a prostitute again, though now unlicensed. She began working in Osaka's unlicensed brothels in 1932. Abe's mother died in January 1933, and Abe went to Tokyo to visit her father and her mother's grave. She entered into the prostitution market in Tokyo and became a mistress there for the first time. When her father became seriously ill in January 1934, Abe nursed him for ten days until his death.
In October 1934 Abe was arrested in a police raid on the unlicensed brothel at which she was working. Kinnosuke Kasahara, a well-connected friend of the brothel owner, arranged to have the women released. He was attracted to Abe, and, finding that she had no debts, and with Abe's agreement, made her his mistress. Kasahara set up a house for Abe on December 20, 1934, and provided her with money. In his deposition to the police, he remembered, "She was really strong, a real powerful one. Even though I am pretty jaded, she was enough to astound me. She wasn't satisfied unless we did it two, three, or four times a night. To her, it was unacceptable unless I had my hand on her private parts all night long... At first it was great, but after a couple of weeks I got a little exhausted." When Abe suggested that Kasahara leave his wife to marry her, he refused. She then asked Kasahara to let her take a lover, which he also refused to do. After that, their relationship ended, and to escape him Abe left for Nagoya. Kasahara ended his testimony with an angry remark about Abe, "She is a slut and a whore. And as what she has done makes clear, she is a woman whom men should fear." Likewise, Abe remembered Kasahara in less than flattering terms, saying, "He didn't love me and treated me like an animal. He was the kind of scum who would then plead with me when I said that we should break up."
In Nagoya in 1935, again intending to leave the sex industry, Abe began working as a maid at a restaurant. She soon became romantically involved with a customer at the restaurant, Goro Omiya, a professor and banker who aspired to become a member of the Diet of Japan
Diet of Japan
The is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally...
. Knowing that the restaurant would not tolerate a maid having sexual relations with clients, and bored with Nagoya, she returned to Tokyo in June. Omiya met Abe in Tokyo, and, finding that she had contracted syphilis, paid for her stay in a hot springs resort in Kusatsu
Kusatsu, Gunma
is a small town in Agatsuma District in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Kusatsu is situated about 1,200 meters above sea level. The active volcano Kusatsu-Shirane and the inactive Mount Tengu and Mount Motoshirane are located west of Kusatsu.-Climate:Due to the altitude Kusatsu's annual average...
from November until January 1936. In January, Omiya suggested that Abe could become financially independent by opening a small restaurant, and recommended that she start work in an apprentice position in such a business.
Acquaintance with Kichizo Ishida
Back in Tokyo, Abe began work as an apprentice at the Yoshidaya on February 1, 1936. The owner of this establishment, Kichizo Ishida, 42 at the time, had worked his way up in business, starting as an apprentice at an eel restaurant. He had opened the Yoshidaya in Tokyo's NakanoNakano
-People:Nakano is also a Japanese family name.* Ayako Nakano* Chikayo Nakano* Daisuke Nakano* George Nakano* Hiroko Nakano* Hiroyuki Nakano* Junya Nakano* Kansei Nakano* Kazuo Nakano* Keiko Nakano* Koichi Nakano* Kiyoshi Nakano* Kumiko Nakano...
neighborhood in 1920. When Abe joined his restaurant, Ishida was known as a womanizer who did little in the way of running the restaurant, which was managed mostly by his wife.
Not long after she began work at Yoshidaya, Ishida began making advances towards Abe. Omiya had never satisfied Abe sexually, and she gave in to Ishida. In mid-April, Ishida and Abe initiated their sexual relationship in the restaurant, to the accompaniment of a romantic ballad sung by one of the restaurant's geishas. On April 23, 1936 Abe and Ishida met for a pre-arranged sexual encounter at a teahouse, or machiai – the contemporary equivalent of a love hotel
Love hotel
A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing couples privacy for sexual activities...
– in the Shibuya
Shibuya, Tokyo
is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. As of 2008, it has an estimated population of 208,371 and a population density of 13,540 persons per km². The total area is 15.11 km²....
neighborhood. Planning only a short 'fling', the couple remained in bed for four days. On the night of April 27, 1936, they moved to another teahouse in the distant neighborhood of Futako Tamagawa. Here they continued to drink and have sex, sometimes with the accompaniment of a geisha's singing. They would continue even as maids entered the room to serve sake. They next moved their marathon love-making bout to the Ogu neighborhood. Ishida did not return to the restaurant until the morning of May 8, 1936. Of Ishida, Abe later said, "It is hard to say exactly what was so good about Ishida. But it was impossible to say anything bad about his looks, his attitude, his skill as a lover, the way he expressed his feelings. I had never met such a sexy man."
After they separated, Abe became agitated and began drinking excessively. She claimed that with Ishida she knew love for the first time in her life, and the thought that Ishida was back with his wife made her jealous. Over a week before the murder, Abe began considering the act. On May 9, 1936, she attended a play in which a geisha attacks her lover with a large knife. After seeing this, Abe decided to threaten Ishida with a knife at their next meeting. On May 11, 1936, she pawned some of her clothing and used the money to buy some sushi
Sushi
is a Japanese food consisting of cooked vinegared rice combined with other ingredients . Neta and forms of sushi presentation vary, but the ingredient which all sushi have in common is shari...
and a kitchen knife. Abe later described meeting Ishida that night, "I pulled the kitchen knife out of my bag and threatened him as had been done in the play I had seen, saying, 'Kichi, you wore that kimono just to please one of your favorite customers. You bastard, I'll kill you for that.' Ishida was startled and drew away a little, but he seemed delighted with it all..."
"Abe Sada Incident"
Obi (sash)
is a sash for traditional Japanese dress, keikogi worn for Japanese martial arts, and a part of kimono outfits.The obi for men's kimono is rather narrow, wide at most, but a woman's formal obi can be wide and more than long. Nowadays, a woman's wide and decorative obi does not keep the kimono...
sash to cut off Ishida's breathing during orgasm
Orgasm
Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
, and they both enjoyed it. They repeated this for two more hours. Once Abe stopped the strangulation, Ishida's face became distorted, and would not return to its normal appearance. Ishida took 30 tablets of a sedative
Sedative
A sedative or tranquilizer is a substance that induces sedation by reducing irritability or excitement....
called Calmotin
Bromisoval
Bromisoval is a hypnotic and sedative discovered by Knoll in 1907 and patented in 1909.It is marketed over the counter in Asia under various trade names , usually in combination with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.Chronic use of bromisoval has been associated with bromine poisoning....
to try to soothe his pain. According to Abe, as Ishida started to doze, he told her, "You'll put the cord around my neck and squeeze it again while I'm sleeping, won't you... If you start to strangle me, don't stop, because it is so painful afterward." Abe commented that she wondered if he had wanted her to kill him, but on reflection decided he must have been joking.
About 2 a.m. on the morning of May 18, 1936, as Ishida was asleep, Abe wrapped her sash twice around his neck and strangled him to death. She later told police, "After I had killed Ishida I felt totally at ease, as though a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and I felt a sense of clarity." After lying with Ishida's body for a few hours, she next severed his genitalia with the kitchen knife, wrapped them in a magazine cover, and kept them until her arrest three days later. With the blood she wrote Sada, Kichi Futari-kiri ("Sada, Kichi together") on Ishida's left thigh
Thigh
In humans the thigh is the area between the pelvis and the knee. Anatomically, it is part of the lower limb.The single bone in the thigh is called the femur...
, and on a bed sheet. She then carved 定 ("Sada", the character
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
for her name) into his left arm. After putting on Ishida's underwear, she left the inn at about 8 a.m., telling the staff not to disturb Ishida. When asked why she had severed Ishida's genitalia, Abe replied, "Because I couldn't take his head or body with me. I wanted to take the part of him that brought back to me the most vivid memories."
After leaving the inn, Abe met Goro Omiya. She repeatedly apologized to him, but Omiya, unaware of the murder, assumed that she was apologizing for having taken another lover. Abe's apologies were for the damage to his political career that she knew his association with her was bound to cause. On May 19, 1936, the newspapers picked up the story. Omiya's career was ruined, and Abe's life was under intense public scrutiny from that point onwards.
Abe Sada panic
The story immediately became a national sensation, and the ensuing frenzy over her search was called "Abe Sada panic". Police received reports of sightings of Abe from various cities, and one false sighting nearly caused a stampede in the GinzaGinza
is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi.It is known as an upscale area of Tokyo with numerous department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses. Ginza is recognized as one of the most...
, resulting in a large traffic jam. In a reference to the recent failed coup in Tokyo, the Ni Ni-Roku Incident
February 26 Incident
The was an attempted coup d'état in Japan, from February 26 to 29, 1936 carried out by 1,483 troops of the Imperial Japanese Army. Several leading politicians were killed and the center of Tokyo was briefly occupied by the rebelling troops...
("2-26" or "February 26"), the crime was satirically dubbed the "Go Ichi-Hachi" Incident ("5-18" or "May 18").
On May 19, 1936, Abe went shopping and saw a movie. She stayed in an inn in Shinagawa on May 20, where she had a massage and drank three bottles of beer. She spent the day writing farewell letters to Omiya, a friend, and Ishida. She planned to commit suicide one week after the murder, and practiced necrophilia
Necrophilia
Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...
. "I felt attached to Ishida's penis and thought that only after taking leave from it quietly could I then die. I unwrapped the paper holding them and gazed at his penis and scrotum. I put his penis in my mouth and even tried to insert it inside me... Then, I decided that I would flee to Osaka, staying with Ishida's penis all the while. In the end, I would jump from a cliff on Mount Ikoma
Mount Ikoma
is a mountain on the border of Nara Prefecture and Osaka Prefecture in Japan. This mountain is the highest peak in the Ikoma Mountains and the height is 642 meters.- Outline :...
while holding on to his penis."
At 4:00 in the afternoon, police detectives, suspicious of the alias under which Abe had registered, came to her room. "Don't be so formal," she told them, "You're looking for Sada Abe, right? Well that's me. I am Sada Abe." When the police were not convinced, she displayed Ishida's genitalia as proof.
Abe was arrested and interrogated over eight sessions. The interrogating officer was struck by Abe's demeanor when asked why she had killed Ishida. "Immediately she became excited and her eyes sparkled in a strange way." Her answer was: "I loved him so much, I wanted him all to myself. But since we were not husband and wife, as long as he lived he could be embraced by other women. I knew that if I killed him no other woman could ever touch him again, so I killed him....." In attempting to explain what distinguished Abe's case from over a dozen other similar cases in Japan, William Johnston suggests that it is this answer which captured the imagination of the nation. "She had killed not out of jealousy but out of love." Mark Schreiber notes that the Sada Abe incident occurred at a time when the Japanese media were preoccupied with extreme political and military troubles, including the Ni Ni Roku incident
February 26 Incident
The was an attempted coup d'état in Japan, from February 26 to 29, 1936 carried out by 1,483 troops of the Imperial Japanese Army. Several leading politicians were killed and the center of Tokyo was briefly occupied by the rebelling troops...
and a looming full-scale war in China
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
. He suggests that a sensationalistic sex scandal such as this served as a welcome national release from the disturbing events of the time. The incident also struck a chord with the ero-guro-nansensu ("erotic-grotesque-nonsense") style popular at the time, and the Sada Abe Incident came to represent that genre for years to come.
When the details of the crime were made public, rumors began to circulate that Ishida's penis was of extraordinary size; however, the police officer who interrogated Abe after her arrest denied this, saying, "Ishida's was just average. [Abe] told me, 'Size doesn't make a man in bed. Technique and his desire to please me were what I liked about Ishida.'" After her arrest, Ishida's penis and testicles were moved to Tokyo University
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
Medical School's pathology museum. They were put on public display soon after the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, but have since disappeared.
Conviction and sentencing
The first day of Abe's trial was November 25, 1936, and by 5 a.m. crowds were already gathering to attend. The judge presiding over the trial admitted to being sexually aroused by some of the details involved in the case, yet made sure that the trial was held with the utmost seriousness. Abe's statement before receiving sentencing began, "The thing I regret most about this incident is that I have come to be misunderstood as some kind of sexual pervert... There had never been a man in my life like Ishida. There were men I liked, and with whom I slept without accepting money, but none made me feel the way I did toward him."On December 21, 1936 Abe was convicted of murder in the second degree and mutilation of a corpse. Though the prosecution demanded ten years, and Abe claimed that she desired the death penalty, she was in fact sentenced to just six years in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
. She was confined in Tochigi women's penitentiary, where she was prisoner No. 11. Abe's sentence was commuted
Commutation of sentence
Commutation of sentence involves the reduction of legal penalties, especially in terms of imprisonment. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not nullify the conviction and is often conditional. Clemency is a similar term, meaning the lessening of the penalty of the crime without forgiving the crime...
on November 10, 1940, on the occasion of the 2,600th anniversary celebrations of the mythical founding of Japan, when Emperor Jimmu
Emperor Jimmu
was the first Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He is also known as Kamuyamato Iwarebiko and personally as Wakamikenu no Mikoto or Sano no Mikoto....
came to the throne. She was released, exactly five years after the murder, on May 17, 1941.
The police record of Abe's interrogation and confession became a national best-seller in 1936. Christine L. Marran puts the national fascination with Abe's story within the context of the dokufu or "poison woman" stereotype, a transgressive female character type which had first become popular in Japanese serialized novels and stage works in the 1870s. In the wake of the popular "poison woman" literature, confessional autobiographies by female criminals had begun appearing in the late 1890s. By the early 1910s, autobiographical writings by criminal women took on an unapologetic tone and sometimes included criticisms of Japan and Japanese society. Kanno Suga, who was hanged in 1911 for conspiring to assassinate Emperor Meiji
Emperor Meiji
The or was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 3 February 1867 until his death...
in what was known as the High Treason Incident
High Treason Incident
The , also known as the , was a socialist-anarchist plot to assassinate the Japanese Emperor Meiji in 1910, leading to a mass arrest of leftists, and the execution of 12 alleged conspirators in 1911....
, wrote openly rebellious essays while in prison. Fumiko Kaneko
Fumiko Kaneko
was a Japanese anarchist and nihilist who was arrested and convicted for conspiring against the Showa Emperor of Japan by supporting Korean independence. She died in prison.-Early life:...
, who was sentenced to death for plotting to bomb the imperial family, used her notoriety to speak against the imperial system and the racism and paternalism which she said it engendered. Abe's confession, in the years since its appearance, became the most circulated female criminal narrative in Japan. Marran points out that Abe, unlike previous criminal autobiographers, stressed her sexuality and the love she felt for her victim.
Later life
Upon release from prison, Abe assumed an aliasPseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
. As the mistress of a "serious man" she referred to in her memoirs as "Y", she moved first to Ibaraki Prefecture
Ibaraki Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan, located in the Kantō region on the main island of Honshu. The capital is Mito.-History:Ibaraki Prefecture was previously known as Hitachi Province...
and then to Saitama Prefecture
Saitama Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of the island of Honshu. The capital is the city of Saitama.This prefecture is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, and most of Saitama's cities can be described as suburbs of Tokyo, to which a large amount of residents commute each day.- History...
. When Abe's true identity became known to Y's friends and family, she broke off their relationship.
Wishing to divert public attention from politics and criticism of the occupying authorities, the Yoshida
Shigeru Yoshida
, KCVO was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and from 1948 to 1954.-Early life:...
government openly encouraged a "3-S" policy — "sports, screen and sex". This change from the strict pre-war censorship of materials labeled obscene or immoral helped enable a change in the tone of literature on Abe. Pre-war writings, such as The Psychological Diagnosis of Abe Sada (1937) depict Abe as an example of the dangers of unbridled female sexuality and as a threat to the patriarchal system. In the postwar era, she was treated as a critic of totalitarianism, and a symbol of freedom from oppressive political ideologies. Abe became a popular subject in literature of both high and low quality. The buraiha
Buraiha
The were a group of dissolute writers who expressed the aimlessness and identity crisis of post-World War II Japan. While not comprising a true literary school, the Buraiha writers were linked together by a similar approach to subject matter and literary style. The main characters in works of the...
writer, Oda Sakunosuke, wrote two stories based on Abe, and a June 1949 article noted that Abe had recently tried to clear her name after it had been used in a "mountain" of erotic books.
In 1946 the writer Ango Sakaguchi
Ango Sakaguchi
was a Japanese novelist and essayist. His real name was Heigo Sakaguchi .-History:From Niigata, Sakaguchi was one of a group of young Japanese writers to rise to prominence in the years immediately following Japan's defeat in World War II...
interviewed Abe, treating her as an authority on both sexuality and freedom. Sakaguchi called Abe a "tender, warm figure of salvation for future generations". In 1947 The Erotic Confessions of Abe Sada became a national best-seller, with over 100,000 copies sold. The book was in the form of an interview with Sada Abe, but was actually based on the police interrogation records. Angry that he had implied that the book was based on interviews he had made with her, Abe sued the author, Ichiro Kimura, for libel and defamation of character. The result of the lawsuit is not known, but it is assumed to have been settled
Settlement (law)
In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. The term "settlement" also has other meanings in the context of law.-Basis:...
out of court. As a response to this book, Abe wrote her own autobiography, Memoirs of Abe Sada. In contrast to Kimura's depiction of her as a pervert, she stressed her love for Ishida. The first edition of the magazine , in January 1948, featured previously unpublished photos of the incident with the headline "Ero-guro of the Century! First Public Release. Pictorial of the Abe Sada Incident." Reflecting the change in tone in writings on Abe, the June 1949 issue of Monthly Reader calls her a "Heroine of That Time", for following her own desires in a time of "false morality" and oppression.
Abe capitalized on her notoriety by sitting for an interview in a popular magazine, and appearing for several years in a traveling stage production called Showa Ichidai Onna (A Woman of the Showa Period). In 1952 she began working at the Hoshikikusui, a working-class pub in Inari-cho, downtown Tokyo. She lived a low-profile life in Tokyo's Shitaya neighborhood for the next 20 years, and her neighborhood restaurant association gave her a "model employee" award. More than once, during the 1960s, film-critic Donald Richie
Donald Richie
Donald Richie is an American-born author who has written about the Japanese people and Japanese cinema. Although he considers himself only a writer, Richie has directed many experimental films, the first when he was 17...
visited the Hoshikikusui. In his collection of profiles, Japanese Portraits, he describes Abe making a dramatic entrance into a boisterous group of drinkers. She would slowly descend a long staircase that led into the middle of the crowd, fixing a haughty gaze on individuals in her audience. The men in the pub would respond by putting their hands over their crotches, and shouting out things like, "Hide the knives!" and "I'm afraid to go and pee!" Abe would slap the banister in anger and stare the crowd into an uncomfortable and complete silence, and only then continue her entrance, chatting and pouring drinks from table to table. Richie comments, "...she had actually choked a man to death and then cut off his member. There was a consequent frisson when Sada Abe slapped your back."
In 1969 Abe appeared in the "Sada Abe Incident" section of director Teruo Ishii
Teruo Ishii
was a Japanese film director best known in the West for his early films in the Super Giant series, and for his films in the Ero guro subgenre of pinku eiga such as Shogun's Joys of Torture . He also directed the 1965 film, Abashiri Prison, which helped to make Ken Takakura a major star in Japan...
's dramatized documentary , and the last known photograph of Abe was taken in August of that year, She disappeared from the public eye for good in 1970. When the film In the Realm of the Senses
In the Realm of the Senses
is a 1976 Franco-Japanese romantic drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe...
was being planned in the mid 1970s, director Nagisa Oshima
Nagisa Oshima
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
apparently sought out Abe and, after a long search, found her, her hair shorn, in a Kansai
Kansai
The or the lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Mie, Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo, and Shiga. Depending on who makes the distinction, Fukui, Tokushima and even Tottori Prefecture are also included...
nunnery.
Legacy
Decades after both the incident and her disappearance, Sada Abe continues to draw public interest. In addition to the documentary in which Abe herself appeared shortly before she disappeared from the public eye, at least three successful films have been made based on the story. The 1983 film, Sexy Doll: Abe Sada Sansei, made use of Abe's name in the title. In 1998, a 438-page biography of Abe was published in Japan, and the first full-length book on Abe in English, William Johnston's Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star: A Woman, Sex, and Morality in Modern Japan, was published in 2005.Japanese Noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
ian Merzbow
Merzbow
is the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...
adopted the alias Abe Sada for an early musical project. He released only one record under this name, the 1994 7" Original Body Kingdom/Gala Abe Sada 1936
Original Body Kingdom/Gala Abe Sada 1936
Original Body Kingdom/Gala Abe Sada 1936 is the only release by Masami Akita under the alias 'Abe Sada'. The album is a 7" bordeaux red vinyl. The title and cover are based on the Sada Abe murder case....
.
In March 2007, a four bass noise
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
band from Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
named Abe Sada won a Contemporary Music Grant from the Australian Department of Culture and the Arts to tour Japan in June and July 2007.
Sada Abe in literature
Selected major writings on Sada Abe- Abe, Sada (1948). , 1998 (in Japanese), Tokyo: Chuokoron sha. ISBN 978-4-12-203072-5.
- Funabashi, Seiichi (August 1947). A Record of Abe Sada's Behavior (Abe Sada gyōjō-ki).
- Fuyuki, Takeshi (March 1947). Woman Tearstained in Passion—The Life Led by Abe Sada (Aiyoku ni nakinureta onna—Abe Sada no tadotta hansei).
- Kimura, Ichiro (1947). , 1998 (in Japanese), Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha. ISBN 978-4-309-40530-8.
- Nagata, Mikihiko (September 1950-August 1951). True Story: Abe Sada (Jitsuroku: Abe Sada) aka Impassioned Woman of Love (Jōen ichidai onna), serialized novel.
- Oda, Sakunosuke (1946). "The State of the Times" (Sesō), short story.
- Oda, Sakunosuke (1947). "The Seductress" (Yōfu), short story.
- Satō, Makoto. Abe Sada's Dogs, avant-garde play.
- Sekine, Hiroshi (1971). "Abe Sada", poem.
- Tōkyō Seishin Bunsekigaku Kenkyōjo (1937). The Psychoanalytic Diagnosis of Sada Abe (Abe Sada no seishin bunseki teki shindan).
- Watanabe, JunichiJunichi Watanabeis a Japanese writer, known for his portrayal of extra-marital affairs of middle aged people. His 1997 novel A Lost Paradise became a bestseller in Japan and over Asia, and was made into a film and a TV miniseries...
(1997). A Lost ParadiseA Lost Paradiseis 1997 novel by Japanese author Junichi Watanabe. It tells the story of a 54-year-old married former magazine editor, his affair with a 37-year-old married typesetter and their double-suicide. The couple, Kūki and Rinko, are modeled after the famous case of Sada Abe.The book became a bestseller...
(Shitsuraken), novel modeled on the Abe Incident.
Sada Abe in film
- Abe herself appeared in the "Sada Abe Incident" section of Teruo IshiiTeruo Ishiiwas a Japanese film director best known in the West for his early films in the Super Giant series, and for his films in the Ero guro subgenre of pinku eiga such as Shogun's Joys of Torture . He also directed the 1965 film, Abashiri Prison, which helped to make Ken Takakura a major star in Japan...
's 19691969 in filmThe year 1969 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Last year for prize giving at the Venice Film Festival until it is revived in 1980...
documentary (actress Yukie Kagawa portrayed Abe)
Also, there have been at least four movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s based on her life:
- 1975 - Noboru TanakaNoboru Tanakawas a Japanese film director best known known for his Roman Porno films, including three critically respected films known as the Showa trilogy: A Woman Called Sada Abe , Watcher in the Attic , and Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! , all three starring Nikkatsu Roman porno queen Junko Miyashita...
's A Woman Called Sada AbeA Woman Called Sada Abeaka Sada Abe: A Docu-Drama is a Roman porno version of the Sada Abe story directed by Noboru Tanaka.It is based on the true story of a woman who strangled her lover during a love-making session, then severed his penis, which she carried with her until her arrest...
was released, for a Japan-only audience, but was overshadowed internationally by its more explicit successor that came out the following year. - 1976 - Nagisa OshimaNagisa Oshimais a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope in 1959....
's In the Realm of the SensesIn the Realm of the Sensesis a 1976 Franco-Japanese romantic drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe...
which was widely bannedCensorshipthumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
following its release, for explicit scenes of sex and nudity. - 1998 - Nobuhiko ObayashiNobuhiko Obayashiis a Japanese director, screenwriter and editor of films and television advertisements who is well known for his surreal visual style. He began his career as a pioneering figure in Japanese experimental film during the 1960s before transitioning to directing more mainstream works such as television...
's Sada was the most recent film version. - 1999 - Sachi HamanoSachi Hamanoaka and , is a Japanese film director. She is the most prolific and written-about female pink film director.-Life and career:Sachi Hamano was born as Sachiko Suzuki in Tokushima Prefecture on March 19, 1948. While in high school, Hamano decided she wanted to become a film director...
's