In this article, we will see a list of famous serial killers from Japan. A comprehensive list of known serial killers of Japanese nationality. These are some of the most brutal murderers in Japanese history.
Don’t expect serial killers who made 50 victims on this list. Still, some Japanese murderers had a normal life until they suddenly began committing such crimes.
Table of Contents
Fukiage Satarō – Rapist and murderer
Fukiage Satarō was a rapist and serial killer who lived between 1889 and 1926, dying at the age of 37. Some claim he raped about 100 women and murdered 7 girls.
He was born in Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto. His family forced him to work at the age of eight. He frequently changed jobs. At 11, he had sex with a 17-year-old girl, for which he lost his job.
At 12, he was arrested for theft. Fukiage learned kana and mathematics during the two months he spent in prison. He was arrested again for theft shortly after his release but learned classical Chinese while he was in prison for the second time.
Fukiage had sex with a 54-year-old woman at 17. Later, he raped an 11-year-old girl and some other neighborhood girls. On September 24, 1906, he raped and killed an 11-year-old girl he knew in Kinkaku-ji.
In prison, he studied the works of Confucius, Mencius, Socrates, Aristotle, and Nitiren. He was released in 1922 and found a job but was fired due to his criminal past. In April 1923, he was arrested for molesting a four-year-old girl but was released.
Between June 1923 and April 1924, he raped and killed six girls aged between 11 and 16. He was arrested on July 28, 1924. He confessed to 13 murders but later retracted and insisted he had only murdered six girls.
He wrote a book, Shaba [娑婆] or “The Street”. He was sentenced to death on May 17, 1925. The Supreme Court of Japan confirmed his death sentence on July 2, 1926. Do we have here a scholarly rapist murderer?
Yoshio Kodaira – Influenced by war
Yoshio Kodaira was a rapist and serial killer from Japan who was born in 1905 and died in 1949 by the death penalty. He made his first victim in 1932 and then killed another 7 between 1945 and 1946.
Kodaira suffered from stuttering during his childhood. He joined the Japanese Navy in 1923 and participated in the Jinan incident. He killed six Chinese soldiers in 1928 and raped many women in China. In Taku Forts, he stabbed a pregnant woman in the belly. The exact number of his victims in China is unknown.
Kodaira married in 1932 after he returned to Japan. His wife eventually left him because he had a child with another woman. He became angry and attacked his wife’s house, killing his father-in-law and injuring six others with a metal bar on July 2, 1932. He was arrested and released in 1940.
He is believed to have raped and murdered 10 women between May 25, 1945, and August 6, 1946, in Tochigi and Tokyo. After the fifth murder, he committed necrophilia with the corpse. His murder victims included teenagers.
He also raped about 30 women, in addition to his murder victims. The police sought Kodaira after receiving the names of Ryukos’ parents. On August 20, 1946, Kodaira was arrested.
He denied responsibility for three murders in court, and the district court tried him for seven of his ten suspected murders on June 18, 1947. One of the victims was never identified. The Supreme Court sentenced him to death on November 16, 1948.
Futoshi Matsunaga and Junko Ogata
Futoshi Matsunaga was born in 1961, known for the Kitakyushu serial murder incident, where he defrauded and tortured his victims. Futoshi Matsunaga was born in the city of Kitakyūshū in Fukuoka Prefecture and grew up in Yanagawa.
Matsunaga received good grades in school and had a charming personality but tended to exhibit disciplinary problems. He was transferred to another school after getting involved in a relationship with a high school girl. He married at 19 and had a child.
Despite being married, Matsunaga was involved with at least ten lovers. In October 1982, during his marriage, he got involved with Junko Ogata, one of his former classmates from Yanagawa school.
In 1984, Matsunaga promised to marry Junko, but her mother, Shizumi Ogata, disapproved of the relationship due to her daughter’s abuse. Matsunaga raped Shizumi as a result. In 1985, Matsunaga convinced Junko that her family hated her because of a suicide attempt and persuaded her to live with him.
That same year, Matsunaga also bought a building where he could operate a futon business. Later, he began to electrically shock the employees on the third floor.
Sometimes, Matsunaga would suddenly yell at other men, saying things like, “There is a spirit behind you! It’s sucking your fortune!” He also made references to religious terms like saṃsāra and kami.
By 1992, Matsunaga had stolen 180 million yen (about $2.2 million) through fraud or extortion. He and Junko escaped police capture and were placed on Japan’s most wanted list.
The story goes much further; several families were murdered by the hands of Matsunaga and Junko using lies, fraud, manipulation, and scams. Mothers and children and possible unconfirmed victims.
Matsunaga was convicted of six counts of murder and one count of negligent homicide between 1996 and 1998 and sentenced to death by hanging. He killed his victims with his accomplice, Junko Ogata, who received a life sentence.
The crimes of Matsunaga were so cruel that the Japanese media was unwilling to report the details. Matsunaga and Ogata killed at least seven people between 1996 and 1998. Their victims included their parents and two children and nephews of Ogata.
Hiroaki Hidaka – Prostitution and Enjo Kosai
Hidaka was born in Miyazaki Prefecture. He was originally an excellent student but failed to enter Tsukuba University, his target college. He entered Fukuoka University but eventually dropped out. He frequently borrowed money, drank, and got involved with prostitutes.
In April 1989, he moved to Hiroshima and began working as a taxi driver. Hidaka married in 1991 and had a daughter in 1993, but his wife entered a psychiatric hospital.
Hidaka killed and robbed four women between April and September 1996. One of his victims was a 16-year-old girl who got involved in Enjo kōsai. He was arrested on September 21, 1996.
The Hiroshima district court sentenced Hidaka to death on February 9, 2000, a sentence he did not appeal. He was executed by hanging on December 25, 2006.
Other Japanese Serial Killers
There are many other serial killers from Japan who gained a bit of fame. Note that the Japanese media does not like to touch on the subject much, to the point that usually a simple murderer with 4 victims makes it to the list of serial killers.
We won’t prolong discussing the life of each of them; we will just list their names and how many confirmed victims they made. Many were rapists and had an apparently normal life. See the list below:
- Tsutomu Miyazaki – 4 victims;
- Norio Nagayama – 4 victims;
- Seisaku Nakamura – 9 to 11 victims;
- Akira Nishiguchi – 5 victims;
- Yoshio Kodaira – 8 to 11 victims;
- Hiroshi Maeue – 3 victims;
Also, see an article about Nevada-Tan and also about crimes in Japan.
Leave a Reply