TOKYO (TR) – Last month, Yuka Takaoka, 21, rose to fame online for all the wrong reasons. On May 23, she was arrested for allegedly using a kitchen knife to stab her boyfriend, who is a bar host, inside their fifth-floor residence in Shinjuku Ward.
Thereafter, Takaoka became a social media sensation. Users found the situation — including Takaoka’s appearance and alleged actions — highly compelling.
Thus far, very little information has emerged about the condition of the victim, 20, who was transported to a hospital where he remains in serious condition. As of now, the outlook is not exactly promising.
“He continues to be hospitalized in an intensive care unit,” an investigator tells weekly tabloid Shukan Post (June 14).
As he fights for his life, however, Takaoka’s twisted rise to celebrity perseveres.
Yandere comparison
The reason for Takaoka’s popularity online is rooted in the idea that she is a real-life incarnation of a yandere character from the world of anime. Such a character, typically female, turns to homicidal violence in pursuit of love.
Officers arriving at the scene at around 4:00 p.m. on the day of the incident found Takaoka seated on the floor of the building’s lobby, her hands and legs covered in blood.
In one image that emerged online later, she simultaneously talks on the telephone and smokes a cigarette with her boyfriend, his abdomen sliced open, collapsed behind her atop a blood-smeared floor.
Adding to the mix was news footage that showed her flashing an evil grin beneath her large glasses inside the back seat of a patrol car as she was taken from the scene. In describing her motive, Takaoka initially told police, “Since I loved him so much, I just couldn’t help it.”
Soon after, social media users gravitated to her yandere-like behavior — and this interest was fueled by her provocative quotes provided to the police.
“I did not want to go anywhere, so I sat down at the outside staircase,” she reportedly said. “I did not call emergency services because I intended to die after watching him die from the stabbing.”
On Takaoka’s Instagram account, she posted images of her dressed as yandere characters. After the incident, she garnered tremendous attention online as the “too beautiful attempted murder suspect.”
Stabbed in his sleep
Until the middle of May, Takaoka was employed as the manager of a so-called “girl’s bar,” which is a type of hostess club. Last October, she met her boyfriend, whose club is located in the Kabukicho red-light district.
They began to live together on May 20. Three days later, he came home late, despite the fact that she was waiting for him.
An investigator tells Shukan Josei that Takaoka found that the victim had “become cold” toward her just before the incident. “On that day, he returned home late, even though she was waiting,” the investigator says. “As well, she found a photograph of him with another women on a mobile telephone he left behind.”
When he did finally arrive, she did not mention the photograph. “Instead, after he fell asleep, she stabbed him with a knife. Shocked, he awoke and fled to the first-floor lobby,” the investigator says.
Fuji News Network (May 30) released security camera footage that shows Tokyo police escorting Takaoka from her apartment building, her legs streaked in blood. Investigators also retrieved a knife from the residence.
She later told police in referring to the knife, “It was the one thing I put in order in preparing for a new life with him.”
