Sometimes people get too immersed and lost in a moment, that they fail to pay to attention to what is going on around them. Few people got so lost in a moment, however, as Kichizo Ishida, who mistook his perturbed mistress’ repeated attempts to murder him for foreplay and romantic role acting. Belos are some interesting facts about that bizarre event.
A Businessman Who Abandoned Business to Become a Full Time Womanizer
Kichizo Ishida (1894 – 1936) was a Japanese businessman and restaurateur with a reputation for being a ladies’ man. He commenced his career as an apprentice in a restaurant that specialized in eel dishes. When he turned twenty four, he opened what became a highly successful restaurant, the Yoshidaya, in Tokyo’s Nakano neighborhood. By 1936, Kichizo seems to have left the management of his business affairs to his wife, and dedicated himself to womanizing. Early in 1936, he began a torrid love affair with a recently hired employee. It ended quite badly for him.
Sada Abe (1905 – 1971) had been a geisha and former prostitute before she got a job working as an apprentice at Kichizo’s restaurant. It did not take long after she started work before her boss made moves on her, which she eagerly welcomed. The duo became infatuated with each other, and spent days engaged in marathon sessions of passionate carnal pleasure at love motels. They did not pause even when maids came in to clean the rooms. Unfortunately for Ishida, Sada’s infatuation grew into an unhealthy obsession.
Mistaking Murder Attempts for Role Play
Sada Abe started to get jealous whenever Ishida went back home to his wife. At some point, the jealousy turned into an obsession that in turn turned homicidal. She began to toy with the idea of murdering her lover as a way to keep him forever to herself. She bought a knife and threatened him with it during their next marathon lovemaking session. Kichizo assumed it was role play, and was turned on rather than alarmed. That threw Sada off.
Later during the session, she again steeled herself to do in Kichizo. This time she tried to strangle him with a geisha belt while they were getting it on. That only turned him on even more, and he begged her to continue. That threw off once more. Finally, Kichizo fell asleep, at which point Sada gathered her nerve one again, and this time went ahead and strangled him to death with the geisha belt. Then she took out the knife, castrated him, carved her name on his arm, and with his blood wrote “Sada and Kichizo together” on the bed sheets before she fled.
When Japan Was Gripped With ‘Sada Abe Panic’
Kichizo’s body was discovered the next day. When news of the murder and mutilation broke, and that a “sexually and criminally dangerous woman was on the loose”, Japan was gripped with what became known as “Sada Abe Panic”. Police eventually caught up with and arrested Sada at a brothel, at which point they discovered Kichizo’s genitals in her purse. When questioned why she was running around with Ishida’s family jewels, she 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”.
Sada was tried for Ishida’s murder, convicted, and served five years behind bars before she was released. She went on to write an autobiography, and lived until 1971. The Kichizo-Sada love affair and its painfully weird conclusion became a sensation in Japan. Ever since, it has been embedded in Japanese popular culture and acquired mythic overtones. The story and variations thereof has been depicted in poetry and prose, both fiction and nonfiction, portrayed in movies and television series, and interpreted over the decades by various philosophers and artists.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
History Halls – Chrysippus, the Philosopher Who Laughed Himself to Death
