A 44-year-old man who murdered a 22-year-old female livestreamer in Tokyo’s Takadanobaba neighborhood as she was broadcasting was sentenced on July 15th. Instead of heralding the verdict, many online derided it as “unjust.”
What has so many people (men, I’m presuming) defending a cold-blooded murderer? A blend of complex circumstances served with a large helping of misogyny.
16 years for stabbing her 55 times
A Tokyo court sentenced Takano Ken’ichi (高野健一) to 16 years in jail for murdering Satō Airi (佐藤愛里), who streamed as Mogami Ai (最上あい). The sentence was a little shy of the 20 years requested by prosecutors. Takano’s defense was asking for nine years.
Takano met Satō at a bar where she worked when she was around 18 or 19. He quickly became obsessed with her.
Takano had borrowed ¥2.55 million (around $15,700) to lend to Satō. He successfully sued Satō in court; however, he was unable to recover most of the funds.
On March 11th, 2025, Takano tracked down Satō at Takadanobaba as she was livestreaming a walk around the Yamanote Line. He stabbed her viciously, a total of 55 times.
The court ruled that the dispute over the money left Takano feeling “cornered” financially; as a result, it knocked four years off his sentence.
“Japanese justice is female-supremacist”
The case originally sparked a groundswell of anger online… but not for the victim.
Men on social media sites such as X quickly blamed Satō for swindling Takano out of his money. Commenters compared her to “Sugar Baby Riri” (いただき女子りり), a woman sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for defrauding men through romance scams to fund her host club habit. Some people took videos of themselves trampling the makeshift memorial left for the victim.
The same pattern is repeating itself now that Takano has been sentenced. On X, commenters called Takano a victim and denounced the 16-year sentence as unjust.
“Japanese courts hand down nothing but rulings that side with women now,” a top-rated comment on a Yahoo! News Japan X thread raged. “Japanese justice is female-supremacist. It’s over.”
(In reality, women receive harsh sentences all the time. On top of the Sugar Baby Riri verdict, another woman, Uchida Riko, was recently sentenced to an even longer 27 years for murdering a young girl in Hokkaido. It’s likely that Tamura Runa, who beheaded a 63-year-old man in a Sapporo love hotel, will receive a long sentence for the brutal crime; her mother received six years just for being an accomplice.)
The majority of the comments on X said Takano’s sentence should be reduced or dropped. A full 28% went further, saying Satō brought her murder on herself.
“If you ask me, the woman who spat on the courts is the plague on society,” one commenter wrote.
Mogami Ai was not an “Itadaki Joshi”
For some reason, the fact that Satō was barely an adult when the two met and that Takano was twice her age barely comes up in these discussions. It’s obvious that Takano yearned for a relationship with a younger woman to fill some sort of emotional gap in his life.
It’s also obvious from the available evidence that, despite the online smears, Satō Airi wasn’t Watanabe Mai (Itadaki Joshi Riri). Watanabe used host-like tactics to convince the men she was seeing that they had a romantic relationship. She even created a whole-ass manual teaching other women how to emulate her “business model.” She’s serving prison time because her actions amounted to romance fraud.
It’s true that Satō relied on Takano’s feelings to ask for money to pay off her own debts. However, she never framed it as “borrowing” money, and she never made any promises to repay what he sent.
More importantly, she never indicated that she had romantic feelings for Takano. Their “romance” was one-sided and entirely his. “俺と愛里の仲やろ” (“it’s you and me, Airi”), he wrote in one message. Once, when he sent her money, he wrote, “大好きだから特別に振込みした” (“I made a special transfer because I love you so much”).
Satō even hesitated to meet Takano, only doing so after months of pleading.
Takano did win a judgment against Satō. However, unlike the Watanabe Mai case, it was only a civil judgment. Takano was never able to collect because Satō was broke: she had about 160 yen to her name and no seizable assets (again, she was 22 years old).
Stalking of women by obsessed men in Japan is, sadly, nothing new. In 2025, police took four months to arrest a woman’s ex-boyfriend, who murdered her after she consulted with police nine separate times. People worldwide were shocked when news broke in March 2026 about a stalking/murder at the Tokyo Pokémon Center in Ikebukuro.
Takano shouldn’t be regarded as any different than these other men. Satō didn’t reciprocate Takano’s feelings. She couldn’t even repay him. Rather than take the loss and move on, he took her life barely four years into her adulthood. Takano will leave jail at age 60; Satō Airi will still be dead.
Takano Ken’ichi made his choices. And now, he’s paying the price for them.
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Sources
【速報】東京・高田馬場ライブ配信中女性刺殺事件 殺人などの罪に問われた男に懲役16年の実刑判決 東京地裁 TBS NEWS DIG（Yahoo!ニュース）
配信女性襲撃、男に懲役１６年 高田馬場刺殺「残虐な犯行」―東京地裁 時事通信
路上で動画配信中の女性を殺害、被告に懲役16年 東京地裁判決 朝日新聞（Yahoo!ニュース）
高田馬場で配信女性を襲撃した男に懲役20年求刑 55カ所の傷を負わせ血だらけの姿を配信「まだ動くんだ」と言い頭部を蹴り… 文春オンライン
「まだちょっと動いています」配信中のスマホを奪い頭部を蹴りながら…「最上あい」を刺殺した高野健一被告が佐藤愛里さんの“ガチ恋”になった経緯 NEWSポストセブン（Yahoo!ニュース）
配信中女性殺害、懲役１６年 デイリースポーツ
配信女性を襲撃、男に懲役２０年求刑 高田馬場刺殺―東京地裁 時事通信
「助けて助けて助けて」「既読だけでも」消費者金融に追われた高野健一被告が「最上あい」に送っていた“返済懇願LINE”…450万円の貯金が底を突いた「度重なる無心」【高田馬場刺殺・公判】 NEWSポストセブン
《ライバー刺殺》「大好きだから…特別に振込みした」消費者金融2社から満額借り入れ、カネを振り込み続けた高野被告、いっぽうライバーは幼少期から苦労人、遺族は「恨むし一生許さない」 集英社オンライン