Issei Sagawa

Issei Sagawa was born on 26 April 1949 in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, to wealthy parents. Sagawa's father, , was a businessman who had served as president of Kurita Water Industries, and his grandfather had been an editor for The Asahi Shimbun. Sagawa was born prematurely and, reportedly, was small enough to fit in the palm of his father's hand. He immediately developed enteritis, a disease of the small intestine. Sagawa eventually recovered after several injections of potassium and calcium in saline. Sagawa's charges of attempted rape were dropped when his father paid a settlement to the victim. In 1977, at the age of 28, Sagawa moved to France to pursue a Ph.D. in literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. ==Killing of Renée Hartevelt==

On 11 June 1981, Sagawa, then 32, invited his Sorbonne classmate Renée Hartevelt, a Dutch woman, to dinner at his apartment at 10 Rue Erlanger, under the pretext of translating poetry for a school assignment. Sagawa planned to kill and eat her, having selected her for her health and beauty, characteristics he felt he lacked. Sagawa considered himself weak, ugly, and small (he was 145 cm [4 ft 9 in] tall) and claimed he wanted to absorb her energy. She was 25 years old and 178 cm (5 ft 10 in). After Hartevelt arrived, she began reading poetry at a desk with her back to Sagawa when he shot her in the neck with a rifle. Sagawa said he fainted after the shock of shooting her but awoke with the realization that he had to carry out his plan. Sagawa consumed various parts of Hartevelt's body, eating most of her breasts, face, buttocks, feet, thighs, and neck, either raw or cooked (even admitting that he swallowed her clitoris whole, due to her being on her period at the time, and him not liking the smell of menstrual blood), while saving other parts in his refrigerator. Sagawa also took photographs of Hartevelt's body at each eating stage. Once the remains of her body that he did not consume started decomposing, Sagawa attempted to dump the remains of Hartevelt's corpse in a lake in the Bois de Boulogne park, carrying her dismembered body parts in two suitcases, but was caught in the act and arrested by French police four days later. Sagawa's wealthy father provided a lawyer for his defence. After being held for two years awaiting trial, Sagawa was found legally insane and unfit to stand trial by the French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière, who ordered him to be held indefinitely in a mental institution. After a visit by the author Inuhiko Yomota, Sagawa's account of the murder and its aftermath was published in Japan under the title In the Fog. Sagawa's subsequent publicity and macabre celebrity likely contributed to the French authorities' decision to deport him to Japan, where he was immediately committed to Matsuzawa Hospital in Tokyo. His examining psychologists all declared him sane and found sexual perversion was his sole motivation for murder. As the charges against Sagawa in France had been dropped, the French court documents were sealed and were not released to Japanese authorities; consequently, Sagawa could not legally be detained in Japan. Sagawa checked himself out of the hospital on 12 August 1986 and subsequently remained free until his death. Sagawa's continued freedom was widely criticized. ==Post-release==

Between 1986 and 1997, Sagawa was frequently invited to be a guest speaker and commentator. In 1992, he made a cameo appearance in Hisayasu Sato's exploitation film The Bedroom. Sagawa wrote books about the murder he committed, as well as Shonen A, a book on the 1997 Kobe child murders. He also wrote restaurant reviews for the Japanese magazine Spa. In 2005, Sagawa's parents died. He was prevented from attending their funeral but repaid their creditors and moved into public housing. He received welfare benefits for a time. In an interview with Vice magazine in 2011, he said that being forced to make a living while being known as a murderer and cannibal was a terrible punishment. He died from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Tokyo, on 24 November 2022, at the age of 73. ==In popular culture==

Media inspired by, featuring, or depicting Sagawa include: • Interview with a Cannibal (Vice, US, 2011, 34 minutes) • The Bedroom (Hisayasu Satō, Japan, 1992, 64 minutes), a pink film starring Sagawa as Mr. Takano. • Adoration, a short 1986 film by Olivier Smolders, is based on Sagawa's story. • "La Folie", a 1981 song by The Stranglers, was inspired by Sagawa's story. • "Too Much Blood", a song on the Rolling Stones' 1983 album Undercover, is about Sagawa and violence in the media. • Issei Sagawa, a 2007 EP by Gnaw Their Tongues. ==References==