PODCAST · history
Hikikomori
by Vincent Kenny
Sit back and enjoy a weird and shocking story from Japan, both from recent and far history, as researched and told by Vincent.
Episodes
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#110 - Messages From Water
Masaru Emoto, for most of his life, was an ordinary middle-manager for a newspaper. Then one day he stepped out of the shadows to announce that he had discovered a new fundamental force in the universe - emotional water memory. Check my album, Ruined Numbers, for sale on Bandcamp! It's an album…
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#109 - Minamata Disease (Part 2)
We continue covering the environmental disaster that resulted in Minamata Disease, how those responsible knowingly continued to harm all living things around them with mercury, and the legacy that the dozens of mass poisonings by corporations left on Japan Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can…
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#108 - Minamata Disease (Part 1)
We start a 2-parter on what might be the most terrifying man-made environmental disaster in Japanese history, namely the purposeful, prolonged and secret dumping of toxic waste into coastal waters by multiple Japanese chemical companies, some of which are still around and thriving. Today's guest…
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#107 - The US and Okinawa (Part 2)
Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast. Check my album, Ruined Numbers, for sale on Bandcamp! It's an album of acoustic arrangements of Final Fantasy music....
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#106 - The US and Okinawa (Part 1)
The continued US military presence in Okinawa has long been a complex and thorny issue, particularly for the locals who frequently suffer the consequences of their occupation in 1945 never quite ending. We look at the moments over the past 80 years that have proven pivotal to the anti-base…
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#105 - Host Clubs
Following from the high-profile case of Mai Watanabe, aka Itadaki-Joshi, we look at the reason why she conned millions of yen - to support her favourite host. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that...
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#104 - Papa-Katsu and Itadaki Joshi
Today we look at the evolution of "compensated dating" into its modern form, "Papa-Katsu", where women seek out sugar daddies as a form of sex work. We also consider the con-artist Mai Watanabe, known more widely as Itadaki Joshi, who made headlines across the world for her merciless acts of…
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#103 - The Sagamihara Stabbings (Part 2)
Content Warning: Mass Murder It's rough. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast. Check my new album, Ruined Numbers, for sale on Bandcamp! It's an album of...
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#102 - The Sagamihara Stabbings (Part 1)
Following on from the previous episode's theme of eugenics in Japan, we look at how individuals who express eugenic beliefs can impact the world around them in horrific, horrific ways. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror...
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#101 - The Eugenic Protection Law
In 1948 the Japanese Government, still under firm control by the Allied occupation forces, wrote into law the Eugenic Protection Law. While this law was similar to the myriad of pro-eugenic laws across the world, Japan's eugenics law is notable for having been only repealed in the 90s. Today's...
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#100 - The Rabbit Island Poison Gas Factory
We made it! The completely arbitrary milestone of 100 that's solely meaningful to humans because of our bias towards base 10! To celebrate, here's a nice story about an island covered in the cutest rabbits you've ever seen, also a poison gas factory. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her...
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#99 - Mamoru Samuragochi (Part 2)
We continue the most famous and baffling fraud case of modern Japan with the tale of Mamoru Samuragochi. This week we examine exactly how the supposed deaf composer was able to get away with presenting another person's compositions as his own for 18 years. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can…
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#98 - Mamoru Samuragochi (Part 1)
Born as a second-generation Hibakusha, that is to say a child of Hiroshima A-bomb survivors, Mamoru Samuragochi faced hardship, prejudice and increasing illness throughout his life. Despite these enormous setbacks, he became one of the most respected and successful musical composers in Japan,...
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#97 - The Jehova's Witnesses
Today, the JWs have as many as 250,000 adherents in Japan, despite having an extremely rocky start in the country in the early 1930s. In recent years, the JWs have experienced controversy in the media and courts once again, this time for serious allegations of abuse of its own members and…
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#96 - The Contaminated Blood Scandal
When the AIDs epidemic began tearing its way through gay communities throughout the world, there was almost no effort made by governments to address the escalating health crisis whatsoever. Even when heat-treated blood became available, pharmaceutical companies were strangely reluctant to offer...
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#95 - Saya Hiyama, Weather Caster
Weather News Live is a 24-hour a day stream dedicated to reporting the weather... sort of. It has gained huge popularity on the internet over the last few years with live shows hosted by "Casters", young women who have attracted huge fanbases. By far the most popular has been Saya Hiyama who, in...
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#94 - The Piranha Family (Part 3)
We end our series on Miyoko Sumida by looking at possibly her most disturbing family invasion with the Oe household, as well as how this eventually led to her accidental arrest and the fall of the Sumida gang. We also find out how the Yakuza hides bodies (allegedly). Today's guest is Hannah Lane!...
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#93 - The Piranha Family (Part 2)
We continue covering the disturbing crimes of Miyoko Sumida and her family, as she infiltrates and rips apart two more families. Today we look at how she added her loyal enforcer, Masanori Ri, and her presumed heir, Tanimoto Rui, to her organisation. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her...
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#92 - The Piranha Family (Part 1)
Miyoko Sumida was a psychopath with a disturbing ability to manipulate others for her own ends. She was also seemingly obsessed with keeping other people by making them members of her family though marriage and adoption. In a horrifying 25-year career of criminal gang activity and serial murder,...
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#91 - Uncle Balloon
Yoshikazu Suzuki was a perennially-failing music shop salesman, and in the early 90s his debt had amounted to an astronomical level. His plan to get himself out of this debt was to rise above this, literally, by following in the footsteps of Lawnchair Larry. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can...
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#90 - The Rent-a-Family Fraud
In April of 2018, the writer Elif Batuman had an article published in The New Yorker, titled "Japan's Rent-a-Family Industry". It explored a cultural phenomenon in Japan, that of agencies where one could hire an actor to perform in a social interaction that would be otherwise awkward or…
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#89 - The Monster with 21 Faces
The Glico-Morinaga Case began in 1984, when the CEO of the Glico Corporation was kidnapped, naked from his home during a bath. While that kidnapping resolved itself fairly rapidly, what followed was a campaign of fear across Japan, as a mysterious organisation began threatening to poison the...
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#88 - The Saitama Dog-Lover Murders
Content Warning: Murder. In the months after the Osaka Dog-Lover Serial Murders ended, but before the perpetrator of that case was caught, a completely separate but weirdly similar case occurred in Saitama. Gen Sekine, a fairly successful dog breeder and utter psychopath, decided that the best…
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#87 - The Osaka Dog-Lover Murders
Content Warning: Murder We return to murder with the serial murders that took place in Osaka in 1992. Over a period of 4 months, the ultimate fail-son Yoshinori Ueda used a chemical used to euthanise dogs to subdue and murder 5 people. Today's guest is Cassie! You can find her via her Twitter.…
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#86 - Dekotora
Today we explore the working class industrial art movement called "Dekotora", where truckers decorated their vehicles in outrageous and totally bitchin' styles. We also visit a modern day comparison to Dekotora, the phenomenon of "Itasha", or "painful cars"... If you want to see a gallery of the...
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#85 - Hatsune Miku
The last couple of episodes were pretty rough, right? Here's something with relatively few problematic elements, Hatsune Miku, the Vocaloid sensation! Today's guest is Mike! You can find him on Twitter at his handle @tokkan! Check my new album, Ruined Numbers, for sale on Bandcamp! It's an album…
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#84 - Issei Sagawa (Part 2)
Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Violence, Necrophilia, Cannibalism. We continue our exploration of Issei Sagawa's life after his 1981 murder of Renée Hartevelt. While you might think that Sagawa would never see the light of day again for his horrific crimes, he was set free, and he spent the…
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#83 - Issei Sagawa (Part 1)
Content Warning: Sex, Violence, Necrophilia, Cannibalism. Issei Sagawa was a highly-educated, intelligent and repressed man. His sexual fetish, unfortunately, was cannibalism, and years of fantasizing and planning led to his 1981 murder of Renée Hartevelt in Paris. After his arrest, however, the...
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#82 - The Tomb of Jesus in Aomori
In the north of Japan's central island there is a small, non-descript place called Shingo Village. The only thing about it that sets it apart from the hundreds of other tiny villages in the area is that it purports to be the true final resting place of Jesus Christ. Tug on this string and a whole...
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#81 - The Great Kanto Massacre
Content Warning: Natural Disaster and Genocide. On the 1st September, 1923, a megathrust earthquake hit the Kanto Plain, resulting in a catastrophic loss of life. While one would think that tornados made of fire would offer the most horror from this event, the behaviour of the Kanto populace,...
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#80 - Patriotic Brothels and Babysan
Content Warning: Sex Trafficking and Exploitation. Even before the end of WWII, the Japanese civilian government were preparing for the arrival of the occupying US troops. First and foremost, before any security of basic needs, they determined that they needed to preserve the purity of the…
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#79 - The Branston Pickle Affair
When Daisuke was invited to a dinner anonymously, he had little idea that the meeting would result in the most joyous moments of his life... but would flat-out ruin the rest of it. After marrying into a multi-national vinegar-based corporation, he found himself at the center of a sinister plot to...
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#78 - The Otaku Killer (Part 2)
Content Warning: Child Murder, Necrophilia We continue with the utterly heinous crimes of Tsutomu Miyazaki. After his first murder of a child, he entered a kind of prolonged berserker mode, increasing the depravity of his actions, harassing the families of his victims and even taunting the…
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#77 - The Otaku Killer (Part 1)
Tsutomu Miyazaki was a serial murderer of children, active for about 10 months from August 1988. It's a story that has been heavily misrepresented in western media, particularly in regards to Miyazaki's disability, but the real story alone is enough to chill to the bone. Today's guest is Nika...
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#76 - End of Shinzo Abe (Part 4)
It's finally here. This is how and why Shinzo Abe was assassinated, and the unexpected failure to deify him after his death. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film...
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#75 - Shinzo Abe (Part 3)
In this episode we look at the continuing rise of ultranationalist ideology in Japanese politics under Shinzo Abe, including his membership in the secretive and fascistic Nippon Kaigai organisation, his expansion of the JSDF and his fiddling around behind the scenes during the Tokyo Olympics,...
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#74 - Shinzo Abe (Part 2)
We continue our journey through the life and death of Shinzo Abe. Today we look at his remarkable political comeback in 2011, along with his the incidents that never seemed to tarnish his popularity, particularly his horrific historical revisionism, and the Moritomo Gakuen scandal... Today's…
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#73 - Shinzo Abe (Part 1)
We embark on a 4-part journey through the life and death of Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-running Prime Minister, who just so happened to get assassinated in May of 2022. As we shall discover, perhaps the damage had already been done by that point... Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her…
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#72 - Charlie Chaplin Vs The League of Blood
This is the tale of the rise of fascism in Japan, from its origins in Mussolini's Italy to the first bumbling attempts at coups by clandestine organisations. One of the most unlikely people who became embroiled in one such coup was the legendary comedic actor Charlie Chaplin. Today's guest is…
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#71 - Nobusuke Kishi, Shinzo Abe's Grandpa (Part 2)
We continue our exploration of Shinzo Abe's greatest influence on his life, the war criminal Nobusuke Kishi. This episode we cover his life after being released from prison, and his highly successful and Machiavellian return to politics. What a piece of shit. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can...
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#70 - Nobusuke Kishi, Shinzo Abe's Grandpa (Part 1)
To begin a long series on the life and death of Shinzo Abe, we must first look at the most influential person in Abe's life - his maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi. Beginning his career in 1930s Manchuria, Kishi would eventually be one of the central architects of post-war Japan. Today's guest...
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#69 - Nara Dreamland
In 1961, a new Disneyland was due to open in the city of Nara. This would have been the second Disneyland in the world, a replica of the Anaheim original, and a monument of America's cultural dominance across the world. Nara Disneyland never happened, but what we got instead was something far…
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#68 - Tokyo Rose
Tokyo Rose was an infamous radio host operating during WWII, helping to spread pernicious Japanese propaganda with the aim of breaking the spirits of Allied troops. Despite the fact that the US State Department would eventually claim that a Japanese American woman, Iva Toguri, was the culprit…
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#67 - The Fall of the Shinsengumi (Part 2)
We've made it. The final chapter in the fate of the legendary Shinsengumi. As the reign of the Tokugawa is in its death throes, Kondo Isami gets repeatedly promoted, seemingly unaware that he's being made the captain of a sinking ship. By the time he realises, it's far too late, and Isami might…
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#66 - The Fall of the Shinsengumi (Part 1)
The final tale of the storied Shinsengumi... split up into 2 parts. Kondo, head of the Shinsengumi, begins to have a taste of the power he always sought, even as Japan falls into the turmoil of the Boshin war. Today's guest is Carly Shields! You can find her via her Twitter page, or listen to the...
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#65 - Sumo Scandals
Sumo Wrestling is the national sport of Japan, and has been practiced in some form for most likely around 2000 years. It prides itself on its integrity, honor and sportsmanship, and yet considering the innumerable scandals the sport has faced in the past 20 years alone, it could be argued that…
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#64 - The Tsuyama Massacre
Content Warning: Spree Killing by Firearms Despite the social phenomenon of the violent Incel being associated with the advent of the internet, the Tsuyama Massacre of 1938 feels unnervingly recognisable. This is the story of the sack of shit Mutsuo Toi. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find...
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#63 - The Corpse in the Toilet
Content Warning: Claustrophobia and Toilet Humour A body. A Mystery. A Toilet. This is the story of Naoyuki Kanno, who went missing on 24th February 1989. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we…
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#62 - The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
The earthquake and tsunami that rocked Northern Honshu on the 11th March, 2011, had far-reaching consequences beyond the natural disaster. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant lost electric power, multiple cooling systems failed, and over the coming days multiple core meltdowns led to...
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#61 - The 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami
Content Warning: Natural Disasters. 11th March, 2011. 2:46pm. A magnitude 9.1 undersea earthquake strikes 45 miles east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. While the initial tremor was severe, the resulting tsunami that hit the shore was catastrophic. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Hikikomori have?
Hikikomori currently has 110 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Hikikomori about?
Sit back and enjoy a weird and shocking story from Japan, both from recent and far history, as researched and told by Vincent.
How often does Hikikomori release new episodes?
Hikikomori publishes regularly with 110 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Hikikomori?
You can listen to Hikikomori on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Hikikomori?
Hikikomori is created and hosted by Vincent Kenny.
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