Futoshi Matsunaga

Some people use their personalities to lead revolutions. Others to conquer nations. However, one person used his for profit, malice, and murder.  Today, on The Secret Sits we are going to visit the land of the rising sun and shine some light on the insane life of Futoshi Matsunaga.
 
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Transcript

Some people use their personalities to lead revolutions. Others to conquer nations. However, one person used his for profit, malice, and murder.  Today, on The Secret Sits we are going to visit the land of the rising sun and shine some light on the insane life of Futoshi Matsunaga.

Watashi wa john doddoson desu himitsu no za ni yo koso

In 1961, Futoshi Matsunaga was born in Kokurakita Ward of the city of Kitakyūshū in Fukuoka Prefecture, he then grew up in the beautifully picturesque Yanagawa, Japan, known for it’s wide canals and Yanagawa riverboats called donkobune, which take tourists around the city.

Futoshi was a decent student and received good grades in school, he participated in debate competitions and also, according to some, he had a charming personality, but Futoshi had a tendency to to exhibit disciplinary problems. After engaging in a relationship with a junior high school girl Futoshi was transferred to a different high school. 

He was known to be intelligent with a wide vocabulary and on the surface quite polite. To people more familiar with him, however, he was jealous, sadistic and full of anger, and a compulsive liar with a sever narcissistic streak. In his earlier years he had been diagnosed with Disinhibited Attachment Disorder.

After graduation he took over his father's business and converted it into a futon-selling business, around this time Futoshi also began using fraudulent selling practices to make sales. He married a woman in 1980 and had a son, but they later divorced -- his ex-wife cited the escalating violence she had to endure for why she had left him.

Now, marriage is not for everyone and this seems doubly true for Futoshi because despite being married, Futoshi was also having relationships with at least ten separate mistresses. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. Kare wa subete hoshikatta

He would tell impressive stories about his background when asked, particularly by women -- at one point, he had told a girl he liked that he was in a band, purely because of her interest in folk music. He ended up half-convincing, half-threatening his business subordinates to start a band with him, investing thousands of dollars into buying professional grade instruments and holding mandatory practice sessions at the office. When the keyboardist told him that his singing was getting off key, he attacked him, yelling that all they had to do was follow along with his vocals, which were perfect. Eventually they had a concert in a massive hall they had rented out, which was a hot mess, as to be expected -- but Futoshi kept up the ruse for some time until he lost interest in the girl. At the concert, also, were his pregnant wife along with Junko Ogata, who would later become his accomplice.

Futoshi also had religious delusions, occasionally stating to others that he was the "Messiah". At one point, he came to realize that a prospective bulk futon-buyer was not coming through with their payment, so he took several of his workers to their office, there, they berated him until Futoshi suddenly stood up and started yelling that there were "evil spirits" behind the man that were threatening to take his soul. When Futoshi asked the man if there had been problems in his life recently, the man admitted that he had been unable to buy the futons from him due to his company failing. Futoshi then told him that he should come work for his company, and drove him to a small run-down building behind the main office, where other men were being held.

This man lived there for the next two years while being forced to work for Futoshi, and constantly being told that they would face "God's ire" if they tried to escape. They would regularly be beaten, humiliated and administered electric shocks; the men were given so little to eat they became emaciated. Their earnings were regularly used for Futoshi and those close to him to have nights out in town, where he often held extravagant parties.

 In October 1982, during the course of his marriage, Futoshi became involved with Junko Ogata, one of his former schoolmates from Yanagawa.

Junko Ogata was a kindergarten teacher in 1982, and happened to re-connect with her former classmate Futoshi one day. One of her students got slightly injured while playing, and his father, a Yakuza, had threatened her and the kindergarten. Yakuza are members of Japanese organized crime syndicates, similar to the Mafia.  Junko decided to contact Futoshi and ask for help, which he gladly provided. The threats soon stopped, and Junko and Futoshi started dating, despite the fact that he was still married at the time.

Junko was born into a wealthy family.  She was a gentle person and got a job in a preschool, but all of that changed when she met and started dating Futoshi.  Junko had remained a virgin until she became involved with Futoshi, who suspected that she was having relationships with other men.

Futoshi, at first, was kind to Junko, but he started being abusive towards her when she told him about her past relationship. He made Junko bring him an old diary of hers and beat her while interrogating her about her experience with other men, and in the end, "marked" her as his property by burning her with a lit cigarette on her right breast and tattooing his name on her right thigh. He then made her cut off contact with all of her male friends.

The beatings continued, and weakened from the physical and emotional stress, Junko passed out at her kindergarten and eventually attempted suicide at her parents' home.

This angered Futoshi and made the beatings even worse, and he made Junko quit her job at the kindergarten.

In 1984, Futoshi promised to marry Junko, but her mother, Shizumi Ogata, did not approve of the relationship because of Futoshi's abuse of her daughter. 

Shizumi, was increasingly worried for her daughter, and was unsure if Futoshi was actually willing to follow through on divorcing his wife, as he said, and marrying Junko. Futoshi told Shizumi that they should meet privately to discuss matters, but then brought her to a hotel and raped her, in a strange plot twist, Futoshi and Shizumi then continued to meet and have sexual encounters.  This rape gave Futoshi control over Shizumi going forward.

In 1985, Futoshi convinced Junko that her family hated her because she had attempted suicide and he persuaded her to move in with him. 

That same year, Futoshi also purchased a building in which he could operate his futon business which he called World.

While Futoshi's previous behavior was horrendous, he stepped into the realm of psychopathy when he built a soundproof room on the third floor of his futon company's building where he would use electric shock on his employees. The futon company was also where Futoshi engaged in fraud and blackmail, stealing approximately 180 million yen, or around $162,000 USD.

Pressure was placed on Rieko which was Junko's sister, to take over the family business since Junko was with Futoshi, and they had no intentions to help. Rieko went into an arranged marriage with an agricultural worker named Kazuya in 1986. During that time, Futoshi and Junko had been leaving threatening voicemails to relatives, angered that the family inheritance was going to Rieko instead of them.

Junko began to work at Futoshi's company, and started to run the business along with him, dealing in fraudulent activities such as opening credit cards in friends and families' names and racking up charges, then yelling at them and threatening them when they discovered the debts. Her victims were said to have been surprised at the complete change in her character from being a quiet and kind person to becoming hysterical and full of rage.

Futoshi’s behavior would sometimes be erratic and he would suddenly shout towards other men, saying things like, "There is a spirit behind you! It is sucking away your fortune!" He also made references to religious terms like saṃsāra and kami.

Now just some explanation on these terms, Samsara typically means, “Wandering” as well as “world”, which was the name of his Futon store.  In concept Samsara is linked to the karma theory and refers to the belief that all living beings go through birth and rebirths.  Kami, on the other hand are the spirits, phenomena or holy powers that are venerated in the religion of Shinto.  They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, as well as beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sprits of venerated dead people.

Eventually the company went bankrupt and the pair (along with one other male worker) went on the run from the police.

The fraud ended with Futoshi and Junko being placed on Japan's Most Wanted list in 1992. They managed to avoid capture, but even with the attention of national law enforcement on him, that didn't keep Futoshi from exploiting others.

Futoshi lived in a condominium in Kokurakita-ku. 

In April of 1993, Futoshi picked up yet another former classmate, who was at the time married. Futoshi pretended that Junko was his sister, and promised the woman that he would marry her, so she divorced her husband and left two of her three children with her ex-husband and her parents, bringing her infant daughter with her when she moved in with Futoshi. She began to ask for money from her ex-husband and parents, and cut off contact with them once they stopped sending any money. Later that year, her one-year-old daughter died under suspicious circumstances, through blunt force trauma to the head.  During their relationship, Futoshi defrauded the woman out of 11.8 million yen, and in 1994, the mother killed herself by drowning.

Futoshi later testified that though he had tortured the mother, he had nothing to do with the infant's death, and the police were unable to prove that Futoshi had killed the woman or her child. 

Kumio Toraya, a friend of Futoshi's, worked for a real estate firm. Futoshi used this connection to stay in multiple residences to commit his later crimes. Futoshi gained Kumio's trust enough so that he would start speaking about some of his own criminal offences, which Futoshi then used to blackmail him into doing his bidding. He stripped him of his wig and made him write false confessions about how he sexually abused his own daughter and stole money from his company, making him feel like he was unable to escape his situation.

Kumio's daughter, was there to witness what happened to her father during this time; he was said to have been electrocuted multiple times by both Futoshi and Junko with exposed wires, beaten, forced to eat his own feces, and starved.  Futoshi would also force the father and daughter to inflict pain on one another in order to avoid getting the shocks from Futoshi.  Kumio’s daughter later testified that her father never resisted until the end, even telling the then-pregnant Junko that he hoped that her baby was born healthy. Kumio died on February 26th 1996 after prolonged torture. He was 34 years old.  He told Junko and the girl to dispose of the remains, which were thrown into the sea near the Kunisaki Peninsula after being pulverized.  Futoshi would continue to hold Kumio's daughter captive until 2002 when she managed to reach the police on her second escape attempt. 

Before Kumio's death, he had forced his daughter to bite a part of his body to leave a mark, taking a photo of it and making her write a confession that she had killed her father.

Around the same time, Futoshi also started having relations with a woman, who was a friend of Kumio's. He convinced the woman that he was a graduate of Kyoto University and promised to marry her. Instead, he defrauded her of 5.6 million yen. The woman was forced to give up all the money she had to Futoshi and Junko after she and her 3-year-old daughter were tortured by them. In March of 1997 she managed to escape by jumping out of the window. She was placed in a mental institution and her daughter was left in front of her ex-husband's house. 

Later in 1997 after Kumio's murder, Futoshi became frustrated due to the lack of money. He told Junko to start asking for money from her family and friends, and she reached out to them but her requests were shot down. Eventually she began working as a bar hostess in Yufuin, a town in a prefecture next to Fukuoka, and she all but disappeared from the apartment.

Futoshi then talked to Shizumi, Junko's mother, who told him everything. He told Shizumi, her husband Takashige, and Rieko, Junko's younger sister, to come to their apartment, at that point, they were apparently aware of Kumio's murder and came out of coercion from Futoshi with the idea that the murder could leak to the outside world if they could not get Junko to come back.

Futoshi faked his own suicide, they then held a fake funeral for Futoshi to lure Junko back to them. The plan unfortunately worked, and Junko was captured and held by her entire family. 

Junko's family gave 63 million yen to Futoshi, after which he held them captive and psychologically controlled them in ways similar to the methods of cult-leader Shoko Asahara.

Shoko Asahara was the founder and leader of the Japanese doomsday cult known as Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding the deadly 1995 sarin-gas attack on the Tokyo subway, in which thirteen people died and thousands more suffered ill effects.  He was also involved in several other crimes. Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004. In May 2012, his execution was postponed due to further arrests of Aum members. He was executed by hanging on July 6, 2018.

The entire family started living at the apartment after a period where they were commuting from their own home almost daily, over coercion by Futoshi. He had used alcohol to gain the family's trust, hearing from each person about other members' faults and failings and using them against each other, eroding their relationships with one another. He also manipulated them through methods such as having Takashige change the piping in the bathroom after the murder of Kumio, "implicating" him in aiding in covering up the evidence of the murder and using that as a threat.

Junko once again attempted escape later on, when she was sent out to Shimonoseki, a city in a different prefecture, tasked to send a letter out from there to a woman Futoshi was seeing. 

On the train home, Junko attempted to get away by running out of the train as the doors were closing, but Kumion’s daughter, who had gone with Junko to watch her, acted quickly and ran after her. Junko then got into a taxi but Kumion’s daughter hit the windows with her fists and started yelling at her, prompting other people to call out to them that they were going to call the police. Junko gave up at that point and got out of the taxi.

As Kumion’s daughter contacted Futoshi over the phone to ask for instructions, Junko once again ran and got into a train, but again, Kumion’s daughter was fast and got in on the same train, telling Futoshi where they were headed. Once they got to the station, Junko saw Futoshi there and gave up completely.

Later, Junko testified that she had not thought about escaping to get away from the situation, but to go to the Aokigahara forest near Mount Fuji to kill herself.

The Aokigahara forest has a historical reputation as a home to yūrei: ghosts of the dead in Japanese mythology. At least since the 1960s, Aokigahara has become associated with suicide, eventually becoming known in English by the nickname "the Suicide Forest", and gaining a reputation as one of the world's most-used suicide sites.

Kazuya, Rieko's husband, became suspicious of his wife's long absences and came back to the apartment, where he also was also taken in through Futoshi's manipulations. Futoshi used the things that Rieko had told him in moments of drunken stupor -- such as the fact that she had contemplated divorce from Kazuya, and that she had had an abortion in the past -- to break him down mentally. He also forced him to change the tiles on the deceased Kumio's bathroom, implicating him in being a murder accomplice in the same way Takashige was.

Rieko and Kazuya's two children, Aya a 10-year-old girl and Yuki a 5-year-old boy were brought over to the apartment soon after Kazuya started staying at the apartment.

By November the police, seeking out Futoshi and Junko for their fraud charges, were looking for them in their old residence and in the vicinity of Takashige and Shizumi's home. Upon realizing this, Futoshi locked the entire family in the small apartment and refused to let them out, bugging all the rooms. None of them were from that point on allowed to go to work or school. Unemployment and severance money went directly to Futoshi.

Futoshi blamed Takashige for not bringing in more money -- notably due to the fact that he failed in selling off his father's property because he was blocked by his other relatives from doing so. In December of 1997, he was "punished" through electrocution by Junko, with such severity that he fell into a coma and died.

Futoshi told Aya that it was her fault that her grandfather had died, because she had once told him that he should die after a fight with him.

Afterwards, while making the other family members take apart and dispose of the corpse, they took Christmas and birthday party photos for Yuki.

The body was decapitated and dismembered in the bathroom with saws, and the flesh meticulously shredded with a mixer. The body parts were boiled in a pot until liquified and everything was disposed of in the ocean or in public toilets.

In January of 1998, after prolonged electrocution, Shizumi had a psychological break and began screaming incoherently. After a "family meeting", some suggested that she should go to a psychiatric hospital, but Futoshi shut them down, only agreeing when Junko tentatively suggested that they should kill her, reasoning that people might find out what is happening when they hear Shizumi's screams.

In the end, Junko and Rieko held Shizumi down while Kazuya strangled her with an electric cable. She was 58-years-old at the time of her death.

Futoshi throughout this had also raped Rieko several times, though they had, had sexual relations in the past (when she was 14 and he was a senior in high school) which had been unknown to the rest of the family. Rieko's period had stopped around the time of Shizumi's killing, making Futoshi and Junko suspect that she was pregnant with Futoshi's child -- Junko began to electrocute her frequently in the hopes that she would miscarry, and Futoshi started telling family members that she had gone "crazy", Rieko becoming hard of hearing as a result of the repeated electrocutions.

Futoshi told the family to temporarily move to the apartment where the previous killings had taken place, and while there, made the family have a meeting to discuss what was going to happen to Rieko. After going back and forth for some time, they decided that, even if she was left alive, she would face more torture from Futoshi so it was pointless for her to live in such a state. Kazuya volunteered himself, as Rieko's husband, to be the one to kill her.

Kazuya asked Aya to hold down her mother's ankles and to tell her goodbye. Rieko gasped out, "Kazuya, am I going to die?" to which Kazuya said, "I'm sorry, Rieko." At the time of her death, she was 33 years old.

After Kazuya strangled Rieko to death, he fell to the ground sobbing, saying "finally, it has come to this -- I've even killed my own wife."

For quite some time, Kazuya himself had been suffering from gastrointestinal issues due to the constant torture. The symptoms got better for a while, so he was made to be Futoshi's chauffeur so that he could go visit a lover of his in another prefecture. While out, he was made to eat far more food than he was used to, so that he would not be hungry on the long drive back.

Kazuya began vomiting profusely once they got back to the apartment, and was unable to keep down any food. He was locked in the bathroom naked, and an hour after Futoshi provided him with a can of beer and an energy drink, he was found dead.  He was 38 years old.

The only adults left now were Junko and Futoshi, and the other children Aya and Yuki were under the care of Kumion’s daughter.

A month after Kazuya's death, in May, Futoshi began to say that it was a "possibility that the children would come back later to take revenge on us" and implied that the children should be killed as well. To that, Aya begged that they be returned back home and that they would not tell anyone what happened, but eventually Futoshi wore her down, saying "don't you feel bad for your brother? We should take him to be with his mother."

Futoshi then had Aya and Junko tell Yuki that he was going to see his mother, and they strangle him to death in the kitchen.  He was five years old. 

In June, Futoshi started ramping up the torture of Aya, telling Junko "it would be a hassle if she was too fat" and not letting her feed her niece as much as the others. Taking that to mean that they were going to kill Aya soon, Junko told Kumion’s daughter about what was to happen.

Junko told Futoshi that Aya had said she wanted to die, and when Futoshi asked Aya this, she nodded, lifting her head off the ground so they could wrap the cord around her neck. Kumion’s daughter and Junko then proceeded to kill Aya. She was 10.

Kumion’s daughter managed to escape in January of 2002 to her grandparents', but she could not escape Futoshi's influence, making her ask for money from her grandparents and taking the earnings of her part-time job. She remained mum to her parents about the fate of her father.

Futoshi had been seeing Kumion’s older sister, and she eventually told him about the exact whereabouts of Kumion’s daughter, whereupon Futoshi went to the property to take her away, telling her grandparents that "She has been stealing from her father and I, and getting into drugs. I have to bring her back to her father." Before she was dragged back to the apartment, she scribbled a note that read "his story is all false. Please come get me." and left it in her room.

Upon her return to the apartment, Kumion’s daughter was repeated electrocuted by Futoshi and Junko, and was made to write an oath in her own blood that read that she would not attempt escape again. She was also exposed to further torture, such as being forced to rip out her big toenail in under 5 minutes with pliers.

Futoshi’s crimes continued even after this.  In July 2000, Futoshi convinced another woman to go away with him, lured by the prospect of marriage. In August 2001, she gave her twin children to him and Junko. Futoshi and Junko then convinced the woman to give them 20 million yen, telling her that they would need the money to bring up her children.

On March 6, Kumio's daughter escaped from the apartment again and reported the crimes to the police. By this time, she was 17 years old. The police arrested Futoshi and Junko the next day when they tried to retrieve the girl. The twins and the couple's two children were taken into police protection.

The media initially reported only that Futoshi and Junko had held their victims captive, similar to the case of Fusako Sano.

Fusako Sano was a fourth-grade elementary school girl, who disappeared on November 13, 1990 at age nine after watching a school baseball game in her home town of Sanjō, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. A large police search failed to find the missing girl. Police even considered the possibility that she had been kidnapped by North Korean intelligence operatives.

In fact, she had been kidnapped by Nobuyuki Satō, at the time, a 28-year-old mentally disturbed and unemployed Japanese man, who forced her into his car, and subsequently held her in the upstairs floor of his apartment in a residential area of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture for 9 years and two months. The house was only 200 meters from a kōban or police substation, and 55 kilometers from the location where she was kidnapped.  When Fusako was rescued, she was 19 years old, but still acted like a small child.

However, after the details of the couple’s murders came out, the public realized that this case was nothing like the Fusako Sano case.  The pair were charged with Aya's murder on September 18, 2002; Takashige's murder on October 12, 2002; Shizumi's murder on December 6, 2002; Yuki's murder on January 11, 2003; Kumio's murder on February 3, 2003; Rieko's murder on February 25, 2003; and Kazuya's murder on May 30, 2003. No murder charges were brought against Kumio's daughter. Junko calmly confessed to her part in the murders, but Futoshi insisted that the women had fabricated their stories about him and that he was completely innocent.  

Police never recovered any human remains and found no physical evidence, so they relied primarily upon the testimonies of Kumio's and Junko's daughters during the investigation.

On September 28, 2005, a district court in Fukuoka sentenced Futoshi and Junko to die by hanging. The court tried six cases, but considered that they had not killed Takashige directly, but had only injured him by electric shocks which later resulted in his death.

The pair appealed the verdict. On September 26, 2007, the Fukuoka High Court upheld Futoshi's original sentence, but Junko's sentence was changed from death to life imprisonment because Futoshi had exerted control over Junko to force her to kill the victims. 

For Japanese media, the incident was too atrocious to explain, so mass media wasn't able to report the details of the incident. Yet several brave writers, including Ryuzo Saki, wrote the details of the incident.

I am going to read you part of one new story written about this killer couple.

Bloodthirsty, sadomasochist lovers Futoshi Matsunaga and Junko Ogata may have been sentenced to swing from the gallows, but there are some who say executing the couple convicted for killing seven people only once isn't enough, according to Shukan Gendai.

Fukuoka District Court's Kokura Branch handed down the death penalty to Ogata and Matsunaga, saying that their crimes had been "cruel, twisted and inhumane."

They may still have been involved in their murderous lifestyle had it not been for a young girl who escaped their clutches in March 2002 and revealed a tale of heinous horror almost unparalleled in Japanese criminal history.

The girl, then just 17, revealed that in a period just over two years from 1996, Matsunaga and Ogata had killed Ogata's parents, sister, brother-in-law and their two children, as well as the girl's own father. All the bodies were chopped into little pieces later dumped into the sea.

"Matsunaga's hideous sexual proclivities were horrifying. Matsunaga forced his common law wife's mother to take part in a simulated rape and he used a stun gun on the genitals of Ogata's niece, who was only a little girl 10-years-old, giving her an electric shock," an investigation insider tells Shukan Gendai. "When we raided Matsunaga's home, we found loads of pornographic photos and videos that he had taken. There was even photos where Matsunaga had taken pictures of naked women walking around with vibrators still inserted into themselves."

Amazingly, the girl whose escape led to the cruel couple's capture, is putting the pieces of her life back together despite years of torture at the hands of Matsunaga and Ogata.

One of the first things the girl did following her escape was let loose with everything she had experienced during her ordeal as Matsunaga and Ogata's virtual slave, according to a close friend who comments to the men's weekly.

"It was just such a shocking experience that opening up about it was the only way she could deal with it. She said that in the period before her father was killed (in about 1996), the couple set about making her and her father hate each other. They were forced to punch each other upon fear of being given a jolt from a stun gun. Matsunaga and Ogata ordered her to punch her father as hard as she could. That experience really seemed to have hurt her," the friend tells Shukan Gendai. "(Matsunaga and Ogata) only let them eat food scraps. In the cold winter, the girl and her father were locked up in a freezing bathroom while the couple sprayed icy cold water down on them. It was a torture. She did say, though, that she'd had some pleasant dreams about her dad after he died.

"The girl also talked about a stew (Matsunaga and Ogata) made using her father's body parts and how Matsunaga insisted that she drink the broth. He isn't human. "Despite having been put through a living Hell, the girl, now a woman of 21, is finding her feet.

"She goes to night school and has a part-time job at a kid's home. She didn't go to high school much. She also got her license as soon as she turned 18. Now, she's really cheerful. She sometimes even laughs. She looks happy and, with a bit of make-up, is quite a looker," the friend says. Nonetheless, the dark days the young woman went through have apparently not entirely disappeared.

"She hates Matsunaga and Ogata with a vengeance," the friend tells Shukan Gendai. "She said, 'I hope they get executed as soon as possible.'

Due to the lack of physical evidence -- the bathrooms being meticulously cleaned, with plumbing and tiles replaced, and Girl A only having witnessed some of the murders, the case moved forward but relatively slowly. However, with a plethora of circumstantial evidence and the discovery of notes that the victims had written under duress by Matsunaga confessing what they had done, there was enough to convict Matsunaga and Junko.

Junko later mentioned that time in prison was, comparatively, not bad in relation to the conditions she was kept in by Matsunaga, saying that she was able to "have a guaranteed meal, I can take baths, go to the bathroom whenever I want to, and even able to read"

Girl A, along with the woman, B, who was a past victim of Matsunaga's torture, and Kazuya's mother testified against Matsunaga and Junko,

On December of 2011, Matsunaga was sentenced to death and Junko was sentenced to life in prison, though at one point a death sentence seemed inevitable for her as well. It was determined that her part in the murders were significant, but due to her brainwashing and manipulation, she was not fully responsible as only Matsunaga had masterminded the entire series of murders.

(Note: I'm mostly paraphrasing how the trials went, since I'm not super knowledgeable when it comes to Japanese law and law terms. If anyone is very interested, I am willing to comb through and do a more thorough translation)

 Futoshi used various, but consistent methods to control his victims and make them do his bidding -- through this he managed to kill multiple people without ever lifting a finger himself. With many of his victims, he first befriended them, over time gaining their trust, and sometimes getting them drunk so that they would reveal some sort of weakness or transgression, however small they might be. He used that to manipulate his victims so they would work against each other’s' interests, sometimes even growing their resentment or anger against another family member.

Electric shocks were administered with live wires, to the hands, arms, thighs, nipples, lips, ears, and genitalia, and were so severe that often the victims would fall unconscious from the pain. Victims were shocked regularly, so that they would break down and eventually lose the will to survive.

Victims were made to electrocute each other depending on "rank", where if they refused to do Futoshi's bidding their "rank" would drop and treatment would worsen against them. Because their will to band together and fight against Futoshi was broken, they were unable to work in any way against him.

He also would force victims to write testimonies of murder and torture, so that they would feel like they would have no way to escape. Sometimes they would be made to write about crimes they had never even committed, and over time they would be convinced into thinking they had actually done those deeds.

Futoshi controlled every aspect of the victims' lives. They were forced to wear a "uniform" of sorts, like sweat pants and a top, though eventually they were made to live half naked, with the women going about with tape covering their nipples. They were made to move on all fours or with their backs to a certain wall, and forced to sleep on magazines and newspapers for 3-4 hours a day during the day. Speaking was strictly forbidden, and meals such as takeout ramen, bento, bread, and raw eggs were served only once or twice a day, with time to eat being regulated to 15 minutes. When the victims went to the bathroom was regulated, and though they were occasionally allowed to go outside, they were made to report to Futoshi exactly where they were and what they were doing at all times over the phone. Light was not allowed to enter the apartment and all doors and windows were locked.

These methods broke down his victims' will to live, and as a result most of them saw their situation as futile and fell into a state of zombie-like obedience.

In 2019, Sion Sono announced the making of his project The Forest of Love, which is based on Futoshi Matsunaga's crimes. It was released by Netflix on October 11, 2019.  I have not brought myself to watch it, yet.

I love Japan, I love the people, the culture, and the food.  And when I am there, I feel like I have transcended myself and that I have risen to a higher level of my own being.  But even a place like Japan, which can elicit theses type of feelings from a foreigner or gaikoku hito, has its secrets too and today, you learned about one secret that Japan wishes you did not know, their embarrassment over Futoshi Matsunaga. Kite kurete arigato.

I’m John Dodson and this has been The Secret Sits.  Audio Engineering by Gabriel Dodson.  Original artwork provided by Tony Ley.