It appears that after Issei Sagawa murdered and ate a Dutch woman in Paris in 1981, the Japanese public had a curious reaction: they made him a celebrity. He wrote for a Japanese gourmet magazine, wrote a weekly column for a newspaper on fine dining, and wrote four novels. However, it appears that he is yesterday’s news and is finally facing well-deserved destitution.
It is bizarre that the Japanese public would embrace such a monster, but it appears that he was the toast of the town. He now complains:
“I wrote out about 500 resumes and stomped around to all these different companies looking for a job, but nobody wanted to take me on. A language school position I applied for looked good after the boss said he admired my courage for not trying to hide who I am, but I missed out on getting work when all the other members of staff came out in opposition to working with me.”
Now, that is a real shame when an unreformed cannibal faces discrimination in the workplace.
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As a Japanophile (although I don’t get to indulge this obsession these days), I’d often been amused by the pop obsession with eating and food in Japan. Tampopo is probably the most famous Japanese film reflecting the obsession that got big play in the US. Even the Japanese news show that I used to watch in Atlanta generally featured a food segment where the reporters visit restaurants and eat various dishes. While I didn’t spend too much time in hotel rooms watching TV on my one trip to Japan, when I did flip through the stations it seemed there was always at least one and sometimes more than one food program playing. And this cultural fad is spreading . . . last fall I found that my friends are watching a US spinoff of the Japanese Iron Chef.