﻿The word ‘Yandere’ is defined as a portmanteau of the words yanderu, meaning “to be sick”
and deredere, meaning “lovestruck”, and describes someone, most often portrayed as a young teenage
girl, who outwardly displays themselves as sweet and caring but is capable of psychotic
levels of violence and aggression in devotion to their “love interest”. Luckily, this type of
person is generally just a character trope found throughout various forms of media such as movies,
books, and very often, anime. Unfortunately, however, in the case of Yuka Takaoka,
she fell too deeply into the role of a yandere, and let an obsession with her significant other
drive her to the point of brutally stabbing him. Not only this, but her vile act eventually led
to her gaining a huge online fame, amassing over eighty-three thousand followers despite
being in prison. In today’s video, we’ll be deep-diving into Yuka Takaoka
and examining the fanbase she has found in the aftermath of a tragedy.
Yuka Takaoka was born on January 28th, 1998, and at 21 years old, was living in the Shinjuku Ward
of Tokyo. This area is significant commercial capital in the city and is alive and bustling
with a plethora of karaoke bars, popular clubs, host and hostess bars, and high-scale restaurants.
After dropping out of college, Yuka eventually became the manager of one of the aforementioned
hostess clubs. A hostess club is a form of nightclubs that is mainly found throughout Japan
that employs female staff who serve drinks to male customers and keep them entertained by providing
engaging conversation and company. Based on the videos she uploaded to her social media,
Yuka was a bit shy at first, but opened up and revealed her goofy and fun-loving personality once
you got to know her. She passed her time reading manga and watching anime, and even cosplayed as
her favorite anime characters and took photos which she uploaded to her Twitter and Instagram,
all of which are still up and available to see online. The characters she cosplayed the most
often were tellingly yandere characters, as shown in the now-famous photo of her cosplaying Himiko
Toga from the anime My Hero Academia. While working in the Hostess/Host industry
she met a 20-year-old man named Phoenix Luna in October of 2018, who worked at Fusion Nightclub,
a Host club that functioned almost exactly the same as Yuka’s hostess club,
except that here men entertained female guests. Phoenix was an attractive and charismatic man,
making him an especially popular host at the bar, so popular, in fact, that he frequently ranked
in the club’s top five leaderboards. The two obviously bonded through their similar jobs, and
since they both had very similar work schedules it gave them plenty of time to spend together,
and soon Yuka and Phoenix began dating. Despite Host and Hostess Clubs being completely platonic
and simply a conversation between two people over drinks, both establishments did essentially rely
on flirting and attractive employees in order to generate money, which could prove problematic for
a relationship and bring out jealousy in either partner. The longer their relationship went on,
the more and more possessive Yuka grew over her partner. She would track Phoenix’s location and
would even go so far as to look through his phone while he was asleep or not looking. Eventually,
Yuka’s jealousy regarding Phoenix’s popularity at the Fusion Nightclub
reared its ugly head and she began buying out his time at work to stop him from seeing
any of the customers there. This venture was reportedly costing her around $9000 per month.
Despite the numerous red flags regarding the relationship, the two stayed together and seemed
to have relative happiness. Yuka decided to take a couple of days off of work to help with projects
around her apartment, and on May 23rd, she had messaged Phoenix and asked him to stop by her home
and help her with some of the projects, to which he agreed. Unfortunately, Phoenix’s shift at work
had been busy and run late, meaning that Phoenix didn’t arrive at the apartment until significantly
later than they’d discussed earlier. Feeling exhausted and worn from a long stressful day at
work, Phoenix asked Yuka if he could draw himself a bath to relax in and she had no issues with it,
leaving her stressed-out boyfriend to fall asleep in the warm bath.
While he was passed out in the bath, Yuka took the opportunity to snoop through Phoenix’s phone
and was horrified with what she saw. In his camera roll were a few recent pictures of Phoenix
and an unknown woman. Since Yuka had bought Phoenix out at the bar she knew it couldn’t
have been a client, and she noted that Phoenix had seemed distant and cold with her recently,
putting two and two together she came to the conclusion that Phoenix was having an affair,
and she swiftly began putting a plan into motion. Eventually, Phoenix woke up from his nap in the
bathtub and got dressed, and saw that Yuka was already asleep in bed. He quietly snuck
into bed so as not to wake her, and instantly fell back asleep. It wasn’t long after that he
woke back up due to a pain in his stomach. After fully opening his eyes and looking around,
a now startled and panicking Phoenix witnessed a knife sticking out of his abdomen
and his girlfriend kneeling on top of him, in the process of slicing his torso.
Acting without thinking, Phoenix’s flight or fight instincts kicked into gear and he shoved
Yuka off of him and made a break for it. Yuka chased after the man she had just mauled and
was able to catch up and grab him by the time he reached the front door of the apartment,
however, Phoenix’s larger build and frame allowed him to break free and continue making his escape.
Phoenix was able to make it down the hallway and into the elevator before Yuka could catch up to
him, however, he was losing copious amounts of blood from his extreme knife wounds. As the doors
opened up on the lobby of the apartment building, Phoenix attempted to continue running but instead
succumbed to his blood loss and collapsed in a bloody heap on the floor, gathering the attention
of those in the room who immediately called the police. Yuka, notably also covered in blood,
eventually caught up and found her boyfriend unconscious on the lobby floor. Instead of running
from the police or trying to distance herself from her crime, Yuka sat on the floor next to the man
she had brutally stabbed and refused to leave, instead choosing to call her friend on the phone
and smoke a cigarette. A photo of this moment was captured and very quickly gained traction online,
and inevitably played a very big part in this case gaining online notoriety.
In the time it took the police to arrive, Yuka had also managed to write a letter using Phoenix’s
blood. This disturbing letter was like something out of a horror movie and was composed of “I love
you” and “I love you so much, I wanted to kill you.” written over and over again. When the police
finally did arrive they arrested Yuka, collected the letter, collected the knife used in the crime,
and rushed Phoenix to the hospital. While being placed into custody and sitting in the cop car,
multiple photos were taken of Yuka where she can be seen gleefully smiling, apparently pleased
with her actions and their outcomes. When later questioned by authorities as to why she stabbed
Phoenix, Yuka replied that “Since I loved him so much, I just couldn’t help it. After killing
[him], I, too, wanted to die.” Phoenix was rushed to the hospital in critical
condition and was given a 20% chance for survival, however, he somehow miraculously pulled through
and survived his harrowing attack, managing to make an almost complete recovery. After radio
silence from him following news of the attack, he eventually tweeted out a photo on July 1st,
saying, "Sorry, I'm alive and back...since I was stabbed in the liver, I can't drink.". During
Yuka’s trial, Phoenix made it clear that he didn’t hold any grudges against her, and when she was
eventually sentenced to three years and six months in prison for attempted murder on December 5th,
2019, Phoenix pleaded with the judge to lower her sentence. It is worth noting that Phoenix and Yuka
had already reached a settlement in court earlier for her to pay him five million yen, or $47,000.
Following the media coverage of Yuka’s crime and trial, the internet was in turmoil.
While there was an outpouring of hopes and prayers being sent towards Phoenix,
there was an even bigger outpouring of love being shown for Yuka. Certain groups and communities,
especially some relating to anime, found a liking for Yuka due to their perception
of her as a “cute, real-life yandere”, and her social media accounts such as Instagram, Twitter,
and TikTok gained vast amounts of followers, with her Instagram alone reaching up to 83.5
thousand followers, despite the fact that she hasn’t posted anything in two years
and likely won’t until her release. Someone even put up a gofundme to raise bail money for her, and
actually came very close to raising enough money to get her out before the page was taken down,
managing a whopping $3,840 from 69 contributors. There has been a large amount of fanart drawn of
Yuka, especially ones recreating the photo of her sitting and smoking next to Phoenix’s
bloodied body, and many people frequently request that she be added into the game
Yandere Simulator. Plenty of online chat rooms can also be found where people excitedly discuss
how much they can’t wait for her eventual release which should take place sometime
between 2023 and 2024. Not only have people been actually showing an obsession for Yuka,
but these same people have also spread rumors defaming Phoenix and claiming that he was abusive
to Yuka by forcing her to pay the nine thousand dollars to book him out at the Fusion Nightclub,
however, these appear to simply be rumors with little no evidence to support them.
The aftermath of this case is nothing short of interesting, raising heated debates in Japan
over the influence of anime and Otaku culture on crime and violence, not unlike the debates in
America over whether or not violent video games cause people to be more aggressive and violent.
While there are those that show their support of Yuka as mentioned, there are plenty across
the globe who have witnessed and condemned the actions of those who glorify and romanticize Yuka
and her actions. While seen less commonly with female killers, this sort of fanbase is actually
incredibly commonplace with many male serial killers we covered such as Ted Bundy and Richard
Ramirez, who famously had female fans attend their trials and write them letters while in prison. It
certainly begs the question that if these serial killers had existed in the age of social media and
cameras in our pockets, would they have gained the internet and social media following that Yuka has?
Let us know your thoughts about this and about the case down in the comment section below, and
be sure to let us know about any other cases you’d like us to cover on the channel! If you enjoyed
the video then consider hitting that like button, subscribing, and ringing the notification bell
so that you find out whenever we post a new video just like this, and we’ll see you in the next one.