Tokyo: when a ‘splitter-upper’ goes too far

Prosecutors in Tokyo called this week for Takeshi Kuwabara to be given a 17-year jail sentence for the murder of his lover, Rie Ishohata. This was no ordinary love affair gone wrong. Kuwabara had been hired by Rie's husband to seduce her in order to obtain grounds for divorce. In short, Kuwabara was what the Japanese call a 'splitter upper'. He made the fatal mistake in falling in love with his client's wife.
 
Kuwabara worked for one of the wakaresaseya – meaning 'splitter upper' - agencies that have multiplied in Japan over the past few years. The agents are basically private detectives who go a step further than your traditional gumshoe: they don't simply spy on their prey, they enter their lives in disguise in order to split up relationships. An initial consultation may cost 10,000 yen – about £70 - and costs then escalate depending on the complexity of the case.
 
In the case of Kuwabara, he managed to engineer an encounter with 32-year-old Rie as she was shopping in her local supermarket in a northern suburb of Tokyo. Calling himself Hajime, he innocently asked where he could find a shop that sold good cheesecake. They got to talking, one thing led to another, and they became lovers. The couple were eventually photographed entering a "love hotel", all arranged behind the scenes by Kuwabara himself.

But here's where it went wrong: by the time Kuwabara had accomplished his mission, he and Rie had fallen in love. 'Hajime' did not disclose at the time that he had a wife and children. Only after two years did he reveal to Rie his part in her break-up with her husband. Shocked to learn the truth, she said she was leaving him – and, in his rage, he strangled her. When Kuwabara surrendered himself to the police, he said: "I still love her".
 
While this is an extreme case, it signals the dangers of wakaresaseya. The agencies offer their service not only to husbands and wives who want to get out of their marriages, but also to wives who want someone to seduce their husband's mistress so their husband will come back to them, to parents who want to break up a son or daughter's unsuitable relationship, and to employers who want to procure the resignation of an employee.

The agencies, which are unregulated, flourish because they help their clients keep face and avoid personal confrontation, both of which are important in Japanese culture.
 
However, what is most appealing about the wakaresaseya service is that it offers a relatively shame-free solution to relationship problems. The spouse or boss never has to admit that they are unhappy or feel hurt and vulnerable; nor do they need to admit any wrongdoing or failure. By hiring someone else to entice wives, husbands, and employees to err, they can come out as the injured party. How often have we fantasised about finding someone else to do our dirty work when we want to get out of a relationship?
 
Wakaresaseya is also successful because it enables clients to act out their forbidden fantasies and to have the illusion that they can behave like the gods who "toy with the emotions of human beings", as Rie Ishohata's grieving father remarked. The forsaken wife can get rid of her rival; parents can alter their child's lives; businessmen can force the hand of their colleagues - all with a simple phone call.

There is an assumption not only that other people can be controlled but that it is acceptable if not desirable to do so. Shame is fundamentally equated with helplessness and an inability to be in control of one's own situation and that of others.
 
The ethics and legitimacy of these agencies are being questioned in Japan, especially in the wake of the Tokyo trial. Nevertheless the agencies thrive because they offer a remedy that not only alleviates shame and but also allows clients to fulfill their deepest fantasies by proxy.
 
But what is it that motivates those who are employed as 'splitter-uppers'?
 
They are often actors, models, or personable people looking for part-time work. They are employed to act out specific scenarios that also require a certain amount of imagination and ingenuity. But the real challenge is whether they can destroy a relationship - and this holds a certain excitement in itself. It is a pathway to Oedipal triumph that is not only encouraged but remunerative as well.
 
And herein lies the danger. Having broken up Rie's marriage and made her dependent on him, Kuwabara may have felt unconsciously that he had got rid of his 'father' and regained his 'mother' for himself. Like Oedipus and his mother, Jocaste, they lived happily together until one day the truth came out and then all hell broke lose. Kuwabara's solution was to kill his lover rather than to face life without her and with the truth of what he had done.

Wakaresaseya promises clients an easy way out of their problems but the reality is that it blinds both clients and agents to the destructiveness of their actions. Like the gods, the wakaresaseya agencies are left to laugh at the foibles of the mortals they exploit.
 
There are surely better ways of saying 'sayonara' - goodbye.

Coline Covington is a London-based psychoanalyst who writes regularly for The First Post. ·