An Interview with Issei Sagawa
IWHO'S HUNGRY?
AN INTERVIEW WITH ISSEI SAGAWA, CANNIBAL
By Tomokazu Kosuga, Translated by Lena Oishi
On the afternoon of June 12, 1981, a Japanese man named Issei Sagawa walked into the woods in Bois de Boulogne, France, carrying two suitcases. The postgraduate student at the Sorbonne had shot and killed a female exchange student, a classmate of his, the day before. After eating portions of her body, he tried to dump the corpse in a remote lake. Witnesses saw him and he was soon arrested. According to reports, Issei uttered the following to the French police who raided his home: “I killed her to eat her flesh.”
French psychologists found Sagawa to have been legally insane at the time of the crime and, therefore, unfit to stand trial. He was subsequently exempted from prosecution. He returned to his homeland, where Japanese authorities tried to put him on trial for murder. French justice officials refused to hand over the necessary documents to carry on and he was again set free.
Personally, we’d probably eat human flesh if there was a massive apocalyptic famine like the siege of Stalingrad or if we were paid $100 trillion a year for life and were guaranteed to never get in trouble and to not get sick from it either. But short of stuff like that, why the fuck would you eat person meat? What are you, an orc? What exactly drove Sagawa to do it? Vice Japan’s editor, Tomo, who would probably make a pretty tasty little dish himself, courageously visited the cannibal’s home to find out the whole story.
Vice: Tell me about the first time you felt cannibalistic urges.
Issei Sagawa: I was physically weak from the moment I was born. My legs were so skinny they looked like pencils. It was in the first grade of elementary school when I saw the quivering meat on a male classmate’s thighs and I suddenly thought, “Mmm, that looks delicious.” But I’m not homosexual, so from around the time I entered junior high school I became obsessed with the Western actress
AN INTERVIEW WITH ISSEI SAGAWA, CANNIBAL
By Tomokazu Kosuga, Translated by Lena Oishi
On the afternoon of June 12, 1981, a Japanese man named Issei Sagawa walked into the woods in Bois de Boulogne, France, carrying two suitcases. The postgraduate student at the Sorbonne had shot and killed a female exchange student, a classmate of his, the day before. After eating portions of her body, he tried to dump the corpse in a remote lake. Witnesses saw him and he was soon arrested. According to reports, Issei uttered the following to the French police who raided his home: “I killed her to eat her flesh.”
French psychologists found Sagawa to have been legally insane at the time of the crime and, therefore, unfit to stand trial. He was subsequently exempted from prosecution. He returned to his homeland, where Japanese authorities tried to put him on trial for murder. French justice officials refused to hand over the necessary documents to carry on and he was again set free.
Personally, we’d probably eat human flesh if there was a massive apocalyptic famine like the siege of Stalingrad or if we were paid $100 trillion a year for life and were guaranteed to never get in trouble and to not get sick from it either. But short of stuff like that, why the fuck would you eat person meat? What are you, an orc? What exactly drove Sagawa to do it? Vice Japan’s editor, Tomo, who would probably make a pretty tasty little dish himself, courageously visited the cannibal’s home to find out the whole story.
Vice: Tell me about the first time you felt cannibalistic urges.
Issei Sagawa: I was physically weak from the moment I was born. My legs were so skinny they looked like pencils. It was in the first grade of elementary school when I saw the quivering meat on a male classmate’s thighs and I suddenly thought, “Mmm, that looks delicious.” But I’m not homosexual, so from around the time I entered junior high school I became obsessed with the Western actress