Issei Sagawa

also known as Pang or the Kobe Cannibal, was a Japanese lust murderer, cannibal, and necrophiliac known for the killing of Renée Hartevelt in Paris in 1981. He murdered Hartevelt and then mutilated, cannibalized, and performed necrophilia on her corpse over several days. In France, Sagawa was judged to be legally insane and ordered to be held indefinitely in a mental institution. After a few years, he was deported to Japan, where psychologists from Matsuzawa Hospital examined him and unanimously concluded that he was sane. He therefore had to be released from the hospital in 1986.

Since the criminal case in France had been closed and the court records were not made available to the Japanese authorities, Sagawa was not again put on trial and spent the rest of his life a free man. While this was widely criticized as an example of obstruction of justice, he became a minor celebrity in Japan and made a living through the public's interest in his crime.

Early life Issei Sagawa was born on 26 April 1949 in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, to wealthy parents. Sagawa's father, , was a businessman who had served as president of Kurita Water Industries, and his grandfather had been an editor for The Asahi Shimbun. Sagawa was born prematurely and, reportedly, was small enough to fit in the palm of his father's hand. He immediately developed enteritis, a disease of the small intestine. Sagawa eventually recovered after several injections of potassium and calcium in saline.

In 1977, at the age of 28, Sagawa moved to France to pursue a Ph.D. in literature at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Killing of Renée Hartevelt On 11 June 1981, Sagawa, then 32, invited his Sorbonne classmate Renée Hartevelt, a Dutch woman, to dinner at his apartment at 10 Rue Erlanger, under the pretext of translating poetry for a school assignment. Sagawa planned to kill and eat her, having selected her for her health and beauty, characteristics he felt he lacked. Sagawa considered himself weak, ugly, and small (he was 145 cm [4 ft 9 in] tall) and claimed he wanted to absorb her energy. She was 25 years old and 178 cm (5 ft 10 in).

After Hartevelt arrived, she began reading poetry at a desk with her back to Sagawa when he shot her in the neck with a rifle. Sagawa said he fainted after the shock of shooting her but awoke with the realization that he had to carry out his plan. Sagawa consumed various parts of Hartevelt's body, eating most of her breasts, face, buttocks, feet, thighs, and neck, either raw or cooked (even admitting that he swallowed her clitoris whole, due to her being on her period at the time, and him not liking the smell of menstrual blood), while saving other parts in his refrigerator. Sagawa also took photographs of Hartevelt's body at each eating stage. Once the remains of her body that he did not consume started decomposing, Sagawa attempted to dump the remains of Hartevelt's corpse in a lake in the Bois de Boulogne park, carrying her dismembered body parts in two suitcases, but was caught in the act and arrested by French police four days later.

Sagawa's wealthy father provided a lawyer for his defence. After being held for two years awaiting trial, Sagawa was found legally insane and unfit to stand trial by the French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière, who ordered him to be held indefinitely in a mental institution. In 1992, he made a cameo appearance in Hisayasu Sato's exploitation film The Bedroom. Sagawa wrote books about the murder he committed, as well as Shonen A, a book on the 1997 Kobe child murders. He also wrote restaurant reviews for the Japanese magazine Spa.

In 2005, Sagawa's parents died. He was prevented from attending their funeral but repaid their creditors and moved into public housing. He received welfare benefits for a time. In an interview with Vice magazine in 2011, he said that being forced to make a living while being known as a murderer and cannibal was a terrible punishment.

He died from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Tokyo, on 24 November 2022, at the age of 73.

In popular culture Media inspired by, featuring, or depicting Sagawa include: Interview with a Cannibal (Vice, US, 2011, 34 minutes) The Bedroom (Hisayasu Satō, Japan, 1992, 64 minutes), a pink film starring Sagawa as Mr. Takano. Adoration, a short 1986 film by Olivier Smolders, is based on Sagawa's story. "La Folie", a 1981 song by The Stranglers, was inspired by Sagawa's story. "Too Much Blood", a song on the Rolling Stones' 1983 album Undercover, is about Sagawa and violence in the media. Issei Sagawa, a 2007 EP by Gnaw Their Tongues.