Sogen Kato

was a Japanese man thought to have been Tokyo's oldest man until July 2010, when his mummified corpse was found in his bedroom. It was concluded he had likely died in November 1978, aged 79, and his family had never reported his death. Relatives had rebuffed attempts by ward officials to see Kato in preparations for Respect for the Aged Day later that year, citing many reasons from his being a "human vegetable" to becoming a sokushinbutsu (Buddhist mummy). An autopsy could not determine the cause of Kato's death.

The discovery of Kato's remains sparked a search for other missing centenarians lost due to poor recordkeeping by officials. A study following the discovery of Kato's remains found that police did not know if 234,354 people over the age of 100 were still alive. Poor recordkeeping was to blame for many of the cases, officials admitted. One of Kato's relatives was found guilty of fraud; his relatives claimed ¥9,500,000 (US$117,939; £72,030) of the pension meant for Kato.

History Discovery of the body An illustration of where Kato's mummified body was discovered. (1) Location of where the body was found; (2) Newspaper from 1978; (3) Rotary dial telephone; (4) Main entrance.

After tracking down the residence in Adachi, Tokyo, where Kato was reportedly living, attempts by officials to meet him were rebuffed numerous times by the family. Many reasons were given by his relatives, including that he was a "human vegetable" and that he was becoming a sokushinbutsu. Found in a first floor room, Kato's mummified remains were lying on a bed wearing underwear and pajamas and were covered with a blanket. An official named Yutaka Muroi said, "His family must have known he has been dead all these years and acted as if nothing happened. It's so eerie." Prosecutors alleged that Michiko Kato, 81, Kato's daughter, and Tokimi Kato, 53, his granddaughter, fraudulently received about ¥9,500,000 ($117,939; £72,030) of pension money.

Aftermath After the discovery of Kato's mummified corpse, other checks into elderly centenarians across Japan produced reports of missing centenarians and faulty recordkeeping. Tokyo officials attempted to find the oldest woman in the city, 113-year-old Fusa Furuya, who was registered as living with her daughter. Furuya's daughter said she had not seen her mother for over 25 years. The revelations about the disappearance of Furuya and the death of Kato prompted a nationwide investigation, which concluded that police did not know if 234,354 people older than 100 were still alive. and officials said that many may have died during World War II. One register claimed a man was still alive at age 186.

quote=Many of those gone missing are men who left their hometowns to look for work in Japan's big cities during the country's pre-1990s boom years. Many of them worked obsessively long hours and never built a social network in their new homes. Others found less economic success than they'd hoped. Ashamed of that failure, they didn't feel they could return home. — —The Globe and Mail report as of October 2010, 23.1 percent of the population were found to be aged 65 and over, and 11.1 percent were 75 and over. This has largely been caused by a very low birthrate; as of 2005, the rate was 1.25 babies for every woman—to keep the population steady the number needed to be 2.1. However, the issue of aging in the country has been increased by the government's unwillingness to let immigrants into the country—foreign nationals accounted for only 1.2 percent of the total population as of 2005. A 2006 report by the government indicates that by 2050, of the population may be elderly.

The inquiry also noted that many elderly Japanese citizens were dying in solitude. "Die alone and in two months all that is left is the stench, a rotting corpse and maggots," The Japan Times said in an editorial, "In what appears to be a collective cry for help, more than 30,000 Japanese seniors are arrested every year for shoplifting. Many of those arrested told police they stole out of feelings of boredom and isolation, rather than any economic necessity," The Globe and Mail reported after the discovery of Kato's corpse. Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian studies at the Japan Campus of Temple University, said, "It is a humanising phenomenon—the Japanese are traditionally seen as sober, law-abiding people—when they are in fact scamsters like the rest of us. [The story of the missing centenarians] holds up a mirror to society and reflects realities that many in Japan do not want to accept."