A Tokyo court is expected to hand down its ruling on July 15 in the case of Kenichi Takano, 44, who admitted to fatally stabbing 22 year old livestreamer Airi Sato on a Shinjuku street in March 2025. Prosecutors are seeking a 20 year prison sentence.

According to court testimony, Takano first became familiar with Sato through her livestreams starting in 2021, later meeting her in person at a club where she worked. Between September 2022 and January 2023, he lent her money across roughly a dozen transactions, eventually wiping out his life savings of around 4.5 million yen. Sato later asked him to take out loans from consumer lenders in his own name, telling him what to say if the lenders called to verify his income. When he grew concerned and asked for the money back, she told him it wasn’t possible and encouraged him to borrow from yet another lender.

The dispute didn’t end there. Takano sued Sato in 2023 over the unpaid debt and won a court judgment ordering her to repay him. She largely ignored the ruling and eventually cut off contact, prompting Takano to file a missing persons report with police in January 2024.

More than a year later, in March 2025, Takano tracked Sato’s location by watching one of her livestreams, traveled from his home in Tochigi Prefecture to Tokyo, and confronted her on the street in the Takadanobaba district while she was broadcasting. He stabbed her more than 30 times. She was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Takano was arrested at the scene and later underwent a psychiatric evaluation to determine his fitness to stand trial. He has since admitted to the killing during proceedings at the Tokyo District Court. The case has drawn wide attention in Japan, prompting broader conversation around financial exploitation tied to livestreaming platforms and the parasocial relationships they can create between streamers and their audiences.