Yoarashi Okinu

Case identification

Yoarashi Okinu (夜嵐 おきぬ; ca. 1845 - March 28, 1872) was a Japanese female poisoner and geisha known by the moniker Yoarashi Okinu. Her name was Harada Kinu (原田 きぬ).

Timeline

• ca. 1845 — Yoarashi Okinu was born as Harada Kinu.
• March 2, 1871 — She killed Kobayashi with poison.
• March 28, 1872 — She was executed by decapitation.
• September 1874 — Rikaku was released from prison.

Background

Her early life was generally undocumented, producing many ideas and opinions. Some sources asserted that she was a daughter of a samurai of Awa Province, or that she was born in Edo. Another opinion held that she was a daughter of Sajiro, a fisherman who lived on the island of Jōgashima at the tip of the Miura Peninsula.

A non-fiction writer Atsushi Hachisu stated that she sold herself into geisha because her family was poor, and she worked as a geisha. Another opinion said she was an employee at the decorative collar shop in the Nakamise neighborhood in front of Senso-ji. Because she was described as beautiful, people in Edo were said to have desired her.

In Edo, she became a mistress of Ōkubo Tadayori (大久保忠順) in the capital Edo. Ōkubo Tadayori was the daimyo of the Karasuyama Domain in Shimotsuke Province, rated at thirty thousand koku. Ōkubo had a son, the successor to the Ōkubo family, by her. It was said that he hated her and abandoned her in the Meiji Restoration.

She later became a mistress of Kobayashi Kinpei. The account stated that she paid for sex with kabuki actor Arashi Rikaku, and then fell in love with him, after which she killed Kobayashi with poison on March 2, 1871.

The offence

Yoarashi Okinu killed Kobayashi with poison on March 2, 1871.

Investigation and arrest

After she killed Kobayashi, Rikaku harbored her but they were arrested. The account stated that Rikaku was arrested “during a kabuki performance.”

Trial

After they were arrested, she was sentenced to death. She was executed by decapitation after she had a child by Rikaku.

Rikaku was sentenced to 3 years in prison, and his sentence was described as moderated from capital punishment altogether because Okinu was pregnant.

Sentencing

She was sentenced to death and was executed by decapitation.

Rikaku was sentenced to 3 years in prison. His sentence was moderated from capital punishment to prison.

Outcome

Yoarashi Okinu was executed by decapitation on March 28, 1872.

Rikaku was released in September 1874. He later became kabuki actor Ichikawa Gonjūrō after his release.

Aftermath and legacy

The case was reported sensationally several years after it was said to have occurred, and many researchers such as a Japanese art historian Naoyuki Kinoshita agreed that mass media adapted her and there were untruths in her tradition.

In 1878, she was called a serial killer Yoarashi Okinu.

A book titled “Night-storm Okinu: Flower-Frail Dreams of Revenge” (夜嵐阿衣花廼仇夢, Yoarashi Okinu Hana-no-adayume) characterized her as a she-devil, and her tradition was said to be based on this virtual fiction.

Real life differences (alternative accounts)

One account stated that she lost her parents when she was 16 years old and was accepted into her uncle’s family as a foster child, living in Edo. There she became a geisha in the restaurant Owari-ya and gave out as Kamakura Koharu. It was also stated that she met not Okubo Tadayori as named earlier, but Okubo “Sado-no-Kami (defender in Sado)” (his name was unwritten).

This alternative account stated that she had a son Haruwaka-gimi “in ‘1857’,” and that at that time she was about “12 years old,” stating this aligned with Okubo Tadayori’s birth year. It also stated that in those days the woman of low social class couldn’t marry a nobleman.

A fictional story within this alternative account claimed that Kurosawa Gentatsu, a physician who lived in Nihonbashi, became her foster parent, a middle-class family. It stated she changed her name to Hanayo and became a concubine, while adding that in fact she was a mistress.

When her son was three years old, the account stated her husband died. It stated that Okubo Tadayori died in 1914 and that his father died in 1864.

After his death, she changed her name to Shingetsu-in, became a Buddhist nun, and lived a calm life to pray for her dead husband following Japanese custom that a widow of high status entered nunhood after her husband died. She felt run-down in this life and went to Hakone. The account stated she fell in love with another man Kakutarō.

It further stated that she was exiled from the Okubo family, saying that the Okubo family abandoned her because Okubo Tadayori had a son by her.

The account stated that a part of her dying word was “Yoarashi,” so she was called Yoarashi Okinu.

Other described details (day of execution and allegations)

On March 28, 1872, the account stated that geisha Yoarashi (“Night Storm”) Okinu was beheaded at Tokyo’s Kozukappara execution grounds after killing her lover to run away with a kabuki actor. It described her as “a notorious dokufu, so-called ‘poison-women’” that captivated that country in the late 19th century. It stated she was of humble origins but became a sought-after geisha in Edo.

The account stated that “our source says” she was poisoning off the second-last of her celebrity affairs with arsenic in order to get free to run off with kabuki actor Arashi Rikaku, and that Rikaku was “up to his eyeballs in this same plot.” It further stated that Rikaku’s sentence was moderated and that Okinu’s head was cut off and displayed in public for several days. It stated her lover served three years in prison and then rebuilt his kabuki career as Ichikawa Gonjuro.