The story became a national sensation in Japan, acquiring mythic overtones; it has also been interpreted by artists, philosophers, novelists and filmmakers.

[3] Aged 52 at the time of Sada's birth, Shigeyoshi Abe was described by police as "an honest and upright man" who had neither conspicuous vices nor any brushes with the law;[6] some acquaintances reported him to be somewhat self-centered, with a taste for extravagance.

Sada's father sent Teruko to work in a brothel, then not an uncommon way to punish female sexual promiscuity in Japan, although he soon bought her back.

[9] She encouraged Abe to take lessons in singing and in playing the shamisen, both activities which, at the time, were more closely associated with geisha – an occasionally low-class profession – and prostitutes than with classical artistic endeavor.

[10] Geisha were considered glamorous celebrities at the time,[9] and Abe herself pursued this image by skipping school for her music lessons and wearing stylish make-up.

To become a true star among geisha required apprenticeship from childhood, with years spent training and studying arts and music.

[9] Since this meant she would be required to undergo regular physical examinations, just as a legally licensed prostitute would, Abe decided to enter a better-paying profession.

[17][18] Abe began work as a prostitute in Osaka's famous Tobita brothel district, but soon gained a reputation as a trouble-maker.

She stole money from clients and attempted to leave the brothel several times, but was soon tracked down by the well-organized legal prostitution system.

She soon became romantically involved with a customer at the restaurant, Gorō Ōmiya, a professor and banker who aspired to become a member of the Diet of Japan.

Knowing that the restaurant would not tolerate a maid having sexual relations with clients, and having become bored with Nagoya, she returned to Tokyo in June.

Ōmiya met Abe in Tokyo and, finding that she had previously contracted syphilis, paid for her stay at a hot springs resort in Kusatsu from November until January 1936.

The owner of this establishment, Kichizō Ishida, 42 at the time, had worked his way up in the business, starting as an apprentice at a restaurant specializing in eel dishes.

On April 23, 1936, Abe and Ishida met for a pre-arranged sexual encounter at a teahouse, or machiai—the contemporary equivalent of a love hotel[28]—in the Shibuya neighborhood.

She later described meeting Ishida that night: "I pulled the kitchen knife out of my bag and threatened him as had been done in the play I had seen, saying, 'Kichi, you wore that kimono just to please one of your favorite customers.

Two nights into this bout of sex, Abe began choking Ishida, and he told her to continue, saying that this increased his pleasure (erotic asphyxiation).

After lying with Ishida's body for a few hours, she next severed his penis and testicles with the kitchen knife, wrapped them in a magazine cover, and kept them until her arrest three days later.

[9] Abe's statement before receiving sentencing began, "The thing I regret most about this incident is that I have come to be misunderstood as some kind of sexual pervert… There had never been a man in my life like Ishida.

[47] Her sentence was commuted on November 10, 1940, on the occasion of the 2,600th anniversary celebrations of the mythical founding of Japan, when Emperor Jimmu came to the throne.

Christine L. Marran puts the national fascination with Abe's story within the context of the dokufu (毒婦) or "poison woman" stereotype, a transgressive female character type that had first become popular in Japanese serialized novels and stage works in the 1870s.

[49] In the wake of popular "poison woman" literature, confessional autobiographies by female criminals had begun appearing in the late 1890s.

[50] By the early 1910s, autobiographical writings by criminal women took on an unapologetic tone and sometimes included criticisms of Japan and Japanese society.

Kanno Suga, who was hanged in 1911 for conspiring to assassinate Emperor Meiji in what was known as the High Treason Incident, wrote openly rebellious essays while in prison.

Marran points out that Abe, unlike previous criminal autobiographers, stressed her sexuality and the love she felt for her victim.

[54] In the aftermath of World War II, wishing to divert public attention from politics and criticism of the occupying authorities, the Yoshida government encouraged a "3-S" policy—"sports, screen, and sex".

[60] The first edition of the magazine True Story (実話, Jitsuwa), in January 1948, featured previously unpublished photos of the incident with the headline "Ero-guro of the Century!

In his collection of profiles, Japanese Portraits, he describes Abe making a dramatic entrance into a boisterous group of drinkers.

She would slowly descend a long staircase that led into the middle of the crowd, fixing a haughty gaze on individuals in her audience.

[9] When the film In the Realm of the Senses was being planned in the mid-1970s, director Nagisa Ōshima apparently sought out Abe and, after a long search, found her, her hair shorn, in a nunnery in Kansai.

[67] According to Kagero Mutsuki, around 1992, the cannibal murderer Issei Sagawa somehow tracked down Abe to a nursing home in Izu City, Shizuoka Prefecture.