Riri-chan, the “Giant Girl,” Arrested! The “malicious papa activity influencers” who are still wriggling around are doing a ton of evil deeds.

In August 2023, Mai Watanabe, 25, a soap operative in Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, known as “Riri-chan,” or the original “Yuri girl,” was arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting fraud.

The “wakare” is a method of swindling men who are not immune to women out of their cash by exploiting their romantic feelings for them. The manuals she created, such as “Riri-chan Magical Complete Strategy Manual,” cost several tens of thousands of yen and have become popular among women who are addicted to hostesses.

This time, one of her “Riri-chan followers” was arrested for using these manuals to defraud two men out of 10,620,000 yen in cash. The manual’s creator, Watanabe, was also arrested in the same manner.

In addition to Riri-chan, there are many other “papa-katsu influencers” on X (formerly known as Twitter) who target women who are known as “daddy’s girls” or “papa-katsu girls” and conduct business by selling “papa-katsu strategy manuals” and giving “advice. Their advice often contains danger.

Many of the “papa-katsu influencers” approach their target women on social networking sites such as X. What is the danger in their (their?) advice? What are the dangers in their (their?) advice? Let us introduce some of them.

• Selling Papa Katsudo manuals

• Since Riri-chan’s manual received a lot of positive feedback, more and more similar “Papa Katsudo” manuals have been sold. The cheapest manuals cost as little as 1,000 yen, while the most expensive ones cost tens of thousands of yen. One account with about 30,000 followers sells a manual for ¥1,000, titled “For Beginner PJs (women who want to be active with their dads),” in PDF format. What are its contents? A YouTuber who is familiar with the papa-activities situation told us.

The contents of the “Notebook” include basic information about papa-katsu activities, such as the characteristics of papa-katsu apps, dating apps, and dating clubs, how to write a profile, and men to be careful of. It is not necessary to buy a manual to understand this level of information, but many beginner papa-katsu girls are concerned about various things, so they probably end up getting their hands on a manual.

There appears to be nothing illegal in this manual. However, there was also a case in which a manual sold by another account included information on “how to falsify your age on papa katsura apps. If you misrepresent your age, you may not be able to receive support from the app when you get into trouble. If you imitate them too easily, you could end up in a lot of trouble.

• Buying and selling accounts on papa-active sites

One of the largest accounts in the papa-katsu activities field, which has more than 50,000 followers on X and has stopped posting as of September, frequently posted 《Buy your account on papa-katsu apps》.

Some of the women who use papa katsudo apps have had their accounts suspended due to cancellations, photo fraud, and abusive language, and are no longer able to register again. They will probably resell to those women. Or they may pass them on to illegal delicatessen operators called “aid-delicatessen.

The act of reselling accounts may result in liability for damages from the Papa’s App side for obstruction of business by deception, fraudulent gain, or aiding and abetting unauthorized access. The market price for buying an account seems to be a few thousand yen at most, so it is dangerous to easily resell an account for that much money.

• Advice akin to aiding and abetting fraud

Papa’s influencer” is an affiliate (performance-based advertisement) for Papa’s apps and other products for sale. In order to get results, they need to get a lot of impressions (the number of times a post appears on a user’s timeline), so they use all kinds of methods to make posts that have an impact (i.e., generate buzz).

Many of their followers are women who are looking for a daddy’s life, so they like to post “advice on how to become a daddy”. However, the content of such posts is often something like, “I made a profit of 2.5 million yen after I kept telling multiple Ps (papa) that I was going to move to a new house, including the initial cost of moving and the cost of appliances.

Such posts are quickly spread because they resonate with the mindset of “I want to make money without having an adult relationship if possible. It is possible that these posts are just “stories” to incite the girls, but some of them may take them seriously and put them into practice. If the other man discovers that you are lying and you get into trouble, it is your own responsibility….

• Blackmail” for slander

Papa’s influencers” post impactful, impression-generating messages in order to increase their affiliate sales, but when those messages catch the public’s eye, they often end up in flames. However, there are some people who plan to take advantage of this to make money.

For example, if someone says, ‘Let’s go to Yakiniku,’ and it’s ‘Sora-en,’ I’m like, ‘Aha. Of course it’s delicious, but it’s just ‘ahhh. If you post something like, “It’s like getting a GODIVA for White Day,” the average person would naturally get annoyed and tend to make harsh comments such as, “You’re a whore. This type of post is intended to be inflammatory in the first place, so from the point of view of the papa’s influencer, it’s “I’m happy to do it for you. But it doesn’t end there.

(Aforementioned) “Papa’s influencers” would post in response to such harsh comments, “It is slanderous and defamatory, so I will take a scanned copy of it, consult a lawyer, and file a request for disclosure.

However, in general, it is extremely rare for a disclosure request to be approved for posting such extreme language on an anonymous account. Even if they actually do it, it costs about 500,000 yen per case for legal fees and court costs, and even if they can claim a fee, the standard fee is about 100,000 yen, which is not enough to break even.

Taking advantage of the posters’ lack of knowledge and anxious state of mind, “papa-katsu influencers” sometimes post blackmail-like messages, such as, “If you don’t want to be charged for disclosure, you can pay the apology fee with PayPay and we will forgive you. Whether or not anyone actually pays the money is not known, but the attitude of “papa-katsu influencers” who will do anything for money is simply appalling.

While the term “papa-katsu” has become widely recognized and casualized, there are those who take advantage of it and try to make a profit. I just hope that the “papa-katsu influencers” who target beginner women interested in papa-katsu don’t fall for their money-making schemes and get themselves involved in scams.